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Redeemer and Redeemed 
 
 AN INVESTIGATION 
 
 -)F THE ATONEMENT AND OF 
 ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 
 
 By CHARLES BEECHER 
 
 GEORGETOWN, MASS. 
 
 "The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's 
 salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and neces- 
 sary consequence may be deduced from Scripture." — Westminster Confession, Chap. 
 I. § vi. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 LEE AND SHEPARD 
 
 149 Washington Street. 
 1864. 
 
1 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by 
 
 CHARLES 13 EEC HER, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 2. rs~ fr 
 
 University Press: 
 Welch, Bigelow, and Compj 
 
 Cambridge. 
 
To 
 
 her who gave me 
 
 birth ; consecrated me to the 
 
 ministry ; died before I knew her ; whom, next 
 
 to my Redeemer, I most desire to meet in the Resurrection, 
 
 TO ROXANA BEE CHER 
 
 I dedicate this work, for the execution of which I am chiefly 
 
 glad to have lived ; in the hope that she will 
 
 not, on account of it, be sorry 
 
 for having borne 
 
 me. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I awoke into consciousness in a sphere of intense relig- 
 ious thought and emotion. My father was in his prime 
 when the first dawnings of my mind which memory 
 recalls occurred, and by his profound faith in eternal 
 things, evinced in every conceivable way, stimulated to 
 the highest degree those supernatural and ideal tenden- 
 cies predominant in my constitution. 
 
 Almost the earliest feeling I can recollect is a constant 
 longing for something indefinite, — a feeling mysterious, 
 and sad beyond description. I can remember lying on the 
 floor and looking at the sunbeams on the carpet, when I 
 could not have been more than five years of age, and 
 thinking how unhappy I was, and philosophizing on the 
 subject in a kind of bewildered wonder. I can recall 
 summer evenings when the great family mansion at Litch- 
 field was left empty, — the doors wide open, and the 
 crickets were cutting the air like a fife, shrill and keen, — 
 feeling a sense of desolation, and a yearning for some- 
 thing unknown, that no sadness or sorrow of maturcr 
 years has ever surpassed. 
 
 The great ideas my father's mind was unfolding and 
 exhaling like an atmosphere around him I breathed in 
 with faith as absolute as it was unconscious. The recep- 
 tivity of my soul was boundless, its appetite insatiable. 
 All the sublime things my father caused to pass before 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 me I received with avidity, asking only for more. I can 
 remember grave homilies on total depravity and other 
 abstrnse doctrines, when I could not have been above six 
 or seven years old. " Henry, do you know that every 
 breath you draw is sin? Well, it is, — every breath I" 
 There was a profound satisfaction in being thorough, even 
 in those early days, that I have not yet entirely out- 
 grown. The severity of the conception did not appal 
 me in the least, while its terrible radicalism was irresist- 
 ibly fascinating. 
 
 Everything that my father thought I thought, every- 
 thing he believed I believed, everything he felt I felt, 
 everything he described I saw. My father's sister, known 
 in the household annals only as Aunt Esther, who was 
 a mother to me, was a kind of lens which brought my 
 father's influence to a focus. For although more aes- 
 thetic than he, and adapted to stimulate the ideal, she 
 had a pupil already developed, and in no need of stimu- 
 lus. I remember once attempting to read aloud to her 
 in Pilgrim's Progress, and on coming to the escape from 
 Giant Despair's castle, I was seized with such a fit of 
 trembling that she was obliged to take the book away and 
 give it to Henry to finish the chapter. 
 
 To the power of my father's appeals from the pulpit my 
 whole soul responded from the beginning. I seem to hear 
 his voice coming up out of the mists preceding memory, 
 vibrating certain texts of Scripture as sharp two-edged 
 swords piercing my very spirit through and through. Far 
 back, when my spirit was just waking into life, as it were, 
 out of the cloudland of infancy, I can hear him pleading 
 with sinners to be reconciled to God. Certain texts of 
 Scripture are not to me, and never can be, merely verses 
 of a written word ; they are voices of my father, — voices 
 instinct with emotion deep as eternity, incarnating them- 
 
PREFACE. VU 
 
 selves within me. I can remember sitting under the old- 
 fashioned Litchfield pulpit, before I was nine years of age, 
 with face concealed and tears rolling down upon my coat, 
 as I alternately listened to his words, and trembled lest 
 my agitation should be noticed. 
 
 All the features of his theological system were incor- 
 porated with the substance of my mind, before I can 
 distinctly remember. I grew up into life one intellect, 
 one heart, one will with him. And as time passed on, 
 and he moved forward to more controversial seasons, I 
 moved with him, and into every blow he struck uncon- 
 sciously threw the whole energy of my soul. Nor did the 
 waywardness and sin of boyhood make the least differ- 
 ence. The wicked Boston school-boy was not a whit the 
 less ardent champion of the cross. 
 
 When my mind woke from passive receptivity to active 
 investigation, when I was born from the womb of my 
 father's faith to the outer sphere of independent reason- 
 ing, my mind was agitated, agonized. The faith of 
 eternal realities was unchangeably fixed within me. The 
 belief of the Bible as the word of God was like a part of 
 myself. But the questions that have always fascinated 
 earnest minds began to fascinate me. The origin of evil, 
 the freedom of the will, and similar subjects, absorbed 
 me, and I abandoned myself to them with the instinctive 
 thoroughness and earnestness of my nature. They brought 
 me to grief, but I cared not ; they threw me in collision 
 with my father, but I could not ignore them. For a time 
 they wrecked me, temporally, and threatened shipwreck 
 eternal, but I could not forego them. By the mercy of 
 God I outlived them. The time arrived when I could let 
 them alone, and look at them from a safe distance, as 
 I still do to this day. 
 
 Then commenced the original investigation of the 
 
Vlll PKEFACE. 
 
 Scriptures ; and here the great problem that from the 
 first most occupied my thoughts was the problem of the 
 cross. That Christ was God I never for a moment doubt- 
 ed. That man was a fallen, ruined race, born under the 
 just wrath of God and curse of a holy law, I was equally 
 certain. That Christ's death was necessary to man's sal- 
 vation was to me self-evident. But why the blood of 
 Christ should be necessary, or what connection it had with 
 forgiveness, or how it operated to secure it, I knew not. 
 I had no ideas on the subject except such as I had de- 
 rived from my father, and the idea of a literal punishing 
 of Christ in full for my sins was not among them. That 
 idea I never heard preached, nor alluded to, except to be 
 disproved. 
 
 My starting-point of investigation, then, was here. In 
 what imaginable way could the blood of Christ have any 
 logical and intelligible connection with the forgiveness of 
 human sin ? On that problem my mind has worked and 
 struggled and agonized day and night, for twenty years, 
 almost incessantly, and has found rest in the views pre- 
 sented in this volume. As such I present them. I have 
 no idea that many minds will be satisfied with them. I 
 have learned by sad experience that what convinces me 
 does not always convince other people. The most I can 
 hope for is, that these views will interest the thoughtful, 
 studious of the same grand system, as a specimen of the 
 working out of the problem by a sincere and independent 
 mind, whose sole desire is to grow in the knowledge of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 This is the way the subject looks to me. This is the 
 way my mind works out the solution. It is the best I can 
 do. Doubtless there are mistakes and errors involved, 
 but I cannot now discover them ; and one motive in pub 
 lishing is, that those who can may have the opportunity, if 
 
PREFACE. DC 
 
 they deem it worth their while, kindly to point them 
 out. 
 
 Here let me caution the reader not to imagine that I 
 propose the proof of pre-existence as the object of this 
 discussion. I do not. Regarding this as the most prob- 
 able of the three possible theories of the soul's origin, and 
 deeming the argument of the " Conflict of Ages " logical 
 and unanswerable, I have not hesitated to assume pre- 
 existence as the foundation of my investigations with 
 respect to the atonement. In Chapter XIV. I do # not 
 endeavor to prove mere pre-existence, which might be 
 celestial, or terrestrial, or timeless, but simply that our 
 pre-existence was celestial, and our redemption a return 
 to native holiness and heaven. It is rather an argument 
 for something additional to pre-existence than for pre- 
 existence itself. 
 
 I am aware that to those who reject pre-existence this 
 confession will be deemed fatal to my whole scheme. 
 Your entire theory of atonement, it will be said, rests 
 upon a mere assumption. To this my only answer at 
 present is, that, if pre-existence be an unproved hypothesis, 
 it is equal, in that respect, to the two other possible hy- 
 potheses, — concreation and traduction, — of which nei- 
 ther is proved, nor can be. Any theory of atonement 
 founded upon either of these, then, is to one half the 
 Church as really founded on an assumption as one 
 founded on pre-existence. While the Church is divided 
 and the origin of souls a mooted question, I simply claim 
 that it is as scientific to found a theory of atonement 
 upon one unproved hypothesis as upon another ; nor can 
 concreation or traduction cast the first stone, in this 
 respect, at pre-existence. 
 
 Not that I would concede that pre-existence is, like 
 these, a mere assumption. I am convinced that it is logi- 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 cally established by the " Conflict of Ages," and that it is 
 susceptible of confirmation by accumulated circumstantial 
 and moral evidence, equal in cogency to that for the im- 
 mortality of the soul, the inspiration of the Bible, or any 
 of the great doctrines of religion. 
 
 In this connection I will add, that, while I agree with 
 my brother, Dr. Edward Beecher, in the belief of pre-exist- 
 ence, he is in no degree responsible for the details of my 
 system here unfolded. The contents of these pages have 
 not been submitted to his inspection, and for them, in so 
 far as they innovate upon the current belief, I desire to 
 be held alone responsible. 
 
 If by the perusal of these pages any are incited to a 
 fresh study of the Bible, and encouraged to think more 
 freely and boldly on doctrinal subjects, and stimulated to 
 push original investigation to the utmost ; above all, if 
 any are sensibly attracted towards the adorable Redeemer, 
 and inspired with a livelier curiosity, wonder, admiration, 
 and love, as they gaze upon the chiefest among ten 
 thousand, the altogether lovely, I shall rejoice that the 
 life-long struggles of my spirit, agonizing to know the 
 truth herein, have not been altogether in vain. 
 
 Georgetown, Not. 6, 1863. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Ancient Theoet 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Scholastic Theory 14 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Attack on the Scholastic Theory 26 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 New England Theory .40 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Attack on the New England Theory ..... 49 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Cross to destroy Satan 60 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Azazel 65 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Anointed Cherub .75 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Son of God 88 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Only Begotten 95 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 The Eirst-born Ill 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Dethronement of Lucifer 127 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Purification of Heaven 1.39 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Heavenly Fatherland 150 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 The Natural Man 169 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Melchisedec 189 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 The Order of Melchisedec 206 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 The Ordeal 227 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 The Advocate 243 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Divine Sorrow 259 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 Eternal Judgment 272 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Eternal Judgment ' . . . 290 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 Condition of the Lost 312 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 The World Convinced 319 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 The Vial on the Air 335 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 Universal Praise 348 
 
REDEEMER AND REDEEMED 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ANCIENT THEORY. 
 "Fob the love of Christ constkaineth us." — 2 Cor. v. 14. 
 
 OUR Saviour said, " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all 
 men unto me." We feel the attractive power of 
 the cross. Our eye is irresistibly riveted upon that won- 
 drous sacrifice. And as we gaze, in the mere act of 
 beholding that astonishing oblation, our affections begin 
 to kindle, our hearts are all aflame, and ere we are aware 
 the "love of Christ constraineth us." 
 
 It is only when we are thus influenced by ardent 
 emotion, that we are in a fit condition to search out 
 those depths " into which angels desire to look." 
 
 Jesus Christ crucified was first exhibited to the eye 
 of a sinful world. " Behold the Lamb of God ! " was the 
 message of the Gospel. And as the eye obeyed, and 
 the heart kindled, the human mind was led, under the 
 stimulus of love, to frame as it might a rational theory 
 of the fact presented to its inspection and appealing to 
 its affections. 
 
 The earliest theory — one which prevailed for more 
 than a thousand years — is now become wellnigh unin- 
 telligible to a popular audience, because certain con- 
 ceptions familiar to antiquity have entirely dropped out 
 
2 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 of the civilized mind, and been replaced by concep- 
 tions of which antiquity knew nothing. 
 
 To the ancients, for example, Hades was the name 
 of a sublime and awful reality, while we have lost both 
 name and idea. In their view, Satan possessed a 
 power of death over the inhabitants of Hades which 
 was most real. But in modern thought, Satan is either 
 denied or caricatured, or at best thrust into the back- 
 ground, in discussions of the atonement, and forgotten. 
 The main ideas of antiquity involved in Christ's work 
 are almost as completely erased from the human mind 
 as if man had quaffed the waters of Lethe. 
 
 And the chief difficulty in giving an appreciative view 
 of the theory of atonement of the ancient Church, is the 
 lack of their customary, familiar, every-day ideas respect- 
 ing the matters involved. To prepare the way, then, 
 a few elements of ancient thought will be mentioned, 
 which we should endeavor to reproduce in our own 
 minds. And first in respect to the place of the dead, 
 or Hades. 
 
 Says a distinguished writer 1 : "At the Christian era, 
 Hades appears to have been regarded as an immense 
 cavern in the depths of the earth. No living man was 
 supposed to have seen it, nor had any from the dead re- 
 turned to describe it This subterranean cavern was 
 
 popularly regarded as the dwelling of the human race." 
 
 " To us," says Tertullian (A. D. 200), " Hades is a 
 vast region extending upward and downward in the 
 earth ; for we read that Christ passed the three days 
 of his death in the heart of the earth, that is, in an in- 
 ternal recess hollowed out within the earth." 
 
 In this world Satan was regarded as all powerful, 
 having the power of death. Says the author above 
 mentioned 1 : " They supposed him to have detained in 
 1 Huidekoper, Christ's Mission to the Underworld. 
 
ANCIENT THEORY. '6 
 
 his gloomy regions below, and to have ruled over, the 
 departed of the human family, until Christ descended 
 for their liberation." This power, they thought, was 
 in some sort Satan's right. Thus Irenseus, one of the 
 earliest Fathers (A. D. 175), says : " The law burdened 
 sinful man, by showing him to be the debtor of Death 
 (i. e. due to Satan), and in order to his release Satan 
 
 must be justly conquered His suffering was the 
 
 means of awakening his sleeping disciples, on whose ac- 
 count he descended into the lower parts of the earth." 
 
 So Clement of Rome, in the first century, says : 
 " The sole cause of the Lord's descent to Hades was 
 to preach the Gospel." And Tertullian says : " He 
 descended to the lower parts of the earth, that there 
 he might make the patriarchs and prophets partici- 
 pators of himself." Nor were these ideas peculiar to 
 the few, but shared by all. 
 
 " In the second and third centuries," says Huide- 
 koper, " every branch and division of Christians, so far 
 as their records enable us to judge, believed that Christ 
 preached to the departed ; and this belief dates back 
 to our earliest reliable sources of information." 
 
 " If we have evidence that the Catholics of the sec- 
 ond and third centuries believed any proposition unani- 
 mously, it is the following: Jesus Christ at death went 
 on a mission to the subterranean world." 
 
 We come, then, nearer to the pivot of the doctrine 
 in question, as it lay in their minds. 
 
 If Satan was the owner of lawful captives, if Hades 
 was his rightful realm and castle, how would he regard 
 this visit of Christ, or any attempt on his part to lib- 
 erate the prisoners ? To this they answered, that Christ 
 could only do it by a fierce and desperate battle with 
 Satan. 
 
 The near prospect of this dreadful conflict they thought 
 
4 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 occasioned tlie agony in the garden, and the bloody 
 sweat. 
 
 The whole of the twenty-second Psalm they regarded 
 as prophetically depicting his emotions in that crisis, and 
 the words, — " Be not far from me, O Lord, for trouble 
 
 is near ; for there is none to help Save me from 
 
 the lion's mouth," — they understood to be spoken in 
 reference to the dreaded encounter with the infernal 
 powers. 
 
 If we would realize at all the posture of the ancient 
 mind, " we should imagine the infernal powers, greedy 
 for their prey, as already gathering round their victim 
 on the cross, the angels as shrinking in panic from the 
 descent, and the Saviour as hurried to the underworld, 
 in the gloom of whose mighty cavern, unaided and alone, 
 he was to prove his strength against the King of Terrors 
 and the thronging legions of darkness. No whisper of 
 incredulity should blunt our perceptions of the Saviour's 
 fidelity, — faithful to the conflict whence all save him had 
 fled, — or prevent us from realizing his dread of it ; for 
 he forgets the agony of the cross in a prayer, not for 
 support under his sufferings, but for the Divine aid in 
 that more dreadful struggle which impended. Doubt 
 should not check the rising enthusiasm when we learn 
 that he ' broke in the adamantine gates of Death,' 
 and 'wrestled with the powers there as their master.' 
 Unbelief should not quell the thrill of triumph, when 
 we are told that he crushed man's enemy in the se- 
 curity of his own fortress ; that he rove asunder his 
 eternal prison-house, liberated his captives, desolated his 
 kingdoms, and drove him forth a homeless vagabond, 
 to glean by plunder in the byways a band of the un- 
 faithful." 1 
 
 Thus Jesus became a ransom. " A ransom," says 
 1 Huidekoper, p. 79. 
 
ANCIENT THEORY. 6 
 
 Origen, "is a gift to enemies given by the conquered, 
 or by their leader, for the liberation of the captives. If, 
 therefore, we were bought with a price, we were bought 
 from some one whose slaves we were, and who de- 
 manded such a price as he pleased for the release of 
 those whom he held. It was the Devil who held us 
 by our sins. He therefore demanded as our price the 
 blood of Christ. 
 
 " To whom did Christ give his soul a ransom for 
 many ? Not, of course, to God. Was it, then, to the 
 Evil One ? Certainly, for he held us in his power, 
 until the soul of Jesus should be given him as our 
 ransom, he being deceived by the supposition that he 
 could hold it in subjection." 
 
 The language of Irenseus, two centuries earlier than 
 Origen, is even more emphatic. 
 
 " And since the Apostate acquired his mastery over 
 us unjustly, the "Word behaved justly even to the Apos- 
 tate, redeeming from him his own, not by force, but by 
 persuasion, — persuading him without violence to accept 
 what he proposed." "It was proper that Satan should 
 be bound by a man, when conquered, that man being 
 freed, should return to God." 
 
 Still earlier, Justin Martyr says, we should give thanks 
 to God " for the overthrow of the ' powers and au- 
 thorities,' (the evil spirits,) with a perfect overthrow 
 through him who, in accordance with his will, became 
 subject to suffering." 
 
 Says Neander : " The sufferings of Christ are repre- 
 sented by Irenseus as having a just connection with the 
 rightful deliverance of man from the power of Satan. 
 The Divine justice is displayed here, in allowing even 
 Satan to have his due. Of satisfaction to Divine justice 
 as yet not the slightest mention is found." 
 
 " This theory," says Dr. Knapp, " was first adopted 
 
6 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 by the Greek Church, and especially by Origen, through 
 whose influence it became prevalent, and was adopted 
 at length by Basil, the two Gregories, Nestorius, and 
 others. From the Greeks it was communicated to the 
 Latins, among whom it was distinctly held by Ambrose, 
 and afterwards by Augustine, through whose influence 
 it was rendered almost universal in the Latin Church. 
 Ever after the fall, they said, the Devil had the 
 whole human race in his power; he ruled over them 
 like a tyrant over his vassals, and employed them for 
 his own purposes ; from this captivity God might in- 
 deed have rescued men by omnipotence, but was re- 
 strained by his justice from doing this with violence. 
 He therefore offered Satan a ransom, in consideration 
 of which he should release mankind. This ransom was 
 the death of Christ. In the Latin Church they endeav- 
 ored to perfect the theory. Satan, they added, was 
 deceived in the transaction ; for, taking Jesus to be a 
 mere man, and not knowing that he was also the Son 
 of God, he was not able to retain even him, after he 
 had slain him. And it was necessary for Christ to as- 
 sume a human body, in order to deceive the Devil, as 
 fish are caught by baits." x 
 
 So prevalent was this theory in the Latin Church, 
 before the twelfth century, that Abelard declares, " All 
 our teachers since the Apostles agree in this." And Ber- 
 nard of Clairvaux affirmed that whoever denied it ought 
 rather to be chastised with rods than reasoned with. 
 
 Hagenbach says : " They saw in the death of Christ the 
 actual victory over the Devil." This idea, says Bauer, 
 " was so congruous with the whole circle of ideas in 
 which the times moved, that they could not abandon it." 
 Says Schaff : "The negative part of the doctrine, the sub- 
 jection of the Devil, the prince of the kingdom of sin and 
 1 Christian Theology, (Lond. ed.,) p. 354. 
 
ANCIENT THEORY. 7 
 
 death, was naturally most dwelt on in the patristic period. 
 This theory continued current until the satisfaction theory 
 of Anselm gave a new turn to the development of the 
 dogma." 
 
 The element of deception that runs through this 
 theory, and which is revolting to our conceptions of the 
 Divine character, was not noticed or felt by the less 
 sensitive mind of the Church during those many ages 
 while this theory prevailed. 
 
 The principle of pious frauds, or accomplishing good 
 ends by the use of deception, was so early introduced, 
 and so universally established, that the susceptibility was 
 deadened. There was nothing in the mind of Christen- 
 dom to revolt from a theory which implied that God actu- 
 ally cheated Satan out of his entire right and title to 
 the human race. 
 
 This feature, so abhorrent to us, and which would 
 prevent such a theory from exciting in our minds any 
 feelings of adoring love, would not in the least shock 
 them, nor prevent them from feeling gratitude. It was 
 not, in their view, inconsistent for God to do so. They 
 rather exulted in it, as an evidence of his superior wis- 
 dom, — that he could thus take the wise in their own 
 craftiness, and beat Satan at his own weapons. And 
 hence their minds could feel the unbroken stimulus to 
 love of Christ's sublime encounter with the Prince of 
 Hell. 
 
 There was something fascinating to the imagination in 
 it, that completely dominated over that rude and iron 
 age. It awoke all their love of the marvellous, all their 
 sense of the sublime, all their pity, horror, and shud- 
 dering sympathy. 
 
 That Jesus, a helpless man, alone dared to meet the 
 wrath of demons dire, treading that downward path 
 from which the angels shrunk, — that in the heart of the 
 
8 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 infernal dungeon he met the enemy, and engaged in 
 personal conflict against him and all his legions, — that 
 he defeated them, and with infinite strength broke the 
 adamantine gates, and crushed the eternal barriers, — 
 these ideas thrilled their whole being through and 
 through, and woke towards Jesus their highest admi- 
 ration and adoring love. 
 
 It surrounded Jesus with all the coloring of romance. 
 It made him a hero, above all the heroes of tale or 
 song, and it gave him a direct and touching claim upon 
 the gratitude of those for whose captivity he had paid 
 the ransom. 
 
 For a thousand years and more this theory supplied 
 motives to gratitude and affection ; and, imperfect as 
 it was, yet contained so many elements of truth and 
 so many apparent truths, that the love of Christ actu- 
 ally constrained men. 
 
 From a consideration of this subject several reflections 
 are naturally suggested. 
 
 It must be evident that a belief in a correct theory 
 of atonement is one thing, and a belief in the fact, or 
 in Christ as an atoning Saviour, is quite another thing ; 
 and that, while to believe in the fact is essential to sal- 
 vation, to believe in the theory is not. The theory 
 pertains to the higher truths of the system, for advanced 
 and mature minds. 
 
 If a belief in a theory of atonement be made essen- 
 tial to salvation, we fall into a dilemma. Here is a 
 theory held by the Church for a thousand years, about 
 which the Church now knows nothing. And again, the 
 Church for more than six hundred years has held a 
 theory of atonement about which the ancient Church 
 knew nothing. Now, if one of these theories be true, 
 the other is false, and vice versa. And if a belief of 
 the true is essential to salvation, the belief of the false 
 
ANCIENT THEORY. V 
 
 must be fatal. Hence we have our choice of alterna- 
 tives. If the modern theory of atonement be true, the 
 whole ancient Church for more than ten centuries is 
 lost. And if the ancient theory be true, then the whole 
 modern Church is lost. 
 
 Therefore it is plain, that a belief in the correct 
 theory of atonement is not absolutely essential to sal- 
 vation, but only a belief in the substance, or fact. The 
 mistake that has been made here is somewhat the same 
 as if it should be thought necessary for a starving man 
 not only to eat bread, but believe in the correct theory 
 of bread-making ; or necessary for the sick not merely 
 to take medicine, but also to be perfectly informed of 
 its nature and the scientific principles on which it oper- 
 ates. The sick man needs medicine, not a theory of 
 medicine. The starving man needs bread, not a theory 
 of bread. The dying sinner needs the flesh and blood 
 of a slain Jesus, not a theory of atonement. It is the 
 fact that Jesus suffered and died for me that melts my 
 heart, and makes the love of Jesus constrain me ; not 
 the theory of how that death operated to effect my sal- 
 vation. It is simply the fact of a dying Lord on which 
 faith feeds, — the fact of a body broken, and blood shed 
 for me, — not the manner, the philosophy, which con- 
 stitutes the first principle of my faith and love. All 
 beyond that pertains to the higher truths of the sys- 
 tem, and is strong meat for men of mature age. The 
 study of the theory, the philosophy of atonement, is for 
 Christian manhood, for perfection in Divine knowledge, 
 and as such is of great importance. But that which is 
 essential to be received by babes in Christ is no more 
 than can be understood by babes, the simple, the poor, 
 the illiterate, children of tender age, and converts from 
 the lowest grades of human guilt and distress. 
 
 The great multitude of those who have truly be- 
 l* 
 
10 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 lieved, have believed the fact that Christ died for their 
 salvation ; but how his death operated, the philosophy 
 of the problem, they have been no more capable of 
 understanding than the problems of geometry or conic 
 sections. They have felt that they were lost ; they 
 have seen the Lamb of God that taketh away the 
 sins of the world ; they have seen Calvary ; they have 
 felt that there was a profound mystery of suffering 
 there ; they have believed that that suffering was for 
 them, that it was effectual, and they have loved the 
 suffering Saviour that endured it ; they have loved him 
 with a gratitude which could hardly be made more 
 tender and ardent by their being acquainted with the 
 abstruse question of how his blood sufficed; they have 
 looked, not at the theory, but at him, — not at the prob- 
 lem, but at the person ; and they have said, One thing 
 I know, — I love that sufferer, that astonishing suf- 
 ferer ; my heart goes out to him, and the love of Christ 
 constraineth me." Therefore believers were saved under 
 that theory of a ransom paid to Satan, — believers in- 
 numerable for more than a thousand years, — because 
 it was not the theory they loved, but the ransom, the 
 sufferer himself, who they supposed went through such 
 tremendous scenes. 
 
 And so it is yet. It is not the belief in the modern 
 theory, or theories, any of them, which saves the soul. 
 Believers now do not say, " The love of the theory of 
 atonement constrains me," but " The love of Christ." 
 They see Jesus, they see Gethsemane, they see Calvary. 
 And it is Jesus himself, loving, pitying, sorrowing, dy- 
 ing, for our salvation, that pierces our heart with an 
 almost agonizing tenderness and love. 
 
 Hence we perceive the liberty that exists of investi- 
 gation and difference of opinion upon the theory. 
 
 In saying that a belief in the theory is not essential to 
 
ANCIENT THEORY. 11 
 
 salvation, we do not understand that the atonement itself 
 was not fundamental in the actual working out of God's 
 plans of love. On the contrary, the atonement was the 
 central measure of his eternal kingdom, on which all the 
 destinies of the universe depend. 
 
 But for that very reason, a full knowledge of it cannot 
 be essential to babes in Christ, but must be classed among 
 the higher truths of the system. Christians of advanced 
 growth and mature faculties can understand the theory 
 of atonement, because they can, and just so far as they 
 can, understand the system of the universe, of which it 
 is the central measure. 
 
 Hence we can look at the attempts made by the mind 
 of the Church, in all ages, to work out the problem, — at 
 its mistakes, its strange ideas, — with a genuine interest 
 and sympathy, but without horror, as if every mistake 
 involved certain damnation. 
 
 Another reflection which will occur to us is, that, 
 wherever a theory has had such a universal and long- 
 continued sway as the ancient theory had, there must be 
 some foundation for it. 
 
 The mind does not love unmixed error. Especially the 
 Christian mind does not. Although it may embrace im- 
 perfect and erroneous views, there must be considerable 
 admixtures of truth. Hence there must have been in the 
 most ancient and longest continued theory elements of 
 important truth. 
 
 What were those elements ? Not the deception prac- 
 tised on Satan ; not the combat, part muscular and part 
 magical, in Hades : these are the excrescences, the crudi- 
 ties, of a rude and unphilosophical age. 
 
 The grand element of truth must be in the prominence 
 assigned by the ancient Church to certain passages of 
 Scripture as vitally connected with this subject. These 
 were Gen. iii. 15, the twenty-second and sixty-ninth 
 
12 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Psalms, Heb. ii. 14, 1 John iii. 8, and parallel passages. 
 However the ancient Church may have been mistaken in 
 interpreting these passages, and working out their detailed 
 application, in the belief that they were fundamental to 
 the atonement, they were not mistaken. The idea is im- 
 possible. It is as certain that this class of passages are 
 vitally concerned with a scientific theory of atonement, as 
 that there is any atonement. And just to the extent that 
 they are overlooked by any theory will that theory be 
 imperfect, one-sided, and provincial. 
 
 Finally, it is of the greatest importance that the in- 
 vestigation of this doctrine be conducted from a starting- 
 point of love to Christ. I have said, that a true conception 
 of the theory of atonement is not essential to salvation, 
 because the love of Christ, as a constraining motive, can 
 be inspired by Christ himself, and his seen sufferings, in- 
 dependent of the philosophy of the case. But now I go a 
 step further, and say that a saving love to Christ, and a 
 present life in God, are the indispensable condition for 
 a right judgment of the sublime theory before us. The 
 love of Christ does not constrain us because we under- 
 stand the theory of his atonement, but we understand the 
 theory of atonement, if at all, because the love of Christ 
 constrains us. First the fact, — Jesus dies for my salva- 
 tion ; then the feeling, — His love constrains me ; then 
 the going on to perfection, to ask why and how was 
 this mysterious sacrifice. If the theory goes foremost, 
 it becomes abstract, metaphysical, cold, and deadening. 
 The mind is not excited to feeling, but the reverse ; any 
 little spark of feeling it possessed is quenched in a sea 
 of metaphysics. 
 
 Therefore love must go foremost. Love to Jesus should 
 burn hot, and flame high, and throw its radiance out on 
 the path of investigation. The love of Christ must con- 
 strain us here as really as anywhere else. It should be 
 
ANCIENT THEOEY. 13 
 
 a warm, adoring, idolizing love to him, that asks every 
 question, Why was this ? what necessity called for it ? on 
 what principle did it operate to redeem ? Then the dis- 
 cussion can never grow cold and barren, but will indeed 
 be strong meat for manly growth, and we shall go on unto 
 perfection. Hence, Christian brethren, in inviting you 
 to go on with me through the investigation of this great 
 subject, let me first exhort you to love. Are your lamps 
 trimmed and burning ? Is the fire on love's altar blazing- 
 high and clear ? Is Jesus near and dear to you ? Do 
 your affections move artlessly and ardently forth to him ? 
 Does his love constrain you ? Here all believers can be 
 alike. We may differ about many things, and yet feel 
 alike towards the Saviour. All differences should be 
 subordinate, and this one agreement be the uniting bond. 
 Let us love that blessed One ; let our hearts be full of 
 tenderness and glowing affection. Let us feel that He is 
 " chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely." 
 Let us say, " Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? and 
 there is none on earth I desire beside Thee." 
 
 " Whate'er my noblest powers can wish 
 In Thee doth richly meet ; 
 Not to my eyes is light so dear, 
 Nor friendship half so sweet ! " 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SCHOLASTIC THEORY. 
 "Behold the Lamb of God." — John i. 29. 
 
 THE earliest theory of atonement, after prevailing over 
 a thousand years, was gradually supplanted, in the 
 eleventh century, by the modern theory, wrought out by 
 the scholastic divines, that Christ was a sacrifice to sat- 
 isfy Divine justice. This theory may be reduced to two 
 main propositions, the first of which is as follows : — 
 
 Sin is so intrinsically deserving of punishment, that the 
 non-execution of penalty in a single instance would be a 
 crime in the Divine administration. 
 
 " This avenging justice," says Turretin, " belongs to 
 God as a judge, and he can no more dispense with it 
 than he can cease to be a judge, or deny himself." 
 
 " No man," says Dr. Hodge, " when humbled under 
 a sense of his guilt in the sight of God, can resist the 
 conviction of the inherent ill-desert of sin. He feels 
 that it would be right that he should be made to suf- 
 fer ; nay, that rectitude, justice, or moral excellence de- 
 mands his suffering The justice of God, there- 
 fore, is nothing but the holiness of God in relation to 
 sin. So long as he is holy, he must be just ; he must 
 repel sin, winch is the highest idea we can form of 
 punishment." 
 
 Professor Shedd thus affirms the principle : " The pri- 
 mal source of law has no power to abolish penalty, any 
 more than to abolish law." It is not optional, he says, 
 with God to exercise justice, or not to exercise it, as is 
 
SCHOLASTIC THEOEY. 15 
 
 the case with the attribute of mercy. " For the Deity 
 cannot by an arbitrary and unprincipled procedure re- 
 lease from penal suffering, and inflict a wound on 
 
 that holy judicial nature." "For the correlate to guilt 
 is punishment, and nothing but the correlate itself can 
 perform the function of a correlate. A liquid, e. g., is 
 the correlate to thirst, and nothing that is not liquid can 
 
 be a substitute for it A judicial infliction is the 
 
 only means by which culpability can be extinguished." 
 
 Bradbury declares that to relax punishment is "so 
 very inglorious to God, that it cannot be admitted." 
 Bellamy repeatedly declares that God must, and that 
 he " does always, throughout all his dominions, not only 
 in word threaten, but in fact punish sin, with infinite 
 severity, without the least mitigation or abatement in 
 any one instance whatever." 
 
 Accordingly, the celebrated Baptist preacher, Mr. Spur- 
 geon, does not hesitate to employ such expressions as 
 these : " We believe that God is so just, that every 
 sinner must be punished, that every crime must have its 
 irretrievable doom." " God does not absolutely pass over 
 sin." " The way that God saves sinners is not by pass- 
 ing over the penalty." 
 
 Thus, in every form of words, do writers of this class 
 enforce the principle that the penalty of sin in the gov- 
 ernment of God never must, never can, and never does 
 go unexecuted. If God did fail to execute a single pen- 
 alty, he would be, in the language of these writers, 
 arbitrary, unprincipled, unholy, inglorious, and unjust. 
 
 The second proposition under this theory is as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 God does in fact execute the full penalty of the law 
 upon the sinner's substitute. 
 
 Before citing passages upon this point, a single remark. 
 It is not because God is supposed to be implacable and 
 
16 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 cruel, while Christ was merciful, that these writers take 
 this position. " The love of God the Father," says Cal- 
 vin, " precedes our reconciliation in Christ." " For God 
 in a certain ineffable manner, at the same time that he 
 loved us, was nevertheless angry with us." The prin- 
 ciple is, that justice, pure and simple, calm and serene, 
 must absolutely be satisfied, or God be stained with 
 crime. Bearing this in mind, we proceed to develop 
 the opinion of Divines upon this point. 
 
 Calvin says : " It was requisite that Christ should feel 
 the severity of the Divine vengeance, in order to ap- 
 pease the wrath of God, and satisfy his justice ; hence 
 it was necessary for him to contend with the powers of 
 hell and the horror of eternal death." " He was made a 
 substitute and surety for transgressors, and even treated 
 as a criminal himself, to sustain all the punishments 
 which would have been inflicted upon us." " Not only 
 the body of Christ was given as the price of our re- 
 demption, but there was another and more excellent 
 ransom, since he suffered in his soul the dreadful tor- 
 ments of a person condemned and irretrievably lost." 
 " He experienced from God all the tokens of wrath and 
 vengeance." 
 
 Luther went so far as to affirm that our sins were 
 so literally transferred to Christ, that they became his, 
 and made him a sinner. " And this, no doubt, all the 
 prophets did foresee in spirit, that Christ should become 
 the greatest transgressor, murderer, adulterer, thief, rebel, 
 blasphemer, that ever was or could be in the world." 
 
 This literal interpretation is, however, almost univer- 
 sally rejected. It is mentioned to show the thoroughness 
 with which this theory was embraced by the Lutheran 
 as well as the Calvinistic Reformers. 
 
 In the Lutheran Formula of Concord, A. D. 1576, 
 occurs the following : " We believe simply that Christ's 
 
SCHOLASTIC THEORY. 17 
 
 whole person, God and man, after the burial, went to 
 hell, overcame the Devil, destroyed the power of hell, 
 and took all his might from the Devil." 
 
 Similar views prevailed among Catholic divines. Thus 
 Bourdaloue exclaims : " Long didst Thou look for this 
 victim ! Seeing none but vile subjects in the world, guilty 
 offenders, Thou didst find thyself reduced to a kind of 
 impotency in avenging thyself. Now Thou hast where- 
 with to do it fully, for behold a victim worthy of thyself, 
 — a victim capable of expiating the sins of a thousand 
 worlds ! Strike now, Lord, strike ! " 
 
 " God does not content himself with striking him. He 
 seems to wish to reject him, by forsaking and abandoning 
 him in the midst of his punishment. This desertion and 
 abandonment are in some respect the punishment of the 
 damned, which Jesus Christ suffered for us all." "For 
 it is not in the last judgment that an offended and in- 
 dignant God will satisfy himself as a God. It is not in 
 hell he will declare himself more formally a God of ven- 
 geance : it is on Calvary. It is then his vindictive justice 
 acts freely, and without restraint, not being checked as it 
 is elsewhere by the littleness of the subject against whom 
 it is exercised." 
 
 Barrow, of the English Church, thus speaks : " God's 
 indignation, so dreadfully flaming out against sin, might 
 well astonish and terrify him. To stand before the mouth 
 of hell, belching out fire and brimstone upon him, to lie 
 down in the hottest furnace of Divine wrath, to undertake 
 with his heart's blood to quench all the wrath of Heaven, 
 and, all the flames of Hell, might well in the heart of a 
 man beget inconceivable and inexpressible pressures of 
 anguish." So John Howe declares that, " though sin be 
 forgiven, it is punished, too ; forgiven to us, but punished 
 in His own dear Son." And Bradbury says: "David 
 speaks of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, which 
 
18 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 intimates that it was laid there ; that his sufferings were 
 of such a nature as to be thus expressed." 
 
 This, unequivocally, is the view of the Westminster 
 Assembly : — " The Lord Jesus Christ, by his perfect 
 obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the 
 Eternal Spirit offered up unto the Father, hath fully satis- 
 fied the justice of the Father." They speak of him as 
 " having conflicted with the terrors of death and powers 
 of darkness," as having "felt and borne the weight of 
 God's wrath." They also say, he " endured most griev- 
 ous torments immediately in his soul, and most painful 
 sufferings in his body." 
 
 President Edwards says : " God would not abate him 
 one mite of that debt which justice demanded." " Christ 
 was the mark of the vindictive expressions of the justice 
 of God. Revenging justice then spent all its force upon 
 him on account of our guilt, which made him sweat blood, 
 and cry out upon the cross, and probably rent his vitals 
 and broke his heart." 
 
 "It is not," says the late Dr. Spencer, of Brooklyn, 
 " because his body is in torment merely. No, no ; . . . . 
 the wrath of God lay heavy on his soul ; the Father had 
 forsaken him ; he was enduring the righteous displeasure 
 of an angry God, and bearing the punishment of a guilty 
 world." So also Dr. Spring : " The sins of the trans- 
 gressor were set down to his account, and so imputed to 
 him, that he endures the punishment of them in the sin- 
 ner's place." He " encountered the storm of wrath which 
 discharged itself upon the cross." 
 
 " We have heard and read," says Mr. Spurgeon, " of 
 many divines whose atonement is something like this. 
 .... Jesus Christ did in some way — we understand 
 n<_ t how — do something which allows God now to pass 
 over our sins without punishing them at all. We under- 
 stand not such an atonement as that. We believe that 
 
SCHOLASTIC THEOEY. 19 
 
 God is so just, that eyery sinner must be punished, 
 that every crime must have its irretrievable doom. We 
 do not believe the atonement of Christ remits a single 
 solitary sin. We believe that all the punishment which 
 God's people ought to have endured was laid upon the 
 head of Christ. ..... The punishment of all our guilt 
 
 was absolutely and actually borne by Christ. God does 
 not pass over sin ; he punishes sin in Christ, and hence- 
 forth sin ceases to be punishable in the person of those for 
 whom Christ died." 
 
 " Here I stand, the sinner. I am condemned to die. 
 Christ comes in and puts me aside, and stands himself 
 in my stead. When the plea is demanded, Christ says, 
 ' Guilty ' ; takes my guilt to be his guilt. ' Punish me,' 
 he says ; ' I have put my righteousness on that man, and 
 I have taken that man's sins upon me. Father, punish 
 me, and consider that man to have been me. Let him 
 reign, and let. me suffer misery.' " 
 
 " The moment the sinner believes in Christ, his sins are 
 no longer his. They were laid on Christ, and are gone. 
 The man stands guiltless in the sight of God ; more, he 
 becomes meritorious ; for the moment Christ takes his sins, 
 he takes Christ's righteousness." 
 
 The testimony of Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, is similar. 
 " Unless," says he, " the Redeemer was a sacrifice on 
 whom our sins were laid, who bore the penalty we had 
 incurred, it is no atonement." " Christ suffered the pen- 
 alty of the law in our stead." 
 
 Professor Shedd also declares : — 
 
 " In the voluntary, the cordially offered sacrifice of the 
 incarnate Son, the judicial nature of God, which by a con- 
 stitutional necessity requires the punishment of sin, finds its 
 righteous requirements fully met. Plenary punishment 
 is inflicted upon one who is infinite, and therefore compe- 
 tent, upon one who is finite, and therefore passible." The 
 
20 KEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 mercy of God " does not consist in outraging his own law 
 and the guilt-smitten conscience itself, by simply snatching 
 the criminal away from their retributions in the exercise of 
 an unprincipled and unbridled almightiness, or in substitut- 
 ing a partial for a complete atonement, but in enduring the 
 full and entire penal infliction by which both are satisfied." 
 
 " When the suffering and death of God incarnate is 
 substituted for that of the creature, the satisfaction ren- 
 dered to law is strictly plenary, though not identical with 
 that which is exacted from the transgressor. It contains 
 the element of infinitude, which is the element of value in 
 the case, with even greater precision than the satisfaction 
 of the creature does, because it is the suffering of a strictly 
 infinite person in a finite time, while the latter is only the 
 suffering of a finite creature in an endless but not strictly 
 infinite time. A strictly infinite duration would be with- 
 out beginning as well as without end. 
 
 " Side by side in the Godhead there dwell the impulse 
 to punish and the desire to pardon ; but the desire to 
 pardon is realized in act by carrying out the impulse to 
 punish, not indeed upon the person of the criminal, but 
 upon that of his substitute. And the substitute is the 
 Punisher himself." 
 
 Such is the theory of the atonement that for the last six 
 hundred years has been developed and defended in the 
 Church, Catholic and Protestant. God pitied his sinful 
 creatures, and desired to save them, but justice demanded 
 the execution of penalty. Justice actually made punish- 
 ment a necessity. Not to punish would be a crime greater 
 than all the sin that creatures could commit, because it 
 would be a crime in the Most High himself. 
 
 Either, then, the sinner, however penitent, must bear 
 his penalty, or some one must bear it for him. To this 
 end Infinite Wisdom discovers a way. He gives his own 
 Son. Christ consents. Upon him, as the sinner's surety, 
 
SCHOLASTIC THEORY. 21 
 
 God executes full punishment, — a punishment sometimes 
 identical with, sometimes only equivalent to, that due to 
 the transgressors. At the same time, Christ's perfect 
 obedience is imputed to the believer; he is freed from 
 penalty, and endowed with full title to heavenly felicity. 
 
 This theory is by no means obsolete. In New Eng- 
 land, indeed, it is seldom heard. A few ministers, here 
 and there, still cling to it. But the great majority know 
 it only from books, as a thing of the past. Multitudes 
 of people, regular attendants on the sanctuary, cannot 
 remember ever to have heard it from the pulpit. But 
 though obsolete in New England, it is dominant through- 
 out Evangelical Christendom, except where the new di- 
 vinity has penetrated. All the creeds and formulas of the 
 Reformation have it, — all the Protestant churches of the 
 Old World. And it yet stands uncondemned in the 
 creeds of the Presbyterian and Congregational churches, 
 both Old School and New. The difference is, in the Old 
 School it is believed and taught; in the New, it is sup- 
 planted by a new theory, hereafter to be considered. 
 
 Let any one read the sermons of Spurgeon, or Dr. 
 Spring's Attractions of the Cross, or the Sermons on Sac- 
 ramental Occasions by Dr. Spencer, if he would see this 
 theory in living exercise urged home with vital force and 
 energy. Nor can a true Christian, who heartily loves the 
 Saviour, read or hear such discourses, even though he 
 reject the theory in the strict literal sense, without interest 
 and profit ; for imperfect as the view may be deemed as a 
 philosophical theory in the literal sense of the term, it 
 readily yields, by the law of analogy, a figurative sense 
 that is of the very marrow of the Gospel. 
 
 In all that has been exhibited as the doctrine of atone- 
 ment, the theory is one thing, the facts of Christ's personal 
 history another. The theory is in few words, — Punish- 
 ment cannot be remitted, therefore Christ took it in our 
 
22 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 stead. The facts are what we find them on the surface 
 of the Gospel, what we see with our mind's eye in the 
 life, sufferings, and death of Jesus. Nothing is easier 
 than this distinction between the theory and the facts of 
 history. And nothing can be more plain that it is not 
 the theory, but the facts, in which the chief power over 
 the heart resides. Is it essential to salvation to believe 
 this theory in its strict literal sense ? Must we believe it 
 or perish ? Then the Church for a thousand years is lost. 
 Then the churches of New England, since the days of Ed- 
 wards, are lost. It is not essential. It cannot be. It is 
 not the theory literally taken that affects the heart. It is 
 not in the theory that love begins. On the contrary, love 
 is awakened by the sight of the facts, the sight of Jesus, 
 his loveliness, his sorrows, his strange sufferings, and the 
 knowledge that those sufferings were for us, a thing we 
 believe on God's word, without knowing how. This 
 awakens love. And the moment we attempt to analyze, 
 and penetrate to the theory of satisfaction to justice, that 
 moment the mind is troubled, the feelings are cooled, and 
 the power of the cross begins to diminish. 
 
 Therefore it is not a belief of this theory, any more 
 than it was of the ancient, that saves the soul. On the 
 ancient theory Christ suffered most wonderfully, most 
 mysteriously. On this modern theory he did no more, no 
 less. And one theory is just as good as the other, so far 
 as power over the heart is concerned, because neither has 
 one grain of power which it does not borrow from the 
 facts, from Christ seen a sufferer for man. It may, indeed, 
 be urged in favor of the modern theory, as compared with 
 the ancient, that the suffering is greater. There it was 
 Satan, a creature, from whom the suffering proceeded. 
 Here it is no creature, but the Almighty himself that 
 smites. By some mysterious transfer, some ineffable im- 
 putation, the sufferer acquires the power of feeling the 
 
SCHOLASTIC THEORY. 23 
 
 guilt, the despair, the horrible agony of the lost under 
 the living wrath of the Omnipotent. 
 
 But although this language is used, the import is quickly 
 modified by statements that God was not really displeased 
 with him ; that he did not really suffer remorse ; that it 
 was not the identical suffering of the lost. This leaves us 
 about where we were before, with the facts of the record, 
 the sufferings visible to the eye ; and as to those deeper, 
 more mysterious, we know no more on the modern than 
 we did upon the ancient theory. 
 
 We observe, in passing, that the defenders of this theory 
 seem to admit what in other connections they usually de- 
 ny, namely, that God is bound by the principles of honor 
 and right. It is only in virtue of his justice that " he has 
 a right to sit on the eternal throne." They affirm, cate- 
 gorically, that " God is inexorably obligated to do justly." 
 To remit penalty in a single case would be " unprincipled," 
 "unbridled," "arbitrary." To fail in executing the en- 
 tire penalty of sin, would be " outraging his own law," 
 "inflicting a wound on that holy judicial nature," and 
 "doing damage to one whole side of his Godhead." 
 
 Not to punish fully every sin that ever was committed, 
 would be " unholy," " inglorious," " unjust." It would 
 be "mere arbitrary will and might striding forward to 
 reach its own private ends, and trampling down justice 
 by sheer force." They say God " cannot " do this. 
 They say he must not. " Whatever else God may be, 
 or may not be, he must be just." x In every conceivable 
 way, and with astonishing intrepidity, writers of this class 
 assert the doctrine that God is responsible to the princi- 
 ples of justice, which are the principles of honor and right. 
 It is important to bear this in mind, when we come to dis- 
 cuss presently the subject of the fall in Adam. 
 
 Suffer me, then, once more to set forth visibly be- 
 1 Prof. Shedd, Bibliotheca Sacra, Oct., 1859. 
 
24 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 fore you Jesus the Crucified, as your suffering Saviour. 
 I ask you not at present to believe a theory or to dis- 
 believe one, but simply to look at an object, — an object 
 of sight. How often do the Scriptures set forth the man- 
 ner of receiving benefit in this way : " Looking unto 
 Jesus, the author and finisher of faith." " Look unto 
 me and be ye saved." 
 
 When Moses raised up the brazen serpent in the wil- 
 derness, as many as looked were healed. And of the 
 future conversion of Israel it is written, " They shall look 
 upon Him whom they have pierced, and mourn." The 
 idea seems to be that Jesus is such an object, such in 
 his beauty, loveliness, and compassion, such in his suffer- 
 ings, that the very sight is calculated to produce a deep 
 effect, especially if we not merely glance, but look stead- 
 fastly, look with fastened attention, with all the inquiring 
 powers of our soul awakened. If we look, saying in- 
 wardly, " It was for me ! I know not how ; but it was 
 because I was guilty and lost. He loved me, he dies 
 for my salvation" ; — in this way, the effect on the heart 
 comes, if it come at all. Will you, then, thus look ? 
 Will you thus fasten the eye of the mind on Jesus ? 
 You cannot do it without being impressed. There is a 
 mystery of sorrow there that you feel, although — nay, I 
 had almost said because — you cannot fully understand its 
 nature nor measure its dimensions. You see at least that 
 it is the greatest sorrow that ever was known, and that it 
 is for you. 
 
 " I saw One hanging on the tree 
 
 In agony and blood, 
 Who fixed his languid eyes on me 
 
 As near the cross I stood." 
 
 That Sufferer has looked in the face of human sorrow and 
 wept. His face is more marred than the face of any man. 
 You cannot measure his sorrow, for it is divine ; but can 
 
SCHOLASTIC THEORY. 25 
 
 you not see that he has measured yours, — that in that 
 infinite sympathy -your every woe is repeated, as the stars 
 are repeated on the bosom of the waveless sea ? 
 
 You can never know by words merely what the enigma 
 of the cross contains, but only by looking on His face. 
 Look with an eye fascinated by his, as Peter looked and 
 wept bitterly. Look at him, living, journeying, toiling, 
 praying, hungering, insulted, pierced, bleeding, dying, — 
 and shuddering cry: 
 
 " Is this the Infinite ? 'T is He, 
 My Saviour and my God ! " 
 
 And through the eye, through the channels of the inner 
 sense, you will receive impressions inexplicable, unutter- 
 able, transforming you to a child of God. You will look 
 on Him whom you have pierced and mourn for Him. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ATTACK ON THE SCHOLASTIC THEORY. 
 " The soul that sinneth, it shall die." — Ezek. xviii. 20. 
 
 THE chapter from which these words are taken seems to 
 oppose the idea that punishment can be inflicted on 
 one person for another. The principle seems to be dis- 
 tinctly laid down as fundamental to the Divine administra- 
 tion, that only the sinner can be punished for his sin. It 
 is for this reason the passage is selected, when we are 
 about to exhibit the overthrow of the scholastic theory 
 of atonement by the logic of the New England divines. 
 The earliest attack on this theory is that of Socinus in the 
 sixteenth century. Among other objections were the two 
 following : — 
 
 1. The satisfaction of justice by proxy is impossible in 
 the nature of things. They who assert this doctrine "rep- 
 resent God as attempting things in their very nature 
 wholly impracticable." 
 
 2. If it were possible, there would be no grace in for- 
 giveness. " The mercy of God does not appear when no 
 liberality ^ is perceived in him, and when he satisfies his 
 
 severity in the fullest punishment of sin The idea 
 
 that both justice and mercy are exhibited in salvation is 
 plainly ridiculous, and can by no means be established; 
 for mercy demands that the sinner be freely forgiven, but 
 justice demands that those who have sinned be punished. 
 .... Nay, verily Christ did not suffer eternal death, and 
 woe be to us if he had ! " 
 
 Grotius, of the seventeenth century, attempting to de- 
 
ATTACK ON THE SCHOLASTIC THEORY. 27 
 
 fend the doctrine, in reality gave up its fundamental prin- 
 ciple, and in a measure anticipated the New England 
 theory, though he did not fully elaborate and defend it. 
 His defence, therefore, availed nothing, and produced little 
 effect. Men continued either to hold the scholastic doc- 
 trine, or became Socinians. 
 
 It was not until after President Edwards's day that the 
 new theory, of which the germs were found in Grotius, 
 was fully elaborated and enabled to take the place of the 
 old, so that a man might reject it without falling into 
 Socinianism. 
 
 The method with this new theory, commonly called the 
 New England or Governmental theory, is first to attack 
 and demolish the old, employing the above-mentioned 
 arguments urged by Socinus, together with a third fur- 
 nished by the Universalists. Having demolished the old 
 theory in this way, they proceed to establish another in 
 its place, as I shall show at the proper time. At present 
 let us consider the attack upon the scholastic theory. 
 
 1. Satisfaction of justice by substitution impossible'. 
 
 " Distributive justice," says the younger Edwards, " has 
 no respect to the character of a third person." " Our ill 
 desert," says Smalley, " is not taken away by the atone- 
 ment of Christ : that can never be taken away." " Merit 
 is ever personal ; in the nature of things it cannot be oth- 
 erwise." 
 
 Emmons says : Christ " never transgressed the law, and 
 so the law could not threaten any punishment to him. 
 His sufferings were no punishment, much less our punish- 
 ment." 
 
 Dr. Griffin says : " Christ could not sustain our legal 
 punishment If the law had said that we or a sub- 
 stitute should die, this might be, but it said no such thing. 
 The law is before us, and we see with our eyes that it con- 
 tains no such clause." 
 
28 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 " God's justice," says Dr. Fiske, " demands, not pun- 
 ishment in general, but the precise punishment which 
 the sin ... . deserves. And inflicted, .... not on any- 
 body at random, but on the identical sinner." 
 
 " To say that a substituted or vicarious punishment can 
 satisfy this demand of Divine wrath, is to say that that 
 wrath can be satisfied with something which it does not 
 imperatively demand, i. e. that it does not imperatively 
 demand the punishment of the sinner." 
 
 " It is said that punishment is the correlate to guilt, just 
 as a liquid is the correlate to thirst. But is the liquid 
 drank by one person a correlate to the thirst of another 
 person ? " * 
 
 Albert Barnes declares : " This cannot be ; men cannot 
 be required to believe it. Those who affirm this have 
 either no clear idea of what they profess to believe, 
 or else use language without any definite signification." 
 " The proper penalty of the law could be borne by the 
 offender only, and could not be transferred to another." 
 
 Such is the nature of the first objection against the 
 theory of substituted punishment. Under its pressure 
 there is apparent a breaking down of the theory in the 
 hands of those that hold it. 
 
 " Did Christ," we ask, " experience remorse ? " No, 
 they reply, that was not essential to the penalty. " Did 
 he, then, bear the wrath of God ? Was God properly dis- 
 pleased with' him ? " They confess that this was not the 
 case, although God inflicted on him all the marks and 
 tokens of indignation. " Did he, then, suffer eternal 
 death ? " No, they reply, that was not the essential pen- 
 alty of the law. " Did he, then, in any manner suffer an 
 infinite penalty ? Were his pains infinite ? " They an- 
 swer in the negative. It was his human nature alone that 
 suffered, or could suffer. It was not necessary there should 
 1 Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1861. 
 
ATTACK ON THE SCHOLASTIC THEORY. 29 
 
 be infinite pains. " Did Christ, then," we ask, " suffer 
 the identical punishment due to our sins ? " No, it is said, 
 he suffered a strict equivalent. 
 
 Thus, under pressure, the theory crumbles down. First, 
 substitute one person for another; next, one penalty for 
 another ; then eliminate from that penalty all that makes it 
 real, namely, the living indignation of God revealed to the 
 guilty consciousness ; and how much is left of that theory, 
 at first so strict, that dared to say that not even in hell was 
 vindictive justice so illustriously satisfied as upon Calvary ? 
 Consequently it is presently said that the theory is above 
 reason ; we must not question, but bow and adore ; it is 
 not only above, but against reason. " We cannot tell you," 
 says Dr. Spring, " how it is that a God of justice and 
 holiness can, consistently with those attributes, inflict pun- 
 ishment upon the infinite Saviour. We know that he does 
 so." " It is above the light of nature, and either the in- 
 vention or the capacity of reason," says Mr. Bradbury. 
 " Reason can neither contrive nor receive it." 
 
 2. The second objection is no less conclusive. It is this. 
 A literal satisfaction of justice renders pardon a matter of 
 debt, not of grace. 
 
 It is from this point that the younger Edwards com- 
 mences his discussion of the subject. This has ever 
 been, he frankly confesses, one of the Gordian knots in 
 theology to him. And how, then, does he loose the Gor- 
 dian knot ? We reply, he cuts it, by declaring that 
 Christ did not satisfy justice in any proper sense of that 
 term. Justice, he explains, is either commutative, as 
 relating to property, or distributive, as concerned with 
 personal character, or general, as respecting the public 
 welfare. The latter, he says, is improperly called jus- 
 tice, being identical with benevolence. Yet "it is only 
 the third kind of justice which is satisfied by the death 
 of Christ." That is to say, the death of Christ satisfies 
 
30 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 only that kind of justice which is improperly called jus- 
 tice ; i. e. it does not satisfy justice properly so called 
 at all. If it did, he says, " there would be no more 
 grace in the discharge of the sinner, than in the dis- 
 charge of the criminal when he has endured the full 
 penalty of the law." Says Dr. Griffin : " The idea of 
 paying our debt .... stands diametrically opposed to 
 every idea of pardon." "Pardon or forgiveness in its 
 very nature implies grace. It is impossible to forgive in 
 any other way. Pardon on the ground of justice would 
 be a contradiction in terms." 
 
 " How can God," asks Dr. Fiske, " who has already 
 exacted punishment for sin to his entire satisfaction, be 
 said to forgive it?" The only answer attempted to 
 this is thus given by Dr. Hodge : " What is salvation 
 by grace, if it be not that God of his own good pleasure 
 provided redemption?" That is, God, not the sinner, 
 provides the substitute, and therefore to the sinner it is 
 of grace. 
 
 The reply is twofold. God cannot punish twice for the 
 the same offence. If he has actually punished sin once, 
 he cannot do it again, but must release the sinner ; that 
 release, then, is of debt, not of grace. 
 
 Again, if all the mercy there is lies before the atone- 
 ment, as its logical antecedent and procuring cause, not 
 its consequent and effect, then it follows that. God showed 
 mercy in order to be able to punish. It also follows that 
 mercy can be shown without an atonement. If all the 
 mercy that is shown was shown in providing the atone- 
 ment, then it was the cause of that atonement, not its 
 effect ; it cannot be both cause and effect, cannot precede 
 and follow. But if it was cause, it preceded the atone- 
 ment ; if it went before, it was without it ; and therefore 
 every word that has been written to the effect that God 
 cannot show mercy without an atonement, is here recanted 
 
ATTACK ON THE SCHOLASTIC THEORY. 31 
 
 and obliterated. The only forgiveness possible, according 
 to this, is without an atonement, previous to it, and the 
 ground of its existence. 
 
 3. The third objection to the theory in question is, 
 that it logically leads either to a limited atonement or 
 to Universalism. 
 
 "According to the common notion," says Smalley, 
 " of a literal satisfaction, this argument of the Univer- 
 salists would be exceedingly plausible ; to me it appears 
 it would be absolutely unanswerable. Thus : God is 
 obliged in justice to save men as far as the merit of 
 Christ extends ; but the merit of Christ is sufficient for 
 the salvation of all men ; therefore God is obliged in 
 justice to save all." To this it is clear the only answer 
 possible is, that the atonement was not made for all, 
 but for the elect only. 
 
 " It follows inevitably," says Dr. Fiske, " that, if Christ 
 
 literally satisfied distributive justice for all men, 
 
 all men will be saved." The only escape is, he satisfied 
 justice only for the elect. 
 
 Accordingly, Professor Park observes : " It is an in- 
 structive fact, that Drs. West, Edwards, and Smalley pub- 
 lished their views of the atonement within one and the 
 same twelvemonth, 1785-6. That was the period when 
 the irruption of Universalism into New England had as- 
 sumed a peculiarly alarming aspect. The advocates of 
 Universalism derived some of their most plausible argu- 
 ments in favor of it from the old Calvinistic theory of the 
 atonement, as a literal infliction of the legal penalty, and 
 a literal satisfaction of vindictive justice. There was no 
 way of refuting these arguments without resorting to 
 the unamiable and unscriptural notion, that the atone- 
 ment was designed for the elect only ; or else resorting 
 to a more Biblical theory than had prevailed respecting 
 the very nature of the atonement itself." 
 
32 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 We have now completed our survey of the chief objec- 
 tions urged by the New England divines against the scho- 
 lastic theory. That theory is, however, like the ancient, 
 liable to another objection. It has been remarked, that 
 the ancient theory was marred by the element of decep- 
 tion involved. The Deity was represented as actually 
 deceiving Satan, and thus vanquishing him with his own 
 weapons. Now, though the modern theory has nothing 
 of deception in this gross form, it is infected with a more 
 latent contagion. 
 
 Thus it is affirmed, in the strongest language, that 
 Christ suffered the wrath of God. If so, God must 
 have been really displeased with him. The penalty of 
 the law consists not merely in the outward stroke, but 
 in that living indignation of God which that stroke 
 reveals. But it is conceded that God was not really 
 angry with him. Hence it amounts to this : God in- 
 flicted all the marks and tokens of a displeasure which 
 he did not feel. Thus God is represented as making 
 believe punish, as pretending to be angry, as acting a 
 part contrary to his real feelings. 
 
 Again, the penalty of sin, it is said, is infinite ; there- 
 fore only an infinite Redeemer could make atonement. 
 Christ's satisfaction contains the element of infinitude, 
 " which is the element of value in the case." Yet, in 
 the same breath almost, it is affirmed that the Divine 
 nature cannot suffer. It was alone the human nature 
 which suffered. How, then, does the satisfaction contain 
 the element of infinitude ? 
 
 The insincerity involved in such a mode of speaking 
 as this, its want of genuineness, must strike every one 
 who will reflect candidly upon it. Add to this, that the 
 theory in question obliges us to look at Christ's trial 
 and execution as just, and yet unjust at the same time. 
 The sufferings and death of Christ were a just punish- 
 
ATTACK ON THE SCHOLASTIC THEORY. 33 
 
 ment. It was an eminent exercise of God's immaculate 
 justice. But yet the Gospel narrative is particular to 
 show that his trial was an outrage, — the testimony that 
 of false witnesses, discrepant, irrelevant, the sentence ille- 
 gal, the whole proceeding a mock-trial, destitute even 
 of a fair show of justice. How can the same process 
 be at once the most unjust and cruel mockery that 
 ever happened, and yet the most eminent exhibition 
 of Divine justice ? Is God in league with Satan against 
 the sacred sufferer ? Does Divine justice conspire with 
 the brutal injustice of the Sanhedrim ? How can immac- 
 ulate and heavenly justice be satisfied by a proceeding 
 flagrant in every part with falsehood and cruel wrong ? 
 The idea is too shocking to be dwelt upon. And it is 
 deeply to be deplored, that in these ways the scholastic 
 theory, even more painfully than the ancient, should in- 
 vest the atonement with characteristics deceptive and 
 unreal. 
 
 On the whole, therefore, after surveying the whole 
 ground, it must be conceded that the attack made upon 
 the scholastic theory is logical and unanswerable. Nor 
 can we hesitate to say, with Albert Barnes : " It cannot 
 be ! Men cannot be required to believe it. Its defenders 
 have either no clear idea of what they profess to believe, 
 or use language without any definite signification." 
 
 It may be remarked here, that it is frequently charged 
 upon the New England divinity, that, in rejecting the old 
 theory of atonement, it is on the high road to Socinianism. 
 What gives color to this charge is, that two of the main 
 objections were furnished by Socinus, and are still urged 
 by his followers. Thus, Dr. Channing remarks : " How 
 plain is it that, according to this doctrine, God never 
 forgives ; for it seems absurd to speak of men as for- 
 given, when their whole punishment, or an equivalent 
 to it, is borne by a substitute." 
 
 2* o 
 
34 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Now, when the defenders of the old theory find them- 
 selves assailed with the same objections by the New Eng- 
 land divines and the Socinians, the temptation is strong to 
 confound the two. 
 
 Yielding to this impulse, the Princeton Review asserts 
 that the New England divinity, on this particular point, 
 " has done more to corrupt religion, promote Socinianism, 
 than any other of the vaunted improvements of American 
 theology/' 
 
 But it would be just as logical to call Calvin, and all the 
 Reformers, Socinians, because they and Socinus used the 
 same arguments against some other Catholic doctrines, 
 which they rejected in common. The difference be- 
 tween Socinus and the New England divines is this, — 
 the former demolished the old theory, but put nothing 
 in its place ; while the latter, finding the old theory un- 
 tenable, abandoned it, and constructed a better, which 
 should be, they thought, impregnable. They were like 
 soldiers in an advanced and exposed post attacked by the 
 enemy's artillery. Finding their defences beaten down, 
 they retire to another fortification better situated and capa- 
 ble of being strengthened till it is impregnable. Is that 
 surrender ? Because they admit that the enemy's guns 
 struck their breastwork at every shot, are they disloyal ? 
 Because they abandon the shattered outwork for a posi- 
 tion impregnable, are they in league with the foe ? Now 
 Socinus was the foe. He cannonaded the old theory 
 till it was a ruin. It was a total logical demolition. The 
 New England divines, abandoning the wreck, betook them- 
 selves to another which his guns could not batter down. 
 Therefore, when this church, in common with the churches 
 of .New England, is denounced as unsound, — when Dr. 
 Beman, Dr. Cox, Albert Barnes, and the New England 
 ministry generally, are accused of tendencies to Socini- 
 anism, I earnestly repel the charge. And it will be my 
 
ATTACK ON THE SCHOLASTIC THEORY. 35 
 
 object, in another discourse, to show what that new theory 
 is that was substituted by the New England engineers in 
 place of that dilapidated work that sunk under the enemy's 
 fire. 
 
 I have frequently insisted that a belief in the correct 
 theory of atonement could not be essential to salvation. 
 This position may have seemed strange to some. It is 
 with pleasure, therefore, that I find the same ground 
 taken by the Princeton divines. Even while expressing, 
 in terms stronger, perhaps, than good taste will allow, 
 their condemnation of the New England theory, they 
 confess that its defenders are good men. 
 
 " There is more saving truth," says Dr. Hodge, " in 
 the parings of our doctrine, than in their whole theory. 
 .... Their theory is the most jejune, restricted, mea- 
 gre, and lifeless that has ever been propounded 
 
 It vitiates the essential nature of the atonement, makes 
 it a mere governmental display, a symbolical method of 
 instruction. This is a doctrine which we see not how a 
 man can practically believe, and be a Christian. We do 
 not believe there is truth enough in this theory to sustain 
 the life of religion in any man's heart. We have no 
 idea that Dr. Beman, Dr. Cox, or any good man, really 
 lives by it. The truth, as it is practically embraced and 
 appropriated by the soul, under the influence of the Holy 
 Spirit, is the truth as it is in the Bible, and not as pre- 
 sented in abstract propositions. It is, therefore, very possi- 
 ble for a man to adopt theoretically such an abstract state- 
 ment of Scripture doctrine as really denies its nature and 
 destroys its power, and yet that man may receive the 
 truth for his own salvation as it is revealed in the Bible." 
 
 I give this statement, not as sympathizing in his extreme 
 censure of the New England theory of atonement, but for 
 the sake of the admirable statement with which it closes. 
 The distinguished author was in a measure forced to this 
 
36 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 result. He must either say that all New England, since 
 Edwards's time, was eternally lost, or take the ground that 
 a belief in what he deems the correct theory is not abso- 
 lutely essential to salvation. He chose the latter, and has 
 stated it with great force and perspicuity. 
 
 And if that principle had been always borne in mind, 
 and applied consistently, brotherly love would have es- 
 caped many a wound and the visible Church many a 
 schism. 
 
 Therefore, suffer me, at the risk of some repetition, to 
 say, it is not the philosophy of salvation which effects 
 salvation, it is not the theory of my Redeemer's work 
 that moves me, but my Redeemer ; not the machinery 
 put in motion by his love, but his love itself. Was his 
 love great enough to induce him to invade the gloomy 
 realm of Hades, and crush its adamantine barriers, I 
 love him for a love so great. 
 
 If his love impelled him to sustain Almighty wrath, 
 supposing that to be possible, in my stead, I should love 
 him for the greatness of that love. Or if his love led him 
 to suffer in unknown and mysterious ways, as I find partly 
 described and partly hinted at in the Gospel story, I love 
 him for all that I see and all I can conjecture of that 
 amazing love. 
 
 If my theory compels me to think his sufferings human 
 only and finite, still it was love that impelled him to en- 
 dure what finite nature could. If I am at liberty to think 
 he suffered also Divinely, it is still love that prompts the 
 infinite sacrifice, and, in either case, " I love him because 
 he first loved me." It is not because the necessity was 
 of such or such a nature, but because it was necessity ; 
 not because his death removed the obstacle in this way or 
 that, but because it removed it; — because his love, sincere 
 and devoted, met the emergency with a self-sacrifice ab- 
 solute and unconditional and effectual. This, when I 
 
ATTACK ON THE SCHOLASTIC THEORY. 37 
 
 know the fact, makes me love him, if I am yet capable of 
 loving. This saves the soul, if it be capable of salvation, 
 by awaking it to sentiments of true, honorable, and fer- 
 vent love, and ingenuous regret for the past. 
 
 For if those sorrows were necessary on account of my 
 sins, then my sins inflicted them. If that strange baptism 
 of agony was rendered indispensable by my alienation and 
 hardness of heart, then it was I who platted that crown 
 of thorns, my hand drove the nail, my guilty arm thrust the 
 spear. I did whatever my necessities did ; and if a true, 
 unselfish, honorable sorrow for sin be possible to my soul, 
 it is when I see this, and grieve that I cost him so dear, 
 when I look on him whom I pierced, and mourn for him. 
 
 The story of Calvary is so told as to produce the right 
 impression, and, when accompanied by Divine grace, no 
 heart not reprobate can resist. It softened Africaner's 
 breast, — a man who had spent his life in blood and 
 ferocity, a man incapable of theory, a man unprepared 
 for speculation ; — the sight of Calvary, the story of Christ 
 crucified for him, melted his heart. Far be it from me to 
 say a word unkindly of those to whom the theory of strict 
 satisfaction is dear. I can love them with most ardent 
 fraternal affection, knowing how true and tender is their 
 love to Jesus. But they love him not more truly than 
 did the Fathers, with a theory widely different, than do the 
 New England churches, with still another, or Africaner, 
 with no theory at all. 
 
 O the love of Jesus ! that wonderful thing ! I have 
 seen it conquer even theological enmity, and utterly sub- 
 due its proverbial rancor ! What a sweet, delightful, glo- 
 rious reality ! I can breathe it, as a genuine air of Heaven, 
 when I mix with brethren whose philosophy I disavow, 
 whose theories appear to me the height of paradox. Su- 
 preme over all, distinct from everything else, I can feel 
 the love of a common Lord melting our hearts, and fusing 
 
68 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 them in one ! Such society is inexpressibly dear. We 
 sacrifice not a principle ; we surrender not a doctrine. 
 The lines of system are drawn distinct and clear, and 
 contended for with earnestness. But Jesus stills each 
 heart, and softens every eye, and hushes every tongue. 
 A chastened, subdued air is diffused around, — an air of 
 love. All evil is quelled and overmastered. We have 
 seen Jesus ! Love, like an infinite deep, absorbs us. 
 O with such it is sweet to commune ! We can agree or 
 disagree without pain, because we can pray and sing and 
 adore with full accord. 
 
 If, indeed, we could with angels look into these things, 
 love might be mightier. Far be it from me to undervalue a 
 true and profound and comprehensive theory. It is the 
 wisdom of God as well as the power of God. If we could 
 go on to perfection, searching the deep things of God, 
 love would grow mature, manly, robust. We should 
 take fire. We should burn and glow like the seraphs. 
 Therefore is it that I approach the study of the theory 
 in its higher aspects. I would fain endeavor to lead you, 
 brethren, who already love, nearer into the focal fire. I 
 would, Divine grace assisting, bring you as far as possible 
 on your way to the unveiled sight of God. 
 
 But I cannot forget the babes in Christ, nor the lambs 
 of the flock, just coming toward the fold, nor the timorous 
 and trembling ones, of whom it may be said, " Thou art 
 not far from the kingdom of Heaven." I cannot say to 
 such : I am going up to the Mount of Transfiguration ; — 
 ascend, or perish ! I am about to explore the arcana of the 
 universe, to solve the mystery midway of two eternities ; 
 — achieve the full solution of the theme, or die forever ! 
 God forbid ! To such I say : Behold the Lamb of God. 
 Look at yonder Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. 
 He is your friend. Look at him on that cross. He dies 
 from love to you. Look at him crowned now at the right 
 
ATTACK ON THE SCHOLASTIC THEORY. 39 
 
 hand. He is crowned for you, and carries the same heart 
 towards you he carried in Gethsemane. Are you sick 
 and suffering? He bore that, and bears it still. Are 
 you sensible of the stain sin has sunk deep into you ? He 
 bore that sin on the tree, and bears it in his sympathizing 
 heart to-day. Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and 
 forever. Do you feel sad, depressed, guilty, undone ? 
 Listen ! That infinite heart of love that went down to 
 Calvary is touched with the feeling of your infirmity. 
 He bears you, O believe it ! on his heart, because he loves 
 you. Get but a sight of that fact. Know that he loves 
 you. Be convinced that that ineffable tenderness is rest- 
 ing on you, and you cannot despair. Hope, gratitude, 
 love, must kindle all your soul. And, believing in him, 
 you shall then proceed, just as fast as you are able, to 
 explore the higher truths of that redeeming grace. Love 
 first. Believe and live. And then pray, with all saints, 
 to comprehend the breadth and length and depth and 
 height, and to know the love of God that passeth knowl- 
 edge. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND THEORY. 
 
 " TO DECLARE HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS." — Rom. ill. 25, 26. 
 
 IN this passage we have the best enunciation of the 
 fundamental principle of the New England theory of 
 atonement. The object of setting forth Christ a pro- 
 pitiatory sacrifice is here distinctly stated, — "To declare 
 God's righteousness for the remission of sins ; that God 
 might be just, and yet justify him that believeth." 
 
 The cross was set up to convince the intelligent uni- 
 verse of the spotless righteousness of God in the final 
 issues of punishment and of pardon. Hence, contrasting the 
 two, — the Scholastic and the New England views, — we 
 may say concisely, In the one the cross was a punishment, 
 in the other it is an argument. It is an argument ad- 
 dressed by the Creator to the mind of all finite creatures 
 throughout the universe, good and bad, in all ages. 
 
 In developing this theory, I shall, as in case of the pre- 
 ceding, employ the language of its authors and defenders. 
 Edwards the younger thus states the matter : " That is 
 done by the death of Christ which supports the authority 
 of the law, and renders it consistent with the glory of God 
 and the good of the whole system to pardon the sinner." 
 
 Here observe, that, whenever these writers speak of 
 supporting the authority of the law, they point to an effect 
 on the mind of those subject to law. It is only in the 
 minds of the subjects of law that its honor and authority 
 can be said to be weakened or supported. If subjects 
 lose all fear and reverence, then the law is said to be 
 
NEW ENGLAND THEORY. 41 
 
 weakened ; if they are obedient and conscientious, the law 
 is honored and supported. None of these writers would 
 for a moment intimate that the law itself is arbitrary, de- 
 pendent on the will of God, or capable of being repealed. 
 On the contrary, they regard it as coeternal with God, 
 and as unalterable as the Divine nature itself. Hence, 
 when they speak of weakening or strengthening it, they 
 can only mean weakening or strengthening the creature's 
 respect for it. To honor it, or dishonor it, can only imply 
 to excite respect or disrespect in the creature mind. And 
 all terms of this description are to be thus interpreted. 
 
 " The atonement, then," continues Edwards, " was ne- 
 cessary to support the authority of the Divine law, and the 
 honor, vigor, and even existence of the Divine moral gov- 
 ernment, while sinners are pardoned." " On every hy- 
 pothesis concerning the mode or condition of pardon, it 
 must be allowed that God dispenses pardon from regard 
 to some circumstance, or juncture of circumstances, which 
 renders the pardon both consistent with the general good 
 and subservient to it." 
 
 The language of Smalley is very similar to that of Ed- 
 wards. The object of the atonement, he says, is, " that 
 the honor of the Divine law and government be main- 
 tained, though sinners be pardoned " ; and that the for- 
 giveness of sin " may not bring the eternal law of right- 
 eousness and eternal Lawgiver of the universe into 
 disregard and contempt." 
 
 " God's own glory and the good of the moral creation 
 required that there should be such a law, and that the 
 dignity of it should be supported. A lawless, licentious 
 universe were infinitely worse than none." Forgiveness 
 may be granted to the penitent only " provided it may 
 be done consistently with justice, and without doing hurt, 
 upon the whole." 
 
 " But the letter of a law may possibly be deviated from, 
 
42 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 and yet the spirit of it be supported and the design of it 
 fully obtained. We are told of a certain ancient King 
 Zaleuchus, who .... enacted a law that the adulterer 
 should be punished with the loss of both his eyes. His 
 own son was convicted of the crime. The royal father, 
 .... who could not bear to have one so dear to him de- 
 prived forever of the light of day, devised an expedient to 
 soften, in that one instance, the rigor of his law, and yet 
 not abate its force in future. The king, in a most public 
 manner, before all the people, had one of his own eyes 
 
 plucked out, so that one of his son's might be saved 
 
 By this means the king's inflexible determination to main- 
 tain government and punish transgression was even more 
 strikingly evinced than if he had suffered the law to have 
 its natural course." So " we are to conceive of the re- 
 demption of Christ as an astonishing expedient of infinite 
 wisdom and goodness, that we might be saved, and yet 
 God be just, and his righteous law suffer no dishonor." 
 
 " Atonement," says Maxcy, " implies the necessity of 
 sufferings, merely as a medium through which God's real 
 disposition toward sin should be seen in such a way that 
 an exercise of pardon should not interfere with the dignity 
 of government and the authority of law." 
 
 " Christ's sufferino-s rendered it right and fit, with 
 respect to God's character and the good of the universe, 
 to forgive sin ; it presented the law, the nature of sin, and 
 the displeasure of God against it, in such a light, that no 
 injury would accrue to the moral system, no imputation 
 lie against the righteousness of the great Lawgiver, though 
 
 he should forgive The death of Christ, therefore, is 
 
 to be considered a great, important, and public transaction 
 respecting Grod and the whole system of rational beings." 
 
 Says Dr. Emmons : " His dying .... answered the same 
 purpose that God would have answered by executing the 
 penalty of the law It displayed the same feelings 
 
NEW ENGLAND THEORY. 43 
 
 towards sinners that God would have displayed by pun- 
 ishing the whole human race according to their desert 
 
 God made it manifest that he feels the same hatred of 
 sin and disposition to punish it when he forgives as when 
 he punishes sinners." 
 
 " The truth is, his obedience only prepared him to make 
 atonement ; his blood made it, and atonement did neither 
 satisfy nor merit. It only rendered it consistent for God 
 to show mercy, to be just, and the justifier of all who 
 believe." 
 
 Dr. Griffin says : " The only end is the support of law, 
 by showing God's determination to execute its penalty on 
 transgressors. This was its precise and only end. This 
 answered, it became an expression of amazing wisdom, • 
 benevolence, and mercy." It gave " the Father an op- 
 portunity to prove to the universe that he would execute 
 his law on future transgressors." 
 
 " The whole use, then, of the atonement .... was to 
 show that God was determined to support his holy law by 
 punishing sin." It was "to furnish practical proof" of 
 this. " When that proof was given, .... the Protector 
 of law was satisfied." Again, the atonement was " that 
 which answered the end of punishment, by showing the 
 universe that God would support his law." Its end was 
 " to support law, by convincing the universe that God 
 would punish transgression." The atonement was plainly 
 " an expedient of a moral governor to support the moral 
 law." God had no desire or demand " but for an op- 
 eration upon public law for the benefit of the universe. 
 Nothing could have the least influence to satisfy him but 
 that operation upon public law.'''' 
 
 Mr. Burge observes : " God cannot grant pardon to sin- 
 ners, unless it can be done under such circumstances, and 
 in such a way, as render it consistent with the highest in- 
 terests of the great community." 
 
44 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 If God had pardoned without an atonement, he asks, 
 " would not his character have appeared questionable in 
 view of intelligent beings ? Would he not have given 
 rational creatures reason to conclude, or at least suspect, 
 that he .... was destitute of a disposition to support and 
 vindicate a good law ? .... In this way, then, how could 
 he declare his righteousness ? How could he appear just ? 
 If, then, penalty should be remitted, something else must 
 be done, which would manifest for the law as much re- 
 spect as the complete execution of penalty." 
 
 " Whatever evil God has submitted to on account of 
 his law, must manifest his respect for it. If, then, the 
 sufferings of Christ were really an evil in the sight of God, 
 and he submitted to them on account of his law, then it is 
 evident that they are sufficient to show his respect for 
 his law." 
 
 " This theory," says Dr. Fiske, " places the necessity 
 of atonement in the exigencies of God's moral govern- 
 ment The atonement was necessary in order to vin- 
 dicate and sustain the Divine law, and thus enable God, as 
 a wise and benevolent ruler, to remit the penalty due to sin." 
 
 Mr. Barnes, also, observes : " The sufferings endured by 
 the Redeemer, in the place of the sinner, are fitted to make 
 a deeper impression on the universe at large than would 
 be produced by the punishment of the sinner himself." 
 
 This, briefly sketched, is the view of the New England 
 churches. As it is expressed in the articles of belief of 
 this church, the atonement has simply " opened a way by 
 which pardon and salvation may be consistently offered 
 to our guilty race." The characteristic principle of the 
 theory resides in that word "consistently." Consistently 
 with the Divine perfections and the general good. Indeed, 
 the view is sometimes called the Consistent Theory, in 
 allusion to this constantly recurring word. 
 
 I have said, that, according to this theory, the atone- 
 
NEW ENGLAND THEORY. 45 
 
 ment is an argument, a sublime and irresistible demon- 
 stration. Hence, in the writers quoted, such expressions 
 are habitually employed, as declaring, proving, establish- 
 ing, manifesting, exhibiting, and the like. By it God 
 vindicates, shows, causes to appear. By it, says Dr. 
 Griffin, he " proved to the universe " ; he effected " an 
 operation on public law." And Albert Barnes says 
 that by it God intended to " make a deep impression on 
 the universe at large." Phraseology of this import, of 
 every variety, is used abundantly throughout the dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 God says to his creatures, finite though they be, " Come, 
 let us reason together." He stoops to solicit their verdict 
 of approval upon his administration. He constitutes them 
 his judges, and pleads before their bar in defence of his 
 righteousness, long impugned. So tender is he of the con- 
 science of his creatures ! Such respect does he show to 
 the laws of that finite reason he has made in likeness of 
 his own eternal reason ! So mindful of their integrity ! 
 He will not compel them slavishly to acquit him, to offer 
 fulsome adulation, heartless flattery : their incense must 
 be frankincense most precious, the fire in their censers 
 not strange fire. They must not yield him the attribute 
 of righteousness, unless they can see and feel it to be his ; 
 and that they may so see and feel, how he lifts them 
 up, ennobles, dignifies them ! O how he abases himself, 
 humbles himself, even unto death ! 
 
 In such a view as this there is something that appeals 
 strongly to our better nature. 
 
 From the cross, God appeals to our thoughtful, conscien- 
 tious, and affectionate consideration, and really achieves 
 the infinite task, to make the creature know his Creator, 
 the finite appreciate the infinite, the sinful justify the im- 
 maculate ! 
 
 How infinite the disclosure of the Divine meekness and 
 
46 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 sweet humility ! How astonishing 
 worth and grandeur of the soul ; of the value to the Father 
 of his children made in his likeness, and thought of con- 
 sequence sufficient to be thus treated by him ! 
 
 This theory differs equally from the Scholastic doctrine 
 of forgiveness, on the one hand, and the Socinian, on the 
 other. The Scholastic position is, that forgiveness is wrong, 
 and needs to be made right, — if, indeed, such a thing as 
 forgiveness exists when penalty is never remitted. Hence 
 it would seem to follow, that, if God is disposed to forgive- 
 ness, he is disposed to do wrong, if, indeed, forgiveness be 
 wrong. But this theory teaches that forgiveness is in 
 itself comely and glorious, needing not to be made right. 
 We contemplate forgiveness as the highest and most ador- 
 able perfection of the Divine character. And to eternity, 
 the redeemed will wonder that they have never known 
 what the Almighty had cause to think and feel respect- 
 ing their behavior. The blazing sword of that terrible 
 disclosure remains sheathed in eternal repose. That 
 is wonderful and beauteous to a soul that feels in some 
 degree what God might say and do. Not, indeed, that 
 repentance merits such forbearance, but that it makes 
 it possible to the Divine discretion. It is not a wound to 
 the Divine justice not to punish a penitent, as it would be 
 not to punish an impenitent rebel. The pardon of a peni- 
 tent, in itself considered, hurts not one fibre or filament 
 of immaculate justice. 
 
 Yet such pardon may be abused and perverted by the 
 careless, the presumptuous, and especially the already 
 revolted. Hence it must be guarded and made consistent 
 and safe. Here we draw the line against the Socinian. 
 When the Socinian says that forgiveness is right, and 
 needs not to be made right, New England divines are 
 not afraid to agree with him. Truth must be acknowl- 
 edged, by whomsoever spoken. But when the Socinian 
 
NEW ENGLAND THEORY. 47 
 
 says that forgiveness was also safe and consistent, so that 
 no incarnation and death of the Eternal Word was neces- 
 sary, then we draw the line, and stand in irreconcilable 
 opposition. There was a necessity lying in the conditions 
 and liabilities of the creature universe that rendered such 
 a measure absolutely necessary. With it, redemption was 
 possible ; without it, not. The incarnation and sacrifice 
 of the God-man, therefore, constitute the central measure 
 of the Divine administration. Thus this view is just as 
 distinct from Socinianism on the one side as it is from the 
 Scholastic doctrine on the other. 
 
 A single observation, and I close. Even at this stage of 
 the discussion there are elements of appeal to the believ- 
 ing mind of peculiar delicacy and power. To discover 
 one's self to have been highly valued by one so incon- 
 ceivably great as God is itself a joyful surprise. We are 
 prone to the philosophy that thinks the Almighty too vast 
 to notice or care for such insects as we. But when the 
 disclosure is made to us of his real thoughts on the cross, 
 we find that he has valued us more highly than even his 
 own dignity or immunity from inconvenience and suffer- 
 ing. Again, the consciousness of being appreciated is 
 grateful in the extreme ; the sense of being treated with 
 consideration and delicacy, with profound deference to 
 the principles of our intelligence, yea, with infinite re- 
 spect to our intellectual freedom, our purity, our sincer- 
 ity, so that God would not ask nor accept a praise that 
 was not intelligent, sincere, and free, this is calculated to 
 impart unspeakable delight. It diffuses an atmosphere of 
 goodness and love about the soul as genial and exquisite 
 as the gales of the tropics. 
 
 As the amazing sweetness, generosity, and self-abnega- 
 tion of the Eternal open upon us, we seem to be entering 
 into the cloud, and wonder and transport contend for the 
 mastery. And when it occurs to us that such qualities 
 
48 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 have been lavished upon us during our long period of 
 ungrateful alienation, our hearts are broken, and the foun- 
 tain of our tears opened. May the Eternal Spirit assist 
 us to entertain these conceptions, and rise to their full 
 and habitual reception. O may he cleanse us, that we 
 may come near unto God ! And if there be those hearts 
 here that have never known the softness of penitence, 
 the sweet bitterness of sincere regret, may those hearts 
 be touched by the finger of Divine grace ! O wander- 
 ing ones, O guilty exiles, lost and wretched, listen to the 
 voice of infinite compassion ! Hear the calls of a tender- 
 ness infinite, a Saviour's love, which many waters cannot 
 quench nor floods drown ! Come to Calvary, and adore 
 and love ! Come weep before the cross. There may 
 be mystery there, even as there was darkness over all 
 the land unto the ninth hour. But it is a mystery of 
 love. Kneel in the darkness, and let eternal day dawn 
 in your soul. Let the drops of that blood, priceless 
 above all worlds, fall ]ike balm on your guilty conscience, 
 and seal you the Lord's in the bonds of an eternal 
 covenant. 
 
 " See, from his head, his hands, his feet, 
 
 Sorrow and love flow mingled down ! 
 Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, 
 
 Or thorns compose so rich a crown ? " 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ATTACK ON THE NEW ENGLAND THEORY. 
 
 "Nay but, man, who aet thou that eepliest against God?" — 
 
 Eom. ix. 20. 
 
 THE conception of the Divine Being most natural to 
 minds educated under an absolute government is that 
 of an absolute monarch. Accustomed from the dawn of be- 
 ing to associate ideas of irresponsible authority with royal- 
 ty, they unconsciously transfer a similar despotic character 
 to God. To such minds, the idea of a Deity brought under 
 any obligations to the creature is new, strange, and gener- 
 ally distasteful. But with minds reared under the more 
 genial influences of free government, the instinctive ten- 
 dencies of thought are different. Naturally the mind 
 delights to conceive of God as a constitutional sovereign, 
 bound by the same laws and principles of right with his 
 subjects. Such a mind rejoices to think, with Edwards, 
 that " in God are the essential qualities of a moral agent, 
 .... such as understanding to perceive the difference 
 between moral good and evil, .... and a capability of 
 choosing accordingly." And with Bellamy : " He sees 
 what is right, and infinitely loves it because it is right ; 
 he sees what is wrong, and infinitely hates it, because it is 
 wrong." And to such a mind the absolutist conception 
 of God is repellent. 
 
 Thus there are two grand opposing systems of thought 
 concerning God, the one of which teaches that things are 
 right, because God wills them ; the other, that God wills 
 them, because they are right. 
 
 3 D 
 
50 KEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 From these opposite conceptions all other doctrines 
 receive shape and coloring. The central subject of the 
 atonement especially will be vitally influenced. For, on 
 the absolutist principle, why should God seek to declare 
 his righteousness, if a thing is right simply because he 
 does it ? Its very existence declares it, and what can be 
 the need of an infinite sacrifice for that end ? It is not 
 strange, then, that a conception of the atonement based 
 on the idea of declaring God's righteousness should be 
 unwelcome to those whose philosophy is, that whatever 
 God does is right, because he does it ; not that he does 
 it because it is right. It is natural that such should feel 
 the strongest objections to such a view of the atonement. 
 Some of those objections against the New England theory 
 I have already obviated, as, for example, its alleged So- 
 cinian tendencies. Others remain for present considera- 
 tion. And 
 
 1. It is said that this theory " denies that sin, for its 
 own sake, deserves punishment, and everywhere repre- 
 sents the prevention of crime as the great end to be an- 
 swered by punishment." 
 
 Some may have erred in this way, but not all. It is 
 not necessary to the theory. " God," observes Dr. Fiske, 
 " must hate sin with a double hatred, — hate it on account 
 of its intrinsic hatefulness, and on account of its evil 
 tendencies." The real point made by the theory is, 
 that God is not obliged to express his hatred of sin 
 in the form of punishment. It is not true, then, that 
 the view in question bases punishment on expediency 
 alone. It simply affirms that, although sin intrinsically 
 deserves punishment, yet the forgiveness of the penitent 
 is not in itself wrong. 
 
 2. But it is objected, again, that " this theory is desti- 
 tute of any semblance of support from Scripture." 
 
 But in Romans iii. 25, 26, there seems to be contained 
 
ATTACK ON THE NEW ENGLAND THEORY. 51 
 
 a most explicit enunciation of it. "Him hath God set 
 forth .... to declare his righteousness." The object 
 of Christ's death was to declare the righteousness of God, — 
 to declare it to the universe. God was righteous, and will 
 be, in punishment and in pardon. But his righteousness 
 might be hid ; it might be doubted, disputed, absolutely 
 denied. By the cross he displayed it clearly, removed 
 doubts, obviated disputes, and silenced denial ; in a word, 
 he so declared it as to carry the convictions of the moral 
 universe with him forever. 
 
 Parallel with this is the remarkable assertion, (Hebrews 
 ix. 23,) that it was necessary that the heavens themselves 
 be purified by the blood of Christ ; that is, that all celes- 
 tial intelligences should see God's righteousness fully de- 
 clared to them, — their minds be purged from ignorance or 
 doubt. So, indirectly, Ephesians hi. 10, where the object 
 of the mediatorial creation is distinctly said to be, " To 
 make known to principalities and powers the manifold 
 wisdom of God " ; — righteousness being virtually included 
 in that manifold wisdom, because nothing unrighteous can 
 be really wise. 
 
 It will be easy hereafter to show that there is more than 
 a semblance of support for this view, and that, on the 
 contrary, it expands and deepens, and becomes the central, 
 main channel of Scripture representation. 
 
 But, continues the objector, this theory " hardly pur- 
 ports to be anything more than a hypothesis on which, to 
 reconcile what the Bible teaches with our ideas of a moral 
 government ; it is a device to make the atonement ra- 
 tional, to explain away the mystery which hangs over it, 
 and make the whole august transaction perfectly intelligi- 
 ble." But to this we reply, that if we are to have any 
 theory at all, it must be either rational or irrational. 
 Some theory we must have. By the very definition of 
 the term it is impossible to have a theory which is neither 
 
52 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 rational nor irrational. It must either embrace all the 
 facts, and philosophically account for them, or the reverse. 
 In the one case, it is rational ; in the other, it is irrational. 
 Does the reviewer mean to imply that his own theory is 
 " a device to make the atonement" irrational? 
 
 Now we frankly concede that the New England mind 
 asks for a theory of atonement which, if not absolutely 
 divested of mystery, shall at least be, on the whole, 
 rational and reconcilable with the principles of moral gov- 
 ernment. By the cross God seeks to declare his right- 
 eousness to us, and we very properly seek to understand 
 that declaration. He makes it the central measure of his 
 administration, the highest disclosure of the principles of 
 his moral government to rational creatures. We accept 
 it as such, and cannot permit an irrational theory to usurp 
 its place, nor one diametrically opposed to the principles 
 of moral government. 
 
 3. There is another objection, the most important of 
 any yet urged. It is this. If this be allowed to be the 
 object of the atonement, to declare God's righteousness, 
 still the New England theory fails to explain how the 
 death of Christ shows or declares anything of the kind. 
 
 Says Dr. Hodge : " The atonement is an exhibition of 
 God's purpose to maintain law and inflict penalty, and 
 thus operate as a motive and restraint upon all intelligent 
 beings, because it involves the execution of that penalty. It 
 is this that gives it all its power. It would be no exhibi- 
 tion of justice, if it were not an exercise of justice. It 
 would not teach that the penalty of law must be inflicted, 
 unless it was inflicted." 
 
 Here the reviewer skilfully assails the advocates of the 
 new theory with their own weapons. They have argued 
 against the old theory, that punishment by proxy is impos- 
 sible, that sufferings inflicted upon an innocent substi- 
 tute are not the penalty which the law threatened; in 
 
ATTACK ON THE NEW ENGLAND THEORY. 53 
 
 short, that they do not constitute an exercise of justice at 
 all. Td be an exercise of justice, they must be inflicted 
 upon the identical offender, and not upon his substitute. 
 
 This same inexorable logic the reviewer now retorts 
 upon his assailants. If vicarious sufferings are not an 
 exercise of justice, how are they an exhibition of it ? If 
 they are not punishment, how do they indicate God will 
 punish? If they are not an execution of law's penalty, 
 how do they prove God will execute law ? Does the 
 not doing what the law threatens, and doing the exact 
 opposite, show respect for the law ? How does it show 
 it? or, rather, how does it not show the contrary? To 
 these questions it is difficult for the advocates of the New 
 England theory, at least at the present stage of develop- 
 ment of that theory, to offer any conclusive answer. This 
 objection was urged by Dr. Hodge, in a review of a little 
 treatise on the atonement by Dr. Beman, twenty or twen- 
 ty-five years ago ; but in vain have I searched the writings 
 of the other side for a reply. Hence it behooves us to 
 weigh the matter well. As candid men, we must allow 
 to every argument all its real weight. Let us, then, ask, 
 Does the infliction of suffering on Christ, which is yet not 
 punishment, not the penalty of the law, show God's deter- 
 mination to punish? Does it show respect for the law, 
 or does it, as Dr. Baird affirms, 1 " constitute a signal 
 proclamation of the dethroning of the law, and the pros- 
 tration of its honor in the dust" ? 
 
 Mr. Burge says : " Whatever evil God has submitted 
 to on account of his law must manifest his respect for the 
 law. If, then, the sufferings of Christ were really an evil 
 in the sight of God, and he submitted to them on account 
 of his law, then it is evident that they are sufficient to 
 show his respect for the law." 
 
 But to this it may be answered, that God did not 
 1 Elohim Kevealed, p. 264. 
 
54 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 really submit to any evil, because this writer, and all the 
 others on the same side, with one voice declare that God 
 cannot suffer. He is infinitely impassible. To speak, 
 then, of his submitting to an evil seems like a species of 
 verbal dishonesty, a rhetorical trick ; there is no genuine 
 reality in it. Therefore, such an argument ought to be 
 laid aside by these writers. Nor, even if God could, 
 and actually did, submit to evil, would it show respect 
 for law, unless that evil was necessary by law. How can 
 the enduring of unnecessary evil show respect to law ? 
 We all see that, when the heathen cut and burn and 
 torture their bodies in their religious rites, that suf- 
 fering shows no respect to God. Why? Because God 
 does not require it. If God required of the papist fastings 
 and sackcloth and scourgings and penances of every kind, 
 they would show respect to God ; but as it is, they show 
 nothing of the kind. So if the law really demanded the 
 suffering of Christ, as a part of its penalty, then the penal 
 infliction would show respect for the law ; but not other- 
 wise. 
 
 I am aware that it might be said, that, though not neces- 
 sary as a penalty, they might be necessary to support the 
 law. There is more than one kind of necessity, it might 
 be said. The sufferings of Christ might be indirectly 
 necessary to maintain law, though not directly called for 
 by the law as penalty. The fault with this reasoning, 
 however, is, that it is reasoning in a circle. Thus, why 
 do the sufferings of Christ support the law? Because, it 
 is said, they were absolutely necessary. But why were 
 they absolutely necessary ? Answer, In order to support 
 the law. In a word, the sufferings of Christ were neces- 
 sary, because they support the law ; and they support 
 the law, because they were necessary. This is plainly 
 absurd. 
 
 If, then, we examine the usual illustrations employed 
 
ATTACK ON THE NEW ENGLAND THEORY. 55 
 
 in support of this idea, we shall find something preca- 
 rious about them. Take the favorite instance of Za- 
 leuchus. The law threatened the criminal with the 
 loss of both his eyes. The lawgiver spared one of the 
 criminal's eyes, and put out one of his own. Thus, it is 
 said, he showed respect for the law, even more than if he 
 had literally executed it. But is that true ? Would any 
 but abject Oriental slaves reason so ? There is a test in- 
 fallible. There is one way of showing respect for law that 
 never fails, and that is by its execution, — by not swerv- 
 ing through parental feeling or partiality of any kind. 
 It is related that, in the reign of Louis XV. of France, 
 a prince of the blood royal committed robbery and murder 
 in the streets of Paris. When on trial before Parliament, 
 the court sent a deputation to his father to secure a pardon 
 for him. 
 
 " My Lords and Councillors," said Louis, " return to 
 your chamber of justice, and promulgate your decree." 
 
 " Consider, Sire," replied the President of the Parlia- 
 ment, " that the unhappy prince has your Majesty's blood 
 in his veins." 
 
 " Yes," said the king, " but that blood has become 
 impure. Justice demands it be shed. Nor will I spare 
 my son for a crime I should condemn in the meanest of 
 my subjects." 
 
 The prince was accordingly executed on the scaffold, 
 August 12, 1729. Is there any doubt in any mind that 
 this did really show respect for law, and strengthen the 
 majesty of justice ? And is it not evident that if a second 
 son had happened to offend, and had been punished, the 
 law would be strengthened still more ? And would not 
 every repetition of the sublime act of justice add to the 
 strength of the statute ? 
 
 Every one sees that it would. But how would repe- 
 tition operate in the case of Zaleuchus ? Suppose, the 
 
56 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 second time a son offended, the queen had consented to 
 lose one eye for his sake ; the third time, an uncle or some 
 noble, and so on. Is it not plain that each time the law 
 was thus dealt with it would be weakened, and that finally 
 it would be nullified entirely ? Does any one suppose 
 that Zaleuchus showed respect for law as much as Louis 
 XV. did? Is there not a radical difference of tendency 
 in the two cases ? 
 
 But how can a thing that really strengthens law weaken 
 it by repetition ? It is not so with actual execution of 
 penalty. How can it be so in the other case ? Is it not 
 plain that there is no real respect shown for law ? that 
 there is nothing genuine in it? that the father preferred 
 the pain of losing an eye to the greater pain of losing a 
 son, and chose the less of two pains ? And did he not 
 thus barter the law for a diminution of his own pain ? and 
 was it not personal and selfish ? 
 
 Let us think what a subject of the two monarchs might 
 say. " See," exclaims the Parisian, "we are safe : if the 
 king would not pardon his own son, he would not pardon 
 anybody ; therefore let all robbers and murderers beware." 
 The whole of Paris, the whole of France, would feel 
 firmer and stronger after the king's noble act. 
 
 " But," exclaims one of Zaleuchus's subjects, after wit- 
 nessing the tragedy. " See, neighbors, the advantage of 
 being made of finer clay, and having royal blood in one's 
 veins. If one of us had committed that crime, think you 
 his Majesty would have given an eye for us ? No, no, it 
 is only because it is his own flesh and blood ; it hurts him 
 less to do this than to do just what the law said, and there- 
 fore he does it. His Majesty is willing to pay an eye 
 for the privilege of breaking the law ! " 
 
 Does any one say that, nevertheless, it would deter 
 from crime, because the Locrians would argue, that, though 
 he spared his son, he would not them ? I reply, so might 
 
ATTACK ON THE NEW ENGLAND THEORY. 57 
 
 the Parisians have argued, if Louis XV. had pardoned 
 his son. They might have said, he pardons his own flesh 
 and blood, but it does not follow that he will pardon us. 
 
 But how vastly different, how much lower down, is this 
 than what they actually had to say. 
 
 The king by punishing his son has made it absolutely 
 certain and clear as day that he will pardon no less crimi- 
 nals. But this the Locrians could not say ; therefore there 
 was a letting down of justice, and a weakening of it, and 
 that was why the experiment would not bear to be re- 
 peated. 
 
 But, it may be asked, was there not some conservative 
 tendency in Zaleuchus's act ? I reply, not as a question of 
 justice, but only as a matter of feeling. If he could suc- 
 ceed in exciting his subjects' sympathy for him in his 
 parental distress, they might forgive him for once in such 
 a letting down of justice. But that is all. 
 
 Therefore the instance is unsound, the illustration breaks 
 down, and the objection of the old divinity remains. 
 
 Suffering inflicted on an innocent person, which the law 
 does not demand, does not show respect for law, nor sup- 
 port it. 
 
 But, it may be said, are we to abandon the New England 
 theory as well as the old Scholastic ? If this objection is 
 conceded valid, is it not fatal to the theory ? Does it not 
 overthrow it from the foundation ? 
 
 To this I reply in the negative. There are two parts 
 or propositions included in the theory ; this objection lies 
 against one, not both. These two propositions are, — 1. 
 The atonement is a declaration or demonstration of God's 
 righteousness. 2. It demonstrates that righteousness, by 
 showing his determination to punish, and thus supporting 
 the law. It is only the latter proposition against which the 
 objection lies. It still remains true that the atonement 
 is a declaration or demonstration of God's righteousness, 
 
58 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 though it be false that it is in the particular way of show- 
 ing his disposition to punish. It is in some other way than 
 this. And just here the theory is immature and incom- 
 plete. Just here it needs to be further worked out. The 
 fundamental principle of the system, however, still stands 
 without damage from objections. 
 
 God set forth Jesus a propitiation to declare his right- 
 eousness. How did it declare that righteousness ? Not 
 in the particular way specified, but in some other. Can 
 that other be pointed out, and if so, what was it ? We 
 answer, that it can, and to point it out will be the main 
 object of our subsequent investigations. 
 
 Meanwhile, it may perhaps occur to some as an objection, 
 that the course of the discussion is extensive, and the mas- 
 tery of the subject tasking to the mind. 
 
 This would be an objection, if this doctrine as a scien- 
 tific theory were necessary to salvation. If its place were 
 among the first or elementary truths, — the milk for 
 babes, — if, in short, without a correct theory of atone- 
 ment the soul must perish, — in that case it would be a 
 grave objection to find a discussion so wide, so profound, 
 and so high-soaring. But it is otherwise when we reflect 
 that this is one of the higher truths of the system ; a part 
 of the strong meat of the Word ; and that Christians of 
 full age should feed on that strong meat and go on unto 
 perfection. Howbeit, says the Apostle, in malice be ye 
 children, but in understanding be men. 
 
 The Christian must not shrink from themes requiring 
 patient, long-continued, and tasking thought. The higher 
 truths of Christ's kingdom must be high indeed. They 
 must demand not only intellect and patience and discipline, 
 but earnest prayer and the aid of God's Spirit. If a theory 
 of atonement did not require these things, it would be an 
 objection fatal against it. It is the central problem of 
 God's administration. It is the wisdom of God and the 
 
ATTACK ON THE NEW ENGLAND THEORY. 59 
 
 power of God. Its scope is from before the foundation of 
 the world, till after the heaven and earth have passed away. 
 It concerns not man only, but the whole created universe | 
 and not the created universe only, but the Creator. It 
 declares his righteousness in that mighty rebellion that 
 has for ages divided his empire. " And now," says 
 Dr. Griffin, "if any are unwilling to harness themselves 
 for a conflict with indolence, and to bring their minds up 
 to patient and elevated thought, let them close the book 
 here. But if they have entered into the feelings of 
 Heaven, and caught a desire to search into a subject 
 which a thousand ages of study will not exhaust, let them 
 offer a humble prayer and then begin." 
 
 Let us breathe together the prayer of one who burned 
 and glowed in these sublime investigations : " That God 
 would grant us according to the riches of his glory to be 
 strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man ; 
 that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, that we, being 
 rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend 
 with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth 
 and height, and to .know the love of Christ that passeth 
 knowledge ; that we may be filled with all the fulness of 
 God." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CROSS TO DESTROY SATAN. 
 
 " He also himself likewise took part of the same ; that through 
 death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that 
 is, the DitViL." — Heb. ii. 14. 
 
 AFTER exhibiting, in the language of their defenders, 
 the two theories of atonement that divide the mod- 
 ern world, — after hearing the old pronounce the new " the 
 most jejune, meagre, and barren ever proposed," and the 
 new retort that the old is " impossible, and that man can- 
 not be required to believe it," — we are reminded of the 
 existence of an ancient theory ignored by both, and the 
 thought suggests itself, — perhaps it is by receding so far 
 from the ancient Church that the modern has fallen into 
 this condition of helpless discord and paralysis. The ele- 
 ment of truth in the ancient theory, we have already 
 remarked, lay in the prominence it assigned to those 
 passages of the Bible connecting the death of Christ with 
 the destruction of Satan, as its end. I propose to show 
 how prominent this conception really is in the Bible. 
 
 It is not surprising the ancient Church should have 
 taken such a passage as that at the head of this chap- 
 ter for their starting-point. The matter of astonishment 
 is, that the modern Church should coolly develop a theory 
 as much without this passage as though it had been ex- 
 punged from the Bible. Look, for a moment, at the 
 verse ; see how plain, how direct, how to the point. Why 
 was the Word made flesh ? In order to die. Why was it 
 necessary for Him to die ? In order that through death 
 
 
THE CROSS TO DESTROY SATAN. ui 
 
 he might destroy the Devil. And why aim to destroy 
 the Devil ? In order to liberate those subject to bondage. 
 Now it matters not how imperfect our knowledge may 
 be how the Devil had the power of death, and how the 
 death of Christ could destroy him : it is impossible for lan- 
 guage to state the fact itself more plainly than it is here 
 stated. 
 
 Equally explicit is the statement, Rev. xii. 11, " And 
 they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb." That 
 is, Satan, as mentioned in the verse preceding. He ac- 
 cused them before the throne of God, and " they over- 
 came him by the blood of the Lamb." That is, overcame 
 him in that trial before the throne of God, overcame him 
 in the matter of that criminal accusation. It was the 
 death of Christ that defeated Satan, and so delivered 
 them. 
 
 A third testimony is contained in 1 John iii. 8 : " For 
 this cause was the Son of God manifested, that he might 
 destroy the works of the Devil." This is by the same au- 
 thor with the preceding. Its meaning is the same. To 
 destroy the Devil, and to destroy the works of the Devil, 
 are substantially the same. The Son of God was mani- 
 fested to do this. This was the object of his incarnation. 
 Of course his death is implied, as in the other passages. 
 It was the comprehensive object, not only of his death, 
 but of his whole humiliation. 
 
 Another great testimony is in Genesis iii. 15 : "I 
 will put enmity between thee and the woman, and be- 
 tween thy seed and her seed. He shall bruise thy head, 
 and thou shalt bruise his heel." 
 
 The bruising of the heel was when, through the influ- 
 ence of Satan, Christ was betrayed and crucified. The 
 bruising of the head of the serpent is still future, when 
 the object of the mediatorial system is fully accomplished. 
 It does not expressly say that the bruising of the head 
 
62 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 shall be a consequence of the bruising of the heel, but 
 it implies it by suggestion. The next thing presented 
 to the mind, after the idea of a biting of the heel by a ser- 
 pent, is the deadly crushing of that serpent's head by the 
 heel he has wounded. 
 
 An implication of this kind in symbols so full of mean- 
 ing is a prophecy of the strongest kind. Hence, the 
 Church has always regarded this passage as the germ of all 
 prophecy and all promise. 
 
 The hostile action and reaction of Christ and Satan is 
 here indicated to form the subject of the grand epic of 
 human history. Satan shall inflict excruciating agony 
 upon Christ, but only in proportion as the bruising of a 
 heel to the whole body ; Christ, however, shall inflict 
 upon Satan a destruction so complete, as to be properly 
 denoted by nothing less than the crushing of the head. 
 
 At the same time, to show that this was the means of 
 human deliverance, Adam and Eve are clothed with coats 
 of skins, denoting justification through Christ. Thus, over 
 the threshold of human history God seems to say, in vivid 
 emblems set up before the eyes of all generations, '■' The 
 object for which this world is fitted up and human history 
 begun is to bruise the serpent's head by the very heel 
 that head has wounded, and so provide a spotless robe of 
 righteousness for naked and guilty man." 
 
 Let us, then, examine the personal career of Christ, 
 and see what his estimate was of his relations to the 
 great Apostate. 
 
 The first thing after his baptism and recognition as 
 Son of God, he is driven of the spirit into the wilderness 
 to be tempted of the Devil. Here, at last, we see the 
 seed of the woman 'placed within reach of the serpent; 
 and that this was no superficial ordeal we may judge 
 from the forty days' fast, and from the nature of the 
 temptations. 
 
THE CEOSS TO DESTROY SATAN. 63 
 
 In the second year of his ministry, he is accused by the 
 rulers of performing miracles by Satanic agency ; to which 
 he replies, that his object is first to bind the strong man, 
 and then to spoil his goods ; showing his clear conscious- 
 ness that the defeat of Satan was the foremost object to be 
 accomplished. Further on (1 John viii. 44), he retorts the 
 charge upon his assailants, declaring that they are of their 
 father, the Devil, and giving a vivid portrait of his real 
 character. " He was a murderer from the beginning, and 
 abode not in the truth ; when he speaketh a lie, he speak- 
 eth of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it." In 
 him and his personal history lies the true origin of evil, so 
 much disputed. Lies are of his own, born of his mind. 
 Thus Jesus develops a profound knowledge of the being, 
 history, and character of him he had to overcome. 
 
 In the parable of the sower, he attributes to him the 
 catching away out of men's minds the seeds of truth, lest 
 they should be saved. In the parable of the tares, he 
 says, The field is the world ; the good seed, the children 
 of the kingdom ; he that sowed them, the Son of Man. 
 The tares, the children of the Wicked One ; the enemy 
 that sowed them, the Devil. Thus Christ reduces all 
 history to a simple theory of counter agency between 
 himself and his enemy. The field is the world, and the 
 sowing is through all ages from the beginning. 
 
 In our Lord's prayer, he inserts a petition literally ren- 
 dered, " Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from 
 the Evil One." When the disciples rejoiced because 
 demons were subject to them, he said, " I saw Satan as 
 lightning falling from heaven." An evident allusion to 
 Isaiah's words, " How art thou fallen, &c, O Lucifer, 
 Son of the Morning ! " In saying I saw him falling, he 
 means the same as I foresaw, — saw in the future, — a 
 common way of speaking with the prophets. As if he 
 said, This is to be the end of my conflict. Satan will 
 certainly fall like lightning from heaven. 
 
64 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 In John xvi. 11 he says, the Holy Spirit shall convince 
 the world of judgment, because the prince of this world is 
 judged. As much as to say, that, when Satan is judged, 
 the world will be judged. That agency of the Holy Spirit 
 purchased by Christ's death, which judges him, will be 
 the judgment of the world. Could anything more signifi- 
 cant be conceived ? 
 
 When Christ was betrayed, it says of Judas, " Satan put 
 it into his heart," and again, " Satan entered into him." 
 Hence, when the band led by Judas came to seize him, 
 he says to Peter, " Thinkest thou that I cannot now 
 pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more 
 than twelve legions of angels ? But how, then, shall the 
 Scripture be fulfilled, that thus it must be ? " In the 
 agony in the garden and on the cross, this, as the ancient 
 Church imperfectly conceived, was one source of his 
 sufferings, namely, the power of darkness. The twenty- 
 second Psalm is unquestionably prophetic and descriptive 
 of his dreadful mental agonies. 
 
 Such is the bruising of the heel. The whole humili- 
 ation of Christ, including that signified by the words of the 
 Creed, " He descended into Hades," is a fulfilment of 
 Genesis hi. 15 : " Thou shalt bruise his heel." The 
 retaliatory bruising of the serpent's head is exhibited in 
 the Apocalypse. The serpent, after various scenes, is 
 finally cast into the lake of fire, and " He that sat upon 
 the throne saith, Behold, I make all things new." 
 
 Thus we see that this is the plot of the whole Bible. 
 We begin in Eden, with a certain enmity between two 
 seeds foretold and initiated ; we conclude in the New Jeru- 
 salem, with that enmity satiated, in the utter destruction 
 of the one by the other, and the regeneration of the uni- 
 verse in consequence. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AZAZEL. 
 "One lot for Jehovah, and one lot foe Azazel." — Lev. xvi. 8. 
 
 IN the sacrifices of the great day of atonement all the 
 scattered rays of typical light are collected and concen- 
 trated in a focus of singular intensity of illumination. 
 
 In the Epistle to the Hebrews the lens is so adjusted as 
 to cast that burning focus upon Christ. The tabernacle, 
 itself, we are told, " was a type for the time then present " ; 
 all its fixtures, " copies of things in the heavens," its 
 priests " served unto the example and shadow of heavenly 
 things " ; the holy of holies was a type of heaven itself, 
 the annual entrance into it of the high-priest, with blood 
 of victims, prefigured the entrance of Christ into heaven, 
 " to appear in the presence of God for us." 
 
 As the high-priest laid aside his gorgeous pontifical 
 robes, and officiated in the white linen dress of a common 
 priest, so Christ emptied himself, and took the form of a 
 servant, and offered sacrifice, himself the priest, himself 
 the victim. As the high-priest, after going into the holy 
 of holies with blood, finally came forth to the waiting 
 congregation in full pontifical robes, so " unto them that 
 look for him, Christ shall appear a second time," in all 
 the splendors of his eternal kingdom and glory. 
 
 Thus far we follow closely in the track of inspired inter- 
 pretation of emblems. There are, however, emblems in 
 the ceremonial of the great day of atonement which the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews does not interpret. 
 
 We refer, in particular, to the two goats on which lots 
 
00 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 were cast, — one for Jehovah, the other for Azazel, — the 
 former being slain, and its blood sprinkled in the holy of 
 holies, the latter being let go alive in the wilderness. 
 We are left to determine the meaning of these symbols as 
 we best can, according to the laws of analogy. 
 
 It is generally admitted, that the goat let loose and the 
 goat which was slain are one and the same symbol,- — a 
 double symbol of the same person, Christ. 
 
 Two goats were to be presented before the Lord by the 
 high-priest. They must be exactly alike in value, size, 
 age, color, — they must be counterparts. Placing these 
 goats before him, the high-priest put both hands into an 
 urn containing two golden lots, and drew them out, one 
 in each hand. On the one was engraved La-Yehovah 
 (for Jehovah), on the other, La- Azazel (for Azazel). 
 
 The goat on which the lot La-Yehovah fell was slain. 
 After its blood had been sprinkled in the holy of holies, 
 the high-priest laid his hands on the head of the second 
 goat, confessed the sins of the congregation, and gave him 
 to a fit man to lead away and let go in the wilderness ; 
 the man thus employed being obliged to wash his clothes 
 and person before, re turning to the congregation. 
 
 That Christ is represented by both goats is the common 
 opinion. As Matthew Henry says : " Christ was prefig- 
 ured by the two goats, which both made one offering." 
 The point on which opinions differ is in regard to the 
 meaning of the word Azazel, and the sending away of the 
 second goat. Three opinions have been maintained. 
 
 The first opinion regards Azazel as the name of a moun- 
 tain or precipice from which the goat was to be thrown. 
 This opinion, however, has few supporters, since no such 
 mountain existed, and it seems clear, from the record, 
 that the goat must be let go alive. 
 
 A second opinion is, that Azazel is the name of the goat 
 itself, meaning escape-goat. Our English translators give 
 
AZAZEL. 67 
 
 this in the text, but place the word Azazel in the margin, 
 as was their custom in cases where they were in some 
 uncertainty. Against this opinion the following objections 
 may be urged : — 
 
 Azazel is an uncommon word, found nowhere else in the 
 Bible. There was a familiar expression for scape-goat, 
 namely, Sheir Meshullah ; and it is improbable Moses 
 would have left a term familiar for one entirely strange. 
 
 This meaning, also, is embarrassed by grammatical diffi- 
 culties. The root from which the word goat must be 
 taken in composing scape-goat happens to be feminine, 
 making it the escape-she-goat. Again, the use of the 
 prepositions is such that, if rendered literally, they would 
 make the goat to be sent away to itself. Thus, " The goat 
 on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be .... to let him go 
 to Azazel." Hence many of the best Hebrew scholars, 
 such as Witsius, Gesenius, Robinson, Spencer, Stowe, 
 Faber, Hengstenberg, have rejected this meaning. 
 
 The third opinion is, that Azazel is a proper name 
 of Satan. In support of this, the following points are 
 urged : — 
 
 The use of the preposition implies it. The same prepo- 
 sition is used on both lots, La-Yehovah, La- Azazel, and 
 if the one indicates a person, it seems natural the other 
 should. Especially, considering the act of casting lots; 
 If one is for Jehovah, the other would seem for some 
 other person or being ; not one for Jehovah, and the othefc 
 for the goat itself. 
 
 What goes to confirm this is, that the most ancient 
 paraphrases and translations treat Azazel as a proper 
 name. The Chaldee paraphrase and the targums of 
 Onkelos and Jonathan would certainly have translated it 
 if it was not a proper name, but they do not. The Septu- 
 agint, or oldest Greek version, renders it by a7ro7ro//,7rato<?, 
 a word applied by the Greeks to a malign deity, some- 
 times appeased by sacrifices. 
 
68 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Another confirmation is found in the Book of Enoch, 
 where the name Azalzel, evidently a corruption of Azazel, 
 is given to one of the fallen angels, thus plainly showing 
 what was the prevalent understanding of the Jews at that 
 day. 
 
 Still another evidence is found in the Arabic, where 
 Azazel is employed as the name of the Evil Spirit. 
 
 In addition to these, we have the evidence of the Jew- 
 ish work Zohar, and of the Cabalistic and Rabbinical 
 writers. They tell us that the following proverb was 
 current among the Jews : " On the day of atonement, 
 a gift to Sammael." Hence Moses Gerundinensis feels 
 called to say that it is not a sacrifice, but only done 
 because commanded by God. 
 
 Another step in the evidence is when we find this same 
 opinion passing from the Jewish to the early Christian 
 Church. Origen was the most learned of the Fathers, 
 and on such a point as this, the meaning of a Hebrew 
 word, his testimony is reliable. Says Origen : " He who 
 is called in the Septuagint aTroTrofATrcuos, and in the He- 
 brew Azazel, is no other than the Devil." 
 
 Lastly, a circumstance is mentioned of the Emperor 
 Julian, the apostate, that confirms the argument. He 
 brought, as an objection against the Bible, that Moses 
 commanded a sacrifice to the Evil Spirit. An objection 
 he never could have thought of, had not Azazel been 
 generally regarded as a proper name. 
 
 In view, then, of the difficulties attending any other 
 meaning, and the accumulated evidence in favor of this, 
 Hengstenberg affirms, with great confidence, that Azazel 
 cannot be anything else but another name for Satan. 
 
 If it should be objected that God would not sanction a 
 sacrifice to Satan, even in appearance, and that therefore 
 this view cannot be true, we reply, that it is not neces- 
 sary to regard the goat as a sacrifice to Azazel ; and that 
 
AZAZEL. 69 
 
 there is not even an appearance of it, but a studied 
 prohibition. 
 
 A sacrifice, as has been well shown by the English au- 
 thor Outram, implies the taking of life. His words are : 
 " Offerings which were put to death, divided, consumed, 
 
 were sacrifices in the vocabulary of the Jews This 
 
 would exclude certain things sometimes called sacrifices; 
 for example, the bird used in cleansing the leper, the 
 scape -goat, &c." 
 
 Hence, not only was there no sacrifice, but there was 
 a studied negation of the idea. It is known that the 
 Egyptians offered such sacrifices to the Evil One, under 
 the name of Typhon, and that the practice was almost 
 universal. Now, by sacrificing the first goat to Jehovah, 
 and letting the second go alive, and both by casting lots, 
 i. e. an appeal to God, there was a direct contradiction 
 of the Gentile practice. It said, virtually, this sacrifice is 
 to God alone, and not at all to Satan. There is a relation 
 to Satan, but not a sacrifical one. Hence, in the next 
 chapter, it says, " And they shall no more offer their 
 sacrifices unto demons." 
 
 To this rite, then, we may attribute the disappearance 
 of all sacrifices to evil deities, as such, forever after in 
 Israel. They, indeed, worshipped idols, but always under 
 the theory of their representing the good, not the evil 
 power. 
 
 It remains, then, to ask, what is the meaning symbol- 
 ized, if this be the true view ? It is generally agreed that 
 the second goat represented Christ, bearing the sins of the 
 world. But what was denoted by sending him into the 
 wilderness ? 
 
 Matthew Henry says : " The slain goat was a type of 
 Christ dying for our sins, the scape-goat, a type of Christ 
 rising again for our resurrection." But he forgets that 
 the goat was so unclean that its touch rendered the man 
 
70 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 by whom it was sent unclean, and necessitated a thorough 
 washing. Was Christ unclean in his resurrection ? It 
 is said, 1 Timothy hi. 16, that he was "justified in the 
 Spirit"; and Romans iv. 25, "He was delivered for our 
 offences, but raised for our justification." Purity is the 
 grand idea associated with Christ's resurrection, and there- 
 fore such a view of the type is manifestly impossible. 
 
 Others attempt an explanation by saying the scape-goat 
 " signifies the cleansing influence of faith in the sacrifice 
 of Christ " ; that is, represents Christ as carrying be- 
 lievers' sins away from them, out of sight forever. 
 
 But the difficulty with this is, that it represents Christ 
 himself as hidden from sight forever, just as much as their 
 sins ; one is inseparable from the other. And it would 
 resolve itself into this, that the only method in which 
 believers can part with their sins, is by at the same time 
 parting with Christ forever. 
 
 Thus, the theory which makes Azazel a name of the 
 scape-goat labors here, and is reduced to extremities. 
 Compare, then, the other, and the interpretation it enables 
 us to give. What is meant by Azazel, considered as a 
 name of Satan, and what is the typical import of send- 
 ing the goat to him ? 
 
 The meaning of the term, viewed as a proper name, 
 was stated, in 1677, by Spencer, Dean of Ely, to be 
 Powerful Apostate, or Mighty Receder. The import 
 of the transaction is thus stated by Faber, following 
 Witsius : — 
 
 " At the very commencement of the Bible it was fore- 
 told that, although the promised seed of the woman shall 
 finally bruise the head of the serpent, yet the serpent 
 should iirst bruise his heel, or mortal part. If, then, the 
 serpent was to bruise his mortal part, that mortal part 
 must needs be delivered over to the power of the serpent ; 
 for of himself he could possess no superiority, even during 
 
AZAZEL. 71 
 
 a single moment. Hence it will follow that Satan, bent 
 only on satiating his own malice, and unconscious that he 
 was actually subserving the Divine purposes of mercy, 
 was the agent who, through his earthly tools, effected 
 the death of Messiah. 
 
 " Such being the Scriptural character of our Lord, it is 
 evident that no single type can perfectly exhibit it in both 
 its parts. The various bloody sacrifices of the law pre- 
 figured it in one part, namely, that which respected the 
 atonement made with God for the sins of men ; but they 
 spoke nothing concerning its other part, namely, that 
 which related to the delivering up Messiah to the Ser- 
 pent, with the permissive power of bruising his mortal 
 frame. 
 
 " On this same part they were silent, and if it were at 
 all to be shadowed out under the ceremonial law, such 
 a purpose could only be effected by the introduction of 
 a new type, connected, indeed, with the usual sacrificial 
 type, but kept, nevertheless, studiously distinct from it. 
 A double type, in short, must be employed, if the char- 
 acter of Christ, under its twofold aspect, was to be com- 
 pletely prefigured. 
 
 " Now, the two goats, which are jointly denominated 
 a sin-offering, constitute a type of this identical descrip- 
 tion. The two together present us with a perfect 
 symbolical delineation of our Lord's official character, 
 while he was accomplishing the great work of our re- 
 demption. The goat which fell to the lot of Jehovah 
 was devoted as a sin-offering, after the manner of any 
 
 other sin-offering, by being piacularly slain But the 
 
 goat which fell to the lot of Azazel was first imputatively 
 loaded with the sins of the whole people, and was then 
 symbolically given up to the rage of the Evil Spirit, by 
 being turned loose into the wilderness, which was deemed 
 his favorite terrestrial haunt. 
 
72 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 " This second type represented the Messiah, burdened 
 with the transgressions of all mankind, deserted for a 
 season by his Heavenly Father, and delivered unto the 
 hand of the Prince of Darkness, with a full permission 
 granted of mortally bruising his heel, or human nature." 
 
 We have omitted to mention the peculiar theory of 
 Professor Bush, who, regarding Azazel as a proper name 
 of Satan, considers the second goat as symbolizing the 
 Jewish nation, the unbelieving Israel, abandoned to the 
 power of the Devil. 
 
 To us, however, it is plain that the two goats are 
 one ; that they represent one and the same person in 
 different parts of his career ; that the first exhibits the 
 relation of his humiliation to God; that the second ex- 
 hibits the relation of his humiliation to Satan. 
 
 That his humiliation had relations to both, Scripture 
 emphatically teaches. It pleased the Lord to bruise him ; 
 and yet to the Serpent it was said, " Thou shalt bruise 
 his heel " ; and, in Hebrews ii. 14, the object of his 
 incarnation is stated to be, " that through death he might 
 destroy him that had the power of death." 
 
 And here, we observe, there is a meaning in the em- 
 blems that Faber failed to perceive. If the whole humili- 
 ation of Christ was to be typified, that part of it must 
 be typified which lay between death and the resurrection. 
 " Christ's humiliation after death," we are taught, " con- 
 sisted in his being buried, and continuing in the state 
 of the dead, and under the power of death, till the third 
 day, which hath been otherwise expressed in these words, 
 ' He descended into Hades.' " x 
 
 But one goat could only bring the representation of 
 
 Christ's humiliation down to his death. The slain goat 
 
 could not reach that part of the humiliation which lay 
 
 beyond. For that the second goat was necessary, and 
 
 1 Larger Catechism, Q. 50. 
 
AZAZEL. 73 
 
 by going out laden with sin in the wilderness, into a land 
 cut off, or, as the margin reads, a land " of separation," 
 to Azazel, typifies, exactly, Christ entering Hades, the 
 separate state, and coming under " the power of death." 
 
 The only other instance in which this curious double 
 type appears is in the cleansing of a leper, and a house 
 contaminated with leprous contagion ; the leprosy being 
 the most striking image of sin. Two birds were taken ; 
 one was killed in an earthen vessel over running water, 
 the other dipped in the blood of the slain bird, and let go. 
 Thus the bird that flew away was identified with the bird 
 that was slain, and made to perform the part of one dead ; 
 thus typifying Christ after death. The bird flew away 
 into the desert outside the camp, where the goat was 
 let go. 
 
 A more striking image of the departed spirit of one 
 slain can scarcely be conceived than that flitting bird, 
 sprinkled with the blood of its fellow. 
 
 Do any object at finding the idea of Satan so prominent 
 in the focal centre of all sacrificial analogies ? 
 
 Why should it not be prominent, if to destroy him was 
 the very object of Christ's death? "He was God's 
 chosen champion ; ordained to avenge the cause of God, 
 on man's behalf, against the enemy of God and the se- 
 ducer of man. This latter conception of the office and 
 work of Christ is comprehensive of both the others, and 
 in it, accordingly, he was announced in the original threat- 
 ening against the serpent The fulfilment of this 
 
 primeval promise comprehends the entire work of the Son 
 of God." i 
 
 Would it not be strange, if in all the symbols of the 
 sacrificial system there were not a single intimation of 
 the serpent's existence ? and where should we expect 
 to see his baleful shadow, if not here, on the great 
 
 1 Elohim Eevealed, p. 628. 
 4 
 
74 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 day of atonement, when the subjection of the seed of 
 the woman to the serpent's power of death was to be 
 most vividly and minutely portrayed ? 
 
 Is there not a grand rebellion in the universe ? Is 
 there not a great leader of that rebellion ? Is he not the 
 life and soul of that rebellion, which he instigated? Is 
 he not apostate from God? Is he not a receder, or 
 seceder, the prime Secessionist of the skies, and father 
 of all generations of vipers to the end of time ? 
 
 Where, if not in the tableau of the great day of 
 atonement, should the government and the arch-rebel 
 stand face to face, while lots are cast on Christ between 
 them ? Unite the separate indications in due order, and 
 we have the following lesson taught by the emblems of 
 the great day of atonement : — 
 
 A rebellion exists. Lucifer revolts from his allegiance, 
 and makes war on the Divine government. Christ is 
 appointed to put down the rebellion. He makes this 
 world the battle-field. He assumes the form of a servant ; 
 enters the strong man's castle ; resists all his temptations ; 
 suffers death, and descends to Hades ; ascends to Heaven 
 "with his own blood"; employs the facts respecting his 
 own sufferings and death to produce effects upon the 
 mind of the universe ; and returns again in glory to those 
 who love his appearing. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE ANOINTED CHERUB. 
 " Thou akt the Anointed Cheeub." — Ezek. xxviii. 14. 
 
 IN this address to the king of Tyre are several expres- 
 sions too high for a merely mortal sovereign. Hence 
 the impression has extensively prevailed that the Holy 
 Spirit regarded the king of Tyre as a kind of image 
 of Satan, and in addressing him uttered things passing 
 beyond the emblem, and applying directly to the reality. 
 
 Such was the view of Augustine, Jerome, Tertullian, 
 Ambrose, and other early Fathers. Indeed, Fairbairn 
 remarks, " Most of the earlier commentators have sup- 
 posed that verses 12-14 were not properly used of the 
 king of Tyre, but mystically of Satan." 
 
 At the same time, Fairbairn characterizes this as an 
 arbitrary mode of interpretation. Arbitrary or not, 
 however, it is a mode that has commended itself to the 
 mind of the Church for ages, as wellnigh self-evident. 
 As an illustration, let it be remembered that the title 
 Lucifer, now universally current as a proper appellative 
 of Satan, owes its application to him wholly to this method 
 applied to Isaiah xiv. 12, " How art thou fallen from 
 heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning ! " 
 
 Why, then, is this method arbitrary? If we are to 
 admit types at all, why not here ? If David was a type 
 of Christ, why not the king of Tyre a type of Satan ? 
 Are not the principles and spirit of the God of this world 
 embodied in the great Gentile monarchies, Egypt, Baby- 
 lon, Tyre, Persia, Greece, Rome, as really as the spirit 
 
76 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 and principles of Christ in Israel? If the deliverance 
 of Israel, at the exodus, is a type of the redemption 
 of the Church, is not the destruction of Pharaoh and his 
 hosts also a type of the final overthrow of Satan and his 
 kingdom? How can one, part of that sublime panorama 
 be symbolic, and not the other? 
 
 That the king of Babylon must be a type of Satan, 
 one would think almost self-evident, if we glance at the 
 Apocalypse, and the contrasted use of Babylon and Je- 
 rusalem. If Jerusalem be a type of the true Church, 
 and Babylon of the false, and if David be the type of 
 Christ, then how can the king of Babylon but be the type 
 of Satan ? And if David says things apparently of him- 
 self, which we are told he spake of Christ, why should 
 it be deemed arbitrary to say that he addresses to the 
 king of Babylon, or of Tyre, words piercing through the 
 veil of flesh to the invisible reality behind ? 
 
 So far from being arbitrary, especially in a chapter like 
 this, replete with imagery too lofty for any being of mere 
 mortal mould, it appears natural, in the highest degree, 
 to admit such reference. Let us endeavor, then, to set 
 forth the substance of Scripture teaching in respect to 
 the original angelic empire, and of that exalted being 
 here addressed as the Anointed Cherub. 
 
 The creation of the angels was ancient. " Who laid 
 the corner-stone thereof [the earth], when the morning 
 stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for 
 joy?" (Job xxxviii. 7.) The sons of God and morning 
 stars here mentioned are the angels already in being, 
 and witnesses of the sublime creative work. Vast as the 
 periods of time science indicates to have rolled away since 
 the primary strata of the globe were formed, they are 
 but a part of the age of those immortal hosts, ever young, 
 who blazed and flashed around God's throne before this 
 world began. 
 
THE ANOINTED CHERUB. 77 
 
 The angels are also numerous. The heavenly empire 
 is vast. The universe is an ocean of many waters, com- 
 pared to which earth's myriads are as drops of the buck- 
 et. " Ye are come," says the Apostle, "unto .... an 
 innumerable company of angels." When in the garden 
 Peter offered to defend his Master, " Thinkest thou," 
 said Jesus, " I cannot pray to my Father, and he shall 
 presently give me more than twelve legions of angels ? " 
 If twelve legions be thus easily spoken of, as a mere 
 escort, or body-guard, what must be the grand army of 
 the skies ? It must be even as John, in the Revelation, 
 says, " Ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands 
 of thousands." 
 
 The angels are beautiful. They are called "glories," 
 "gods," "sons of God," "morning stars." And when- 
 ever their appearance is described, it is in terms of 
 surpassing loveliness and overpowering splendor. An 
 angel descends, and the whole earth is lightened with 
 his glory ; another darts from the sky like a falling star. 
 
 " Since we are told," says a recent English writer, 
 " that there is a spiritual body, the Scripture, in calling 
 angels spirits, does not assert that the angelic nature is 
 incorporeal. The contrary seems expressly implied by 
 the words in which our Lord declares, that after the 
 resurrection men shall be like the angels, because, as 
 is elsewhere said, their bodies, as well as their spirits, shall 
 have been made entirely like his. It may be noticed, 
 also, that the glorious appearance ascribed to angels in 
 Scripture is the same as that . which shone out in our 
 Lord's transfiguration, and, moreover, that whenever 
 angels have been manifest to man, it has always been 
 in human form. The very fact that the titles ' sons 
 of God,' 'gods,' applied to them, are also given to men, 
 points, in the same way, to a difference only of degree, 
 and an identity of kind, between the human and the 
 angelic nature." 
 
78 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 This was the constant belief of the ancient Christian 
 Church for a thousand years, as it had been of the Jewish 
 Church from the beginning. " We ought to believe," 
 says Augustine, that the angels have bodies most ethe- 
 real and luminous, such as ours will be hereafter." John 
 of Thessalonica says : " The Church universal considers 
 angels as not totally incorporeal and invisible, but as of 
 subtle forms, aerial and igneous." " And who will pre- 
 sume," says Robert Hall, "to set limits to the creative 
 power in the organization of matter, or affirm that it is 
 not, in the hand of its Author, susceptible of a refinement 
 which shall completely exclude it from the notice of our 
 senses." Accordingly, Milton represents Raphael as 
 saying : — 
 
 " What surmounts the reach 
 Of human sense, I shall delineate so, 
 By likening spiritual to corporeal forms, 
 As may express them best ; though what if earth 
 Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein, 
 Each to other like, more than on earth is thought." 
 
 How striking, then, the expression of the Prophet, con- 
 sidered as applied to one of the angelic world : " Thou 
 sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty ! 
 Every precious stone was thy covering, sardius, topaz, 
 diamond, sapphire, emerald, carbuncle, and gold ; . . . . 
 thou art the Anointed Cherub that covereth, and I have 
 set thee so, thou wast upon the holy mountain of God, 
 thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones 
 of fire." 
 
 In these words indistinct images of splendor, and ex- 
 quisite beauty and glory, are presented to the mind, pow- 
 erfully appealing to the imagination. How inconceivably 
 bright and beautiful must an innumerable company of 
 such creatures be, ten thousand times ten thousand, and 
 thousands of thousands ! 
 
THE ANOINTED CHERUB. 79 
 
 The angels are powerful. We find such expressions 
 as "mighty angels," "angels that excel in strength," 
 "angels greater in power and might." One angel, in 
 the Apocalypse, has power over fire, another over the 
 winds. Angel after angel, by the blast of a trumpet, or 
 the pouring a phial, modifies all the world's affairs. An 
 angel, of old, slew 180,000 Assyrians in a night. God 
 gives Satan permission to afflict Job, and presently we 
 see Sabeans, Chaldeans, lightning, whirlwind, disease, and 
 death hurled, with amazing rapidity, one after another, 
 by an unseen hand. As to power of a higher kind, the 
 power of mind, scientific control, organization, moral in- 
 fluence, it is, like the other, vast. 
 
 Dr. South speaks of angels as the top of creation, lively 
 and bright resemblances of Deity, and says, " It would 
 nonplus the tongue of angels themselves to express the 
 greatness of their obligation " to God for giving them 
 " a knowledge that dives into the recesses of nature, and 
 spies out all the secret workings of second causes by 
 a certain and immediate view." Now, if we consider 
 the native capacity of angels, and remember that they 
 never tire, but day without night, age after age, inces- 
 santly flash forward in the path of intense activity, what 
 must be now their amazing intellectual strength ? 
 
 Although the modern mind has almost lost the thought, 
 angels exist in highly organized forms of society ; with 
 different orders and grades. Daniel calls Michael one 
 of the chief princes, from whence the Greek term arch- 
 angel. St. Paul recognizes the title, by saying that the 
 trump of the archangel shall sound to wake the dead. 
 He also frequently alludes to differences of rank, though 
 without specific information respecting them. Thus, 
 Romans viii. 38, "angels, principalities, and powers"; 
 1 Cor. xv. 24, " rule, authority, and power " ; Eph. i. 
 21, " principality, and power, and might, and dominion " ; 
 
80 KEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 iii. 10, " principalities and powers " ; vi. 12, " principalities 
 and powers, and rulers of the darkness of this world " • 
 Col. i. 16, " thrones, dominions, principalities, and pow 
 ers " ; ii. 15, " principalities and powers " ; 1 Peter iii. 
 21, " angels, authorities, and powers." 
 
 These terms, Dr. Dwight remarks, " denote that they 
 sit on thrones, exercise dominion, hold authority, preside 
 in government, and are invested with power." 
 
 In every government, he argues, there must be public 
 officers, numerous in proportion to the greatness of that 
 government. In a town few, in a province more, in an 
 empire like Rome, an immense number, in a world, a 
 still more immense, and in the universe of God, a number 
 and variety inconceivable. 
 
 Indeed, the Scripture speaks of the heavenly hosts as 
 an immense army, and of God as the Lord of Sabaoth. 
 And Milton, in the closest keeping with all Scripture 
 intimations, thus describes the convocation of the celes- 
 tial myriads : — 
 
 " Th' empyreal host 
 Of angels, by imperial summons called 
 Innumerable before the Almighty's throne, 
 Forthwith from all the ends of heaven appeared 
 Under their hierarchs, in orders bright 
 Ten thousand thousand ensigns, high advanced, 
 Stream in the air, and for distinction serve 
 Of hierarchies, orders, and degrees, 
 
 Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers." 
 
 But, to complete the view, this sublime and complex 
 organization seems to have been united under one chief 
 spirit, of superior dignity and station, as the creature 
 head, and visible representative of the invisible deity. 
 This was the best way conceivable in which the universe 
 could be organized and arranged ; and to this all the in- 
 
THE ANOINTED CHERUB. 81 
 
 dications of Scripture point. " Thou art the Anointed 
 Cherub that covereth, and I have set thee so ; thou wast 
 upon the holy mount of God." This is the proper lan- 
 guage to denote a coronation. It is strikingly similar 
 to that in Ps. ii., uttered in respect to Messiah, " Yet 
 have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion." The 
 Anointed Cherub is similarly addressed, as having been 
 originally set upon the holy mount of God. He was set, 
 or seated upon a throne, and anointed, as the creature 
 head and regent of the angelic universe. 
 
 The cherub is the most exalted of all known emblems, 
 nearest the throne of Jehovah, most vitally connected 
 with his majesty, and identified with his administration. 
 
 That such was the exalted station originally held by 
 Lucifer may be considered the established belief. Mil- 
 ton, a careful student of the theology of his own and 
 preceding ages, speaks of Lucifer, as 
 
 « Of the first, 
 If not the first archangel, great in power, 
 In favor, and pre-eminence." 
 
 President Edwards observes, " Lucifer, before his fall, 
 was the morning star, the covering cherub, the highest 
 and brightest of all creatures." 
 
 Dr. Hopkins speaks of him as one " who was at the 
 head of all the angels, and the most noble creature God 
 had made." And Dr. Dwight calls him " an angel of 
 pre-eminent distinction in heaven." 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to add, that the angels were 
 all originally holy. " Thou wast perfect in thy ways, 
 from the day thou wast created, till iniquity was found 
 in thee." On which Augustine remarks, that the Devil 
 " must have performed many excellent things in that state 
 of existence he had before he sinned." 
 
 It is possible for God to create minds in such a state 
 
82 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 that they will freely and spontaneously begin by loving 
 him supremely and each other impartially. There is no 
 conceivable reason why, if God create minds at all, he 
 could not create them so that goodness would be natural 
 and instinctive. On the contrary, this is the very way 
 in which we should think infinite Wisdom could, and 
 infinite Love would, create all his creatures. 
 
 The angels were, in fact, so created that they did 
 begin by loving one another impartially and God su- 
 premely. They were lovely and loving one another. 
 They were tenderly attached to God, and prompt to do 
 his pleasure. 
 
 Such was the holy, happy universe, in its first estate, 
 ere the foundations of the world were laid, or time began. 
 Far back in the mysterious ages of eternity, far beyond 
 our computation, though not beyond that of God, that 
 glorious empire stood, and for ages was the scene of spot- 
 less purity and happiness. God over all, and in all, his 
 creatures countless as the sand on the sea-shore, or the 
 stars of heaven, arranged in ascending orders and grades, 
 and culminating in one superb and immaculate creature, 
 himself, headed up in God ! If such was the original 
 condition of the universe, the question arises, how sin 
 could possibly enter. Some minds have felt the difficulty 
 so strongly upon this point, that they have rejected the 
 Bible account of the matter, and denied the existence 
 of any such sinless state of the universe. But the answer 
 to the question is simple. Sin is, in its own nature, 
 anomalous, and therefore mysterious ; it is, in its own 
 nature, an unaccountable thing. For the moment we 
 admit that it is properly accounted for, i. e. the moment 
 we have assigned a good and sufficient cause for it, that 
 moment it ceases to be sin. A good and sufficient cause 
 is a good and sufficient excuse, and that which has a good 
 and sufficient excuse is not sin. To account for sin, 
 
THE ANOINTED CHERUB. 83 
 
 therefore, is to defend it, and to defend it is to certify 
 that it is not sin. 
 
 Therefore the objection, that it is inconceivable and 
 unaccountable that sin should enter in such a perfect 
 universe, amounts to nothing but saying, that sin is ex- 
 ceeding sinful, inexcusable, and destitute of the least de- 
 fence or justification. Sin is a violation of all law, a 
 departure from all original nature, a thing essentially 
 lawless, anomalous, and mysterious. We can identify 
 the fact of its existence. We can describe the manner, 
 we can discover the occasion, but the cause, the good 
 and sufficient cause, God himself, and the judgment-seat, 
 will demonstrate cannot be shown, for it does not exist. 
 
 It will be the final and eternal condemnation of the 
 Devil and his angels, and all identified with them, that, 
 when the Judge demands, Why have ye done thus ? what 
 reason can you assign ? what cause can you specify ? 
 every mouth will be stopped, and the whole world of re- 
 bellion stand speechless before God. The place, how- 
 ever, where sin entered we are enabled to point out. 
 " Thou wast perfect in thy ways, till iniquity was found 
 in thee." Sin entered by the defection of one individual. 
 That individual was at the head, not at the foot. Sin 
 is of patrician rank, not plebeian. Sin is of celestial 
 growth, not terrestrial. Sin is of spiritual nature, not 
 material. It is neither the product of a material organi- 
 zation like ours, nor the blundering mistake of a low 
 grade of undeveloped intelligences. Above all things, sin 
 was not a nature, nor the development of a nature, but 
 the exact contrary; it was the utter revei^sal and repeal 
 and abuse of a nature. It supervened in spite of the 
 highest and purest nature ever created. 
 
 We are informed, however, of the occasion and man- 
 ner of the change. " Thine heart was lifted up by rea- 
 son of thy beauty ; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by 
 reason of thy brightness." 
 
84 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 God surely was not chargeable with being the cause 
 of sin, by making the covering cherub as good and 
 noble and beautiful and like himself as he could. The 
 creature was alone in fault for the change. If we think 
 that God should have made minds so that beauty and 
 power and glory could not afford occasion for vanity 
 and pride, the answer is, that such minds would be 
 oysters, not angels. Would we have God reign over 
 snails and muscles and zoophytes ? 
 
 But the prophet goes still further. " By the multi- 
 tude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of 
 
 thee with violence, and thou hast sinned Thou 
 
 hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine 
 iniquities .... the iniquities of thy traffic." Here traffic 
 is the emblem of corrupt spiritual administration. The 
 corruptions of the visible Church, or spiritual Babylon, 
 are described in Revelation xviii., in language borrowed 
 from the chapter before this, describing the commerce 
 of Tyre. It denotes the use of spiritual offices and 
 functions for selfish purposes, instead of for the good 
 of others and the glory of God. 
 
 Now it is in this way that all earthly empires and 
 churches have been and are corrupted. It is by these 
 principles Lucifer deceives and corrupts the whole world 
 from the beginning, and in so doing he only continues 
 what he originally begun. He has not introduced a 
 new kind of sin into this world, he has not set up a 
 new kind of empire of darkness ; it is the same sort of 
 sin, and the same realm of darkness, energized in and 
 ruled by the same laws and principles. Instead of pre- 
 siding over that extensive celestial realm with generous 
 self-sacrifice and unselfish care for the good of others, 
 he began, by degrees, to consult his own honor and priv- 
 ilege and aggrandizement. He used his subjects for him- 
 self, instead of giving himself for his subjects. 
 
THE ANOINTED CHERUB. 85 
 
 This corrupted his administration. It corrupted him, 
 and corrupted his associates, and corrupted his inferiors. 
 It corrupted them on the same philosophical principles 
 that churches and states are corrupted continually in 
 this world before our eyes. We see and know by sad 
 experience the carrying out and continuation of that he 
 then and there begun. 
 
 It is of great importance to obtain a full knowledge of 
 the original heavenly empire. If Christ died to destroy 
 the works of the Devil, it is desirable to know what his 
 works are, and what the nature of his power that de- 
 manded such an infinite sacrifice. The bearing of this 
 subject upon the theory of atonement is evident. Jen- 
 kyn lays it down as the first object of the atonement to 
 " vindicate the Divine decrees from having been accessory 
 
 to the intrusion of sin The revolters against the 
 
 Divine government are loath to ascribe their disaffection 
 
 entirely to themselves But the atonement shows 
 
 that God was in no wise accessory, either by secret decree, 
 by arbitrary withdrawment of influences, nor by any de- 
 ficiency of government." 
 
 But if the atonement is to show this, it presupposes that 
 we understand the facts- and principles on which sin actu- 
 ally did enter. But to understand these, it is necessary 
 to understand what preceded sin, — how the angels were 
 created, how organized and subordinated, how privileged 
 and blessed, how under the headship of one sublime crea- 
 ture, and how, therefore, sin came in the most causeless 
 place conceivable, — the place where God can be seen to 
 be at an infinite remove from being its author. 
 
 Suspending here for a moment the onward movement 
 of investigation, let us remark how vividly this subject 
 exhibits the glory of Christ. 
 
 It is a great thing to make a mind, to create a creature, 
 especially such a lofty creature as an angel. If a single 
 
86 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 soul is of more value than a world, a single angel is also ; 
 and if so, to make one is greater than to make a world. 
 It was a good thing, too, to give being to one capable 
 of such high functions and enjoyments forever. And it 
 was good and great, still more, to create myriads of them, 
 — whole galaxies, boundless constellations. O what a 
 sublime grandeur does it show to be the author of such 
 a heavenly family ! 
 
 The Lord Jesus Christ is that author. He created 
 every angel that ever flamed and sparkled on the holy 
 mountain of God. Moreover, he could not have made 
 them better. There is nothing better than best. There 
 is no way of constructing a mind better than in the Divine 
 image, where every faculty was a faculty of the Divine 
 mind, and where the proportion of those faculties is the 
 same proportion as in the Divine original. Infinite Good- 
 ness can do no better than to produce finite counterparts, 
 fac-similes of itself. Nor could he place them better than 
 in heaven, nor arrange them better than in ascending 
 series, — thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, — 
 the covering cherub over all, bearing on viewless wing 
 the throne of Jehovah. 
 
 He who impeaches the goodness of that first creation 
 must contend that to make them worse were better ; that 
 less degrees of wisdom were wiser, fainter copies of Deity 
 more divine, which is absurd. 
 
 If now the Lord Jesus Christ made all the glorious 
 angels, how glorious must he be himself! If, as God, he 
 formed and fashioned their loveliness, and if in his hu- 
 manity he is now exalted far above all principality and 
 power, how ineffable must the glory of the God-man be ! 
 Uniting in himself the qualities of infinite and finite, pre- 
 senting in the same person all excellences, derived and 
 underived, how unspeakable must be his glory ! 
 
 Imagine the purity of a single angel, the most obscure 
 
THE ANOINTED CHERUB. 87 
 
 of the upper empyrean, — the least exalted, least intellec- 
 tual, least intensely holy, — and let him enter this dark 
 world, how should we fall prostrate, unable to sustain 
 the vision ! 
 
 But go up, then, far above him, rank after rank, throne 
 after throne, through all the heavens, to where Jesus 
 sits, principalities and powers being made subject to him, 
 and what can imagination conceive of him ? But great 
 as he is, he died for us. His blood was our ransom, his 
 death our life ; in him we rise, his glory we share, and 
 on his throne we sit for ever and ever ! 
 
 May God strengthen us in the inner man, to be able 
 with all saints to comprehend the breadth and length and 
 depth and height, and to know the love of Christ that 
 passeth knowledge, and be filled with all the fulness of 
 God. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 SON OF GOD. 
 
 " But unto the Son he saith, ' Thy throne, God, is fok ever and 
 ever.'" — Heb. i. 8. 
 
 THE angels are repeatedly called sons of God. Christ 
 is, however, Son of God in a higher sense, applica- 
 ble to him alone. This is his highest title ; and is ap- 
 plied to him in the New Testament more than a hundred 
 times, in such ways that the most casual reader must see 
 that it is a title of sublime import. It is proposed to 
 show, — 
 
 1. That this title implies Deity in the person. 
 
 2. That it was possessed antecedent to the incarnation. 
 That the Son of God is a Divine title is shown by more 
 passages than could be easily adduced in a brief chapter. 
 
 John prefaces his Gospel with a statement concerning 
 the Word. The Word was with God, and was God, and 
 the Word was made flesh, and we saw his glory, as of 
 the only begotten of the Father. Now this term, "the 
 Word," was brought into use among the Jews by the 
 translation of the Hebrew Scriptures which became ne- 
 cessary after their return from Babylon. That translation, 
 called the Chaldee paraphrase, occupied nearly the same 
 place our English version does to us ; and in that para- 
 phrase, in numerous instances, the name Jehovah was 
 translated Word of Jehovah, of which a single instance 
 may suffice. Gen. iii. 8, "And they heard the voice of 
 the Lord God walking in the garden." Chaldee para- 
 phrase: "And they heard the voice of the Word of the 
 Lord walking in the garden." 
 
SON OF GOD. 89 
 
 Now John takes this name of Jehovah in the popular 
 version of the Scriptures, and says, the Word made flesh 
 is the only begotten of the Father. Can we be blamed 
 for thinking that Son of God is a Divine title ? And is not 
 this the reason why, when Peter confessed it, Jesus said, 
 " Blessed art thou, Simon ; flesh and blood hath not re- 
 vealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven " ? 
 
 When the Jews accused Christ of breaking the Sab- 
 bath, by healing the impotent man, he replied, " My 
 Father worketh hitherto, and I work." And his hear- 
 ers understood him to mean that God was his own 
 father, his as no person's else. They instantly accused 
 him of blasphemy, because, being a man, he made him- 
 self equal with God. What could more clearly show 
 that, in their use of language, Son of God was a Divine 
 title, and that to claim it was to claim Divine honors? 
 It has been said that Jesus, in his reply, disclaimed any 
 such idea. On the contrary, he pointedly reaffirmed 
 it. If the Scripture called men gods who are not Di- 
 vine, is it blasphemy to call me God who am Divine ? 
 is the logic of the passage ; and the fact that they again 
 attempted to stone him confirms it. Hence, in John ix. 
 35, we find worship paid to that title. Christ had healed 
 a blind man. Afterwards, meeting him, he said, " Dost 
 thou believe on the Son of God?" He asked, "Who is 
 he, Lord?" Christ replied that it was himself, and the 
 man said, "Lord, I believe," and worshipped him. He 
 understood the title to be Divine ; and Christ, by not re- 
 buking his worship, sanctioned that idea. This is shown 
 clearly, also, by the point on which Christ's trial and sen- 
 tence turned. Said the high-priest, "I adjure thee by 
 God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the 
 Son of the living God." 
 
 "I am," was the direct reply. At which the council 
 unanimously voted him worthy of death for blasphemy. 
 
90 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 And at a subsequent stage of the proceeding they said, 
 " We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because 
 he said, I am the Son of God." 
 
 Does, then, the law of Moses say a man claiming that 
 title shall die? It does not. But there is a statute that 
 whoever draws away the people to worship any other 
 God than Jehovah shall be put to death. And to this 
 they referred. In saying " I am the Son of God," they 
 understood him as claiming Divine honors, and as they did 
 not concede that claim, they passed sentence of death. 
 Now Jesus knew how they understood it; and if they had 
 been mistaken in thinking he claimed Divine honors, he 
 would have told them. But he did not. Either, there- 
 fore, he was Divine, or how can we blame them for what 
 they did? Accordingly, we find that his resurrection 
 to the right hand is viewed in Scripture as a justification 
 of his claim to that title, as now understood. 1 Tim. iii. 
 16: "God was manifest in the flesh, . . . .justified in the 
 spirit." God justified ! And how, except that the Son 
 of God, in his spiritual, glorious existence after the resur- 
 rection, was justified in his claims in that respect ? Hence 
 St. Paul (Romans i. 4) says he was declared "to be the 
 Son of God with power," by his resurrection. 
 
 Therefore it is that the earliest confession of faith con- 
 tained the one all-comprehending article : "I believe that 
 Jesus is the Son of God." And therefore it is not strange 
 it should be written, " He that believeth not on the Son 
 shall not see life " ; and again, " Whosoever shall confess 
 that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and 
 he in God " ; and again, " that all men should honor the 
 Son even as they honor the Father." These and similar 
 sayings, inexplicable on any other hypothesis, are plain 
 and powerful when we know assuredly that the Son of 
 God is Divine. 
 
 It is objected, that many things are said of the Son 
 
SON OF GOD. 91 
 
 of Gocl that imply limitation ; and we cheerfully concede 
 that Jesus was truly man, as especially denoted by his 
 other great title, Son of Man. All such intimations are 
 to be accounted for by the fact of a union of two natures, 
 Divine and human, in one person, to which at present we 
 can only refer, and pass on to show that the title Son of 
 God belonged to Christ before his incarnation. 
 
 And here the fact of the ancient belief of the doctrine 
 of eternal generation is entitled to some weight. It seems 
 impossible that the Church, for so many ages, should 
 have believed in a sonship antedating this world, and 
 that they should have dwelt upon it so much, and felt 
 such a vivid interest in it, and made it of so much im- 
 portance, and yet there be no element of truth contained 
 in it. It does seem at least probable that the title Son of 
 Gocl belonged to Christ before, and independently of his 
 being made flesh. Then consider such expressions as 
 1 John iv. 9, 10: "In this was manifested the love of 
 God, because that God sent his only begotten Son into 
 the world." John iii. 16 : " God so loved the world that 
 he gave his only begotten Son." "Do not these words," 
 asks Dr. Hopkins, " seem to express the idea that there 
 existed a son, an only begotten son, antecedent to his 
 being sent, or given? Must he not have had a son to 
 give, to send?" 
 
 Compare, too, 1 Tim. iii. 16, " God was manifested in 
 the flesh," with 1 John iii. 8, " The Son of God was 
 manifested " ; and as the former obviously implies that 
 God existed before his manifestation, so must not the latter 
 imply that the Son of God existed previous to his mani- 
 festation? And when, in Psalm ii., Messiah is represented 
 as saying, "I will declare the decree the Lord hath said 
 unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee," 
 is it not the most natural idea, that the son was then exist- 
 ing, and did declare the decree by the mouth of David? 
 
92 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 And that previously to such declaration the Lord had said 
 unto him, " Thou art my Son " ? 
 
 Add to this, that the title Christ and the title Son are 
 evidently inseparable. Thus Peter: " Thou art the Christ, 
 the Son of the living God." So the high-priest: " If thou 
 be the Christ, the Son of the living God." The titles are 
 plainly contemporaneous in origin. But the title Christ, 
 beyond dispute, did not originate in this world. Neither 
 as priest nor as king did Jesus, in the days of his flesh, 
 receive anointing. Yet he was the Christ. He was 
 anointed and appointed before this world ; and therefore 
 he was Son of God as anciently as that. If it be objected, 
 that the angel at the annunciation, after predicting his 
 miraculous conception, said, " Therefore, also, that holy 
 thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son 
 of God," the reply is, that those words may be appropri- 
 ately understood to mean that he shall be proved to be 
 the Son of God by such miraculous birth. Such portent 
 should be the proof of his previous sonship and anointing, 
 not its cause. 
 
 And if it be objected again, that, in Acts xiii. 33, St. 
 Paul refers his sonship to his resurrection, — "God hath 
 fulfilled the promise, in that he hath raised up Jesus, as 
 it is written in the second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this 
 day have I begotten thee," — the answer is the same. Paul 
 cites his primogeniture in the resurrection as proof that he 
 was that Son, anointed before in heaven, who spake, in 
 Psalm ii., by the mouth of David. He sufficiently ex- 
 plains his meaning in Romans i. 4 : " Declared to be the 
 Son of God with power by the resurrection." That is, 
 established and actually enthroned in full power as heir 
 of all things to the Father. 
 
 Before his humiliation, he was heir apparent, anointed 
 and appointed, but not yet crowned ; after his humiliation, 
 he is heir in possession, both anointed and crowned, God 
 
SON OF GOD. 93 
 
 over all blessed forevermore. His title anointed Son 
 of God, the fact that God had appointed him heir of 
 all things, though not officially declared, was widely un- 
 derstood through all the realms of spiritual existence, be- 
 fore ever he trod this world, a man of sorrows. Therefore 
 time after time we see demons at his approach begin to 
 tremble, and say, " Yes, I know thee who thou art, Jesus, 
 thou Son of God most high " ; and to plead with him 
 not to torment them before the time. Therefore, too, 
 the temptation in the wilderness strikes on that key, "if 
 thou be the Son of God." Everything, from first to last, 
 coincides to show that that title Son of God was a title 
 brought from higher worlds, a title of tremendous import 
 in those mighty realms, on which some great issues were 
 suspended. 
 
 And here let us pause awhile and reflect upon the im- 
 portance of this sublime theme. To us to-day comes the 
 impressive question of Jesus, "Dost thou believe on the 
 Son of God?" This inquiry, in its deep spiritual import, 
 is of the last importance. It is not whether we admit it 
 speculatively, but whether we believe with all the heart. 
 
 A man may aecept this as an article of faith, very much 
 as he would gather a flower and press it in a book, and 
 keep it pale, faded, lifeless. But to believe on the Son 
 of God, so as to have God dwell in the soul, and the soul 
 in God, is a higher thing than that. The man whom 
 Christ had healed said, " Lord, I believe," and worshipped 
 him. Can we worship the Son of God? Or are there 
 some speculative doubts, some unbeliefs, or some chilly 
 philosophizings, that disable worship ? It is not alone in 
 ancient times that temptation strikes at the Son of God 
 with an if. It is the chief point of attack in all modern 
 scepticism and unsettlement of mind. Happy are they 
 who with unwavering faith can kneel with Nathanael and 
 say, " Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of 
 Israel " ; and with Thomas, " My Lord and my God." 
 
94 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 And sad and sorrowful the sight of those who hesitate, 
 who falter, who deny, who cannot bow the knee, nor 
 honor the Son as they honor the Father ! Sad and sor- 
 rowful indeed to see men thus virtually siding with his 
 judges, and saying, "He hath spoken blasphemy, he is 
 worthy of death." O Spirit of God, open their eyes ! 
 As at the prophet's prayer thou didst unseal the eyes of 
 Gehazi to see angels around, unseal their eyes to see Him 
 whom angels adore, that they may say, Of a truth, this is 
 the Son of God ! 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 ONLY BEGOTTEN. 
 
 " This day have I begotten thee." — Psalms ii. 7. 
 
 IT is an opinion entertained by some that God was in- 
 visible to angelic eyes, and that to become visible he 
 must provide himself with created organs of manifesta- 
 tion. " None can see the Father immediately," observes 
 President Edwards. " Christ is the image of the invisible 
 God, by which he is seen by all elect creatures. None 
 has ever immediately seen the Father but the Son, and 
 none else sees the Father any other way than by the Son's 
 revealing him." 
 
 The question arises., then, as to the nature of the Son 
 before his incarnation, whether it was simple or com- 
 plex, — Divine only or Divine-human. By what organ 
 or organs did the Son reveal God to celestial beings ? 
 Why was the Son less invisible to celestial eyes than the 
 Father ? 
 
 Our answer is, that the person of the Son was al- 
 ready complex before the incarnation. We mean, that 
 the union of the Divine and human natures had already 
 taken place before the Word was made flesh. The 
 second person of the Trinity assumed a creature into 
 personal union with himself, as his organ of manifestation. 
 That creature was not an angel (Heb. ii. 16), but a glo- 
 rious humanity, spiritual, incorruptible, such as ours will 
 be in the resurrection. It is also conceived, that to unite 
 eternally in one conscious personality two natures, infinite 
 and finite, required an exertion of Omnipotence, by the 
 
96 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 first person of the Trinity upon the second person, in con- 
 sequence of which the complex person resulting might 
 figuratively be termed Son, and be said to be begotten on 
 the day when that union was consummated. 
 
 That such was in fact the complex character of the Son 
 before incarnation, and such the figurative nature of his 
 generation, we now proceed to prove. 
 
 It has been shown that the title " Son of God " was 
 possessed by Christ before his incarnation. We now re- 
 mark, that he was not begotten from eternity, or by what 
 is called an eternal generation ; but at a definite point in 
 past duration, when it was said, " This day have I begot- 
 ten thee." 
 
 It has been said that " this day " means from eternity, 
 because to God there is no succession, but all eternity is 
 one eternal now. But this is impossible. The judgment- 
 day is not to God already present. Nor with him, any 
 more than with us, has one single event of to-morrow actu- 
 ally come to pass. He is as certain of them as if they 
 were present, but they are not present. Neither is God 
 now creating the world. Nor to his mind is Noah now in 
 the ark, and the flood covering the earth. Therefore^ 
 when the Son, in David's time, said, " The Lord hath said 
 unto me, ' This day have I begotten thee,' " he referred 
 to a particular day in time then past. 
 
 It is urged that, in Prov. viii. 22, 23, Christ, under the 
 name of Wisdom, says, " I was set up from everlasting." 
 But the mountains are often called everlasting. And the 
 connection shows that the Son was set up from everlasting 
 in the same sense, that is, before the creation of this world, 
 which science shows was a kind of eternity. 
 
 Moreover, if the Son, as God, be derived or begotten, 
 he is neither self-existent nor independent. But can the 
 human mind conceive a being to be truly God who is 
 neither self-existent nor independent ? If the Son have 
 
ONLY BEGOTTEN. 97 
 
 not these attributes, he is a secondary and subordinate God, 
 and nothing more. " I will not aver," says Professor 
 Stuart, " that those are Arians, and deny the divinity of 
 Christ, who believe this, but I must say that I could make 
 no serious objection to the system of Arius if I believed 
 this. The whole dispute between Arius and the Church 
 turned on the difference between being begotten and 
 being made." With Professor Stuart the majority of 
 New England minds sympathize. Nor can the defenders 
 of an eternal generation offer any reply. They either 
 strip the Avords of all meaning, or boldly command us to 
 believe a contradiction. 
 
 A specimen of the former is given by Dr. Hopkins : 
 " Eternal generation is infinitely above anything that re- 
 lates to natural generation, and does not include any 
 beginning, change, dependence, or inferiority." It is " an 
 incomprehensible mystery, infinitely beyond our compre- 
 hension." But this in plain English amounts to saying 
 that it is no generation at all. It is a generation in no 
 intelligible or conceivable sense of that word. And if so, 
 it might be called marriage, or divorce, or anything else, 
 just as well as generation. 
 
 A specimen of intrepid belief of contradiction is given 
 by Dr. Baird in his " Elohim Revealed," as follows : " The 
 one infinite nature is communicated from the Father to 
 the Son, in a generation not voluntary, but of the very 
 nature of the Divine essence : a generation which is not 
 occasional, but continual, which does not originate, but is 
 from everlasting to everlasting, and in which each of 
 those blessed persons possesses the whole infinite fulness 
 of the Divine essence, — not jointly, but in common and 
 undivided." 
 
 To us this is as much a contradiction as to say that God 
 is and is not at the same time ; that he had no beginning, 
 and yet created himself; that his existence was necessary, 
 
98 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 and yet purely voluntary ; that his attributes are eternal, 
 and yet that lie created himself according to a preconceived 
 plan. We protest against abusing language thus. Language 
 was made to express thought, not to utter contradictions. 
 
 The doctrine of an eternal generation being thus inca- 
 pable of rational statement and defence, and it having 
 been proved that the title Son of God was possessed by 
 Christ before incarnation, it follows that he was begotten 
 at a particular point in past duration, which other scrip- 
 tures fix before the foundation of this world. 
 
 Then, on ; ' that day " the Christ, the Son of God, the 
 God-man, came into existence. Then as a complex person 
 he was born. Before that there had been God, and there 
 had been man ; but now, first and only, there was a God- 
 man, — first begotten and only begotten of the Father. 
 
 In support of this, we appeal further to 1 Cor. xv. 47 : 
 " The first man is of the earth, earthy, the second man is 
 from heaven.'" On this Alford remarks, following De 
 Wette : " From heaven, in his whole personality, as the 
 God-man." Olshausen says it denotes the place of origin 
 of the spiritual and glorious body. As Adam's natural 
 body was from the earth, so Christ's spiritual body was 
 from heaven. 
 
 This is the most obvious and natural sense, which is 
 to be preferred, unless strong reasons exist for allowing a 
 secondary meaning. That it cannot be referred to the 
 Divine nature of Christ is plain. For that would represent 
 the contrast drawn by the Apostle as follows : " The first 
 man was of the earth, earthy, the second man, so far as he 
 was man, was of the earth also, and only so far as he was 
 not man, from heaven." 
 
 The next passage is John iii. 13 : " And no man hath 
 ascended up into heaven but He that came down from 
 heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven." This 
 verse was not spoken by Jesus to Nicodemus, but by the 
 
ONLY BEGOTTEN. 93 
 
 Holy Spirit through John. This is plain from its men- 
 tioning the ascension as already past. At the time of the 
 conversation with Nicodemus, Jesns had not ascended up 
 to heaven, for he said to Mary even after his resurrection, 
 " I am not yet ascended." But at the time John wrote 
 Lis Gospel, it was proper to speak of the Son of Man as 
 having ascended to heaven, and being in heaven. But 
 observe, that same Son of Man which had ascended 
 up to heaven in John's sight the Holy Spirit here de- 
 clares came down from heaven. 
 
 Moreover, it is an established principle that the title 
 Son of Man relates to the humanity of Christ. Thus Dr.. 
 Emmons : " By this phrase he always meant his human- 
 ity." So Dr. Hopkins: The term Son of Man is "used 
 with respect to the human nature as united to the Divine." 
 Dr. Knapp says, " The more proper meaning of the 
 phrase Son of Man is the son of Adam, and in whatever 
 way it is used, it clearly denotes the humanity of Christ." 
 
 But there is a third passage quite as pointed. In John 
 vi. 62 Christ says, " What and if ye shall see the Son 
 of Man ascend up where he was before ? " Before this, 
 in verse 33, he had said, " The bread of God is He that 
 cometh down from heaven " ; and in verse 38, " I came 
 down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will 
 of Him that sent me " ; thus indicating a subordination 
 of will before coming from heaven, — a subordination that 
 included the act of coming itself, as one sent. Verse 41 : 
 " I am the bread of life that came down from heaven." 
 Verse 50 : " This is the bread that cometh down from 
 heaven." Verse 51 : "I am the living bread that cometh 
 down from heaven, .... and the bread that I will give 
 is my flesh." Christ here declares repeatedly that his 
 humanity came from heaven, closing with the significant 
 question, " What and if ye shall see the Son of Man as- 
 cend up where he was before ? " 
 
100 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 But there is one more passage equally direct, namely, 
 Eph. iv. 9, 10 : " Now that he ascended, what is it but 
 that he also descended first into the lower parts of the 
 earth. He that descended is the same also that ascended 
 up far above all heavens." Now it is certainly the plainest 
 and most obvious sense to say, that the God-man who de- 
 scended was the same God-man who ascended. More- 
 over, the evangelical mind has in fact debarred itself from 
 making the only answer that it would be likely to make, 
 namely, that these passages were to be interpreted, not of 
 the human, but of the Divine nature. It has taught that 
 the Divine nature did not descend nor ascend, nor expe- 
 rience any change whatever, — in fact, that such a thing 
 was impossible. 
 
 Thus Dr. Hopkins says, " The incarnation does not 
 imply any change in him, for as God he is unchange- 
 able." The incarnation, he says, was " no part of his 
 humiliation." So Dr. Knapp declares, as the universally 
 recognized principle of theology, that " it is not proper to 
 say that the eternal Son of God left heaven, surrendered 
 or renounced his glory, and condescended to suffering. 
 The idea is inconsistent with the Divine glory." Accord- 
 ing to this, it is a principle absolutely ..certain, that in these 
 four passages it is the human nature only which is said to 
 come down from heaven. It is not proper, according to 
 Dr. Knapp, to say that it was anything else. 
 
 Nearly if not quite as direct are the words of Christ in 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of John. " And 
 
 now I go my wa}^ unto Him that sent me The Father 
 
 himself loveth you because ye have loved me, and have 
 
 believed that I came out from God I came forth 
 
 from the Father, and am come into the world ; again, I 
 
 leave the world and go to the Father And now, O 
 
 Father, glorify thou me with the glory which I had with 
 thee before the world was For thou lovedst me 
 
ONLY BEGOTTEN. 101 
 
 before the foundation of the world." Now it cannot be 
 said that only the Divine nature speaks. The Divine 
 nature, according to the principle above stated, cannot 
 experience any diminution of glory, or change of any kind. 
 It must be, therefore, on orthodox grounds, the human 
 spirit that speaks of a glory and a love of the Father 
 before the foundation of the world. 
 
 We next refer to Hebrews i. 3, compared with 2 Co- 
 rinthians iv. 4 and Colossians i. 15. 
 
 In the former, Christ before his incarnation is spoken 
 of as " being the brightness of the Father's glory, and ex- 
 press image of his person," — terms implying infinite and 
 finite natures conjoined, since without a created nature 
 there could be no image or reflection, and without an infi- 
 nite nature the image and reflection could not be adequate. 
 In the parallel passages Christ, before his incarnation, is 
 called "the image of the invisible God," an expression 
 concerning which the same remarks may be made. The 
 God-man, before being made flesh, was the image of the 
 Invisible. And of him it might be said, without deroga- 
 tion from his Deity on the one hand or his essential hu- 
 manity on the other, that he was appointed heir of all 
 things, and that by him God made the worlds. In virtue 
 of his celestial humanity, he could be appointed heir. In 
 virtue of his Deity he could create worlds. 
 
 The argument is completed by a reference to the the- 
 ophanies of the Old Testament. A glorious being, in 
 repeated instances, appeared to the patriarchs, who was 
 called Jehovah, and at the same time was called man. 
 
 For instance, Genesis xviii., it says, " Jehovah appeared 
 unto Abraham, .... and he lifted up his eyes and looked, 
 and lo, three men stood at the door of his tent." And lest 
 it should be objected that they were mere appearances, 
 and not real men, the Holy Spirit goes on to relate the 
 washing of their feet, and their eating and drinking. 
 
102 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Now it is interesting to notice that the being who here 
 appeared, gave to Abraham the same evidence of his per- 
 sonal identity as a man that he gave his disciples after 
 his resurrection. "Handle me," he said, "and see, for a 
 spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." And 
 he said, "Have ye here any meat? .... And he did eat 
 before them." Now, if these signs proved that it was no 
 mere phantom, or optical illusion, after the resurrection, 
 they proved the same before. Abraham handled Christ 
 in washing his feet, and Christ ate before him. 
 
 Here let us call to mind what Jesus once said of the 
 patriarch : " Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he 
 saw it and was glad." Abraham saw his day by seeing 
 a specimen of it. He saw the God-man on earth, and 
 saw him eat and drink, just as the disciples did, and talked 
 with him as they did. That was, in a sense, "seeing his 
 day." And glad was Abraham to see it. 
 
 It is also to be noticed that, when the angels came to 
 Sodom in the evening, Lot received them as men, and 
 baked unleavened bread, and they ate. And afterward, 
 when Lot went out to the mob, and his life was in danger, 
 it says, " The men put forth their hand and pulled Lot into 
 the house." Now one of these is the same that Abraham 
 had recognized. Lot recognizes him also, and begs that 
 Zoar may be spared ; and the reply is, " Haste thee, es- 
 cape thither, for I cannot do anything till thou be come 
 thither." 
 
 Thus, throughout this wonderful transaction, a being 
 appears who is identified as God and as man, by the very 
 signs Christ afterwards gave to his disciples. The body 
 he had was a celestial body, capable of assuming all the 
 properties and performing all the functions of flesh and 
 blood at will, yet without coming under the bondage of 
 corruption. That bondage to corruption was to be con- 
 sequent on the humiliation, the real imprisonment in flesh 
 and blood. 
 
ONLY BEGOTTEN. 103 
 
 Another instance of his appearing as a man is recorded 
 Genesis xxxii. 24: "And Jacob was left alone, and there 
 wrestled a man with him till the break of day." That 
 this was no dream is proved from the fact that his thigh 
 was put out of joint, so that he " halted on his thigh." 
 Yet that man was God, and Jacob named the place Peni 
 El, Face of God, because, said he, " I have seen God face 
 to face." Yet Jacob had felt the grasp of a man, not a 
 shadow ; and we do but follow the literal sense of the 
 narrative, when we say that that mysterious personage 
 was the God-man. 
 
 This same person it is who, when requested by Moses 
 to show him his glory, told him he could not see his face 
 and live, but, hiding him in a cleft of the rock, and cover- 
 ing him with his hand, he would pass by and take away 
 his hand, and he should see his back parts. Yet, when 
 he thus passed by and proclaimed his glory, it was "the 
 Lord, the Lord God." On this President Edwards re- 
 marks: " What he saw was doubtless the back parts of a 
 glorious human form in which Christ appeared to him, in 
 all likelihood the form of his glorified human nature in 
 which he should afterwards appear; for it is not to be 
 supposed that any man could subsist under a sight of 
 the glory of Christ's human nature as it now appears." 
 Compare with this last remark the effect upon Paul when 
 that same glorified form shone out upon him " with a light 
 above the brightness of the sun," causing him to fall pros- 
 trate upon the earth. 
 
 Another case is mentioned in Joshua v. One day, short- 
 ly before the taking of Jericho, as Joshua was reconnoi- 
 tring, he saw a man with a drawn sword in his hand. And 
 so thoroughly real was the man, that Joshua challenged 
 him, and asked on which side he belonged. The man 
 replied, "Nay, but as Captain of the Lord's host am I 
 now come." Immediately Joshua fell prostrate. And 
 
104 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 the Captain of the Lord's host told him to loose his shoe 
 off his foot, for the place was holy, and immediately it 
 adds, "And Jehovah said unto Joshua." Thus this person 
 is called man, and Jehovah, and the Captain of Jehovah's 
 host; the latter expression equivalent to that of Daniel, 
 " Michael, the first of the chief princes." This, then, is 
 the God-man, the Captain of our salvation. 
 
 Isaiah says, " I saw Jehovah sitting upon a throne high 
 and lifted up, and his train filled the temple." Yet John 
 declares that " these things spake Isaiah of Christ, when 
 he saw his glory and wrote of him." 
 
 Ezekiel also describes on the cherubic throne the form 
 of a man, of intense effulgence ; and immediately after, 
 says this " was the appearance of the glory of Jehovah." 
 
 Daniel also gives a description of Michael, "the first of 
 the chief princes," which description is almost identical 
 with that of Christ in the opening of the Apocalypse. 
 The Reformers generally regarded Michael as one of the 
 names of Christ. Fairbairn argues conclusively in support 
 of that idea. And yet St. Jude calls Michael " the arch- 
 angel," and says he durst not bring a railing accusation 
 against the Devil. How could that be said of absolute 
 Deity ? Evidently it is the God-man who, in virtue of his 
 creature form and standing, could be bound by the eti- 
 quette of the celestial court ; so that it might be said, he 
 dared not violate its proprieties." 
 
 A single incident more and we have done. Let us 
 ascend awhile the mount of transfiguration. There we 
 behold one moment the Son of Mary, a man of sorrows 
 in the ordinary garb of flesh and blood. The next mo- 
 ment the fashion of his countenance is altered ; his face 
 shines like the sun ; his raiment is white and glistering, 
 like the snow. And what is this metamorphosis but the 
 disguise for a moment laid off, and the inner glory shining 
 out ? The same glorious person before whom the prophets 
 
ONLY BEGOTTEN. 105 
 
 fell as dead, whom Moses could not see and live, has been 
 present all the while, but under disguise. Now the pent- 
 up glories rush out in a flood of splendor. This is the 
 man from heaven, the God-man, this is the very same 
 that descended and shall ascend. But lo, while we gaze 
 those fires are quenched, those intense and burning glories 
 are absorbed, the disguise is assumed again, and the body 
 of humiliation alone meets our eye. Yet we know that 
 under that disguise that same immortal beauty still exists, 
 only veiled and hidden, capable at any moment of again 
 bursting forth with ineffable brightness. 
 
 It is proper, before leaving the subject, to look at some 
 objections. We take them as best presented by Dr. 
 Hopkins. 
 
 This idea of the person of the God-man having been 
 constituted before incarnation, he says " is inconsistent 
 
 with the true and real manhood of Jesus Christ If 
 
 the creature who took a body by incarnation were the 
 first and greatest creature that was ever created, he was 
 no more a man than the angels." 
 
 We reply, this objection might have some force against 
 the view as held by Dr. Watts, in his work entitled " Tho 
 Glory of Christ," but not against the view now presented. 
 Dr. Watts supposed, and gave great prominence to the 
 idea, that the creature in question was first and highest. 
 Such, however, is not the view defended here. The crea- 
 ture element in the person of the God-man, on the present 
 supposition, is neither first-created in the order of time, 
 nor of angelic race, but created in heaven, and created 
 human, like other glorified human spirits. Against this 
 view the objection loses its force. The objector cannot 
 deny that God could, if he pleased, create a true and 
 proper reasonable human soul in that way as well as in 
 any other, and give it a celestial body, such as the saints 
 are to have in heaven. 
 
 5* 
 
106 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Dr. Hopkins objects, in the second place, " if the body 
 only of Jesus Christ came into existence, or was formed 
 in the womb of the Virgin Mary, he could not be really 
 her son. She who conceives and brings forth a son is 
 as really and as much the mother of his soul as of his 
 body." 
 
 We reply, the objection rests upon a pure assumption, 
 without proof, either of what is called traduction or of con- 
 creation of souls. Neither is self-evident. Neither is re- 
 vealed. Neither is a doctrine in which the Church is 
 agreed. A large and influential class of minds, repre- 
 sented by Professor Shedd and Dr. Baird, reject the 
 theory of concreation, and assert that the majority of the 
 Church in all ages have rejected it. 
 
 On the other hand, all new-school men, and that class 
 of old-school men represented by Princeton, make war 
 upon the theory of traduction as improbable, absurd, inca- 
 pable of proof. The Princeton Review even goes so far 
 as to say the theory of pre-existence is " clear sunshine " 
 in comparison. 
 
 Doddridge says : " The weakness of the former (traduc- 
 tion) hypothesis is the principal strength of this (concrea- 
 tion) On the whole, it seems that the latter is rather 
 
 the most probable, but it does not become us to be confi- 
 dent in so dark and dubious a matter." 
 
 Evidently the objection is of no force. The objector 
 must first prove the truth of traduction, or of concreation, 
 before he can base an objection upon them. To reason 
 from an unsettled, disputed general law against a specific 
 teaching of Scripture, is " to make the word of God of 
 none effect by human tradition." 
 
 The third objection of Dr. Hopkins is, " that it is the way 
 and manner of the Governor of the world, first to put his 
 creatures upon trial before admitting them to glory ; but 
 to make a creature and set him above everv other crea- 
 
ONLY BEGOTTEN. 107 
 
 ture, without previous trial, would be contrary to God's 
 way of dealing." 
 
 We admit the premise, but deny the conclusion. The 
 principle is important, and against the view defended by 
 Dr. Watts, which Hopkins was opposing, would have 
 force. But the view now maintained is that Christ, 
 though appointed and anointed to the headship of the 
 universe, was not invested with it until after his resur- 
 rection. His humiliation was his trial, an ordeal the 
 most severe ever known in the universe. Then, when 
 perfected through sufferings, he was " declared the Son 
 of God with power." 
 
 But it is objected, " Such a view is useless and unrea- 
 sonable." 
 
 To this we reply, that no truth is useless that sheds 
 light upon the object of Christ's death, that shows us the 
 nature of that power of death he must destroy, and ex- 
 plains the principles on which he enabled God to be just 
 in the punishment of Satan, without a morbid reaction of 
 public sympathy in his favor. Any truth that clears up 
 that whole subject is neither unreasonable nor useless, 
 but a part of the " wisdom of God and power of God 
 unto salvation." 
 
 But it is objected, finally, that it is dangerous as tending 
 to Unitarianism. But, did time permit, it could be fully 
 shown that the fact is the reverse of this. That it is for 
 the lack of a clear perception of the two natures in one 
 person of the Word before incarnation that Unitarianism 
 has again and again developed itself in the very focus of 
 evangelical light. 
 
 Arius developed his system in the bosom of the primi- 
 tive Church. Socinus was a product of the Reformation, 
 as really as Luther or Calvin. English Unitarianism is 
 of Presbyterian lineage ; and the latest, most luxuriant 
 growth of that system was in New England with Boston 
 
108 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 for its centre, the heart of Puritanism where Evangelical 
 ideas had at first undisputed possession. 
 
 The germs of Unitarianism are in the Evangelical system 
 itself, as it has been developed in all ages. Says Pro- 
 fessor Stuart : " The ancient Fathers taught, almost with 
 one voice, that Christ was derived from the Father, .... 
 they did really and truly regard the Word as an emana- 
 tion from the Father. Most of the earlier ones, an ema- 
 nation which took place just before time began." 
 
 But if they had understood that the Word had two 
 natures before being made flesh, they would have escaped 
 this mistake. They would have ascribed to Him all crea- 
 ture attributes in virtue of the one and all Divine attri- 
 butes in virtue of the other. But once they allowed only 
 a single nature in the pre-incarnate Word, and predicated 
 derivation or emanation of that, Arianism was the natural 
 result. The only difference was the difference between 
 "begotten" and "made." They said "begotten" Arius 
 said " made" In constructing a defence against Arius, the 
 Church developed the doctrine of two natures in one per- 
 son after the incarnation, at the same time throwing the 
 generation back to eternity. But while by this device 
 the Church made head against Arianism, at the same time 
 the premises of the Socinian system were laid. It was 
 expressly denied that the Divine nature suffered or could 
 suffer any diminution of glory or of exaltation by the in- 
 carnation. And thus, in reality, it was denied that the 
 Divine nature did descend from heaven. With equal pos- 
 itiveness it was denied that the human nature descended. 
 All that was necessary for Socinus to do was to draw the 
 logical conclusion that, since the Deity could not, and the 
 humanity did not, descend from heaven, nothing descend- 
 ed, and Jesus was only a man like other men, commen- 
 cing his existence in the womb of Maiy. 
 
 If the Church had allowed either nature really and 
 
ONLY BEGOTTEN. 109 
 
 truly to have descended, and undergone a true humiliation, 
 Socinianism would not have existed. The Church taught 
 Socinianism for centuries before Socinus was born. Mod- 
 ern Unitarianism has done nothing but vibrate uneasily 
 between Arius and Socinus, making Christ either a super- 
 angelic creature or a mere man, and in both cases justify- 
 ing themselves on the Catholic principle that the Divine 
 nature is incapable of change. 
 
 " Do you mean," says Dr. Channing, " that the great 
 God who never changes, whose happiness is the same yes- 
 terday, to-day, and forever, that this eternal Being really 
 suffered and died? Every pious man, when pressed by 
 the question, answers no." 
 
 Unfortunately, every pious man had been taught to say 
 no by the whole Church for ages. As Dr. Knapp ob- 
 serves, "it is not proper to say that the eternal Son of God 
 left heaven, or surrendered his glory." But so long as 
 every pious man answered no, Unitarianism was logically 
 established. For the Church said that the eternal God 
 did not really leave heaven and lay aside glory, or suffer 
 change, and Unitarianism itself could say no more. 
 
 The roots of Arian and Unitarian development have 
 laid in this denial, and in the fact that the Scriptures as 
 undeniably predicate creature qualities of Christ before 
 his incarnation as after. 
 
 But the view now maintained logically cuts off those 
 roots, and if it were generally accepted and incorporated 
 in Evangelical belief, although Unitarianism might still 
 exist on the outside, it could never again spring to life, as 
 it always has done before, in the very heart of the Evan- 
 gelical system. 
 
 At the same time, as the discussion goes on, it will be 
 found that Christ is invested with new charms and attrac- 
 tions, not only in the future and in the present, nor in 
 his earthly life merely, but in that vast period of time 
 
110 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 preceding, in which to most minds he is but a vague and 
 shadowy being. 
 
 Whatever distinctness of conception we have of Jesus, 
 the God-man on earth, — whatever vividness of vision our 
 spirits have attained of his glorified and exalted state, and 
 of his person, as faintly described to us in the transfigura- 
 tion scene, — that same distinctness we may carry back 
 with us into the previous ages, thus realizing afresh the 
 truth, " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for- 
 ever." 
 
 In the yesterday of his pre-incarnate being, in the to-day 
 of his fleshly humiliation, and in the glorious to-morrow 
 of his sacerdotal and kingly exaltation, he is indeed the 
 same person, — God and man united, infinite and finite, 
 invisible and ineffable spirit in and through a glorious, 
 incorruptible, and powerful corporeity. 
 
 The form which Jesus now wears, though indeed the 
 same he had when, " being in the form of God, he thought 
 it no robbery to be equal with God," yet bears, as even 
 celestial bodies can, the marks and traces of an earthly 
 experience. In that immortal and incorruptible hand 
 there is the scar of a nail. In that side will forever be 
 the mark of the spear. And to all eternity, even on that 
 brow of inexpressible glory, outshining the sun, and worthy 
 of many crowns, will yet be visible to the redeemed eye 
 the print of the crown of thorns. 
 
 May it be ours, with immortal vision, to behold those 
 vestiges of his dying love, and cast our crowns at his 
 feet! 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE FIRST-BORN. 
 " The first-born of every creature." — Col. i. 15. 
 
 IN this passage the birthright of the universe is assigned 
 to Christ, as both God and man in one person. As 
 God he created all things, and is the rightful Lord of all ; 
 as man he obtained the heirship of all things by his suffer- 
 ings, as implied in the phrase elsewhere used, " First-born 
 from the dead." For both these reasons, the one Christ, 
 in virtue of his two distinct natures, is figuratively called 
 first-born, as being heir of universal dominion. 
 
 Figuratively, I say, not literally. Literally the Divine 
 nature could not inherit, for that implies inferiority. Lit- 
 erally his human nature could not, for it was not first 
 created. On the contrary, the covering cherub, or Luci- 
 fer, was the natural and literal heir. It is figuratively, 
 then, and by substitution, that the person in either nature 
 is called first-born. And the meaning is, that the person 
 so named was in his human nature exalted to the head 
 of the universe as king, and invested with all the rights of 
 primogeniture, as if he had been the natural first-born of 
 the Father. 
 
 In other words, the primogeniture here and in other 
 parts of the New Testament assigned to Christ, considered 
 as God-man and mediator, is substitutionary, and conse- 
 quent upon the forfeiture of the natural heir. 
 
 The birthright was anciently of great importance. Its 
 advantages were three. The first-born, under the patri- 
 archal system, became the priest of the family, or tribe, 
 
112 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 received a double portion of the property, and succeeded 
 to the official station of the father. The antiquity of this 
 custom is so great, that, like the institution of sacrifice, it 
 seems to have come from the Creator. It was expressly 
 recognized by the Mosaic Law as already existing. To 
 guard that sacredness, in cases where a man had two 
 wives unequally loved, and the oldest son by the least 
 favored, Moses says, " He may not make the son of the 
 beloved first-born before the son of the hated, which is 
 indeed first-born." 
 
 The value among ancient nations of this institution we, 
 with our habits, can little appreciate. In this country 
 primogeniture has been abolished, and our minds have lost 
 all associations connected therewith. We must enter into 
 Oriental habits of thought, take up their associations, and 
 see and feel with their sensibilities. Yet, with all the 
 sacredness of the birthright, we find in the line of promise 
 a series of twelve or thirteen substitutions of the younger 
 for the elder, in such a marked and prominent manner 
 as seems evidently the result of studied design, especially 
 as in repeated instances the substituted person is an ac- 
 knowledged type of Messiah. 
 
 Let us look, then, at the case of Cain and Abel. The 
 impression we have gained from studying all that is said 
 in Scripture of this case, is that it was an instance of trial 
 by sacrifice to settle some question that had arisen. We 
 conceive it to have been an appeal to God by sacrifice, to 
 obtain his judgment. It was somewhat like that in after 
 days on Carmel, between Elijah and the prophets of the 
 groves, when God answered by fire. We can think of no 
 objection to this idea, and derive much benefit from its 
 admission. 
 
 As to the question to be decided between the two 
 brothers, various indications point to the question of the 
 birthright. From the promise of a seed made to Adam 
 
THE FIRST-BORN 113 
 
 and Eve, from Eve's words on Cain's birth, " I have 
 begotten the man Jehovah," and from her words on the 
 birth of Seth, " God hath appointed me another seed in- 
 stead of Abel, whom Cain slew," the most probable idea 
 is, that it was a question which of the two was the line of 
 the promised seed, in which lay the birthright, which, as 
 Paul says of Abraham, should be heir of the world. 
 
 The question of birthright to the world, somehow came 
 up. To settle it a trial by sacrifice was appointed, and 
 God decided in favor of the younger. Then came jeal- 
 ousy, rage, and murder ; and Cain, " who was of that 
 wicked one," is driven from the presence of the Lord. 
 And whose is the birthright ? It is given to Seth, 
 " another seed instead of Abel." 
 
 Now the word Cain means begotten, as if to say first- 
 born, and the word Seth means appointed; and the whole 
 drama is this : The natural first-born is rejected as unfit, 
 and the appointed heir takes the birthright. 
 
 Hence the blood of Abel typifies the blood of Christ, 
 because the whole scene was a designed picture of the 
 facts out of which Christ's death sprung. Lucifer was 
 first heir of empire ; he proved unfit ; God substituted 
 Christ; Satan through jealousy slew him. Thus the 
 blood of Abel and the blood of Christ are type and anti- 
 type. And you will notice here that Cain was rejected 
 for cause assigned, not arbitrarily. Cain did not become 
 evil because he was rejected, but he was rejected because 
 he was evil, and on that rejection his evil character blazed 
 out. This appears from what God said to him : " If thou 
 doest well, shalt thou not be accepted ? and if thou doest 
 not well, sin lieth at the door." 
 
 If you had done well, you would have been accepted ; 
 if you have forfeited your birthright, it is your own fault. 
 So the Apostle John says : " And wherefore slew he him ? 
 because his own works were evil and his brother's right- 
 
114 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 eous." That is his past conduct, his habits. It was 
 because he conducted himself improperly that he was re- 
 jected, and another substituted in the birthright. 
 
 Thus studied, this whole scene close by Eden's gates 
 will be found full of meaning. Nor can any man say why 
 such a thing should have happened, in such a conspicuous 
 place, and in such a significant way, unless by a studied 
 design on the part of God. 
 
 Let us come down, then, to Abraham, where the same 
 great question of the promised seed is so prominent. More 
 is said about Isaac as type of Christ almost than of any 
 other person, except David. And as if to make the type 
 as vivid as possible, God sends Abraham to Mount Mo- 
 riah, as yet an uninhabited wilderness, and makes him 
 build an altar and offer up Isaac, and the interruption of 
 the sacrifice Paul calls a figure of the resurrection. 
 
 Here then, again, the question of the birthright meets 
 us in the very focus of ancient types. Abraham, " the 
 heir of the world " ; Ishmael his eldest son, the son of a 
 bondwoman, an Egyptian who insults her mistress, the 
 boy himself mocking, then cast out, becoming a wild man, 
 dwelling in the desert, his hand against every man and 
 every man's hand against him ; while Isaac, the type of 
 Christ, assumes the birthright. Can this be accidental ? 
 Is it not a manifest contrivance of the Divine Providence ? 
 The rejection of Ishmael was evidently planned by God 
 from the first, before either of the lads were born ; and 
 it is only in a dim and shadowy way that unfitness is 
 indicated in Ishmael, not real unfitness, but a kind of in- 
 direct and shadowy unfitness, by his Egyptian blood, his 
 mother's insolence, and his mockery ; things not so very 
 criminal as they are suggestive and emblematic. That 
 this whole transaction was of the nature of symbol, or 
 analogic resemblance, Paul expressly declares, Galatians 
 iv. 24: "Which things are an allegory." 
 
THE FIRST-BORN. 115 
 
 The next case is almost equally prominent in Scrip- 
 ture, that of Esau and Jacob ; and on it from first to last 
 are stamped marks of design. The children struggle in 
 the womb ; God tells the mother that two nations are in 
 her womb ; that the elder shall serve the younger. And 
 on this Paul remarks, that " the children being not yet 
 born, nor having yet done good or evil, that the purpose 
 of God might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth, 
 it was said unto her, ' The elder shall serve the younger,' " 
 That is, this was said beforehand, in order that the pur- 
 pose of God, that is, his design in the typical transaction, 
 " might stand," that is, be seen to stand, " not of works," 
 that is, not as conditioned on the works of the parties, 
 "but of Him that calleth," that is, of his own conscious 
 design before the works occurred. God not only designed 
 beforehand that there should be such a substitution of the 
 birthright, but also providentially ordered the circum- 
 stances and the dispositions out of which by their own 
 free agency that transfer actually came. In short, he pur- 
 posely fitted up the stage, and put two admirable actors on 
 it, to act out a higher reality. 
 
 Paul does not say that the purpose of God was that the 
 transfer should be without reference to works ; for if that 
 were the Divine purpose, it was frustrated, as Paul himself 
 shows when he calls Esau a profane person who sold his 
 birthright, and says, " He found no place of repentance, 
 though he sought it diligently with tears." Evidently the 
 Holy Spirit meant to indicate that Esau's sale of his birth- 
 right was not only a fault and a profanation, but an irrep- 
 arable one. All that is meant, then, by the purpose of 
 God not standing in works is this, that the purpose pre- 
 ceded the works and occasioned their typical character, 
 and did not follow them as an afterthought. 
 
 Look, then, at the tableau purposely appointed before- 
 hand by Divine contrivance. See how by the circum- 
 
116 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 stances before and at birth the suggestion is made of a 
 conflict begun in former worlds and brought for settlement 
 to this. Then notice the different costumes of the actors, 
 as they are born and grow up. The one red, or dark- 
 complexioned, hairy as a goat, wild and savage in his 
 tastes ; the other blonde, smooth, of civilized tastes and 
 habits. 
 
 God has made them up for their parts ; he has dressed 
 them in character ; and now the play begins. Esau, for a 
 morsel of meat sells his birthright. Jacob, disguised in 
 skins, and putting on Esau's clothes, obtains the blessing 
 of the first-born. Esau cries with an exceeding loud and 
 bitter cry, and lifts up his voice and weeps. Jacob flies 
 from his jealous revenge, and, for ages after, the descend- 
 ants of Esau are bitter foes of Israel. And the prince 
 of Idumsea, like the princes of Tyre and Babylon, is ad- 
 dressed by the Holy Spirit with words which pass beyond 
 the mortal, and fasten upon the unseen reality. 
 
 Jacob's typical act is sinful, but done for the sake of his 
 mother, who says, " On me be thy sin, my son " ; Christ 
 bore an imputed guilt, not real, for his bride, the Church, 
 to whom the real sin actually belonged. Jacob gained a 
 temporal birthright by seeming to be Esau ; Christ gained 
 an eternal birthright by being made sin for us. " He hath 
 Beelzebub," they said, "he deceiveth the people; he hath 
 spoken blasphemy." 
 
 The same substitution is briefly hinted at a fourth time 
 in the birth of Pharez, one of the ancestors of Messiah, as 
 recorded Genesis xxxviii. 27 - 30 : " And it came to pass 
 in the time of her travail [Tamar], that, behold, twins 
 were in her womb. And it came to pass, when she trav- 
 ailed, that the one put out his hand ; and the midwife took 
 and bound upon his hand a scarlet thread, saying, Tins 
 came out first. And it came to pass, as he drew back his 
 hand, that, behold, his brother came out ; and she said, 
 
THE FIRST-BORN. 117 
 
 How hast thou broken forth ? this breach be upon thee : 
 therefore his name was called Pharez [breach]. And 
 afterward came out his brother, that had the scarlet thread 
 upon his hand: and his name was called Zarah." 
 
 We come then to the case of Joseph. All remember 
 his dreams, — how his brothers' sheaves bowed to his sheaf, 
 and the sun, moon, and stars made obeisance to him. All 
 remember how his brethren interpreted these of the birth- 
 right, — " Shalt thou indeed have dominion over us ? " — 
 and how they envied him and hated him ; how they cast 
 him into a pit, and sold him to Egypt, and made Jacob 
 think him torn of wild beasts. All remember how in 
 Egypt Joseph was tempted, imprisoned, exalted, — in all 
 things a most eminent type of Christ. 
 
 Now listen to the dying Israel, Gen. xlix. 3, 4 : " Reu- 
 ben, thou art my first-born, my might, and the beginning 
 of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excel- 
 lency of power. Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel ; 
 because thou wentest up to thy father's bed ; then de- 
 filedst thou it." At the same time, on Joseph, verses 
 22-26, he pronounces the blessing proper to the first- 
 born, as we read 1 Chronicles v. 1 : " Reuben was the 
 first-born, but forasmuch as he defiled his father's bed, 
 his birthright was given to Joseph." 
 
 But, as if not content with this fifth illustration, and as 
 if the Divine purpose would seize every available opportu- 
 nity to indicate this great idea, it is a sixth time repeated 
 in the case of Joseph's two sons. 
 
 When they came to receive their grandfather's blessing, 
 it says : " Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right 
 hand towards Israel's left, and Manasseh in his left hand 
 towards Israel's right; and Israel stretched out his right 
 hand and laid it upon Ephraim's head, who was the 
 younger, and his left hand upon Manasseh's head, guid- 
 ing his hands wittingly, for Manasseh was the first-born." 
 
118 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 That is, he crossed his hands wittingly, intentionally. 
 Hence when Joseph cried, " Not so, my father, this is 
 the first-born " ; "I know it, my son, I know it," said the 
 dying Israel, " he shall be great, but truly his younger 
 brother shall be greater than he ; and he set Ephraim 
 before Manasseh." 
 
 The seventh case is the substitution of Israel, nationally 
 considered, in place of Egypt, as first-born among nations. 
 
 Egypt was a splendid monarchy when Jacob was a 
 wandering shepherd. In arts, arms, and learning Egypt 
 enjoyed a kind of precedence, so that she is said to have 
 been the first among the kingdoms. But now Egypt is 
 rejected, and smitten with plague after plague, while God 
 says, " Israel is my son, even my first-born." 
 
 Connected with this, and forming the eighth of the se- 
 ries, is the passing over the first-born of Israel on account 
 of the blood sprinkled on the door-post and lintel, on the 
 night when the Lord smote all the first-born of the land 
 of Egypt. 
 
 Here the substitution through sacrifice of the first-born 
 of a younger nation for the first-born of an older nation is 
 most marked, and its typical design manifest. The blood 
 denotes the blood of Christ. The first-born of Israel typ- 
 ify "the Church of the First-born" (TrpwTOTOicwv^. Of 
 what, then, are the first-born of Egypt a type, but of those 
 angelic principalities and powers whose defection, as Au- 
 gustine says, the Church is to replace and make good? 
 Can one half the transaction be made typical, and not the 
 other ? Can one extreme of the contrast sustain a sym- 
 bolic character, and not the other ? And yet this, as all 
 Christians of all ages allow, is the very central type of 
 redemption. 
 
 The ninth instance follows soon after the exodus, in the 
 case of Nadab and Abihu. In Numbers iii. 2, we read 
 that Nadab was Aaron's first-born, and, verse 4, " Nadab 
 
THE FIRST-BORN. 119 
 
 and Abihu died before the Lord, when they had strange 
 fire ; and they had no children ; and Eleazar and Ithamar 
 ministered in the priest's office." Now, considering that 
 the Levitieal tribe had just been taken for the Passover 
 first-born, this repetition is worthy of notice ; as if the Holy 
 Spirit would keep up the idea, by constant reiteration, in 
 every form and circumstance. Here it is a kind of sacer- 
 dotal birthright that is forfeited by the elder and bestowed 
 on the younger ; and in this case, as a marked effect of 
 malversation in office. 
 
 The tenth case is the rejection of Saul and his family, 
 and the anointing of a successor from the family of Jesse. 
 
 Dr. Fairbairn says : " ISTo one who admits the existence 
 of types at all in the Old Testament will doubt .... that 
 God ordered the events connected with the establishment 
 of monarchy in Israel in such a manner as to render 
 them exactly typical of Messiah's history." The same 
 writer affirms that it was just because the events of Da- 
 vid's life were typical that the words he uttered could 
 furnish the form of Messianic prophecy. 
 
 But how can David's history be typical, and Saul's his- 
 tory not in some degree partake of the typical character ? 
 How can David's sufferings be, as it were, the sufferings of 
 Christ, and Saul, who inflicted those sufferings on David, 
 not be a shadow of him who was to bruise the heel of the 
 promised seed? 
 
 Look at Saul, and see if you can resist the impression 
 of design on the part of God. A head and shoulders 
 above the people, of comely appearance, energetic, brave, 
 moderate at first, reigning well for two years. See him 
 then raising a standing army, developing an ambitious 
 spirit, growing insubordinate, grasping at the sacerdotal 
 function, consolidating power in himself. Hear him sol- 
 emnly warned of God of removal in case of persistence in 
 misconduct. Instead of submission, see him disobey again 
 
120 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 in the matter of Amalek, to propitiate the favor of his 
 soldiery. Behold him immediately set aside ; sentence 
 of forfeiture pronounced. And, though still acting sov- 
 ereign, though still treated with reverence as the Lord's 
 anointed, see Samuel sent to Bethlehem to anoint a suc- 
 cessor. Saul had a son. God might have taken him. 
 No. There must be a change of family. 
 
 But there is another exemplification in the house of 
 Jesse. For it seems as though the Holy Spirit could 
 hardly repeat the indication too often. Eliab was Jesse's 
 first-born, David his youngest. And when they went to 
 the anointing festival, David was left out keeping sheep. 
 But, to the amazement of all, the Lord rejected one after 
 another of seven sons, and made them send for the shep- 
 herd-boy, and as soon as he appeared, ruddy and rosy, 
 " Up," said the spirit, " anoint him, for this is he." 
 
 Follow, then, the drama to its denouement. Observe 
 the jealousy of Saul, his growing hostility, his deadly jav- 
 elin thrusts, his persecutions of David, his defeat, despair, 
 and desperate end. 
 
 If God had designed to give us a type of Lucifer's career, 
 could he have offered one more darkly eloquent, more 
 awfully instructive ? Notice how David's typical suffer- 
 ings, burial in Engedi, resurrection, and Messianic psalms 
 grew out of this pressure of Saul's inflamed jealousy and 
 revenge. 
 
 If now the sufferings of Christ are typified by the suf- 
 ferings of David, how can it not be true that the jealous 
 revenge and malice of Satan, that caused those sufferings, 
 were typified by the jealous revenge of Saul ? How can 
 David's anguish at Saul's unjust persecution be a type, and 
 not the unjust persecution itself be a type ? 
 
 The mind of President Edwards was not averse to such 
 a style of reasoning from types. Coincidences and analo- 
 gies of this nature did not seem to his calm and philosophic 
 mind unworthy of attention. 
 
THE FIRST-BORN 121 
 
 " It is observable that God anointed David after Saul, 
 to reign in his room. He took away the crown from him 
 and his family, who was higher in stature than any of his 
 people, and was in their eyes fittest to bear rule, to give it 
 to David, who was of low stature, and in comparison of 
 despicable appearance. So God was pleased to show how 
 Christ, who appeared despicable, without form or come- 
 liness, and was despised and rejected of men, should take 
 the kingdom from the great ones of the earth. 
 
 " And also it is observable that David was the youngest 
 of Jesse's sons, as Jacob the younger brother supplanted 
 Esau, and got the birthright and blessing from him ; and 
 as Pharez, another of Christ's ancestors, supplanted Zarah 
 in the birth ; and as Isaac, another of the ancestors of 
 Christ, cast out his elder brother Ishmael, thus was that 
 frequent saying of Christ fulfilled, ' The last shall be first, 
 and the first last.' " 1 
 
 And here a twelfth instance meets us. It is remarked 
 by Dr. Fairbairn, that, to complete the typical outline of 
 Christ's career, the reign of Solomon must come in. 
 David represents more prominently the suffering Messiah, 
 Solomon, Messiah victorious and exalted. 
 
 The Holy Spirit seizes the opportunity to throw in 
 another tableau of substitution. Adonijah is David's first- 
 born. But the crown, by special appointment, is given to 
 Solomon. Instantly Adonijah begins to plot with Joab 
 and the high-priest a revolution. The queen-dowager is 
 sent to demand the hand of Abishag the Shunamite for 
 Adonijah in marriage. The keen eye of Solomon pen- 
 etrated the design, and crushed it in a moment. " Ask 
 for him the kingdom also, for he is my elder brother." 
 
 Finally, this principle of substitution is again worked out 
 on a large scale in the rejection of the Jews and calling 
 of the Gentiles. As compared with Egypt, Israel was an 
 1 Works, Vol. I. p. 349. 
 
122 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 adopted or substituted first-born ; but as compared with 
 the Christian Church, Israel stands as the disinherited elder 
 brother. To them pertained, says Paul, the adoption, — 
 that is, the birthright of nations, — but God has given it to 
 the Gentiles, as Moses said, " I will move them to jealousy 
 by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation will 
 I anger them." How angry and how jealous were the 
 Jews when Christ hinted at their rejection ! And when 
 the natural branches were broken off, and the wild grafted 
 in, what fierce, persecuting rage did Judaism show ! 
 
 And in doing this, Paul teaches, in Galatians iv., that 
 the nation was a type of the same kind and meaning as 
 Ishmael of old. Which things, he says, are an allegory. 
 Jerusalem that now is, and her children, answereth to, that 
 is, is a type of the same meaning with, Hagar, and Ishmael 
 the son of the bondwoman. Thus in thirteen successive 
 instances is the principle of a substituted birthright or 
 an adoptive primogeniture illustrated ; and in all but two 
 of them we have Scripture warrant, plain and clear, for 
 regarding them as purposely typical of the substitution of 
 Christ. 
 
 What else can they be ? Is it possible to conceive of 
 such things happening thirteen times, in the very focus 
 of typical light, by chance ? We might as well say the 
 world was made by chance, or that the Bible was written 
 by chance. To deny such marks of design as lie in these 
 cases, especially when positively asserted and argued by 
 Paul, would be fatal to all reasoning from design to a 
 designer, and would overturn the foundations of revelation. 
 Therefore, the result is as sure as revelation is sure, and 
 what overturns one, logically and consistently applied, must 
 overturn the other. Hence, in fact, the Bible has had the 
 effect on the human mind to instil this belief to some 
 extent. With a single exception, namely, that the anoint- 
 ing of Christ has been looked at as the cause of Satan's 
 
THE FIRST-BORN. 123 
 
 apostasy, instead of as being occasioned by it, this may 
 almost be affirmed to be the universal belief. 
 
 Dr. Ellicott, in his Sermons on the Destiny of the Crea- 
 ture, says : " The scattered hints and speculations of the 
 earlier writers, afterwards more fully developed by some of 
 the deeper thinkers of the seventh century, that regard 
 the early history of the world and the fall of angels in some 
 sort of connection, are certainly not unworthy of our con- 
 sideration." Augustine speaks of the " partem hominum 
 reparatum," the saved of the human race, as " designed 
 to supply the place of the lapsed angels." 
 
 From these ancient sources it is probable that Mahomet 
 borrowed the idea, as he did many other things, only put- 
 ting Adam instead of Christ, the first Adam for the second. 
 
 Thus the Koran says : " When the Lord said unto the 
 angels, I am going to place a substitute on earth, worship 
 Adam, they all worshipped him except Eblis, who, know- 
 ing that God had destined man as his superior, took a 
 secret resolution never to acknowledge him as such." 
 
 Milton describes the summoning of the angelic hosts 
 and the public anointing of Christ as Head over all, and 
 adds : — 
 
 " So spake the Omnipotent, and with his words 
 All seemed well pleased, but were not all. 
 
 Satan — so call him now, his former name 
 
 Is heard no more in heaven — He of the first, 
 
 If not the first archangel, great in power, 
 
 In favor, and pre-eminence, yet fraught 
 
 With envy against the Son of God, that day 
 
 Honored by his great Father, and proclaimed 
 
 Messiah, King anointed, could not bear 
 
 Through pride that sight, but thought himself impaired." 
 
 Here Milton represents the anointing of Christ above 
 Lucifer, and the jealousy resulting, as the cause of the 
 rebellion far back in the ages, when 
 
124 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 " As yet this world was not, and chaos wild 
 Reigned where these heavens now roll, where earth now rests, 
 Upon her centre poised." 
 
 The same view is adopted by Dr. Hopkins. " It ap- 
 pears," he says, " that man is more an ultimate end than 
 angels, that angels were made to answer ends for man, 
 .... The angels were made in some way to know that 
 God had peculiar and grand designs to answer by man, 
 .... that One of that race, .... even a man, should be 
 the Head of a most glorious kingdom, and be the Lord 
 to whom they must yield obedience." 
 
 " This was, most probably, the occasion of the rebellion 
 
 of those who sinned Lucifer, who was at the head 
 
 of all the angels, the highest and noblest creature that God 
 
 had made, was displeased with such a plan He refused 
 
 to stoop so low as to become a servant, .... and serve one 
 in the human family as his Lord and King." 
 
 Dr. Emmons says about the same : " It is likely that the 
 holy angels consented to bow to the sceptre of Christ, 
 while Satan and his followers disdained such low and ser- 
 vile employment." 
 
 My honored father thus expresses the same idea in one 
 of his unpublished sermons : " The development of the 
 personality of the Divine nature in the Son, and putting 
 angels in subjection to him, may have been the temptation 
 to pride, to envy, to unbelief, and to doubt in respect to 
 his real divinity, and finally to open insurrection against 
 him. The supposition gains probability if we consider that 
 the first work in which angels were called to act as minis- 
 tering spirits was the creation of a new world and race of 
 beiugs but a little below them, one of whom, in alliance 
 with the Divine nature, was destined to sit upon the throne, 
 principalities and powers being subject to him. There 
 was a time when the Son was proclaimed in heaven the 
 Supreme Regent, and all the angels were required to wor- 
 
THE FIEST-BOSN. 125 
 
 ship him. And if the annunciation of the exaltation of 
 our inferior nature to supreme dominion in the person of 
 the Son preceded the revolt, it may have been the occa- 
 sion of it." 
 
 The extracts given are claimed to represent the com- 
 mon, if not the catholic opinion. The only error in the 
 theory is in regarding the annunciation of man's exaltation 
 as the occasion of Lucifer's revolt, instead of regarding his 
 revolt as the occasion of that annunciation. 
 
 It will be noticed with what caution the theory speaks : 
 "if the annunciation preceded the revolt." It is not 
 proved to have preceded. It is purely conjectural ; it is 
 in the highest degree improbable. It is improbable that 
 the creature head of the mighty universe would be re- 
 moved from office without fault. It is unlikely that a 
 change of dynasty in a vast empire would be resolved on 
 unnecessarily, while the first incumbents were discharging 
 their functions acceptably. It is improbable God would 
 give Lucifer so plausible an excuse for revolt, an excuse 
 which explains the entrance of sin too well. It assigns an 
 occasion for it too nearly approaching to the definition of a 
 temptation. If " it was calculated to try the allegiance of 
 all the heavenly host, and would afford more occasion for 
 jealousy, envy, and unbelief than anything that could hap- 
 pen in the direct, undivided government of God," then 
 surely it was a temptation of tremendous power. But 
 God tempteth no man. God never gave Lucifer reason 
 to say, " I was dethroned for nothing ; I was removed for 
 no fault." 
 
 This is precisely the version of the matter the Deceiver 
 would be likely to give. It is a mistake, small in appear- 
 ance, which he would be ingenious enough to slip in un- 
 perceived. But it colors and changes the system through- 
 out. Correct this mistake, and the theory is perfected; 
 the Scriptural evidence in its favor cumulative and abun- 
 
126 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 dant ; the objections against it susceptible of easy an- 
 swer. 
 
 We will only add, that this view possesses a peculiar in- 
 terest to believers. It is the doctrine of their own as well 
 as their Redeemer's birthright. Our adoption is our par- 
 ticipation with him in the primogeniture. As he is heir, 
 we are joint heirs. As he is heir by appointment, so are 
 we joint heirs by appointment. He was anointed by sub- 
 stitution to the headship, and carries us with him. His 
 adoption, in its humiliation and in its exaltation, is ours. 
 If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him. We 
 are all of one. We are his predestined counterparts, that 
 he may be 7rp&>TOTO/co<? irpcoTOTOtccov, " First-born of many 
 first-born." 
 
 Only the spirit of God can initiate us into these exalted 
 mysteries. Only the spirit of adoption can reveal to us 
 what eye hath not seen, ear heard, nor carnal heart con- 
 ceived, of our adoptive rank and its far more exceeding 
 and eternal weight of glory. But God hath revealed it 
 unto us by his spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, 
 even the deep things of God. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DETHRONEMENT OF LUCIFER. 
 
 " We aveestle against spiritual wickedness in Heaven." — 
 
 Epb. vi. 12. 
 
 THAT Lucifer was once in heaven, sinned there, drew 
 away many angels into rebellion, and was at some 
 time cast down, is the almost universal conception of 
 Christendom. 
 
 The question we raise is simply as to the elate of his 
 expulsion. The general impression has been, that he was 
 expelled immediately after his fall. Milton, indeed, allows 
 him time enough to organize an army, invent gunpow- 
 der, establish founcleries, cast heavy artillery, and hold his 
 ground against all created power, yielding at last only to 
 Almighty thunderbolts. 
 
 The popular conception, however, is, that as soon as 
 Lucifer rebelled God cast him down to hell, and this, it 
 is commonly supposed, was before the creation of man. 
 
 This idea has arisen from a careless interpretation of 
 Jude 6, and 2 Peter ii. 4, which speak of the angels that 
 left their principality, being cast down to Tartarus. But it 
 is denied that these passages refer to the original revolt of 
 Lucifer, for the following reasons : — 
 
 1. The fault described is desertion of one's official rank 
 and station for a lower one, whereas Lucifer clung to his 
 Station and aimed to increase and fortify his power. 
 
 2. The punishment inflicted is expressly described to 
 be close confinement. The parties of whom Jude speaks 
 " He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness." 
 
128 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Peter says, " He delivered them into chains of darkness, 
 to be reserved unto judgment." If the Holy Spirit does 
 not mean to indicate close imprisonment until the judg- 
 ment-day in these words, we see not by what words he 
 could express it. 
 
 But is Satan thus confined? By no means, for this 
 same apostle says, 1 Peter v. 8 : " Your adversary, the 
 Devil, as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he 
 may devour." Peter, then, certainly did not include him 
 among those he describes as chained in Tartarus. "It is 
 certain," says Albert Barnes, " that Satan and his angels 
 were not chained down in hell in our Saviour's time." 
 (Notes, Eph. ii. 2.) It is equally certain, we add, that 
 they are not the parties mentioned by Peter and Jude who 
 were so chained. 
 
 3. There is reason to think that Jude and Peter both 
 refer to Gen. vi. 2 : " The sons of God saw the daughters 
 of men that they were fair ; and they took them wives 
 of all which they chose." 
 
 Peter is illustrating the truth that " the Lord knoweth 
 how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve 
 the unjust to the day of judgment to be punished." Now 
 if Gen. vi. 2 is referred to, it is a case in point ; since it 
 was the Titanic offspring of those marriages that were 
 swept off by the deluge, while Noah was delivered. But 
 if he refers to the original fall of Lucifer, how is it in 
 point ? By what principle of association can its introduc- 
 tion be accounted for ? On the other hand, it would be 
 natural for him to refer to Gen. vi. 2, for both he and all 
 whom he addressed were educated in the belief that the 
 giants were the offspring of angelic marriages, and were 
 thus confined in Tartarus. The allusion is in perfect keep- 
 ing with the whole scope of ancient belief on the subject, 
 just such an allusion as would be readily made, and readily 
 understood. 
 
DETHEONEMENT OF LUC1FEE. 129 
 
 In Ju.de this is still more evident ; for, having spoken of 
 the angels, he passes to the case of Sodom, and their going 
 after strange flesh as top ofxobov tovtol? rpoirov in like 
 manner to these, namely, the angels above mentioned ; on 
 which Alford remarks, " The manner was similar, because 
 the angels committed fornication with another race than 
 themselves."' 
 
 In his prolegomena to this epistle Alford refers to a 
 tract on this subject by Dr. Kurtz of Germany, in which 
 " he has gone far to decide against any reference of Gen. 
 vi. 2 to the Sethites, or of Jude 6, 7 to the fall of the 
 Devil and his angels. The exegesis of Hengstenberg, and 
 those who think with him, depends on the spiritual accep- 
 tation in this case of the word €K7ropvevaaaai,, 'giving 
 themselves over to fornication,' which Kurtz completely 
 disproves. The facts of the history of the catastrophe of 
 the cities of the plain render it quite out of the question." 
 
 Here again, as in Peter, all is in perfect keeping with 
 the universal ancient belief. It is just such an allusion to 
 Gen. vi. 2 as would be naturally made and understood, 
 while a reference to an event before the creation of man 
 is foreign to the Apostle's purpose, and extremely forced 
 and unnatural. 
 
 The belief that Peter and Jude refer to Gen. vi. 2 is 
 not, however, confined to those who suppose that " the 
 sons of God " there mentioned were angels. Faber con- 
 siders them to have been Sethites, and yet argues, as Dr. 
 Bushnell affirms conclusively, that Peter and Jude had 
 them in mind. 
 
 Thus, on critical grounds alone, we dispose of a theory 
 which compels us to conceive of the government of the 
 universe as carrying on war with its own state-prison for 
 ages, and making an infinite sacrifice to destroy an incar- 
 cerated felon, thunder-scarred, and chained in everlasting 
 fires. Thus we open the way to a true interpretation of 
 
130 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Eph. vi. 12, by setting it in the focus of all Scripture rays 
 concerning the dethronement of Lucifer. 
 
 Let us, then, glance once more at the germ of all proph- 
 ecy, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's 
 head. Of course his head was not already bruised ; it was 
 the retaliatory stroke of the wounded heel which must ac- 
 complish the prediction. 
 
 Next we turn our attention to the Book of Job, prob- 
 ably the oldest in the Bible. Now this book opens with 
 a scene in heaven, where Satan presents himself with 
 other angels before the Lord, with no sign of being a 
 state prisoner escaped from his chains, but every sign of 
 being of prominent rank and station. 
 
 " There was a day when the sons of God came to pre- 
 sent themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also 
 among them " ; or in the second chapter, " And Satan 
 came also among them to present himself before the 
 Lord," — the customary phrase denoting homage. 
 
 Now it is the universal etiquette of courts, that the 
 notice of the throne is not wont to be first extended to 
 officers in disgrace, or to those who are for any reason for- 
 bidden the royal presence. Yet here the Lord addresses 
 Satan first, and him only. " The inquiry addressed to 
 him," says Mr. Barnes, " does not appear to have been 
 made as if it were improper that Satan should have ap- 
 peared there, for no blame seems to have attached to him 
 for this." 
 
 But suppose an escaped state prisoner should come 
 before Queen Victoria, would no blame attach to him? 
 Suppose Mr. Mason should contrive to appear at a Cabinet 
 meeting in Washington, would President Lincoln ask his 
 opinion on the loyalty of Charles Sumner or of Secretary 
 Seward, without the least intimation that he was out of 
 place ? Would he give him full liberty to confiscate the 
 goods and afflict the persons of those highest in loyalty ? 
 
DETHRONEMENT OF LUCIFER. 131 
 
 Manifestly, then, at that date when Moses put this book in 
 the canon Satan was not a state prisoner, but a high officer 
 of the government, not yet displaced. 
 
 So viewed, Satan's assault upon Job and its result, fore- 
 shadowing as they do his attack upon Christ and its issue, 
 are most instructive and appropriate. And the book itself 
 is seen to contain a Divine disclosure of the principles at 
 issue in the grand drama of redemption. 
 
 Another case in point is found in 1 Kings xxii. 9, where 
 Ahab inquires of the prophet Micaiah whether he shall go 
 up to Ramoth Gilcad and fight, as all his prophets urged 
 him to do. Micaiah, the prophet of the Lord, answers : 
 *' I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of 
 heaven standing by him, on his right hand and on his left. 
 And the Lord said, ' Who shall persuade Ahab that he may 
 go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead?' and one said on this 
 manner, and another on that manner. And there came 
 forth a spirit and stood before the Lord and said, ' I will 
 persuade him.' And the Lord said, ' Wherewith ?' and 
 he said, ' I will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth 
 of all his prophets.' And He said, ' Thou shalt per- 
 suade him and prevail."' Accordingly Micaiah tells Ahab 
 that the Lord hath put an evil spirit in the mouth of his 
 prophets. 
 
 Now this certainly represents the heavenly hosts as not 
 yet in Ahab's time purged of the presence of deceitful 
 spirits. On the contrary, heaven is seen to contain a 
 mixed population, some good and some evil, and the dis- 
 crimination is yet future. 
 
 Another striking instance is presented in Zach. hi. 1, 2, 
 compared with Jude ix. : — 
 
 " And he showed me Joshua the high-priest standing 
 before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his 
 right hand to resist him. And Jehovah said unto Satan : 
 * The Lord rebuke thee, Satan, even the Lord that hath 
 
132 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee ; is not this a brand plucked 
 from the fire ? ' ' The passage in Jude is, " Yet Michael 
 the archangel, when contending with the Devil he disputed 
 about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a 
 railing accusation (literally, sentence of blasphemy), but 
 said, the Lord rebuke thee." 
 
 The dispute which Jude mentions is the same that 
 Zachariah actually sees in vision. The angel of the Lord 
 of the one is Michael, the archangel of the other. The 
 reply in both cases is the same : " The Lord rebuke thee, 
 Satan." It is a dispute where Satan accuses, and God jus- 
 tifies Israel, or that body of which Moses was head, and 
 Satan's accusation is denoted by the filthy rags of the high- 
 priest, and God's justification by the change of raiment. 
 
 Here, as in Job, Satan appears in heaven before the 
 Lord ; and Jude employs this remarkable statement, that 
 Michael the archangel durst not bring against him a sen- 
 tence of blasphemy. And the meaning is, as Alford re- 
 marks, blasphemy against the adversary. 
 
 Now blasphemy always implies some disrespect to God. 
 But how could disrespect to Satan imply disrespect to 
 God, unless Satan still stood in that primacy of office 
 which God had established ? If that were the case, then, 
 however unworthy the incumbent might be, still, in virtue 
 of his office, a blasphemy of him might savor of blasphemy 
 against God who anointed him. 
 
 Thus, in this remarkable passage, the Holy Spirit sup- 
 plies evidence, none the less pointed for being incidental 
 and indirect, that Satan in Zechariah's time still stood 
 among the " glories " of heaven, even Michael the arch- 
 angel fearing to speak a word of disrespect. 
 
 The next passage of evidence is found in the time of 
 Christ, and is composed of the testimony of the party 
 in question himself, and the admission of Christ. In 
 the temptation, Luke iv. 6, Satan said to Jesus : " All 
 
DETHRONEMENT OF LUCIFER. 133 
 
 this power will I give thee, and the glory of them ; for 
 that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I 
 give it." 
 
 Now unless this were true, unless Jesus believed it to 
 be true, how would it be a temptation ? There is no 
 temptation in a large reward which is known not to be 
 in the power of him that offers it. Therefore, although 
 Satan's testimony would not be valid when it was for 
 his interest to lie, yet when it was for his interest not 
 to lie, as here, his testimony might be entertained. 
 
 Now that Jesus really believed that Satan possessed 
 such delegated power appears from the fact that in three 
 places he calls him " the prince of this world," and each 
 time in such a way as to imply the reality of that office. 
 
 John xii. 31 : " Now is the judgment of this world ; now 
 shall the prince of this world be cast out," — now that is 
 about to take place which will lead to his expulsion. Cer- 
 tainly, therefore, he was not cast out till then. John xiv. 
 30 : " The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing 
 in me." That is, he seeks to tempt me, but finds nothing 
 in me to answer to his solicitations. John xvi. 11 : " The 
 Holy Spirit shall convince the world of judgment, because 
 the prince of this world is judged." That is to say, the 
 office of the Holy Spirit is to bring on the judgment-day, 
 in which the world will be judged because its prince is 
 judged. 
 
 Now t Satan, in the temptation, claims no more for him- 
 self as to rank and office than Jesus here fully concedes. 
 There is nothing said about usurpation. On the contrary, 
 the language is just such as it would be if Satan was still 
 in possession of his original office, which was about to be 
 taken away from him. And this renders the fact of the 
 temptation of Christ intelligible. But if Satan was already 
 deprived, and a state prisoner, such a transaction becomes 
 incomprehensible. 
 
134 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 We come, then, to the Epistle to the Ephesians. In the 
 second chapter, Paul speaks of the course of this world as 
 " according to the prince of the power of the air," or as 
 Conybeare and Howson render it, " ruler of the powers 
 of the air." 
 
 On this Albert Barnes says, speaking of the fallen an- 
 gels : " They must have some locality, some part of the 
 universe where they dwell ; that they were not confined 
 down to hell in the time of the Redeemer is clear from the 
 
 New Testament Why is there any improbability in 
 
 the belief that their residence should have been in the 
 air?" 
 
 Olshausen says, " We are fully justified in considering 
 the ah' not to mean the atmosphere, but the higher regions 
 generally, which we are wont to call heaven." Ellicott 
 remarks, " There is no reason for limiting the term to the 
 physical atmosphere." Bloomfield says the word power 
 denotes all the celestial forces arranged in troops, and 
 under regular subordination. Alford says, " The word 
 power is used here to represent the aggregate of those in 
 power, as we say the government." 
 
 This would be completely unintelligible if Satan had 
 been once condemned and chained in hell, but if it is only 
 his original office not yet wrested from his grasp, but about 
 to be, all is plain. 
 
 We come then to Eph. vi. 12: "For we wrestle not 
 against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against 
 powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, 
 against spiritual wickedness in high places." 
 
 The expression "in high places" is literally "in heav- 
 en"; thus Conybeare and Howson render it, "the com- 
 pany of the evil spirits in the heavens." Albert Barnes 
 renders it " in celestial or heavenly places," and says it is 
 the same in the original rendered, Phil. ii. 10, things in 
 heaven, " That at the name of Jesus every knee should 
 
DETHRONEMENT OF LUCIFER. 135 
 
 "bow, of tilings in heaven," &c. Also in our Lord's pray- 
 er, " Our Father which art in heaven." He also remarks, 
 " It is probable that the allusion here is to the ranks and 
 orders sustained before their fall, something like which 
 they may still retain." 
 
 Bengel says, "In supra coelestibus," "In the highest 
 heavens"; and then adds, "Etium hostes seel captivi," 
 "Enemies indeed, but captives." But Paul was not 
 thinking of fighting with captives already led in chains. 
 There would be no bravery in that. 
 
 Alford says, " That residence of evil spirits which in 
 Eph. ii. 2 was said to be in the air, is now said to be in 
 the heavens above us." Ellicott translates it, " In the 
 supernal regions." Olshausen says, " It can only denote 
 the place of residence of the principalities and powers re- 
 ferred to. The conflict with flesh and blood on earth is 
 contrasted with the conflict with spirits in heaven." 
 
 " This view," says Professor Eadie, " is maintained by 
 no less names than Jerome, who adds, ' Hsec autem om- 
 nium doctorum opinio est ' ; by Ambrosiaster, Luther, 
 Calvin, Beza, Bullinger, Bucer, Estius, Grotius, Bengel, 
 Hyperius, Koppe, Hammond, Meier, Holshausen, Mey- 
 er, Olshausen, Harless, Von Gerlach, DeWette, Whitby, 
 Barnes, Bloomfield, and MacKnight." 
 
 Professor Eadie himself, however, is of opinion that 
 the Apostle means " the celestial spots occupied by the 
 Church," which he thinks " those evil spirits have invaded." 
 
 Let us pass on then to Rev. xii., where we see that 
 conflict -brought to its climax : — 
 
 " And there was war in heaven. Michael and his an- 
 gels fought against the Dragon, and the Dragon fought 
 and his angels, and prevailed not ; neither was there place 
 found any more in heaven. And the great Dragon was 
 cast out, that old serpent called the Devil, and Satan ; he 
 was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out 
 
136 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 with him." " And I heard a voice saying, in heaven, Now 
 is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our 
 God, and the power of his Christ ; for the accuser of our 
 brethren is cast down, which accused them before God 
 night and day." 
 
 Now that this represents something subsequent to the 
 crucifixion commentators generally admit. That it repre- 
 sents some great result of the ascension of Christ some 
 interpreters have clearly seen. Thus Alford says : " The 
 man-child is the Lord Jesus Christ and none other, and 
 this result forms one of those landmarks by which the 
 legitimacy of various interpretations may be tested, and 
 of which we may say that every interpretation which over- 
 steps this measure is thereby convicted of error After 
 
 a conflict with the prince of this world, the Son of the 
 woman was taken up to heaven, and sat on the right hand 
 of God ; words can hardly be plainer than these. The 
 casting down of Satan from the office of accuser of the 
 brethren in heaven was evidently connected with the 
 great justifying work of redemption. His voice is heard 
 before God no more, and his angels are cast down with 
 him into the earth, where now the conflict is waging 
 during the short time which shall elapse between the as- 
 cension and the second advent, when he shall be bound." 
 
 The history of Satan outlined in the Scriptures " con- 
 sists," says Auberlen, " of an ever deeper downfall, in 
 four gradations or periods. The first extends to the first 
 coming of Christ. In this period the Devil not only rules 
 on earth, but is also still in heaven ; his power is not 
 yet broken ; . . . . the second period is from Christ to the 
 commencement of the millennium. Satan is cast out of 
 
 heaven to earth, where he exercises yet free power 
 
 The third period embraces the millennium. The enemy is 
 bound, and as he was cast out of heaven to earth, so he 
 is now cast into the bottomless pit and rendered harmless. 
 
DETHRONEMENT OF LUCIFER. 137 
 
 After having been let loose awhile, lie is, fourthly, judged, 
 and cast forever into the lake of fire. Thus the whole 
 history which the Apocalypse gives of Satan is a continued 
 succession of his being cast out and hurled down." 
 
 The evidence, then, is abundant that Satan was first 
 dethroned by the ascension of Christ, and not before. It 
 is revealed in as plain language, and in as many forms, 
 with as much repetition as any other doctrine of Scripture. 
 
 What can be plainer than to see Satan actually present- 
 ing himself before the Lord in Job and Zechariah ? What 
 more explicit than for Paul to say : The real conflict is 
 not with flesh and blood but with the company of wicked 
 spirits in heaven ? What more convincing than to see the 
 Seed of the woman caught up to the Right Hand, a war 
 ensue, Satan cast out, and to hear a shout of triumph be- 
 cause the accuser is cast down by the blood of the Lamb ? 
 Is any doctrine of the Bible sustained by proof more posi- 
 tive, evidence more point-blank than this? 
 
 But if this be true, the common view on this subject is 
 not only false, but exceedingly pernicious, and calculated 
 to darken the whole Bible, and obscure the plan of re- 
 demption. According to the prevailing hypothesis, we are 
 obliged to conceive of Lucifer's apostasy as sudden and 
 total, like an express-train at full speed suddenly reversing 
 its direction, whereas all observation, the practice of courts, 
 and the philosophy of the mind, confirm the ancient say- 
 ings of Juvenal : — 
 
 " Nemo repente fait turpissimus." 
 
 Moreover, this theory represents God as not long-suffer- 
 ing in the very place where long-suffering was most appro- 
 priate, namely, towards his first-born creatures, who had to 
 begin without the advantage of past history and recorded 
 experience. Thus it makes God severer even than Sinai, 
 where he proclaimed himself, " The Lord, the Lord God, 
 merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and of great mercy " ; 
 
138 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 for it represents him as quick to anger, and of no mercj 
 at all to his angelic family. 
 
 Besides this, it represents the original controversy be- 
 tween God and Satan as settled by force, not by truth. 
 "We wonder Milton did not blush to give his Satan so 
 plausible a right to say : — 
 
 " Farthest from Him is best, 
 Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme. 
 
 What matter where, if I be still the same, 
 And what I should be, all but less than Ho 
 Whom thunder hath made greater ? " 
 
 But besides tins, it represents God as carrying on a war 
 of ages against a defeated and captive prisoner, loaded with 
 chains and hurled into penal fire. To destroy a being 
 already destroyed, the Son of God must die. The universe 
 must be convulsed for ages with a conflict between the 
 Divine government and its state prisoners. 
 
 Thus this conception entirely misrepresents the charac- 
 ter of God, the nature of sin, and the real issues at stake 
 in the controversy. It renders it impossible to have any 
 sensible ideas of the controversy. It involves the whole 
 subject in unspeakable absurdity. 
 
 The view which we defend, while fully and pointedly 
 revealed in the Bible, is in perfect accordance with the 
 principles of mental philosophy and of moral government, 
 as we proceed to evince in another chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PURIFICATION OF HEAVEN. 
 
 " It was necessary that .... THE heavenly things themselves 
 
 should be pueified." — Heb. ix. 23. 
 
 TO purify is to remove impurity of some kind, physical 
 or moral. The impurity contemplated in the Leviti- 
 cal sacrifices was ceremonial and typical. That of which 
 it was the shadow was real and moral. 
 
 The impurity of the earthly holy of holies could be 
 purged away by the blood of beasts ; but that of heaven 
 itself, only by the blood of Christ. That impurity consisted 
 in the presence and power of Lucifer, and of his principles. 
 
 Our text, therefore, is parallel in meaning with Heb. 
 ii. 14 : " Through death to destroy him that had the power 
 of death." Destroying him was purging heaven. It is 
 parallel also with Romans hi. 25, " To declare God's 
 righteousness, that God might be just." God's being just 
 was, in part, his destroying Satan, or purging heaven. 
 
 Lucifer still retained his original official position, though 
 unworthy ; nor was it possible for God, consistently with 
 the best interests of the universe, to execute destroying 
 justice and purge heaven, except by the blood of Christ. 
 
 It was impossible, first, on account of the infinite love of 
 God to his first-born, and his infinite long-suffering, which 
 must be completely exhausted and all ties sundered, before 
 the Father could execute his strange work of judgment 
 without remedy. 
 
 It was impossible the Father should give him up with- 
 out exhausting all possible means to avert his fate, and 
 
140 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 those who assert so boldly that for the least deviation from 
 perfect rectitude God cast him down to hell, say what God 
 has never told them, and what is in the highest degree 
 contrary to every lineament of his revealed character. 
 
 It was impossible, also, from the love of the universe to 
 him. This was his birthright. Love to the head was the 
 organic bond of strength to the empire. In the love of 
 this nation for Washington, of France for Napoleon, of 
 Israel for David, we have a faint illustration of the prin- 
 ciple. Now that love could not be rudely bereaved. God 
 had caused him, like a cedar in Lebanon, to strike his roots 
 deep and wide in the soil of affection. He could not tear 
 him up, and lacerate the bleeding heart of myriads. 
 
 But it was impossible, also, on account of the nature of 
 the controversy. The principles and arguments of the 
 rebellion were subtle, specious, and difficult to refute. In 
 refusing to deny himself for the good of others Lucifer 
 affirmed that he was imitating God. The Holy Spirit 
 represents him as saying, " I will ascend, I will be as 
 God." God is almighty, he reasoned, and nothing can 
 happen but by his permission, and therefore self-denial is 
 with him impossible. There is no self-denial in having 
 one's own will and way perfectly and forever. 
 
 But if God is incapable of self-denial, why should it be 
 required of his first-born, his image ? If self-denial would 
 be an imperfection in the Deity, it would be an imperfec- 
 tion in the representative of Deity. The representative 
 would not correspond to the Deity, but be opposite to him 
 and contrary. 
 
 To this reasoning it was not enough to oppose a simple 
 assertion on the part of God that he was infinitely self- 
 denying. It would have sufficed for faith, but not for 
 unbelief. 
 
 And if from assertion God proceeded to argument ; if he 
 reasoned that the very act of creation must involve self- 
 
PUKIFICATION OF HEAVEN. 141 
 
 limitation, since it draws a line between the Divine me 
 and the not me, and since the Creator binds himself to 
 observe the laws of created mind, it would be easy for 
 unbelief to evade and parry conviction, and recur afresh 
 to the Divine power to prevent evil or unpleasant events. 
 
 It was easy to say, the idea of self-denial in always hav- 
 ing one's own way is absurd. In declining self-denial I 
 am only like God. It is not undutiful in me, but the 
 closest copying after infinite perfection. By this Lucifer 
 could deceive not only his own sympathizers, but also the 
 loyal portion of heaven. 
 
 It was as easy for him to deceive holy angels in this 
 way before the cross, as to deceive the very elect in this 
 way after the cross. And yet it has been almost univer- 
 sally believed by good men that self-sacrifice is impossible 
 to God, and it has been recently asserted that it is no part 
 of the doctrine of the atonement that the Divine nature 
 participated in the humiliation of Christ, and that if the 
 Bible asserted such a thing it could not be believed. 1 
 
 Now it must be conceded a higher exhibition of Luci- 
 fer's guile thus to deceive the very elect, in full view of 
 the infinite ransom, than to deceive angels, who had never 
 seen as yet that amazing tragedy. 
 
 And on the same principle that it would be impossible 
 for God adequately to manifest his abhorrence for such a 
 sentiment now, while held by his own Church, it was im- 
 possible to manifest it on high, when that opinion was held 
 even by the loyal angels. 
 
 God saw that the loyal public sentiment of the empire 
 was so far affected by this philosophy, which seemed ex- 
 ceeding plausible, that without correcting it he could not 
 safely be just in destroying Satan. The public sentiment 
 would not sustain him. His loyal subjects would be alien- 
 ated and thrown into the arms of rebellion. 
 1 Barnes on the Atonement. 
 
142 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 But this impossibility was increased by Satan's power 
 of accusation against the government. The defence of 
 rebels is the accusation of the government. Lucifer could 
 not defend himself without accusing God. 
 
 If self-denial was impossible to God, so that without it 
 a creature at the head of empire would most perfectly 
 resemble him, why demand it? It is unreasonable. It is 
 arbitrary. It is derogatory to innocence, and humiliating 
 to the feelings. So children always defend their own dis- 
 obedience by complaining of their parents' or teacher's 
 severity. 
 
 These murmurs and complaints excited sympathy, and 
 resulted in a serious alienation of confidence. There was 
 no local drawing off. There was that kind of distance, that 
 cessation of intercourse and communion, which can take 
 place between neighbors and friends and brethren. 
 
 But how break the force of those accusations ? How 
 declare his own righteousness ; so as to be just in dealing 
 with the rebellion ? Mere words were not enough. With- 
 out something more conclusive than words the government 
 could not vindicate itself. 
 
 Again, it was impossible to proceed on account of Luci- 
 fer's accusing power over the creature. When the evils 
 of his administration begun to become apparent Lucifer 
 would naturally throw the blame upon the creatures below 
 him. This would make him strict, severe, inexorable. 
 As chief executive, he would set up a theory of justice 
 inconsistent with mercy. 
 
 Forgiveness, he would say, is impossible under law. 
 Repentance makes no difference. Penalty never is and 
 never can be remitted. In this, too, he claims to be as God. 
 This is justice pure and simple, the justice of the immac- 
 ulate God. Thus he builds himself up, the self-styled jus- 
 tice of the universe. He is immaculate, and his censure 
 is infallible ; so he brings the universe under bondage to a 
 merciless justice, a counterfeit justice, which God abhors. 
 
PURIFICATION OF HEAVEN. 143 
 
 But how do creatures know that Lucifer is not really 
 just. He seems so. They cannot see all that God sees, 
 nor know all that God knows. To punish him suddenly 
 would seem like punishing justice. It is necessary first to 
 unmask him, and satisfy the public mind of heaven that his 
 justice is not real justice, and that he himself is exposed to 
 the stroke of God's righteous indignation. Then God can 
 be just and carry the moral sense of the loyal universe 
 with him. 
 
 Once more, it was not possible to purge him out of 
 heaven, on account of his deceiving power. God being 
 right and he wrong in the controversy, the point inevitably 
 came when Lucifer would be almost convinced. He must 
 either yield to or evade God's argument. He came where 
 the road forked between submission on the one hand, and 
 lying on the other, and he chose the latter, and took refuge 
 in fallacy, sophistry, and fraud. 
 
 Now, although this is a fatal policy in the long run, it 
 gave him the advantage at first. God was limited to one 
 set of weapons, Lucifer could use two. God cannot lie ; 
 Lucifer can. God could move in right lines only, Lucifer 
 could move in straight or crooked. 
 
 The corrupting and ruinous consequences of lying, at 
 that early stage of being, could be known to God only. 
 He could warn Lucifer, but unbelief could set aside the 
 warning. For the time being Lucifer revelled in a fancied 
 superiority. He enveloped his administration in the mazy 
 methods of Machiavelian diplomacy and fraud, concealing 
 himself from creature detection with impenetrable disguise. 
 
 To tear off that disguise, to let the universe find him 
 out, to turn his crooked and tortuous policy inside out, was 
 at first impossible. He must be allowed to go on until 
 he should cross his own track and convict himself. The 
 wicked must be snared in the work of his hands. He must 
 fall into the pit himself had digged. He must have time 
 
144 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 therefore to set his snares and dig his pit, before he could 
 himself be snared and fall. 
 
 Thus we see what was the nature of that power of 
 death he is spoken of as holding. It was a power of a 
 moral nature, resulting from these six impossibilities of his 
 overthrow, namely, the infinite affection of God to his 
 first-born ; his. deep root in the affection of the universe ; 
 the extreme plausibility of his assertion that self-denial was 
 impossible to God, and therefore not essential in a crea- 
 ture ; his complaints of God ; his accusing power over his 
 inferiors ; and his unscrupulous diplomacy. 
 
 These elements of his position were such, that, though 
 he was exerting a depraving and corrupting influence of 
 immense and increasing force, it was yet impossible to 
 remove him. His power was increasingly great and in- 
 creasingly deadly; it was a power of death to the universe. 
 Of this deadly corrupting power heaven was purged by 
 the blood of Christ alone. 
 
 By shedding the blood of Christ Lucifer, in the first 
 place, completely uprooted himself from the affections and 
 tender mercies of God. 
 
 When, in the person of Christ, the fulness of the God- 
 head placed itself bodily in the power of that unfilial hand, 
 and received the parricidal blow at which the sun grew 
 dark, it sufficed to sever all bonds forever. Then the 
 child forever weaned himself from that Father's love, and 
 set himself apart to the stroke of unmingled justice. 
 
 By the same act, also, Lucifer uprooted himself from 
 the affections of the universe. When the full mystery of 
 Christ's person was disclosed on high after his resurrec- 
 tion ; when they recognized, not only a creature of celestial 
 loveliness, but the Creator revealed in and by that crea- 
 ture, their love was augmented infinitely, and their hearts 
 weaned from the murderer. 
 
 The sight of such guilt, even on earth, has power to 
 
PURIFICATION OF HEAVEN. 145 
 
 petrify love and strike affection dead. The blood of an 
 innocent creature alone would have had this effect to some 
 extent. But only the blood of the Son of God, Divine as 
 well as human, could in a moment sever the heart-strings 
 of the whole heavenly world from him whose hand had 
 shed that blood. 
 
 By shedding the blood of Christ, Lucifer annihilated his 
 own argument, that God cannot experience self-denial, and 
 ought not to require it of his first-born. 
 
 Christ was God, for this express purpose made flesh, 
 and becoming obedient unto death that he might undergo 
 an infinite self-sacrifice. Christ was also man, God's first- 
 born by adoption, and had voluntarily undergone whatever 
 of self-sacrifice was possible to a created being. Thus 
 Christ had exhibited a perfect act of self-sacrifice in both 
 natures, in spite of Lucifer's utmost attempts to seduce 
 or terrify him from it. 
 
 From the desert to the cross temptation beat against 
 him like a storm. But the fiercer the temptation the 
 more entire his self-sacrifice, and when even Lucifer could 
 do nothing more, in the bitterness of death he said, " It is 
 finished," and died. And now he rises, he ascends on 
 high, he shows his blood, and tells the universe what he 
 has borne, and how Lucifer in vain sought to prevent it, 
 and the argument of rebellion is answered. 
 
 It had been said that God could not be self-denying ; 
 but here is an act of infinite self-sacrifice. It had been 
 alleged that any other creature in Lucifer's place would 
 do as he had done ; but here is an act of perfect and 
 entire creature self-sacrifice. Thus Lucifer was defeated, 
 not by 
 
 " Thunder 
 Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage," 
 
 but by matter of fact. 
 
 God gave Lucifer entire liberty, unlimited freedom of 
 
146 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 debate. He was not unwilling to hear and to have heard 
 all that Lucifer chose to offer. But what could he say ? 
 Could he say that it was only a creature, and not God? 
 Or that it was only God, and not a creature ? It was both. 
 Christ had not humbled himself by halves. Therefore 
 Lucifer was absolutely speechless. Least of all did he 
 vaunt himself 
 
 " All but less than He 
 Whom thunder hath made greater." 
 
 Instead of this, his mouth was shut, for there was no an- 
 swer to be made. He saw it, and all heaven saw it. And 
 now the way was open for God with safety to express his 
 righteous abhorrence of the principles of the rebellion. 
 He could do so, and carry the public sentiment of the loyal 
 universe with him. 
 
 By the blood of Christ, moreover, the accusations 
 against God Avere answered. As self-denial had been 
 tehown to be proper to God, it was plain that it might 
 be properly required of the creature, who would thereby 
 directly resemble his Maker. Hence, in insisting upon it 
 God had been simply benevolent, and not arbitrary nor 
 eevere. Therefore, all the murmurs and complaints and 
 exaggerated charges of the rebel leaders fell to the ground. 
 The Divine administration was vindicated and justified. 
 God not only was righteous, but was now declared and 
 fceen to be so in the matter in dispute, and thus the loyal 
 public sentiment was prepared to sustain the executive in 
 dealing with traitors. 
 
 By the blood of Christ once more Lucifer's power as 
 accuser of the brethren was broken. That is, the power 
 of his idea of justice, and his supposed immaculate embodi- 
 ment thereof. He who accused others, and before whom 
 all trembled, must of course be spotless himself. 
 
 Now Christ ascended with his blood, and showed that 
 he, — so strict, so severe, whose great doctrine was, that 
 
PURIFICATION OF HEAVEN. 147 
 
 penalty cannot be remitted, — that lie himself had perpe- 
 trated the most unjust deed that could be conceived. It 
 was the cruel murder, not only of an innocent man, but 
 of an incarnate God. It was a murder effected by means 
 of a sham trial, on a false accusation, after a life of radiant 
 excellence. It was a murder contrived, threatened, and 
 perpetrated at last, for no other reason than to drive 
 Christ from self-denial and satiate a deadly revenge. 
 
 This disclosure was like a flash of lightning. Lucifer 
 fell at once and forever from his ascendency over the 
 conscience of the universe, and the heavenly world was 
 purged. 
 
 Finally, the blood of Christ destroyed Lucifer's power 
 as a deceiver. Christ had spoken truth, and done right, 
 and moved in straight lines. In his mouth there was no 
 guile. If Lucifer was deceived, it was only as vice is 
 ever deceived by virtue. Lucifer deceived himself by 
 disbelieving in Christ's truth and disinterestedness and 
 fortitude. 
 
 At the same time, to meet all Lucifer's methods of 
 guile and resist them was no easy task. It demanded 
 the highest intellectual qualities, of depth and velocity 
 and subtlety. As Jesus himself said to his disciples, " Be 
 ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves." 
 
 Now when it was made apparent that pure truth was 
 a match for falsehood, and honest dealing for intrigue, in 
 any one who was willing to sacrifice all, even life itself, 
 for truth's sake, then the moral tone of the universe rose ; 
 the prestige of diplomacy was turned to disgrace, its tem- 
 porary advantage to disastrous defeat, and the hold o£ 
 that lying tongue on the confidence of heaven was broken- 
 forever. 
 
 Thus the blood of Christ sufficed to purge heaven. It 
 severed the last tie between Lucifer and a Father's love, 
 uprooted him from the affections of the universe, refuted 
 
148 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 the fundamental principles of rebellion, broke the power 
 of his accusations against God, and against creatures infe- 
 rior to him, and thoroughly unmasked and convicted him. 
 
 Therefore, when the holy indignation of God expressed 
 itself, the holy public sentiment of heaven responded to it. 
 When God went forth in judicial sentence, all heaven re- 
 joiced, and rang with hallelujahs. Heaven was purged. 
 And into that holy place never more to all eternity should 
 enter anything that defileth, neither whatsoever loveth or 
 maketh a lie. 
 
 In this result we are enabled to unite the main ele- 
 ments of truth in the ancient and modern theories of 
 atonement. 
 
 From the ancient theory of a thousand years we accept 
 the idea that the prominent object was to destroy Satan ; 
 rejecting, at the same time, all ideas of fraud or force or 
 magic in the transaction. 
 
 From the modern old-school theory we accept the idea 
 that the atonement involved a full execution of justice. 
 We simply change the object of that justice, and instead 
 of Christ, who did not deserve it, substitute Satan, who did. 
 
 From the modern new-school theory we accept the sub- 
 lime and most important idea, that the atonement was of 
 the nature of an argument addressed to the reason of the 
 intelligent universe. As to the precise nature of that 
 argument, we differ from the theory in question. We do 
 not believe that God undertook to prove that he Avould 
 punish the guilty by undeserved suffering inflicted on the 
 innocent. 
 
 The point God undertook to prove was, that Lucifer 
 merited impeachment and removal, and how that point 
 was proved we have now seen. Therefore this result em- 
 bodies the important and valuable elements of all past 
 theories. 
 
 Of course the discussion is not yet complete. We have 
 
PURIFICATION OF HEAVEN. 149 
 
 considered one side only of the mighty problem. We 
 have considered what was first in order, the indispensable 
 condition of everything else, namely, the just removal of 
 Satan and the purification of the heavenly place. The 
 other side, the redeeming aspect of the glorious theme, 
 remains. 
 
 Thus far all is clear. It is easy to see a wide landscape, 
 if the eye is only high enough and there is plenty of light. 
 A child can see great cities and empires. But we sit with 
 Christ in heavenly places. The light in which we see the 
 wide panorama is the light of God ; and though the theme 
 be wide and the subjects great, the simplest eye can see 
 them, because the point of observation is sublime and the 
 light intense. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HEAVENLY FATHERLAND. 
 
 "Neither by ttte blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood; 
 he entered in once into the holy black, having obtained eter- 
 NAL REDEMPTION FOR US." — Heb. IX. 12. 
 
 IN this passage we have the fact of eternal redemption 
 having been obtained for us, and the means by which 
 it was procured, — the blood of Christ. 
 
 We may consider either of these separately, or both to- 
 gether. At present our attention will be confined to the 
 first, — What is eternal redemption ? 
 
 It is generally conceded that redemption includes par- 
 don of sin and admission to heaven hereafter. Eph. i. 7 : 
 " Redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." 
 Rom. viii. 23: "Waiting for the adoption, to wit, the re- 
 demption of the body." 
 
 All admit that whatever relates to the perfection of the 
 character and consummation of happiness in heaven is 
 included under the term redemption. 
 
 But it is apprehended that, to make the definition com- 
 plete, an important element is yet to be added, namely, 
 that of a restoration to a lost holiness, and a return to an 
 interrupted bliss. Without this element we may have 
 growth, progress, development, but not redemption. Hence 
 it will be our object to show that redemption includes, in 
 its very nature, a return to holiness and heaven, and that 
 heaven, in the truest and most proper sense, is our native 
 land. 
 
 We refer, in the first place, to the definition of the word. 
 
HEAVENLY FATHERLAND. 151 
 
 The term used in the original is Xurpcocriv, from \vrpoco t 
 which corresponds so entirely in sense with our English 
 word redeem, that we insert below the definition of the, 
 latter given by Webster in full. 1 
 
 It will be noticed that the primary and most of the sec- 
 ondary definitions give prominence to the idea of some 
 kind of return, or restoration. Even the theological im- 
 plies an original liberty before the bondage to sin. But 
 the most important point is the legal sense, where the right 
 of re-entry is made conspicuous. 
 
 In fact, properly speaking, the word redeem is a law- 
 term, first found in the Mosaic legislation. It is proper to 
 say that in the Bible it is not so much a theological as a 
 legal term, and is to be interpreted accordingly. 
 
 In the law of Moses a regular system of redemption was 
 instituted. Neither real estate nor personal service could 
 be sold for a longer term than the remainder of forty-nine, 
 years from a given date. The fiftieth was a jubilee, or 
 year of general redemption. Conditional redemption wag 
 allowed before the jubilee, but in the jubilee itself redemp- 
 tion was unconditional. When the trumpet of jubilee 
 
 1 " Rf.dekm, 1. To purchase back ; to ransom; to liberate or rescue 
 from captivity or bondage, or from any liability to suffer or to be for- 
 feited, by paying an equivalent ; as, to redeem prisoners or captured 
 goods, to redeem a pledge. 2. To repurchase what has been sold ; to re- 
 gain possession of a thing alienated, by repaying the value of it to the 
 possessor. 3. To rescue ; to recover ; to deliver from. 4. To compensate ; 
 to make amends. 5. To free by making atonement. G. To pay the pen- 
 alty of. 7. To save. 8. To perform what has been promised ; to make 
 good by performance. 9. In law, to recall an estate, or to obtain the 
 right to re-enter upon a mortgaged estate, by paying to the mortgagee 
 his principal, interest, and expenses or costs. 10. In theology, to rescue, 
 and deliver from the bondage of sin and the penalties of God's violated 
 law, by obedience and suffering in the place of the sinner, or by doing 
 and suffering that which is accepted in lieu of the sinner's obedience. 
 1 1. In commerce, to purchase or pay the value of any promissory note, 
 bill, or other evidence of debt," &c. 
 
152 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 sounded, the statute said, " Proclaim liberty throughout all 
 the land unto all the inhabitants thereof; and ye shall 
 return every man unto his possession, and every man 
 unto his family." 
 
 The law further directed that this jubilee-trumpet should 
 sound on the great day of atonement, on which the central 
 sacrifice of the system was offered. Thus, by law, the 
 idea of return to family and possession was associated 
 with the sprinkling of the blood of atonement. 
 
 So great a revolution as this return of property and per- 
 sons in a whole nation, after the silent changes of half a 
 century, could not fail to stamp ineffaceable associations on 
 the words redeem, redeemer, and redemption. It is manifest 
 that it was intended it should. The marks of design arei 
 nowhere more conspicuous. 
 
 The practice of redemption was nationalized by statute 
 for fifteen centuries, and all that time the law was a school- 
 master to bring them to Christ. The law taught them to 
 associate the idea of a return of persons and property with 
 the words redeem, redeemer, redemption, and so prepare, 
 the words for application to Christ. In the mint of the 
 law those words were coined and struck which should be 
 and are current under the Gospel. 
 
 And if the coins have become worn through use, and. 
 the inscriptions faint, it is for us to stamp' them anew in. 
 the same mint of the law from which they were first 
 issued. When the trumpet of the final jubilee is sounded, 
 and Christ's atoning blood has achieved its complete effect, 
 then the true Israel of God will return every man unto. 
 his family and his possession, not in the temporal Canaan, 
 but in heaven, the true Canaan of rest. Hence we sing, 
 
 " Ye who have sold for naught 
 The heritage above, 
 Come, take it back unbought, 
 The gift of Jesus' love. 
 
HEAVENLY FATHERLAND. 153 
 
 The year of jubilee is come, 
 Return ye ransomed sinners home." 
 
 The same idea was enstamped on the word by a cove- 
 nant, made before the law, but fulfilled at the exodus. To 
 Abraham, God says (Gen. xv. 13) : " Thy seed shall be a 
 stranger in a land that is not theirs ; . . . . but in the fourth 
 generation they shall come hither again." That is, vir- 
 tually, Thy seed shall go from Canaan to Egypt, and return 
 from Egypt to Canaan. This was the substance of that 
 covenant. Accordingly, we see Israel go down into Egypt, 
 and at the exodus we see them return to Canaan. And God 
 calls this redeeming them. "I have established my cove- 
 nant to give you the land of Canaan, .... and I will redeem 
 you with an outstretched arm." And this redemption, too, 
 ;was preceded by the sprinkling of blood on the door-post. 
 
 The design here is as apparent as in the previous case. 
 The nation was in a foreign land, in hard bondage ; there 
 was an ancient covenant to carry them back to Canaan, 
 and, in executing that covenant, God said, I redeem you. 
 Hence, on the shore of the Red Sea, Moses sang, "Thou, 
 in thy mercy, hast led forth the people which thou hast 
 redeemed." 
 
 Thus the word redemption was designedly imbued with 
 associations of deliverance by blood from foreign bondage, 
 and restoration to Canaan. Hence, when the redeemed on 
 the sea of glass mingled with fire are represented singing 
 the song of Moses and the Lamb, it implies that they also 
 have been rescued from a foreign thraldom, and restored 
 to heaven, their native clime. That there was a typical 
 meaning in the whole transaction seems distinctly assert- 
 ed, 1 Cor. x. 11: "All these things happened unto them 
 for types, and are written for our instruction." Paul had 
 been speaking of the exodus and march to Canaan. In- 
 deed, the language of religious experience the world over 
 has been built on this analogy. Man's natural state of 
 
154 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 bondage to sin is Egypt ; the Lord's Supper takes the place 
 of the Passover ; the Christian life is called a journey- 
 through the wilderness ; death is passing over Jordan ; 
 and heaven is Canaan. 
 
 The language formed in this way has become a universal 
 language, and Christians the world over sing, 
 
 " Sweet fields, beyond the swelling flood, 
 Stand dressed in living green, 
 So to the Jews old Canaan stood, 
 While Jordan rolled between." 
 
 The import of the word redeem received new vividness 
 at the return from Babylon. It is in prophesying this 
 return that the Lord calls himself Israel's Redeemer in 
 the most impressive manner. Probably nowhere else 
 in the Bible are the words redeemer and redeem so beau- 
 tifully, so sublimely used as in reference to this event. 
 The history of the transaction, too, is managed in such a 
 manner as to create vivid impressions. We see the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem, and the carrying away Israel 
 captive to a city whose brazen gates and Cyclopean walls 
 were the wonder of the world. We see the exiles hang 
 their harps on the willows and weep, as they remember 
 Zion. We see Cyrus raised up, Babylon taken, Israel 
 sent back, Jerusalem rebuilt, the Temple dedicated with 
 mingled weeping and shouting. 
 
 Why is the noise of rejoicing mingled with that of 
 weeping? What gives edge to the emotion of the hour, 
 whether of pain or of joy ? Is it not the peculiar and 
 exquisite sensation of a recovered home and country, 
 and national existence, blent with contrasted memories 
 of former splendor? It was the old men who remem- 
 bered the glories of the former Temple, who wept. Now 
 it is remarkable that, in prophesying this, the Spirit con- 
 tinually blends it with a higher, a still future deliverance. 
 The restoration of the natural Israel, and the final deliver- 
 
HEAVENLY FATHERLAND. 155 
 
 ance of the spiritual Israel, are so blended and interlaced 
 together that it is almost impossible to extricate them. 
 
 "Fear not, thou worm Jacob," cried Isaiah; " I will 
 help thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer, the Holy One 
 of Israel." " Thus saith the Lord, .... I have blotted 
 out as a thick cloud thy transgressions ; . . . . return unto 
 me, for I have redeemed thee. Sing, O ye heavens, for 
 the Lord hath done it ! ' 
 
 " The Lord will comfort Zion, he will comfort her waste 
 places, he will make her wilderness like Eden, like the 
 garden of the Lord." 
 
 " Behold I create new heavens and a new earth, and 
 the former shall pass away, and no more be called to 
 mind ; behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her 
 people a joy." 
 
 The later prophecies of Isaiah are full of utterances too 
 high for any mere temporal deliverance, and yet they em- 
 phatically mention a return. Thus, " The redeemed of 
 the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion ; 
 everlasting joy shall be upon their heads, they shall ob- 
 tain joy and gladness, and sorrow and mourning shall flee 
 away." 
 
 The natural Israel realized but a short-lived, imperfect 
 joy, and were afterwards dashed in pieces, and scattered 
 as we now behold them. 
 
 It is the spiritual Israel the prophetic eye here sees, 
 returning out of the Babylon of life into the heavenly 
 Jerusalem, which, because it is restored to primitive splen- 
 dor, is called the New Jerusalem. 
 
 Instinctively the Church feels this in moments of devout 
 inspiration, and sings, 
 
 " Thus, though the universe shall burn, 
 And God his works destroy, 
 With songs thy ransom shall return, 
 And everlasting joy." 
 
156 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 This, furthermore, was the confession of faith of the 
 Church of God from Abraham, to Christ. 
 
 In Heb. xi. 9 - 15, the Apostle states that Abraham 
 sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange, that is, 
 foreign country,, because he looked for a city already 
 founded, whose builder and maker is God. He knew that 
 Canaan below, in which Jerusalem was not yet founded, 
 was nothing but a foreign country. He knew that Canaan 
 above, in which Jerusalem already had foundations, was 
 really his native land. Hence both he and his posterity 
 confessed themselves strangers and pilgrims on the earth, 
 that is, foreigners, abroad from home. " Now they that 
 say such things," continues the Apostle, " declare plainly 
 that they seek fatherland." Any man who calls himself 
 a pilgrim and stranger, declares plainly that he is not at 
 home, but expects to return to his native land. 
 
 The word irarpiha (patrida), used by the Apostle, and 
 in the common version tamely rendered " a country," 
 properly means one's own country, or fatherland. 
 
 This is the word Homer constantly uses in describing 
 the emotions of Ulysses, for years an exile from Ithaca, 
 
 " And inly pining for his native shore." 
 
 • What the Apostle means to say is, that Abraham and 
 his faithful descendants, in calling themselves strangers 
 and pilgrims, even in Canaan, declared plainly they sought 
 their native land, or fatherland : and, lest it should be 
 thought Chaldaea was meant, he says, if it had been that, 
 they might have had opportunity to have returned, " but 
 now they seek a better fatherland, even a heavenly; where- 
 fore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he 
 hath prepared for them a city.". 
 
 They confessed heaven to be their native country, and 
 God was well pleased with them on that account. God 
 had prepared the place for them, and was preparing them 
 
HEAVENLY FATHEKLAND. 157 
 
 for it. God had excited a divine homesickness in their 
 breast, and now, as with dying accents they sighed, 
 
 " mother clear, Jerusalem, 
 When shall I come to thee, 
 When shall my labors have an end, 
 Thy joys when shall I see 1 " 
 
 he was not ashamed of them for it. It may perhaps be 
 said that they called heaven fatherland in a loose figura- 
 tive sense, as Christians now do when they sing, 
 
 " Eise, my soul, and stretch thy wings, 
 Thy better portion trace ; 
 Rise from transitory things, 
 
 Towards heaven, thy native place." 
 
 But the evidence to the contrary is quite conclusive. 
 
 Philo was a Jewish scholar of distinction, nearly contem- 
 porary with Paul, and his testimony is decisive. " Moses 
 and other good men wrhile on earth were living abroad 
 
 from home, in a kind of expatriation from heaven 
 
 And while they dwelt in the body, they looked down on 
 things seen and temporal, and urged their way back again 
 ■whence they originally came, and call that heavenly re- 
 gion in which is their citizenship, fatherland (patrida), 
 but this earthly in which they live, a foreign land." 
 Again, " Our soul, having lost its heavenly mansion, came 
 down into this earthly body as into a foreign place." 
 
 Now no historian doubts what Philo's belief was. No 
 common reader can be at a loss. Yet the manner in 
 which he and Paul speak on this subject is strikingly 
 similar. Their use of such terms as "citizenship," "fa- 
 therland," "abroad from home," "foreign land," indeed, 
 their whole style and phraseology, is so alike that it seems 
 impossible not to believe they thought alike. 
 
 How momentous, then, the inference ! We have noth- 
 ing less than the Holy Spirit's declaration, that this was 
 the confession of faith of the whole Abrahamic Church, 
 
158 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 with which God Avas well pleased. So that it is hut an 
 echo of the ancient belief still lingering among us, when 
 we sing, 
 
 " Though in a foreign land, 
 Wc arc not far from home, 
 And nearer to our house above 
 Wc every moment come." 
 
 This ancient confession, we now observe, was fully sanc- 
 tioned by Christ. Let it be remembered, that we have 
 proved the pre-existence of Christ as man. By general 
 consent, we showed the title " Son of Man " relates to 
 him in his human nature. By general consent, it is denied 
 that his Divine nature did descend. Either, therefore, 
 Christ as man descended from heaven, or nothing de- 
 scended. 
 
 The pre-existence of Christ is the one idea of the Gos- 
 pels. It is this that gives tone to our Saviour's whole life. 
 The feeling of having "come from above," and come 
 "to give his flesh for the life of the world," imbues all 
 his words and actions* with a peculiarly sweet and tender 
 mystery, making him, though full of joy in communion 
 with the Father, yet a man of sorrows and acquainted 
 with grief. 
 
 Now it is a principle, of science that a trait being fairly 
 proved inherent in, and essentially characteristic of, an in- 
 dividual, is proved of the species. Tims the resurrection 
 without subsequent death being established in a single in- 
 stance, is held established for the race. It is universally 
 admitted that one well-authenticated instance is enough to 
 establish the immortality of the entire race. 
 
 On the same principle, Jesus, by indorsing the ancient 
 belief in respect to himself, virtually indorsed it for the 
 race. 
 
 If the Son of Man came from heaven, a fortiori, man 
 came from heaven. If he came for the express purpose 
 
HEAVENLY FATHERLAND. 159 
 
 of being their Redeemer, in the sense prepared in the 
 law, prefigured at the exodus, and intensified in the re- 
 turn from Babylon, then, a fortiori, those he came to 
 redeem were already exiles from their native land. 
 
 In Luke xv. he gives three parables, all turning on the 
 same point. 
 
 A man loses one out of a hundred sheep, goes after it, 
 brings it back, and calls his neighbors to rejoice. So Christ, 
 the Son of Man, the good Shepherd, had his hundred 
 sheep in the heavenly fold ; one of them was lost ; he came 
 after it, to seek and save, to give his life for the sheep, and 
 bring them back, that there might be one fold and one 
 shepherd. And the point of the illustration is, that the 
 angels will feel more joy over the return of man to heaven 
 than over all the unfallen orders that never went away. 
 
 So the woman has ten pieces, loses one, finds it, and 
 rejoices. The woman is "Jerusalem above, mother of us 
 all." (Gal. iv. 26.) And the point of the illustration is, 
 the more joy there will be over those restored to citizen- 
 ship than over those that never lost it. 
 
 So the father has two sons. One goes away, the other 
 stays at home. After a life of dissipation and bondage the 
 prodigal comes back, and is not only welcomed, but treated 
 as if he were the first-born, and had the birthright. And 
 the point is, that it is meet to rejoice more over one who 
 comes back than over one who went not away. It is in 
 heaven that there is " more joy." It is in the Father's 
 house on high that there is festive mirth. It is man — once 
 in heaven, but long lost, long a prodigal and a slave — that 
 comes back at last, and receives the primogeniture of the 
 skies. 
 
 The angels will not murmur at seeing man exalted 
 above them. But if they should, God would quickly 
 soothe each jealous feeling, by saying, " It is meet that we 
 should rejoice, for this my son and thy brother was dead, 
 
160 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 but is alive again, was lost, but is found." There is some- 
 thing in a return home after long absence, a return to life 
 and purity and peace and power, peculiarly adapted to 
 excite joy in every benevolent mind, especially in the mind 
 of infinite benevolence, the mind of God. 
 
 In these parables, and in many other places, Christ nat- 
 urally and unaffectedly spoke on the basis of the ancient 
 faith, that heaven is our native land. That was the exist- 
 ing faith. He simply recognized it as such, and, standing 
 upon it, developed the precious thought of his redeeming 
 errand. We are here as exiles, not to be punished, but 
 saved. He is here, not to inflict judgment, but to redeem 
 and carry us back to our native clime and inheritance. 
 Life is not penal, but remedial. This world is not a prison, 
 but a world of redeeming grace, built by the Mediator, 
 and for him. He placed us here, and in the fulness of 
 time came hither after us, bore our sins in his own body 
 on the tree, and in the morning of the resurrection will 
 present us to himself, a glorious Church, not having a 
 spot or wrinkle or any such thing. O for hearts of love 
 to sing, 
 
 " Jesus sought me when a stranger, 
 Wandering from the fold of God, 
 He, to rescue me from danger, 
 Interposed his precious blood." 
 
 This idea of redemption as a return to heaven, accom- 
 plished by an atoning Redeemer, may be called the plot of 
 the august drama of the Word of God. It is this that gives 
 unity to the Bible, and makes it, out of many books, com- 
 posed by many authors, through a period of fifteen centu- 
 ries, more truly one than any other book in existence. The 
 Bible opens with this theme proposed in Genesis, and closes 
 with it resolved in the Revelation, and Calvary stands mid- 
 way between. In Genesis we see an emblematic paradise 
 and its wedded pair ; in the Revelation, an emblematic par- 
 
HEAVENLY FATHERLAND. 161 
 
 adise, and a wedded pair. In Genesis, the wedded pair are 
 driven out ; in the Revelation, they are brought back. 
 
 In the one case the right to the tree of life is taken 
 away ; in the other, it is restored. In the one case they 
 are naked; in the other, clothed in white raiment, the 
 righteousness of saints. In the beginning, there is a ser- 
 pent victorious ; at the end, the serpent has been cast into 
 the lake of fire. That the Book of Revelation is highly 
 symbolic, and that paradise there is emblematic of heaven, 
 all perceive. But if paradise be a symbol of heaven in 
 Revelation, of what is it a symbol in Genesis ? If entering 
 it, at last, means going to heaven, what does being " driven 
 out " of it, at first, mean ? If gaining a right unto the tree 
 of life denotes access to God, what does the taking away 
 that right denote ? If the symbols of the Apocalypse teach 
 that heaven is to be our home, why do not those of Gen- 
 esis teach that it has been our home ? 
 
 Hence, in the final picture of redemption are united all 
 the main outlines of all former pictures. From the year 
 of jubilee is taken the sounding of the seventh trumpet. 
 From the exodus is taken the song of Moses and the Lamb. 
 From the seventy years' captivity is taken the spiritual 
 Babylon, and the escape of God's people into the New 
 Jerusalem. All former emblems of redemption are here 
 wrought up in one surpassingly gorgeous panorama, — at 
 once paradise regained, Canaan revisited, Jerusalem rebuilt, 
 the jubilee of ages brought in. 
 
 This is redemption. On this all that is peculiar in Gospel 
 doctrine, as distinguished from naturalism, is based. On 
 this all the technical terms of the system are formed. Man 
 has forgotten God, he must remember him. He is out of 
 his senses, he must come to himself. Alienated from his 
 Heavenly Father, he must be reconciled. Rebellious, he 
 must submit. Asleep, he must awake, and, dead in sin, 
 he must be raised. Havino; formed habits of sin, he must 
 
162 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 be born again, and be brought into those states of feeling 
 and obedience he had, when as a child he played about 
 his father's knee in the heavenly home. He is, indeed, 
 bankrupt, but his kinsman-Redeemer has purchased his 
 property, and holds it for him until the redemption, or jubi- 
 lee, when every man shall return unto his own family and 
 his own inheritance. He is a captive, a prisoner, a slave ; 
 but his Redeemer has conquered his oppressor, has ran- 
 somed him with his own life, and the time draws nigh when 
 the edict of final emancipation shall be carried into full 
 effect, and the last scar and vestige of chains be eternally 
 effaced from the free limbs of the emancipated and glorified 
 sons of God. 
 
 There is no technical term of the Evangelical system 
 which does not really imply a return to former holiness and 
 bliss, and which does not receive new fulness and force of 
 meaning by the distinct perception of that sublime fact. 
 
 After the age of the Apostles, the ancient belief on this 
 subject still continued to be held in the Christian Church for 
 three centuries. Origen, in the fourth century, speaks of it 
 as the catholic, or universal belief, and it is found in the 
 writings of Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Arno- 
 bius. Pierius, Pamphilus, Eusebius, Methodius, Nemesius, 
 Synesius, Hilary, and Prudentius. 
 
 But the philosophic bearings of this truth were early 
 hid, and the belief itself degraded by the mistaken principle 
 that this world is a world of punishment. 
 
 As the Papacy rose, the ancient belief, being corrupted 
 by the mistake referred to, and by other causes, was gradu- 
 ally displaced from practical effect upon theological systems, 
 and at length, about the middle of the sixth century, when 
 the Papacy came to a head, this doctrine was first publicly 
 condemned. The Council of Constantinople decreed, in 
 substance, that if any man believed that souls originally 
 existed in heaven, and cooled down from the love of God, 
 
HEAVENLY FATHERLAND. 163 
 
 and were sent into this world, he should be accursed. Thus 
 the man of sin trod this torch of salvation in the dust, and 
 since that time it has never been rekindled. 
 
 The Church has held, and still holds, speculatively, an 
 opposite theory. Bat, as we have seen, in her hymns, the 
 heart of the Church still clings to an idea she repudiates 
 with her head. Metaphysically the Church is deceived ; 
 but her devotional instincts are loyal to the ancient faith. 
 Those hymns that contain this thought are always popular, 
 and always effective, just in proportion to the intensity of 
 spiritual life. There is a chord in every pious heart that 
 thrills and vibrates as the breath of such hymns passes over 
 it, with fitful, mysterious iEolian harmonies. The saint 
 experiences a penetrating, poignant pleasure, he knows not 
 why, in chanting : 
 
 " Shall aught beguile us on the road, 
 When we are walking hack to God ? 
 For strangers into life we come, 
 And dying is but going home." 
 
 Such hymns are peculiarly dear in seasons of revival. 
 There are hymns constructed on the opposite hypothesis, 
 but they are destitute of poetic fire, and are never sung. 
 Nor is it the poetry only of the Church that is loyal to the 
 ancient faith. Her impassioned prose is also tinged with it. 
 One is struck with astonishment, sometimes, at meeting in 
 the writings of eminent divines passages like the following, 
 by Dr. Spring : — 
 
 " It would seem as though the soul of man had not lost 
 all impressions of what it once was ; that there still clings 
 to it the instinctive and indestructible thought of its high 
 origin and its ultimate destination. And there is still to be 
 found in it a confused, and, in some sort, irrepressible seek- 
 ing after God. It is a wanderer, an exile ; yet in seeking to 
 find its way back to its native skies, it only plunges deeper 
 into the dark wilderness." 
 
1G4 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 So Augustine, the father, as it were, of the opposite 
 theory on this subject, says, addressing Jerusalem above : 
 " Let my wayfaring sigh after thee ! I have gone astray 
 like a lost sheep, yet upon the shoulders of my Shepherd I 
 hope to be brought back unto thee, .... Jerusalem, my 
 country, my mother ; nor will I be turned away till thou 
 gather all that I am from this dispersed, this disordered 
 state, into the peace of that our dear mother, where are the 
 first-fruits of my spirit already." 
 
 Such passages occur frequently in animated revival 
 preaching, or in moments of elevated composition, when 
 the trammels of metaphysical training fall off, and the soul, 
 yielding to impulses deep, mysterious, inscrutable, mounts 
 up with wings as eagles, reminding us of the sentiment, — 
 
 " Rivers to the ocean run, 
 
 Nor stay in all their course, 
 Fires, ascending, seek the sun, 
 
 Both speed them to their source. 
 So a soul that 's born of God, 
 
 Pants to view his glorious face, 
 Upward tends to his abode, 
 
 To rest in his embrace." 
 
 Do not such utterances indicate that the real power of 
 the Gospel, that which has, in fact, converted souls and 
 sanctified them, may be discovered to have lain very much 
 in this idea of Redemption as a return to God and heaven, 
 theoretically denied, but practically impressed by the Holy 
 Ghost on every believing soul ? We are persuaded of it. 
 And we sigh for the day when that glorious truth, so pow- 
 erful even under protest, shall be recognized by the judg- 
 ment, and exert, by the blessing of God, its omnipotent 
 power to purify and save. 
 
 Before leaving the subject, we will glance at a few 
 common objections. 
 
 If this be a truth of such great importance, why was it 
 not more clearly revealed in the Bible ? 
 
HEAVENLY FATHERLAND. 165 
 
 We submit that we have shown that is as clearly re- 
 vealed in the Bible as redemption is ; moreover, we may 
 answer one question by asking another : If this doctrine be 
 false, and yet the whole ancient Church believed it true, 
 why was it not more plainly contradicted in the Bible ? 
 With all due deference we submit that this question is first 
 in order. When the objector shall have answered this, 
 there will be little need to reply to the other inquiry. 
 
 But why, if this be true, have we no memory of that 
 celestial career ? We might, perhaps, ask, Is there not 
 something about the whole process of education, something 
 in the intuitions of the mind, something especially in the 
 phenomena of precocious genius, something in the unde- 
 fined ideas of magnificence that haunt the soul of man, 
 and make the poet the king of men, which speaks of a 
 noble past, of divine abilities dormant, but not dead, with- 
 in ? Is there nothing in the spectacle of second childhood 
 suggestive in regard to the first childhood ? Here is a 
 man who once swayed senates and controlled mighty au- 
 diences, now, 
 
 " In second childishness and mere oblivion, 
 Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." 
 
 There is nothing but the animal left. Where is all that 
 knowledge? What has become of that wit? What has 
 become of that large learning, that brilliant rhetoric, that 
 spiritual purity and fire? Are not all those varied powers 
 still in him, though dormant ? Why, then, may they not 
 have been in him, though dormant, in that previous child- 
 hood, out of which education waked them ? 
 
 But, putting this aside and coming to the objection 
 afresh, we may say that the object of man's existence in 
 this world was the final suppression of Lucifer's rebellion, 
 and the redemption of the Church. Both objects demand- 
 ed the exclusion of Satan from direct access to the human 
 mind. That exclusion was effected by the body. But 
 
16G REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 it necessarily involved a temporary loss of memory, and 
 interruption of the train of associations. It is enough that 
 without such temporary oblivion man could not be re- 
 deemed nor the Devil destroyed. 
 
 It is sometimes said this is wild, visionary, improbable. 
 It is uncongenial to the human mind and unnatural. 
 
 But if it was the confession of faith of the whole Church 
 before Christ, it cannot be uncongenial to the sanctified 
 human mind, Avhatever it may be to the unsanctified. 
 And as to probability, is it any more improbable than 
 that such sinners as we should not only reach heaven, 
 but reign " heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ " ? 
 Nothing can be more improbable in itself than this. If 
 we can believe this on the Divine testimony, we can be- 
 lieve the other far more easily, and must, from the very 
 nature of the case, for by the definition of redemption, the 
 testimony for the one is the testimony for the other. 
 
 A full belief of the doctrine of redemption, as now pre- 
 sented, would be of beneficial tendency to all. To the 
 public it is needed as a counterbalance against natural- 
 ism. There is a wide-spread tendency to let our ideas of 
 redemption run down into notions of mere growth, devel- 
 opment, progress. This always reduces sin to a negative 
 value, extenuated of all ill-desert. Sin is ignorance, mistake, 
 immaturity, undeveloped faculty. The result is the absence 
 of conviction of sin, and the growth of spiritual pride. 
 
 The essence of redemption being gone, the name soon 
 follows, and from one end of the year to the other, such 
 words as redeem, redeemer, redemption, are never heard. 
 An Arctic winter, so far as Evangelical piety is concerned, 
 is the inevitable result. To this captivating, but chilly 
 and pernicious scheme, the true view of redemption now 
 unfolded, as it is the logical antipode, so it is the infallible 
 antidote. The Church needs a new reformation on this 
 point. As in Luther's time she rescued the doctrine of 
 
HEAVENLY FATHERLAND. 167 
 
 justification by faith from Papal oblivion, so she ought 
 now to lift and light again this torch of redemption, by the 
 man of sin so vilely trod in the dust. And when the 
 Church begins to sing, with the heart and also with the 
 understanding, 
 
 " Salem, our once happy seat, 
 When I of thee forgetful prove, 
 Let then my trembling hand forget 
 The tuneful strings with art to move," — 
 
 then Babylon's walls will tremble, for the hour of God's 
 judgment has come. 
 
 To the private Christian this belief is eminently bene- 
 ficial. It gives him deep, thorough, intelligible views of 
 sin, and exalted views of Divine goodness. It tends 
 directly to create heavenly-mindedness. Heaven becomes 
 home in the strictest sense. The idea of having come from 
 there has a marvellous quickening power to make one 
 want to go there. The treasure is all there, and the heart 
 cannot help being there, too. The Christian rejoices not 
 in earthly power, not even though demons are subject to 
 him, but that his name is written in heaven, in the old 
 census-roll of empire, the book of lives, where it was record- 
 ed when he was born, and before he ever left home, and 
 went into exile. Christ's promise, " Him that overcometh, 
 I will not blot out his name from the book of life," is 
 sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. O that every 
 weary, wayworn traveller Zionward wottld believe, and 
 learn from experience how nourishing, consoling, invigo- 
 rating is this truth ! One experiment would be an argu- 
 ment so convincing in its power that he would never 
 doubt again, but go on singing : 
 
 " We are on our journey home, 
 Where Christ our Lord is gone, 
 We shall meet around his throne, 
 When he makes his people one 
 In the New Jerusalem. 
 
168 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 " We can see that distant home, 
 Though clouds rise dark between, 
 Faith views the radiant dome, 
 And a lustre flashes keen 
 
 Prom the New Jerusalem. 
 
 " O glory shining far 
 From the never-setting sun, 
 O trembling morning star, 
 Our journey 's almost done 
 To the New Jerusalem. 
 
 " O holy, heavenly home, 
 O rest eternal there, 
 When shall the exiles come, 
 Where they cease from earthly care, 
 In the New Jerusalem ! " 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE NATURAL MAN. 
 
 " HoWBEIT THAT WAS NOT FIRST WHICH IS SPIRITUAL, BUT THAT WHICH IS 
 NATURAL, AND AFTERWARD THAT WHICH IS SPIRITUAL." — 1 Cor. XV. 46. 
 
 IT is commonly supposed that Adam was created holy 
 in the garden of Eden, and that he fell from his origi- 
 nal uprightness, and all his race with him. But we have 
 just showed that heaven is our native country, or father- 
 land, and that redemption involves a return by a Re- 
 deemer's blood to primeval place, purity, and happiness. 
 
 Now if mankind fell in Adam, heaven is not their native 
 land, nor is redemption a return. A man cannot return 
 to a place he never was in, nor to a character he never 
 possessed. On the contrary, if mankind are a celestial 
 race, now in exile, but destined to return to their native 
 skies, then the idea of a fall in Adam cannot be true. 
 And yet for some twelve or thirteen centuries the idea 
 of heaven being our native home has lain under ban and 
 anathema, and Christendom has been taught to believe 
 that a fall in Adam was plainly and distinctly taught in 
 the Bible. 
 
 Yet it has never been proved that the Bible represents 
 Adam and Eve as created holy in Eden. This has been 
 for the most part assumed, with little attempt at proof. 
 But this is too important a matter to take for granted. 
 For if Adam is not plainly taught to have been created 
 holy in Eden, he is not taught to have fallen there. A 
 man cannot fall from a holiness he does not possess. He 
 cannot be represented as falling from a holiness he is not 
 
170 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 represented as possessing. If the Scripture reveals the 
 fact of a fall, it must reveal the fact of a holiness to fall 
 from ; it is impossible to indicate the one without indi- 
 cating the other. Yet it has never been proved that the 
 Bible in any manner hints that Adam, when first formed 
 out of dust, was any holier than any of his posterity natu- 
 rally are as they rise into life. 
 
 It is generally conceded that men are prone to sin ; that 
 they are born with some kind of bias to evil which renders 
 it certain they will yield to temptation on the first opportu- 
 nity. It has never been seriously attempted, so far as we 
 know, to show that Scripture does not ascribe exactly the 
 same character to Adam, placing him in the category of 
 natural or carnal, and not in the category of spiritual. 
 
 We take issue, then, with the Church of Rome, and all 
 churches that drink of her cup, in reference to the alleged 
 teachings of the Bible in the premises. The Scriptures do 
 not intimate in the slightest degree that Adam and Eve, in 
 Eden, were at first holy or spiritual, but, on the contrary, 
 set them forth as the representative specimens of a fallen 
 and sinful race. 
 
 We will consider, in the first place, such slight attempts 
 as have been made to prove that Adam was holy at the 
 time of the formation of his body. 
 
 " God said, Let us create man. But the soul is the man. 
 Now God does not create sinful souls." 
 
 The proper reply is, that create is used here of construc- 
 tion out of existing materials, as the mechanic creates a 
 house, the artist creates a picture. The materials existed 
 before, the combination did not exist. So of God it is 
 said, He can create, and he destroy. As destroying only 
 separates soul and body, so creating only combines them. 
 The dust existed. The soul existed. Hence it is generally 
 conceded that by the expression, " God breathed into him 
 the breath of life, and man became a living soul," no more 
 
THE NATURAL MAN. 171 
 
 is meant than that God caused him to breathe, and he be- 
 came a living animal. " Living soul " is applied to him in 
 common with birds, beasts, and reptiles, in the same chapter. 
 
 " God created man in his own image and after his likeness ; 
 and by this a moral image and likeness is meant" 
 
 Many of the ablest minds have believed, however, that 
 a moral resemblance is not implied, but one of constitu- 
 tional faculties and dominion, — a likeness purely analogi- 
 cal, as indicated in the words, " Let us make man in our 
 image, and let him have dominion." Man, as a rational 
 moral agent, endowed with supremacy over nature and her 
 tribes, stands, analogically, in the place of God. His rela- 
 tion, to the natural world is similar to that of God in the 
 moral universe. Hence, after the flood, that image and 
 likeness is spoken of as still subsisting. " Whoso shed- 
 deth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in 
 the image of God made he him." St. James also speaks 
 of it as perpetual. " Therewith [the tongue] curse we men, 
 which are made after the similitude of God." St. Paul 
 implies that there was a sense in which the man was more in 
 the image of God than the woman (1 Cor. xi. 7) : " Tha 
 man ought not to cover his head, for that he is the image 
 and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man." 
 The relation of the man, as husband and father, is in a 
 special sense analogous to the relation of God to the Church 
 and moral universe. It is plain, therefore, that the image 
 and likeness was not by inspired apostles regarded as moral. 
 
 " God saiv all that he had made, and pronounced it very 
 good." 
 
 So God says of Israel (Jer. ii. 21), " I planted thee, 
 wholly a right seed " ; and (Num. xxiii. 21), " He hath not 
 beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness 
 in Israel." Such statements are relative. "Very good" 
 means fit, appropriate, well adapted to the end in view, not 
 morally good. Were sheep and oxen, serpents and lizards, 
 
172 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 sharks and monsters of the deep, morally righteous ? Nay, 
 was the serpent himself holy ? They were, indeed, very 
 good in their place, as parts of a complex world designed to 
 be a moral battle-field and pedestal of the Cross, but not 
 otherwise. 
 
 " There was an intimate communion between man and his 
 Maker, implying holiness.'''' 
 
 Indeed ! — and where is the record of such intimate com- 
 munion ? There is no trace of it in the Bible. Adam does 
 not speak to God directly, so far as the record shows, until 
 after disobeying him, and then it is to throw the blame of 
 his fault on his Avife, — an act selfish and ungenerous, in- 
 dicating anything but a character previously perfect. The 
 idea of holy communion, so far as Genesis is concerned, is 
 a pure fiction. But what authority has any man, or any 
 church, to add to or take away from the Word of God? 
 
 Yet these, so far as known to us, are all the attempts at 
 proof of the original holiness and fall of Adam in Eden. 
 Is this evidence sufficient for so grave a doctrine as that 
 of the fall of a whole race in one man? Is this worthy 
 of being called proof? We often hear it said that pre- 
 existence would solve difficulties, if it could be proved, and 
 demands the most exorbitant are made on us for evidence. 
 Is the fall in Adam, then, to be believed without evidence, 
 because, instead of solving difficulties, it creates them ? 
 
 " But what ! " it may be exclaimed, " must we never 
 take anything for granted ? Must we be radical and im- 
 practicable in always demanding good and sufficient evi- 
 dence ? The bravest soldiers sometimes have to beg for 
 quarter ; why should not valiant theologians sometimes beg 
 the question ? Shall men, to preserve life and limb, implore 
 mercy, and shall not divines, to preserve their system and 
 their sermons, set up a single petitio principiiV 
 . We answer, in the words of Scripture, " Prove all things, 
 hold fast that which is good." If, indeed, assumptions 
 
THE NATURAL MAN. 173 
 
 were ever to be tolerated, it would be in favor of some 
 amiable, cheerful view, congenial to good sense and honor- 
 able feeling ; then to believe too easily were a pardonable 
 failing ; but when a doctrine is proposed gloomier than 
 Cocytus, — a doctrine that eclipses the glory of God, and 
 robes the earth in mourning, — then credulity becomes a 
 sin, and superstition a crime against God and against the 
 intelligent universe. 
 
 We proceed to show, that not only is the fall of Adam 
 not taught in Scripture, but that the Bible plainly teaches 
 the exact contrary of this doctrine. Adam, at the time of 
 the formation of his body, is set forth by the Holy Spirit 
 as a natural man, in the technical sense of that term. 
 
 We premise here that the point is, not that Adam was 
 naturally any worse than other men, but that he was no 
 better. A man may be a good man, humanly speaking, as 
 Paul was when alive without the law, — strict, legal, tena- 
 cious of merit, unconvicted of sin. Take the best man in 
 the world of this kind, and he has yet to learn that before 
 God he is a sinner, to be saved by redeeming grace. This 
 is what we are to prove Adam was, — a merely natural 
 man, standing on the natural plane, wholly unconscious of 
 his being a sinner, in need of pardoning mercy. This is 
 the character all his descendants possess until renewed by 
 the Holy Ghost. We are to show by the Word of God 
 that it was his. 
 
 The Word of God ascribes to Adam and Eve a state 
 of blindness before they transgressed. On eating the fruit 
 (Gen. iii. 7), " The eyes of them both were opened." 
 This was the effect of eating. Before, they were naked 
 and not ashamed ; now' they knew that they were naked. 
 The serpent had said, " God doth know that in the day ye 
 eat of it your eyes shall be opened." They ate. Their 
 eyes were opened. Of course the representation is, that 
 their eyes were shut before. It would be absurd to say 
 
174 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 "their eyes were opened," if they had been open all the 
 while. The representation is that they were blind. It 
 is no invention, but what every one must see lies on the 
 surface of the narrative. 
 
 But what sort of blindness? Was it bodily or mental ? 
 There are such blind men as he to whom Christ said, 
 " Go wash in the pool of Siloam," and there are others to 
 whom Christ says, " I counsel thee to buy of me eye-salve 
 to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see." This blind- 
 ness was not bodily. " The woman saw the tree, that 
 it was pleasant to the eyes." There was nothing the 
 matter with her visual organs. But if not external, it 
 must have been internal. It was a blindness of the mind, 
 such as Christ speaks of in the Jews : " They see with 
 their eyes, but do not perceive ; their eyes have they 
 closed." 
 
 It is such an inward, spiritual blindness as is described 
 1 Cor. iii. 14 : " For the natural man understandeth not 
 the tilings of the Spirit of God, for they ai'e foolishness 
 unto him, neither can he know them, for they are spirit- 
 ually discerned." Adam and Eve were an incarnation 
 of this text. By them God presented bodily to the mind 
 the same idea he has expressed in these words. Their 
 blindness was just such as appertains to every human 
 being till enlightened by the Spirit of God. They were 
 from the first fair samples, average specimens of the race. 
 
 They were naked, and not ashamed. They ought to 
 have felt shame, but did not. They would have felt shame 
 but for that mental blindness, and as soon as that blindness 
 passed away they did feel it, and began to attempt to cover 
 themselves. Failing in this, they were clothed with skins 
 by the Divine hand. It does not seem as though much 
 argument ought to be necessary to show that in this naked- 
 ness there was a moral import. The act of clothing that 
 nakedness has been instinctively regarded as emblematic. 
 
THE NATURAL MAN. 175 
 
 Their attempts to sew fig-leaves together and make aprons 
 has become a standing illustration of the attempt of a 
 convicted sinner to work out a righteousness of his own. 
 Their being clothed by God has been universally regard- 
 ed as an emblem of justification through Christ. Thus 
 Milton : — 
 
 "Nor lie their outward only with the skins 
 
 Of beasts, but inward nakedness much more 
 
 Opprobrious, with his robe of righteousness 
 
 Arraying, covered from his Father's sight." 
 
 So, likewise, President Edwards remarks : " It is likely 
 that these skins Adam and Eve were clothed with were 
 the skins of their sacrifices. God's clothing them with these 
 was a lively figure of their being clothed with the right- 
 eousness of Christ. This clothing was no clothing of their 
 own obtaining, but it was God that gave it to them. It is 
 said, k God made them coats of skins, and covered them,' 
 as the righteousness our naked souls are clothed with is 
 not our righteousness, but the righteousness which is of 
 God. It is only he who clothes the naked soul. Our first 
 parents, who were naked, were clothed at the expense 
 of life. Beasts were slain, and resigned up their lives a 
 sacrifice to God to afford clothing to their nakedness. So 
 doth Christ afford clothing to our naked souls." 
 
 These words of President Edwards are plain and pointed. 
 But they overthrow the doctrine of the fall in Adam from 
 the foundation. They cut it up by the roots. This naked- 
 ness, so expressive, existed before their disobedience. It 
 was not produced by it. This is not the way to represent 
 them as previously holy. If they had been clothed in 
 white before the act, and been stripped naked after it, 
 it would have represented an original righteousness and 
 a fall. As it is, however, it represents no such thing. 
 If it represents anything at all, it represents a state of 
 latent guilt, which their blindness alone prevents them 
 
176 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 from being ashamed of. If their attempt to cover them- 
 selves denoted vain efforts at self-justification, and if God's 
 clothing them denotes a real justification, then their pre- 
 vious nakedness denotes an unjustified state. They are 
 •exposed to God's displeasure, they are destitute of justifi- 
 cation, and they know it not, because they are blind. 
 
 Throughout the Bible nakedness is never used figura- 
 tively for innocence. Neither do we believe it is ever 
 so used by poets, rhetoricians, or in common parlance. 
 We doubt if an instance can be found in the whole range 
 of human literature, where nakedness, being used figura- 
 tively, is used to denote innocence, much less holiness. 
 True, Milton speaks of " that first naked glory," and says 
 
 of Eve, 
 
 " No veil 
 She needed, virtue proof," — 
 
 and describes them as 
 
 " Godlike, erect, with native honor clad 
 In naked majesty." 
 
 But why "clad"? Why not with native honor bare? 
 And why does he, after their transgression, say, 
 " Innocence, that as a veil 
 Had shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone ; 
 
 Why represent innocence as a covering instead of a na- 
 kedness ? Why describe them as 
 
 " Naked left 
 To guilty shame," 
 
 and as 
 
 " Destitute 
 And bare of all their virtue " ? 
 
 Why, in short, does he picture them as clothed before 
 transgression and naked after, but from the force of a law 
 of analogy he could not resist, compelling him to write as 
 if nakedness was the emblem of guilt, in spite of a theory 
 that commanded him to consider it an emblem of inno- 
 
THE NATURAL MAN. 177 
 
 cence ? But if in Paradise Lost nakedness is not used 
 figuratively to denote innocence, it certainly is not in any 
 other uninspired work, while in the Bible it is habitually, 
 constantly, and scientifically used in the other way. Take 
 as an instance the vision in Zech. iii. The filthy garments 
 on Joshua denote guilt, real or imputed ; the taking them 
 off and putting on a change of raiment denote justifica- 
 tion. To the Laodicean Church Christ says (Rev. iii. 17, 
 18) : " Thou knowest not that thou art blind and naked ; 
 I counsel of thee, to buy of me white raiment, that thou 
 mayest be covered, that the shame of thy nakedness do 
 not appear." 
 
 Observe, moreover, the opening and closing represen- 
 tations of the Bible. It is because man is naked, and 
 incapable of self-justification, that we see him driven out 
 into the earth for the purpose, as the coats of skin seem to 
 show, of having a justification provided. When the time 
 arrives, and that object is achieved, we see the Church 
 return to Paradise, and it is said : " To her was granted 
 to be clothed with fine linen, clean and white, which is 
 the righteousness of saints." 
 
 With scientific certainty, then, the representation in 
 Genesis marks Adam and Eve out as the representatives 
 of an unjustified race, and they are made to act out a 
 pantomime of redemption. We first see them naked and 
 not ashamed, denoting a sinner unawakened, and uncon- 
 scious that he has no defence against the wrath of God. 
 The commandment then comes, sin revives, they die. By 
 the operation of law, latent sin becomes overt transgres- 
 sion, and remorse and fear follow. Thirdly, they attempt 
 to cover themselves with fig-leaf aprons ; a vivid picture 
 of a convicted sinner trying to justify himself by deeds 
 of law. We see them, lastly, clothed by God with fleecy 
 garments ; thus representing justification through a cruci- 
 fied Redeemer. 
 
178 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Taken together, this series of tableaux says, the race 
 now to be introduced into this world is a race accused, 
 and destitute of justification, but not aware of their real 
 condition. They are fairly represented by this first speci- 
 men pair. In these two, substantially, you see the race. 
 The object is to provide an atoning sacrifice, and through 
 him furnish them a perfect justification. 
 
 We refer, once more, in confirmation of this view, to 
 the silence of Scripture already alluded to, as to any act 
 of worship on the part of Adam and Eve. This does not 
 of course prove they did not worship. But if the object 
 of the Spirit were to represent holiness, acts of worship 
 would certainly be described. This is certain from the 
 fact that uninspired writers, who believe in such holiness, 
 do describe such acts as performed by them. Milton gives 
 us charming pictures of their daily devotions, as 
 
 " At their shady lodge arrived, both stood, 
 Both turned, and under open sky adored 
 The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven." 
 
 If the Holy Spirit had intended to convey such an impres- 
 sion of their holiness, he would have represented them in 
 acts of worship. 
 
 He has so represented the Church on earth, patriarchal 
 and Jewish ; the record of their praises occupies a large 
 part of the Bible, though the holiness of the Church is 
 only partial. He so represents the holiness of Jesus, who 
 spends whole nights in prayer, and who, after instituting 
 the Lord's Supper, joins his disciples in singing a hymn. 
 " Behold, he prayeth ! " is the inspired designation of a 
 saint. But it is toward the last, when we draw nigh 
 to the better land, and a door is opened into heaven, 
 that the full burst of praise rushes out upon us like the 
 voice of many waters and the noise of mighty thunder- 
 ings. We behold white-robed myriads, with harps and 
 
THE NATURAL MAN. 179 
 
 palms and crowns of gold ; they wave their palms, they 
 strike their harps, they cast their crowns at the Re- 
 deemer's feet, they fall prostrate, they sing, they shout. 
 This is the instinct, the very nature, of a loyal, loving, 
 adoring soul. It sings, it prays, it kneels, it casts itself 
 prostrate, it seeks by every sound and motion to express 
 the deep ecstasy of holy joy and worship. Now there is 
 nothing of this in Eden. The Holy Spirit might have rep- 
 resented Adam and Eve as singing one hymn at least, — 
 
 " These are thy works, Parent of Good," — 
 
 but he does not. He might have pictured them clothed 
 in white, and bowing down before God, but he does not. 
 He might have exhibited some solemn act of prayer, but 
 he does not. There is not a word, not a whisper of 
 thanks, praise, or adoration in the record. 
 
 We refer, moreover, to the silence of subsequent Scrip- 
 ture as to any good in Adam in Eden. If Adam was an 
 exception to his race, — the only man that ever began right 
 except Christ, the man whose fall was the cause of the 
 wrong beginning of all the rest, — we should expect this 
 would be mentioned in such a book as the Bible. The 
 Bible has to do with redemption ; this act of Adam was 
 what caused redemption to be necessary ; in so large a 
 book, there could not fail to be frequent allusions to the 
 matter. 
 
 But the fact is, after the first few chapters, Adam is 
 mentioned again but twice in the whole Old Testament. 
 Once, in Deut. xxxii. 8, the nations are called " sons of 
 Adam," and once, in Job xxxi. 33, he is mentioned as 
 " covering his transgressions." Aside from these casual 
 references, in all the history, prophecy, types, shadows, 
 doctrines, psalms, and varied teachings of the world's Bible 
 for four thousand years, his name or Eve's is not men- 
 tioned. This, if they were the cause of human ruin, is 
 
180 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 so incredible, as to amount to an impossibility. It cannot 
 be believed. 
 
 Other men, whose holiness never was imagined to be 
 perfect, are called perfect. Noah was a "just man and 
 perfect in his generations." Abraham is " the friend 
 of God." Job was "perfect and upright." Moses was 
 "faithful in all God's house." To Jeremiah God says, 
 " Before thou earnest out of the womb I sanctified thee." 
 David is " the man after God's own heart." Daniel, the 
 "man greatly beloved." Zechariah and Elizabeth walked 
 "in all the commandments of the Lord blameless." 
 
 But Adam receives no compliments of this kind. Could 
 a writer, entertaining the common opinion concerning 
 Adam, write a theological work as large as the Old Testa- 
 ment, and yet never put in such expressions as just Adam, 
 upright Adam, Adam in innocence, Adam before he fell, 
 the unfallen, sinless human pair, &c. ? Would it not re- 
 quire a miracle to prevent him ? Add to this the state- 
 ment of Paul (Heb. xi. 13, 16), that the whole ancient 
 Church confessed heaven their fatherland, and earth for- 
 eign, and is it not certain, to a demonstration, that such 
 a doctrine as the fall in Adam was unknown to the writers 
 of the Old Testament? 
 
 In the New Testament, Adam is several times contrasted 
 with Christ, but not in the way he would be if made holy 
 in Eden, and subsequently fallen. On that supposition, 
 the difference between him and Christ would be, that, 
 while both began in holiness, one fell, and the other stood. 
 Adam yielded to a small temptation ; Christ resisted 
 powerful temptations. Hence, Paul would have said : 
 " Adam was more favorably situated than Christ ; holi- 
 ness entered into the world when he entered; he was 
 free, and might have stood, and his temptation was slight, 
 while Christ's temptation was extremely severe ; yet Adam 
 fell, and ruined us all, while Christ stood, and saved, us all. 
 How guilty Adam ! how glorious Christ ! " 
 
THE NATURAL MAN. 181 
 
 This, however, is not the contrast the Apostle does 
 draw. (Romans v. 12, 19.) Instead of saying, " By one 
 man righteousness entered into the world and was forfeited 
 and lost," he says, " By one man sin entered into the 
 world," that is, when he entered, sin entered, as appears 
 from his being blind and naked from the threshold. He 
 does not speak of his loss of innocence, his fall, or use any 
 word implying a change of character, but " his transgres- 
 sion," " his offence," " his disobedience," " his sinning," 
 — all terms applicable to any sinner who acts out an 
 existing sinful disposition. 
 
 The only expression that could be thought to favor the 
 common view is, " By one man's disobedience many were 
 made sinners." But how made ? Not by the fall of a 
 righteous man, but by a test applied to an unrighteous 
 man taken as an average sample. Out of a thousand 
 bushels of wheat, one bushel being taken as a fair sample 
 or specimen, and found to be damaged, makes the whole 
 damaged. Adam being taken blind and naked, an average 
 sample of a race blind and naked from birth, and submitted 
 to a simple test of law, and found disobedient, makes the 
 whole race, of which he was a specimen, sinners. 
 
 Hence, Dr. Hodge of Princeton, although himself hold- 
 ing the common view of a fall, frankly says : " Although 
 the sentiment, therefore, is correct and Scriptural, that we 
 derive a corrupt nature from Adam, as it is true also that 
 Christ is the author of holiness, yet these are not the truths 
 which Paul is here immediately desirous of presenting." 
 
 Yet if the doctrine of a fall in Adam, and depravation 
 of nature of the whole race in him, be true, this, as we 
 have said before, is the contrast Paul would have drawn. 
 Adam, with a holy nature, fell, and depraved himself and 
 all his descendants ; Christ, with a holy nature, stood, and 
 not only maintained his own nature pure, but restored the 
 nature of the race. This passage, therefore, which has 
 
182 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 been supposed to teach the common view, not only does 
 not teach it, but is utterly irreconcilable with it. If the 
 doctrine of a fall in Adam had been true, such a passage 
 as Romans v. 12-19 never could have been written. 1 
 
 Another passage, in which Adam is contrasted with 
 Christ, is that from which our text is taken (1 Cor. xv. 
 42-49). In discoursing of the resurrection, the Apostle 
 is led to draw a contrast between Adam and Christ which 
 relates to the body. Yet, though primarily a contrast in 
 respect to the body, it is so managed as to imply a con- 
 trast in respect to character. 
 
 There are two kinds of body, says the Apostle. There 
 is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. He then 
 gives a specimen of each. For the former kind he takes 
 Adam's body, when first made. " As it is written, the first 
 man Adam was made a living soul," or living animal. For 
 the latter kind he takes Christ, at the point of his resurrec- 
 tion, "the second Adam was made a quickening spirit." 
 Adam, when first made, had a natural body ; Christ, when 
 raised, a spiritual body. We now have natural bodies, as 
 Adam had when made ; we shall hereafter have spiritual 
 bodies, when raised like Christ. 
 
 Now all admit that by spiritual, applied to body, is not 
 meant subtile, tenuous, unreal, but rather, adapted to the 
 uses of the spirit. So, also, natural (psychical), applied 
 to body, means adapted to the principle of animal life 
 (psyche). But if so, how can we escape the idea of an 
 implied contrast of moral character, all the more forcible 
 for being only implied ? 
 
 1 For a full exegesis of this celebrated passage, we beg leave to refer to " The 
 Conflict of Ages," pp. 363 - 447. It is now about ten years since that ex- 
 egesis was laid before the public, and up to the present time, so far as known, 
 no serious attempt has been made to give it a thorough philological refuta- 
 tion. The obvious inference is, that no answer can be made. And while 
 that exegesis remains unrefuted and unchallenged, it must be regarded as 
 a tacit confession of the truth of our position. 
 
THE NATURAL MAN. 183 
 
 The spiritual body of Christ, taken as a sample, was 
 adapted to the uses not only of a spirit, but of a perfectly 
 sinless and sanctifying spirit. Our spiritual bodies will be 
 adapted to the uses of spirits restored to purity by perfect 
 sanctification. 
 
 By contrast, then, our natural bodies now, in which we 
 bear the image of the earthy, as he was at first, are bodies 
 adapted to the uses of beings not yet perfectly sanctified, 
 — beings neither justified nor sanctified in themselves, but 
 placed here to be justified and sanctified. 
 
 A natural body is simply a vehicle adapted to a sinful 
 being, to be the instrument of his justification and sanctifi- 
 cation by atoning blood. A spiritual body is one given 
 after the process is completed. Thus viewed, a natural 
 body implies that the soul inside of it is sinful, just as a 
 hospital implies that its inmates are sick. The hospital 
 does not make them sick, — the body does not make the 
 soul unclean. On the contrary, the hospital heals the 
 patient ; the body is used by the great physician to purify, 
 heal, and redeem the soul. Of course it implies that soul 
 to be sinful. 
 
 And since Adam's body was a natural body when made, 
 it implies that the being inside of it was a sinner, as also 
 intimated by the fact of his being blind and naked. He 
 is the specimen of natural or carnal humanity, therefore, 
 as the risen Christ is the exalted specimen of humanity 
 redeemed and made spiritual. Hence, of humanity in its 
 carnal head, Paul says : " It is sown in weakness, it is 
 sown in dishonor ; it is sown in corruption, it is sown a 
 natural body." Of humanity, as raised and glorified in 
 Christ, he says :- " It is raised in power, it is raised in 
 glory, it is raised in incorruption, it is raised a spiritual 
 body." Taking Adam, as first formed from the dust, and 
 Christ, as raised from the dead, he draws a contrast the 
 widest conceivable in point of strength, honor, durability, 
 and adaptedness to sanctified uses. 
 
184 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 And this contrast is not the one he would have drawn 
 if Adam when first made was holy. If Adam was then 
 spiritual in the sense of holiness, his body, being perfectly 
 adapted to his wants, must have been a spiritual body. In 
 that case it would have been impossible for Paul to draw 
 the contrast he does. 
 
 The argument on this passage may be reduced to the 
 following syllogism : — 
 
 Major. All beings of whom spiritual is denied, and 
 natural affirmed, cannot fall, but are already fallen. 
 
 Minor. Adam, at the moment of animation, is a being 
 of whom spiritual is denied and natural affirmed. 
 
 Conclusion. Therefore Adam, at the moment of anima- 
 tion, could not fall, but was already fallen. 
 
 To avoid the conclusion, either the major or the minor 
 must be invalidated. If the major, we adduce the testimony 
 of Alford, who says : " The spiritual (TrvevixartKO^ is 
 necessarily a man dwelt in by the Spirit of God, the natu- 
 ral (-v/ru^t/co?) is the animal man, led by the animal soul 
 O/^X 7 ?), and, as Jude says, not having the spirit." Also 
 of Olshausen, who affirms that, when used by Paul, 
 "natural (^i;%t/co9) indicates, not the sinless creature 
 proceeding from the hand of his Creator, but the fallen 
 being under the power of corruption." 
 
 If the minor be assailed, we urge in its support that 
 Paul quotes Genesis ii. 7, in describing the animation 
 of Adam from dust, in such a way as to show that he 
 meant to deny spiritual and assert natural of him at 
 that point, and not at a subsequent period. Will any one 
 say, that by " that which was first " the Holy Spirit means 
 Adam after a certain point, and by " afterwards " Adam 
 before that point ? Will the scholarship of this age com- 
 mit itself to the following paraphrase of the passage: 
 " Howbeit that which was first, namely, Adam, after he 
 ate the fruit, was not spiritual, but natural, and after- 
 
THE NATURAL MAN. 185 
 
 wards, namely, before eating the fruit, that which was 
 spiritual." By that which was first, does the Holy Spirit 
 mean that which was last, and by afterwards that which 
 was before ? But unless one or the other of these prem- 
 ises can be invalidated, the conclusion stands. 
 
 We come, then, to consider the contrast implied in Eph. 
 iv. 22 - 24, Col. iii. 9, 10 : " That ye put off, concerning 
 the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt 
 according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the 
 spirit of your mind ; and that ye put on the new man, 
 which after God is created in righteousness and true 
 holiness." 
 
 By the old man here Paul evidently means man, as 
 Adam was at first, blind and naked. By the new man, 
 he evidently means man as he becomes through Christ, as 
 shadowed forth in Adam, when God clothed him in coats 
 of skins. 
 
 Now Paul could never have written this if the common 
 theory had been in his mind. He would have said, Put 
 off the new man, such as Adam became by his fall, and 
 put on the old man, such as Adam was before his fall. 
 Put off the new and fallen Adam, — put on the old, un- 
 fallen Adam. 
 
 And as the old or unfallen Adam was blind and naked, 
 so Paul would have insisted, as theologians now do, on 
 blindness as a necessary element of Christian character. 
 He would have said, as Dr. Hodge of Princeton now says, 
 The Gospel is not a matter of common sense, it is to be 
 accepted with blind faith. He would have told his Gentile 
 hearers that Christ sent him to shut their eyes and turn 
 them from light to darkness, the marvellous darkness of 
 the Gospel. 
 
 In this felicitous conception of the subject, as all defend- 
 ers of the modern theory fraternally agree, so Paul must 
 have agreed with them, had that theory been his. Be 
 
1S6 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 blind, he must have said, as Adam was before he fell. 
 Blindness is the great characteristic of unfallen humanity. 
 Put it on. Shut your eyes. Surrender your reason. 
 Dare not to presume to question. Strangle common sense. 
 Smother your intuitions of honor and right. Believe what 
 you are told, or be damned. 
 
 But Paul was singularly at variance with all modern 
 theologians on this interesting point. " If our Gospel be 
 hid," he remarks (2 Cor. iv. 3-8), "it is hid to them 
 that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded 
 the eyes of them that believe not, lest the light of the 
 
 glorious Gospel of Christ should shine unto them 
 
 For God hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of 
 the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
 Christ." Paul regarded it a special grace, that he was 
 sent " to make all men see." (Eph. hi. 9.) He tells his 
 converts : " Ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye 
 light in the Lord ; walk as children of the light." Paul 
 does not say, put on the old, blind Adam, but put him off. 
 
 The common theory, therefore, and Paul are antipodes. 
 The common theory puts darkness for light and light for 
 darkness. It comes into direct antagonism with Paul in 
 the very life of his mission. It turns his mission inside 
 out, wrong-end foremost, and bottom-side up. Either the 
 text of the New Testament must be rewritten, or the 
 common theory of the fall in Adam will have to be 
 given up. 
 
 We submit the case to the candid consideration of all. 
 Consider the magnitude of the issue. Reflect that the 
 idea of the race being ruined in Adam is not a valuable 
 idea. It has never done any good. It has always excited 
 scepticism. The Church has never known what to do 
 with it. It is a harsh and trying idea. It has been a 
 heavy load to piety, an incubus to faith. If this doctrine 
 were really taught plainly and beyond dispute in the Bible, 
 
THE NATURAL MAN. 187 
 
 it would not be so strange that people should continue to 
 hold it. 
 
 But what can possibly be the use of putting it into the 
 Bible when it is not there ? If so repellant a doctrine is 
 to be accepted as Biblical, surely it ought to be only on 
 the fullest, most unquestionable evidence. But can any 
 candid mind go from the perusal of this argument and say 
 that such evidence exists ? Has it not been shown that 
 the doctrine is not only not taught, but plainly contradicted 
 by the Bible ? And if so, is it not best to give it up ? 
 
 Does not the Church confess that she cannot reconcile 
 the doctrine with her moral sense ? Are not confessions 
 to that effect, from all denominations, on record, as made 
 during the last ten years ? Do not all sects and schools 
 of theology confess explicitly, that it is impossible logically 
 to defend the doctrine against the charge of immorality ? 
 For that which is inconsistent with honor and right is 
 surely immoral. 
 
 Nor can it be said that we have no right to apply those 
 principles to the Divine conduct. " It may be categori- 
 cally affirmed, that God is inexorably obligated to do 
 justly." It is as true in Eden as in Gethsemane, that 
 " whatever else God may be, or may not be, he must be 
 just." If to forgive without atonement would be an " ar- 
 bitrary and unprincipled procedure " in God, how much 
 more to punish without actual sin ? If the exercise of 
 compassion, without legal satisfaction, would be " arbitrary 
 will and might striding forward to reach its own private 
 ends, and trampling down justice by sheer force," how 
 much more the eternal torment of countless millions for 
 a fault committed ages before their existence, and falsely 
 charged to them ! 
 
 It is amazing what liberties men dare take with the 
 Almighty, when the object is to handcuff mercy, and 
 how abjectly reverential they become when the object is 
 
188 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 to authorize infinite injustice. And yet it is not amazing, 
 considering that it is but the logical necessity of the sys- 
 tem supposed to be revealed in the Bible. 
 
 Why, then, persist in thrusting such a doctrine upon a 
 reluctant Bible? Why. foist it in against the indignant 
 protest of the Supreme Judge of controversy, the Holy 
 Spirit speaking in Scripture ? Such is not the conduct to 
 be expected of Protestants. Have the descendants of 
 Edwards and Hopkins, Emmons, Bellamy, and D wight, — ■ 
 have the sons of Puritan sires abjured the principles on 
 which New England was founded, that nothing is to be 
 believed which is irreconcilable with the Word of God? 
 
 Some sparks of the ancient fire must surely linger upon 
 our altars, although buried in ashes, waiting for the breath 
 of God to fan them to a flame. It cannot be that the 
 whole Church visible will go on to make the Word of God 
 of none effect, by a mere human tradition. The doctrine 
 of the fall in Adam, unlovely in itself, evil in its influence, 
 and only evil continually ; being tried by the Word and 
 proved a superstition ; charged on all hands with immo- 
 rality, and all defence being abandoned ; must surely be 
 looked upon as one ingredient in the cup of abominations 
 in the hand of the Scarlet Enchantress of the Seven Hills. 
 It is time to dash that cup from our lips. It is time for 
 God's people to come out of her, " that they be not par- 
 takers of her sins, and that they receive not of her 
 plagues." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MELCHISEDEC. 
 " Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither 
 
 BEGINNING OF DAYS NOR END OF LIFE." — Heb. vii. 3. 
 
 THESE words seem to imply self-existence. The idea 
 that Melchisedec is Christ flows most naturally from 
 them. That idea, however, is very generally rejected, 
 and the view embraced instead, that Melchisedec was a 
 Canaanite prince. 
 
 It is proposed to offer some reasons against this latter, 
 and in favor of the former view. 
 
 The latter theory fails, in the first place, to explain the 
 statement of the text, that Melchisedec was without 
 father, without mother, &c. The usual explanation is, 
 without recorded father or mother or pedigree, i. e. because 
 no mention of these things is made in the Bible, there is a 
 shadowy likeness to Christ, who had no human father, no 
 Divine mother, no priestly genealogy. 
 
 But according to ancient usage, if he was a Canaanite, 
 it is clear that Canaan was his father. The omission of a 
 few intermediate links makes no difference. In Ezra vii. 
 1-5, Meraioth is given as the father of Azariah, though 
 there were six generations intervening. Such cases were 
 common. The principle on which genealogical registers 
 were constructed was, where links were lost or omitted 
 for any other reason, to take the next preceding link, and 
 use the term father. Hence, if Melchisedec was a Ca- 
 naanite, it cannot be said that his genealogy is not recorded 
 in the Bible. On the contrary, it is recorded as follows : 
 
190 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 " Which was the son of Canaan, of Noah, of Lamech, of 
 Methuselah, of Enoch, of Jared, of Malaleel, of Cainan, 
 of Enos, of Seth, of Adam." 
 
 To say that a mortal man existed in Abraham's day, 
 without a recorded pedigree through one of the three sons 
 of Noah, Shem, Ham, or Japhet, is to say that a man ex- 
 isted who did not descend from Adam. Besides, if he had 
 no recorded pedigree, that would not make him like Christ. 
 This Canaanite had parents, but they are not recorded. 
 Christ had parents. God was his father, the Virgin Mary 
 his mother, and these are recorded. 
 
 That Canaanite had a pedigree, which is not recorded ; 
 Jesus had a pedigree, which is carefully traced through 
 David and Abraham to Adam. 
 
 Or if the comparison be made with Christ, in his divine 
 nature, that Canaanite priest had parents, though the fact 
 is not recorded. Christ, as divine, had none, and the fact 
 is clearly recorded. 
 
 If the comparison be made with Christ, viewed in his 
 priestly office, that Canaanite priest had a priestly lineage, 
 though it is not recorded. Christ had no priestly lineage, 
 and the fact is carefully stated. 
 
 There is no likeness, then, but the reverse. If Mel- 
 chisedec had no recorded pedigree, he was neither a child 
 of Adam nor like Christ in any degree whatever. 
 
 Another objection is the curse pronounced on Canaan, 
 Gen. ix. 25 : " Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants 
 shall he be to his brethren. Blessed of the Lord God be 
 Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge 
 Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and 
 Canaan shall be his servant." 
 
 On this Dr. Owen remarks : " Whereas they were 
 herein, by the spirit of prophecy, cast out of the Church 
 and devoted to destruction, God would not raise up among 
 them of their accursed seed the most glorious typical min- 
 
MELCHISEDEC. 191 
 
 istry that ever was in the world, .... and I wonder that 
 no expositors have taken notice of this." Add to this, that 
 immediately after the meeting with Melchisedec, Gen. 
 xiv. 18, God says to Abraham, Gen. xv. 16, " The iniquity 
 of the Amorites is not yet full " ; evidently implying that 
 it was then nearly full. How absurd, then, to suppose, only 
 a few days before, a priest of that accursed and guilty race 
 superior to Abraham, and in communion with God ! 
 
 A third impossibility is the fact that Jerusalem was not 
 then built, and that when founded it was idolatrous. It is 
 generally conceded that, if Salem were an earthly city at 
 all, it must be Jerusalem, as the name Adonizedek, king 
 of Jerusalem in Joshua's time, evidently proves. But the 
 evidence is decisive, that the city was not yet founded in 
 Abraham's day. 
 
 Forty years after the meeting with Melchisedec Abra- 
 ham was sent to offer up Isaac on Mount Moriah, the site 
 of the future temple. Now when God interposed, and 
 Abraham unbound Isaac, he found a ram caught in a thick- 
 et by his horns. Hence there was no city there. It was 
 an untrodden wild, a jungle, and the very first stroke of 
 human builders had not been struck. 
 
 Moreover, when the city was built, it was unclean and 
 idolatrous from the foundation, as God declares to Ezekiel 
 (xvi. 2 - 5) : " Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem, 
 Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan ; thy 
 father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite ; and 
 as for thy nativity, in the day that thou wast born .... 
 thou wast not washed in water to supple thee, thou wast 
 not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee 
 to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon 
 thee ; but thou wast cast out into the open field, to the 
 loathing of thy person in the day that thou wast born." 
 
 These words cannot refer to the nation. The Jews 
 were not of Amorite and Hittite blood. It refers to the 
 
192 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 city which was built by the Jebusites, a cross between 
 Amorites and Hittites. It was not even called Jerusalem 
 till Solomon's day. Wherever that name appears in earlier 
 Scriptures, it has been inserted by later transcribers instead 
 of the obsolete name Jebus. 
 
 Now nothing can convey a more vivid impression of the 
 guilt, helplessness, and shame of that city, as first founded, 
 than the imagery employed by the Prophet. 
 
 A final objection to the Canaanite hypothesis is, that it is 
 fatal to the argument and inspiration of the Apostle. The 
 point he is endeavoring to prove is, the superiority of 
 Christ's priesthood over the Aaronic, — a point most fun- 
 damental and vital. 
 
 To prove this he quotes Psalm ex. 4, where Messiah is 
 called " a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec." 
 From this he argues that Christ must be superior to Aaron. 
 But how does this follow, if Melchisedec was a Canaanite ? 
 Hoav was Christ a priest forever after a Canaanitish order ? 
 And how, if he was, would that argue superiority ? 
 
 All depends on making out this Canaanite priest superior 
 to Abraham, this priesthood of an uncircumcised and ac- 
 cursed race superior to that of the covenant people, whose 
 are the promises ! 
 
 Mr. Barnes remarks that " such an argument would 
 strike a Jew with much more force than any other person." 
 He is of opinion that " we ought to place ourselves in their 
 condition, to see the pertinency of the argument." 
 
 To us, however, it seems that the last person on earth 
 likely to be convinced by such logic would be a devout 
 Hebrew. If we place ourselves in their position, we shall 
 certainly feel this. 
 
 What ! an accursed Canaanite superior to Abraham ! 
 Can anything be conceived more offensive to a Hebrew ? 
 As a matter of fact, the Jews believed Melchisedec to be 
 Shem. To have made them think him of Canaan would 
 
MELCHISEDEC. 193 
 
 have required a miracle. If the Apostle reasoned in this 
 way, therefore, he reasoned in the way least likely to con- 
 vince Jews. 
 
 And what would Christians have said ? If Levi was in 
 Abraham's loins, Jesus was also. If Jesus he not Abra- 
 ham's seed, he is not Messiah, but an impostor. If he be 
 Abraham's seed, he was as much in Abraham's loins as 
 Levi was, and paid tithes as much as Levi did. If that 
 makes Levi inferior to this Canaanite, it makes Jesus just as 
 much. How does that prove him to be superior to Levi ? 
 
 To this there could be no answer. The theory in ques- 
 tion, therefore, destroys the Apostle's argument, either for 
 Jew or Christian. 
 
 The defenders of the theory confess themselves embar- 
 rassed. " There is," says Mr. Barnes, " much difficulty 
 about the force and pertinency of the reasoning." Not 
 that he acknowledges it to be unsound. " It is not quibble 
 nor quirk, but sound reasoning." He thinks " it may not 
 be improbable that the Apostle was reasoning from some 
 interpretation of Gen. xiv. and Ps. ex. which was then 
 prevalent, and would then be conceded on all hands to be 
 correct. If this was the conceded interpretation, and if 
 there is no equivocation or mere trick in the reasoning, as 
 there cannot be shown to be, why should we not allow the 
 Jew a peculiarity of reasoning, as we do all other people ? 
 The ancient philosophers had methods of reasoning which 
 now seem weak to us. The lawyer often argues in a way 
 which appears to be a mere quirk or quibble ; and so the 
 lecturer on science sometimes reasons. The cause of all 
 this may not be that there is a real quibble or quirk, but 
 that the reasoner has in his view certain points which ho 
 regards as undisputed, but which do not appear so to us." 
 
 Thus does this theory push its ablest and best defenders 
 to the very verge of infidelity. Such disclaimers of trick 
 and quibble suggest the very thing they seem to deny. No 
 
194 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 person can read this passage without the painful idea of the 
 Apostle's having used a weak and unsound argument being 
 forced upon his mind. Indeed, it is difficult to resist the 
 conclusion that Mr. Barnes himself really felt, that it is at 
 least possible that the Apostle was reasoning on a mistaken 
 interpretation of Gen. xiv. and Ps. ex. For, if that possi- 
 ble interpretation was correct, then, inasmuch as it is lost, 
 the correct interpretation is lost, and the modern interpre- 
 tation on which this theory rests is incorrect, and the theory 
 falls. But if the modern interpretation is correct, then that 
 on which the Apostle was possibly reasoning was mistaken. 
 In short, Mr. Barnes seems driven to admit " that it may 
 not be impossible " that the Apostle's main argument for 
 the high-priesthood of Christ is founded on mistake. 
 
 Under the combined pressure of these objections, we see 
 not how the theory can survive. And we now proceed to 
 offer some arguments in favor of the other, namely, Mel- 
 chisedec is Christ. Let us, in the first place, turn to the 
 narrative in Gen. xiv. 18-20: "And Melchisedec, king 
 of Salem, brought forth bread and wine : and he was the 
 priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and 
 said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of 
 heaven and earth : and blessed be the most high God, 
 which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And 
 he gave him tithes of all." 
 
 It has been objected that this narrative presents Melchis- 
 edec as a mere man, and would not lead us to suppose him 
 a supernatural personage. This might be decisive if we 
 had no other evidence, but is not so of itself. There are 
 several cases of theophany which we can easily imagine 
 might have been told with such extreme brevity as not to 
 be recognized as supernatural. 
 
 Such, for instance, is the case of the three men that stood 
 at Abraham's tent door, and ate with him, Gen. xviii. He 
 did not at first recognize them as anything but ordinary 
 
MELCHISEDEC. 195 
 
 travellers. So the man that wrestled with Jacob all night. 
 (Gen. xxxii.) was not at first known to be more than a man. 
 The same is true of the angel that appeared to Manoah's 
 wife (Judges xiii.), and of the appearance of Christ to the 
 disciples on the road to Emmaus. 
 
 Suppose either of these to have been told in three brief 
 verses, and the mention of supernatural characteristics put 
 in later Scriptures, and we have an illustration of what is 
 believed to be the truth in this case. The mere omission is 
 not decisive, provided we succeed in adducing sufficient evi- 
 dence from independent sources. 
 
 We observe, however, that there is some evidence even 
 here. We claim that, though the passage, taken by itself, 
 might not suggest a supernatural appearance, that idea 
 being suggested is not without confirmation in the narra- 
 tive, brief though it be. 
 
 And first, the titles are appropriate to Christ. King of 
 Righteousness is virtually the same as the Messiah, the 
 Christ. The term Anointed carries not only the idea of 
 royalty, but righteous royalty. Hence as titles Melchisedec 
 might be substituted for the Christ throughout Scripture, 
 without any change of meaning. 
 
 So with the title King of Salem. This, if translated, is 
 literally King of Peace, or Prince of Peace, and corresponds 
 to the ancient title Shiloh, the peaceful. If Salem, how- 
 ever, be regarded as a proper name, it is most naturally 
 referred to " Jerusalem above, the mother of us all." 
 
 Jerusalem below, we have shown, was not at this time 
 founded. It is useless to go in search of an earthly Salem 
 elsewhere, even, with Dr. Wordsworth, to Galilee ! The 
 mention of Adonizedek in Joshua's time proves that, if 
 Salem was an earthly city, it must have been identical with 
 the future Jerusalem. But that was not then built. It 
 must, therefore, have been the heavenly. 
 
 And this is confirmed by Heb. xi. 10 : " For he [Abra- 
 
196 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 ham] looked for ttjp tovs defiekoovs e^ovaav iroXcv" not 
 merely " a city which hath," but " the city which then 
 had foundations." Jerusalem below, the Apostle was well 
 aware, then had not foundations. Jerusalem above had. 
 
 We add, that the blessing pronounced by this personage 
 on Abraham acquires a higher meaning, if considered as 
 spoken by Christ. Already Abraham had been blessed by 
 God in person (xii. 1-3), and was so afterwards on the 
 offering of Isaac (xxii. 15 - 18). Between two such august 
 utterances of Jehovah in person, that of a Canaanite priest 
 dwindles into insignificance, while, if it was Christ who 
 spoke it, it forms a trinity of Divine benedictions upon the 
 patriarch's head. 
 
 Again, the bread and wine receive new meaning on this 
 supposition. There is no evidence that they were for 
 refreshment. Abraham distinctly mentions (verse 24) the 
 young men having already eaten of the spoils. Nor is it 
 implied that the bread and wine were for food merely. 
 
 Now Abraham was a Gospel believer. It is under the 
 Abrahamic covenant that believers and their seed are bap- 
 tized ; hence they are called Abraham's seed. How appro- 
 priate that the emblems of that covenant should be pre- 
 sented to him by Christ ! As, when the ceremonial system 
 was about passing away, Christ presented those emblems to 
 the disciples, so, before the Law was added, when the Gos- 
 pel was preached to Abraham, something of the same kind 
 took place. 
 
 The payment of tithes, also, is more intelligible on this 
 supposition. This was a solemn act of worship. Before 
 the Law the patriarchs were priests, and such offerings 
 were made through them. There was no earthly priest 
 between them and God. 
 
 Abraham was perfectly competent, as patriarch and priest 
 of his race, to offer up dedicated spoils; and there was no 
 room for any priest between him and God, unless it be a 
 
MELCHISEDEC. 197 
 
 heavenly one, through whom alone he or his believing seed 
 could offer acceptable sacrifices. The idea of the intrusion 
 of any mortal priest, especially one of an accursed race, is 
 singularly improbable and repugnant. The simple concep- 
 tion that Abraham, as patriarchal priest, was officiating 
 through Christ as high-priest, makes the whole transaction 
 plain and luminous. 
 
 At the same time it accounts easily for the subsequent 
 existence of an idolatrous city and order. The idolatrous 
 Amorites built a city, in commemoration of the event, and 
 their prince, who was also priest, claimed Melchisedec as 
 founder of the place and its worship, in token of which he 
 assumed the title Adonizedek. 
 
 This is in perfect keeping with the habits and customs 
 of the age, and the known practices of idolatrous commu- 
 nities, and with all the facts as recorded in the Bible. 
 Nor can any other account be given of the origin of the 
 city and its worship, that will bear examination. 
 
 We pass, then, to the consideration of Ps. ex. 4 : " The 
 Lord hath sworn, and will not repent. Thou art a priest 
 forever after the order of Melchisedec." It is here that 
 the expression "priest forever after the order of Melchis- 
 edec" first meets us, — a sentence so full of meaning that 
 the Apostle quotes it seven times, and makes it the basis 
 of the whole doctrine of atonement. 
 
 What meaning did the Apostle find here, in this phrase, 
 and actually employ in so fundamental an argument ? To 
 ascertain this, let us consider the circumstances under 
 which the Psalm was composed. 
 
 The crown forfeited by Saul had just been placed on 
 David's brow, and he anointed king over all Israel. The 
 city of the Jebusites had just been conquered, and made 
 the national capital. The idolatrous order of Adonizedek 
 had just been abolished, and the order of Aaron, in reno- 
 vated splendor, set up in its stead. 
 
198 KEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 And now, while the mind of David was teeming with 
 the associations of the reorganized kingdom and reorgan- 
 ized priesthood, Messiah is suddenly introduced into his 
 thoughts as his own seed, to become at once a nucleus of 
 all these analogies. Around him instantly those ideas, held 
 in solution as it were in the Psalmist's mind, crystallize, 
 and issue forth in two diamond psalms, the second and 
 the one hundred and tenth. In the former, Messiah shines 
 the antitypical royalty of which David was the shadow; 
 in the latter he is revealed, as also the true high-priest of 
 which Aaron was the emblem. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it is plain that in David's 
 mind the phrase " order of Melchisedec " can have no 
 reference to that Canaanitish order of Adonizedek, notori- 
 ously of pagan origin, which he had just utterly destroyed. 
 
 On the contrary, it is plain that in his mind the order 
 of Aaron just reorganized is type, and the order of Mel- 
 chisedec antitype. By the expression " Thou art priest 
 forever after the order of Melchisedec," the Holy Spirit, 
 through David, meant to declare Messiah the antitypical 
 reality of which the Aaronic high-priest was type, and 
 the. interpretation of the phrase is decided by the law of 
 analogy with the rigid certainty of a mathematical demon- 
 stration. 
 
 What the order of Aaron was to time the order of 
 Melchisedec is to eternity. As Aaron to his order, so 
 Melchisedec to his. As Aaron was first high-priest of an 
 order related to him by blood and bearing his name, so 
 Melchisedec was first and only high-priest of an order 
 related to him by faith, and from him named order of 
 Melchisedec. Christ and Melchisedec, therefore, in Da- 
 vid's view, are one. 
 
 We come, then, to the Epistle to the Hebrews. Of 
 Melchisedec we read, " Without father, without mother, 
 without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end 
 
MELCHISEDEC. 199 
 
 of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest 
 continually." 
 
 Here we are met by an objection that has turned many 
 minds away from this view, who otherwise would have 
 accepted it, namely, that Melchisedec is said to be made 
 like unto the Son of God, and that it is absurd to speak of 
 a person as made like unto himself. 
 
 Says M. Henry : " What is said in our text does not 
 seem to agree with any mere man, but then it seems 
 strange to make Christ a type of himself." So Mr. 
 Barnes asks, "How could he be made like himself?" 
 Professor Stuart says, "It forces us to adopt the interpre- 
 tation that Christ is like unto himself, Cujus mentio est 
 refutation — To mention which is to refute it." 
 
 Let us then see whether this objection be really unan- 
 swerable. 
 
 We submit that there are cases in which the phrase 
 "made like" is used to express identity, and not mere 
 comparison. 
 
 When, for instance, it says (Heb. ii. 17), "It behooved 
 Christ in all things to be made like unto his brethren," it. 
 means an actual incarnation in a real body of flesh and 
 blood, not a mere imitation, or unreal resemblance. 
 
 So, when it says (Phil. ii. 7), "and was made in the 
 likeness of men," it means real, actual flesh and blood, like 
 that of mortals generally, not a shadowy resemblance. 
 
 So, Daniel iii. 25, when King Nebuchadnezzar said of 
 the four persons in the fiery furnace, " the form of the 
 fourth is like unto the Son of God," he evidently meant 
 to say that it was the Son of God. 
 
 And when Ezekiel (i. 26) saw on a throne " the likeness 
 of the form of a man," he means that he saw the form of 
 a man. And (ii. 1) by " the appearance of the likeness of 
 the glory of the Lord," he means the appearance of the 
 glory of the Lord. 
 
200 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 In all these cases the words made like, like, likeness, 
 being radically the same as " made like " in our text, 
 show plainly enough that the objection is by no means 
 conclusive. To say Melchisedec was made like unto the 
 Son of God may, according to usage, be tantamount to the 
 assertion that he was the Son of God. And, from the 
 nature of the subject, there was a peculiar appropriateness 
 in this form over every other for making that assertion. 
 
 It has been shown in a former chapter that the term 
 son is figurative when applied to Christ, and not literal. 
 There was something in the union of the two natures like 
 a begetting; and the complex person was figuratively a 
 son, — in some respects like a son. 
 
 As second person of the Trinity, self-existent, underived, 
 unbegotten, he was not a son, nor in the least degree like 
 one. But when united to a creature in one person, there 
 was in that complex person something like a son. 
 
 And this we take to be precisely what the Apostle meant 
 to say. He who in his divine nature was without father, 
 without mother, without descent, and who had neither be- 
 ginning of days nor end of life, was already, in the days of 
 Abraham, by the union of two natures, made like unto the 
 Son of God, that is, made figuratively the Son of God, and 
 at the same time appointed priest forever. 
 
 Thus, that which is urged as an unanswerable objection 
 becomes rather a strong corroboration. We have a most 
 impressive affirmation of the Apostle, in the most appro- 
 priate form of language, that Melchisedec was the Son of 
 God. 
 
 This is further confirmed by the fact, that the Apos- 
 tle regards Melchisedec as antitype, not type. We have 
 already seen that David so understood the matter. We 
 now proceed to show that the Apostle did the same. 
 
 The attempt to make Melchisedec a type results in noth- 
 ing but confusion. Exposition here, from this circum- 
 
MELCHISEDEC. 201 
 
 stance alone, is a mere chaos. It is impossible to state the 
 analogy between Melchisedec and Christ, as type and anti- 
 type, in terms of the formula a : b : : c : d, for the plain reason 
 that no relations sustained by Melchisedec can be specified 
 which are like those sustained by Christ, and yet not identi- 
 cal with them. In the attempt to do this expositors have 
 labored in vain. Hie labor, hoc opus est. 
 
 The Apostle has already one type, Aaron, as all confess, 
 and one of sovereign significance and beauty. What but 
 confusion worse confounded could be expected to result 
 from the attempt to give him another of accursed lineage, 
 and yet superior to the first ? 
 
 Hence we find lucid intervals, in which expositors confess 
 that Melchisedec is not a type. Says Auberlen, " It is 
 clear that the Apostle follows no rigid, typical idea of that 
 priest, wonderful as he is." 
 
 And what authority, then, we ask, is there for calling 
 him a type? To say that the Apostle "follows no rigid 
 typical idea," is to say that the Apostle does not regard him 
 as a type. 
 
 Accordingly Mr. Barnes declares, " There is no evidence 
 that Melchisedec was designed to be a type of Messiah, 
 or that Abraham so understood it. Nothing of the kind is 
 affirmed ; and how shall we affirm it, when the sacred 
 oracles are silent ? " 
 
 But if Melchisedec was not type to the Apostle's mind, 
 he was antitype. He must be one or the other. And here 
 is- the key to the whole passage. The moment we allow 
 Melchisedec to fall into his place in the antitypical system 
 of the Apostle, all becomes simple, clear, luminous. 
 
 What, then, is the antitypical system of the Apostle ? 
 We reply, in Heb. iv. he shows with great clearness that 
 heaven is the antitypical Canaan. In xi. 10, xii. 22, he 
 assigns to this Canaan a Jerusalem, a city with foundations, 
 whose builder and maker is God. The same which, Gal. 
 
202 BEDEEMEB AND REDEEMED. 
 
 iv. 6, he calls " mother of us all." In this heavenly Jeru- 
 salem he next locates (Heb. viii. 2) a temple, " the true 
 tabernacle which God pitched, and not man," from which, 
 verse 5, Moses was to copy. To this upper sanctuary he 
 assigns a priesthood, viii. 1 : " We have such an high-priest, 
 a minister of the true tabernacle." Unto this high-priest 
 he finally assigns a true offering. Christ is entered into 
 heaven itself, not with the blood of bulls and goats, but 
 with his own blood. 
 
 This is the antitypical system. These are not shadows, 
 but realities. These are the unchangeable verities, not the 
 unreal semblances. They are indeed described in terms 
 taken from the shadows, and hence they sometimes are 
 mistaken by us for shadows, but they are not. These are 
 permanent realities, of which those were the shadows. 
 
 There was a temporal Canaan, a Jerusalem therein, a 
 temple, a priesthood, and the sprinkling of blood. So there 
 is a true and real celestial Canaan, and in that land a city, 
 and in that city a temple, and in that temple a high-priest, 
 and in the hand of that high-priest a sacrifice, one, perfect, 
 eternal, and that sacrifice is his own blood. 
 
 In this antitypical system Melchisedec universally be- 
 longs, just as Aaron in the typical. The relations are alike, 
 without being identical. The typical analogy falls naturally 
 into its formula, a : b : : c : d. Thus, as Aaron to all born 
 of blood from him, so Melchisedec to all born of faith, 
 his spiritual family. As Aaron gives his name and his 
 carnal nature to his order, so Melchisedec gives his name 
 and his spiritual nature to his order, for they are kings 
 and priests unto God forever. 
 
 In every conceivable respect, what Aaron was officially 
 to his natural order and the nation, that Melchisedec is to 
 his spiritual order and the universe. 
 
 We next observe, that the logic of the passage demands 
 this view. The argument of the Apostle is based upon it. 
 
MELCHISEDEC. 203 
 
 His course of thought is as follows : In the opening of 
 chapter v. he shows that Christ had a call to the priestly 
 office as really as Aaron, and typified by his, because it was 
 before the world when it was said, " This day have I begot- 
 ten thee." Such a call implies an antitypical reality. He 
 then shows that Christ had an appointed course of prepara- 
 tion for his office, of which Aaron's was a mere shadow. 
 Aaron's consisted of certain ceremonial washings and sacri- 
 fices, but Christ's involved strong crying and tears. He 
 learned obedience by the things that he suffered, and was 
 officially qualified by a terrible ordeal. 
 
 At this point he interrupts the argument, on account of 
 their having forgotten the first principles of the system, and 
 being thus unable to comprehend the lofty truths respecting 
 Melchisedec he has to unfold. Warning them solemnly of 
 the guilt and danger of such a state, he prepares, at verse 
 18 of chapter vi., to resume the thread of argument, by 
 holding up Jesus, the now perfected Melchisedec, high- 
 priest, as the real hope of Abraham, and anchor of the soul 
 to all believers. 
 
 He then enters, chapter vii., on a more direct identifica- 
 tion of Melchisedec as the antitypical reality, of which 
 Aaron was shadow. 
 
 There was a priest who met Abraham, who was the king 
 
 of righteousness, and kino- of that Salem then having funn- 
 el » o 
 
 dations, the Jerusalem above. This Melchisedec, self- 
 existent, uncle rived, immortal, only begotten Son of God, 
 abideth a priest continually. He was already priest of the 
 Most High God when he met Abraham, and that, priesthood 
 was perpetual. Through him as high-priest Abraham, him- 
 self a priest, paid tithes, and of course virtually Levi, whose 
 priesthood was no higher in grade than the patriarchal. 
 
 As high-priest Melchisedec pronounced a blessing on 
 Abraham, just as Aaron as high-priest pronounced a bless- 
 ing on the priests of his order as well as on the people. 
 
204 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 If the Levitical order had been anything but a shadow, 
 there would have been no need of a subsequent reality in 
 the order of Melchisedec. Christ would have been born of 
 Levi, not Judah. Therefore the order of Aaron was shadow, 
 and that of Melchisedec substance. 
 
 Now, since the typical order was made after the law of 
 a carnal commandment, and was weak, unprofitable, per- 
 fecting nothing, of course it must pass away, that the true 
 Melchisedec order, made after the power of an endless 
 life, and by wliich we draw nigh as priests unto God, might 
 take its place. 
 
 Moreover, the Aaronic order never had one unchanging 
 high-priest. Aaron died. All his successors in office died. 
 But the order of Melchisedec has one and the same high- 
 priest before the world began, now, and through all eternity. 
 
 Finally, Aaron and his successors were sinful men, 
 obliged yearly to offer sacrifices for their own sins as well 
 as the sins of the people. But the only sins the Melchis- 
 edec high-priest ever had were those he took from us. 
 Sinless himself, a lamb without spot, he took the sins of his 
 whole order on himself, and offered up one sacrifice for 
 them, perfecting forever them that are sanctified. 
 
 Such we believe to be a faithful outline of the course of 
 thought. Reduced to the form of syllogism, the argument 
 is as follows : — 
 
 Major. All antitypes are superior to their types. 
 
 Minor. The priesthood of the order of Melchisedec is 
 antitype, and that of the order of Aaron type. 
 
 Conclusion. Therefore the priesthood of the order of 
 Melchisedec is superior to that of the order of Aaron. 
 
 Technically, the Apostle constructs a syllogism of the 
 first figure in Darii. The major is not expressed, thus con- 
 stituting what is called an enthymeme. 
 
 Now, that this argument is logical, is plain. Grant the 
 premises, and no sane mind can deny the conclusion. 
 
MELCHISEDEC. 205 
 
 Hence, however adapted to the wants of Jews, the argu- 
 ment is none the less cogent as regards Greeks, nor could 
 Aristotle himself detect in it a flaw. 
 
 Its special adaptation to the Hebrew mind lay in the 
 matter of the premises, not in the form of the argument. 
 The fact stated in the minor at once lifted the whole subject 
 up infinitely above the low plane of national prejudice and 
 antipathy. The conception of a true, real, celestial priest- 
 hood was so grand, so sublime, that hostility was disarmed. 
 Without pain the Jew could confess the priesthood of Aaron 
 and of Abraham inferior to that of the Son of God. Nor, 
 however fascinating to the Hebrew imagination the gor- 
 geous temple service might be, could it compare at all with 
 this far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Seen 
 from this point of view, the atonement shines with ineffable 
 splendor, and the Bible, like the bush which Moses saw, is 
 all ablaze with the glory, but is not consumed. Jesus Mel- 
 chisedec, called to the high-priesthood before the world 
 began, seen as such by Abraham, sung by David, born of 
 the Virgin Mary, and born again from the dead, consecrated 
 by his own blood, interceding as our Head, reigning as our 
 King, is the anchor of our souls, sure and steadfast, enter- 
 ing into that which is within the veil. May the Holy 
 Spirit lay this truth in our minds, and lead us on unto per- 
 fection. May He sanctify us wholly, and do for us exceed- 
 ing abundantly above all we ask or even think. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEO. 
 
 After the order of Melchisedec' 
 
 THE order of. Melchisedec is a real order, as real as 
 is the high-priesthood of Christ, which is named after 
 it. Moreover, the order is before the priest. " Thou art 
 a priest forever, after the order of Melchisedec." When 
 these words were spoken, the order was already instituted. 
 Christ was called to the priesthood of an existing order. 
 
 But an order that is sinless needs no sacrifice for sin, 
 and no priest to offer sacrifice ; this order, therefore, was 
 sinful. When the priest was appointed, it was already a 
 fallen order, needing atonement, at the date of its high- 
 priest's call. 
 
 But the date of that call is distinctly given by the Holy 
 Spirit. In Christ's case, both priest and victim are one : 
 he offers up himself; but 1 Peter i. 20 we read, " Who 
 was foreordained a lamb without spot before the founda- 
 tion of the world." That, then, is when he was called to 
 the priesthood. To be foreordained a lamb, is in his case 
 the same as to be appointed priest. Hence, at that early 
 date, before the foundation of the world, the order was 
 already a fallen order, in need of an atoning sacrifice. 
 
 To understand the necessity of that atonement is in 
 part to understand it's nature. The one leads to the 
 other. But to understand that necessity, we are led to 
 inquire what was the condition of that order? what was 
 its guilt? how incurred? by what influences occasioned? 
 
 The order of Melchisedec was originally instituted in, 
 
THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC.' 207 
 
 and composed of, the unfallen celestial race of man. And, 
 received in its future character as a redeemed order, it is 
 the same with the Church of God. 
 
 In proof of this we offer, first, the analogy of the Aaronic 
 order. As Aaron was the natural head of his order, re- 
 lated to him by blood, so Christ is the spiritual head of his 
 order, related to him by faith. Hence all vitally united 
 to Christ by faith, the whole Church invisible, is the same 
 as the order of Melchisedec. Christ is the head of that 
 order, and he is the head of the Church, which is his body. 
 The members of that order stand in his name, King of 
 Righteousness. The members of the Church stand in his 
 name, being accepted in Christ. 
 
 The Aaronic order, moreover, being taken instead of 
 the first-born, passed over on the night of the exodus, was 
 a kind of Church of first-born, on the typical plane. 
 Hence the Church is called Church of the First-born, on 
 the antitypical plane. And since the order of Aaron is 
 thus type of the Church and type of the order of Melchis- 
 edec, it follows that the Church and the order are the 
 same. 
 
 Hence Paul, arguing that the order of Aaron was 
 shadowy, and that of Melchisedec real, says, " The law 
 made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope 
 did, by which we draw nigh unto God." Now " draw 
 nigh to God " is the technical term for officiating as 
 priests. " We," then, Christians, we of the Gospel hope, 
 are the real order of Melchisedec, who draw nigh to God 
 through our great Head and High-Priest. 
 
 Hence, Hebrews iii. 1, Christ is called " High-Priest of 
 our profession," a word nearly synonymous Avith order. 
 And iv. 15, " we have an high-priest," that is, we priests ; 
 we, a priestly order, have a high-priest. So x. 21, 
 " Having air high-priest over the house of God, let us 
 draw nigh." " Draw nigh," as before, is a sacerdotal tech- 
 
208 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 nic. " Having an high-priest over the spiritual family of 
 God, let us offer up spiritual sacrifices." So also 1 Peter 
 ii. 5, " Ye as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, an 
 holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices." Again, 
 verse 9, " Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest- 
 hood." 
 
 Finally, in the visions of the Revelation, when we hear 
 the song of the redeemed Church, it is, " Thou hast re- 
 deemed us to God by thy blood, and made us unto our God 
 kings and priests." 
 
 From these and other intimations of Scripture, it is 
 plain that the order of Melchisedec and the Church are 
 the same thing. Hence, when the order was first insti- 
 tuted, unfallen before the foundation of the world, it was 
 instituted in, and composed of, the celestial human family. 
 
 We have already proved that the race is celestial ; that 
 heaven is our native land ; and that the doctrine of a fall 
 in Adam is a superstition of the Church of Rome. The 
 way is clear, therefore, to entertain this lofty and Scrip- 
 tural conception, concerning our original greatness and 
 dignity, as the order of the King of Righteousness. 
 
 We proceed, then, to observe that the name of an order 
 is often made to contain its history or primary idea. The 
 order of the Sons of Temperance is, by its very name, an 
 order founded to promote temperance. So much of its 
 history is self-evident. So with the venerable order of 
 Freemasons. Its name reveals the fact that, though not 
 now a practical building fraternity, it was anciently, being 
 sprung from the societies of architects and masons under 
 the old Roman empire, and older empires of the Oriental 
 world. 
 
 Precisely in the same manner does the title " Order of 
 the King of Righteousness " contain the real history of its 
 own origin. The Bible reveals the fact that Lucifer and 
 his angelic associates ceased to reign righteously, and be- 
 
THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 209 
 
 came corrupt ; and that it became necessaiy to anoint a 
 new administration in their place, just as David was 
 anointed in the room of Saul. 
 
 That fact being known, the very title of this order 
 identifies it as being that new administration appointed to 
 succeed to the primogeniture of the universe. The angelic 
 fraternity was become an order of the king of unrighteous- 
 ness. The fraternity of man was appointed to be an order 
 of the King of Righteousness. 
 
 It is an order anointed, but not crowned ; elect, not inau- 
 gurated ; heirs, but not yet in full possession. It is the 
 royal family of the universe. Its members, princes of the 
 blood royal. It is a heavenly kingdom, or kingly race, so 
 constantly referred to as the kingdom of God, the king- 
 dom of Heaven, ever coming, but not yet come. 
 
 The order of the King of Righteousness and the king- 
 dom of Heaven are but slightly different titles for one and 
 the same sublime reality, concerning which Daniel foresaw 
 the time came when the saints took the kingdom ; con- 
 cerning which the Psalmist declares, " Let the high praises 
 of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their 
 hand, to execute vengeance upon the heathen and punish- 
 ments on the people, to bind their kings with chains and 
 their nobles with fetters of iron, to execute upon them the 
 judgment written, This honor have all saints," concern- 
 ing which Paul exclaimed, " Know ye not that the saints 
 shall judge angels ? " 
 
 This order, when instituted before the foundation of 
 the world, was, both personally and politically, pure. It 
 was composed of individuals " created after God in right- 
 eousness and true holiness," just as Adam was not in 
 Eden. 
 
 At their head was a creature who was the righteous 
 king ; and none but righteous members could be admitted 
 to constitute the order of the righteous kino;. Their right- 
 
210 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 eousness was the ground of their appointment or adoption. 
 To have appointed them on any other ground would be to 
 make Satan cast out Satan. Every heart in that order was 
 loyal, and every mind true. Would you see a picture of 
 what they were, you have but to look at the picture of 
 what they shall be. " And around about the throne were 
 four-and-twenty thrones, and upon the thrones four-and- 
 twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and they 
 had on their head crowns of gold And the four-and- 
 twenty elders fell down before Him that sat on the throne, 
 and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast 
 their crowns before the throne, saying, ' Thou art worthy, 
 O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou 
 hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and 
 were created.' " 
 
 Carry this sublime picture back into the gallery of the 
 past, and it is the order of the King of Righteousness you 
 see, unfallen, loyal, adoring. 
 
 But not only was the order composed of adoring hearts, 
 it was also organized on a platform of righteous principles. 
 There is a high sense in which the term political may be 
 applied to it. It was a Divine proceeding to reorganize 
 the administration of the universal empire or kingdom, to 
 thrust a corrupt administration out, to bring a new admin- 
 istration in to power. Those principles of righteous rule 
 which God had inculcated, but which Lucifer and his 
 order had rejected, were now embodied in the new order. 
 
 The order stood on those principles as their platform. 
 And the substance of those principles is embodied in the 
 spiritual laws of the Church of Christ. They may be 
 briefly stated as follows : All government is to be moral, 
 not by force ; by truth, not compulsion ; for the glory of 
 God and the good of the governed, not for the aggrandize- 
 ment of the governing class. Office, therefore, is intrin- 
 sically self-denying. He who holds office is in that 
 
THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 211 
 
 measure and degree in the place of God, and must be 
 like God, the infinitely self-sacrificing being. 
 
 These are the only principles on which good govern- 
 ment can possibly exist. They are the principles actually 
 rejected by all corrupt governments, and contended for by 
 all that are good. They are the real principles round 
 about which the conflict has been waged six thousand 
 years, and will be till the battle of the great day of God 
 Almighty. 
 
 These principles, simple in the extreme, and of self- 
 evidencing light, were cordially adopted by the new order 
 as the platform of their august campaign. If they went 
 into power, they would go in on those principles, and by 
 them. They would either go in by means of argument, 
 discussion, truth, moral influence, without appeal to force, 
 or they would not go in at all. 
 
 The idea of God's dethroning Lucifer by thunder is 
 the idea of an unphilosophical, semi-barbarous age. It is 
 fit for Druids and Goths and brutalized Romans, not for 
 refined and educated Christians. 
 
 To have put Lucifer down by force would not have been 
 to put down his principles, but to perpetuate them, and 
 awaken sympathy for him. He would have been canon- 
 ized as a martyr to his principles, and his apostasy would 
 have been watered with his blood. 
 
 To displace him and reorganize the universe there must 
 be time for development. He must have time to act out 
 his principles. The new order must have time to act out 
 theirs ; the universe must have time to observe, compare, 
 reflect, and then the Divine mind can apply logic to the 
 facts, and carry the judgment and moral sense of the whole 
 moral universe. 
 
 God has given us an illustration of the real nature of 
 the problem in our own land, where, in its main features, 
 it is acted over every four years. He has thus educated 
 
212 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 us by his providence above the stand-point of barbarism, 
 and qualified us to take a truly sensible and philosophical 
 view of the exigencies of' his moral government which 
 brought on the atonement. 
 
 Hence, fourthly, we perceive that the new order was 
 exposed to trial. It was subjected to an ordeal of the 
 severest kind. 
 
 Not because God wanted to have it tempted so severely, 
 but because the thing to be done inevitably demanded it. 
 
 It was not desirable to shield them from temptation, 
 since the very object was to provide an order which could 
 stand all the liabilities of public life and not grow corrupt. 
 An army, to be brave, must be exposed to the enemy's 
 fire. 
 
 But even if it had been desirable to shield them, it was 
 manifestly impossible. Abel could not be preferred to 
 Cain, without Cain's being angry. David could not be 
 anointed in Saul's stead, without experiencing Saul's jeal- 
 ousy. The Gentiles could not be grafted in when the 
 Jews were broken off, without exciting Judaism to perse- 
 cuting rage. A new administration cannot go into power 
 in this country, without feeling the effects of the political 
 hostility of the opposite party. The very act of nomi- 
 nating a man to the presidential chair is the act of 
 thrusting him into a fiery furnace, in which every act of 
 his past life will be consumingly scrutinized, and even 
 the falsest charges hurled blazing against him. 
 
 It was impossible, then, that the new order of the King 
 of Righteousness could enter upon the campaign indicated, 
 without experiencing the utmost efforts of Lucifer and his 
 order to break them down and destroy them. 
 
 Their temptation then, their trial, would be great and 
 severe just in proportion to the greatness of the minds 
 opposed to them, their extent of resources, and unscrupu- 
 lous use of them, and the immense interests at stake 
 between them. 
 
THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 213 
 
 As a matter of fact the order fell. Lucifer gained a 
 decisive advantage over them, even a power of death, 
 which it cost the death of the Son of God to destroy. 
 How did he acquire that power ? 
 
 It is plain that it was by tempting them to sin. The 
 order being sinless, he could find nothing in their past 
 record of which to accuse them. Neither would it be safe 
 to invent false accusations. A false charge may be risked 
 against known sinners, for it is supposable that known 
 sinners should have committed any particular kind of sin, 
 but against just persons, known to be such, a false charge 
 could not be brought with any probability of success. 
 
 The only way was to lead them into sin, and yet do it 
 so cautiously as not to be detected, and thus be able to 
 take the benefit of their fault, and build charges against 
 them. 
 
 This being granted, it will also be admitted what form 
 the temptation must necessarily assume. It must assume 
 the form of deception. He must deceive, in order to 
 kill. Hence our Saviour says, " He was a liar and mur- 
 derer from the beginning," — liar, that he might be 
 manslayer. 
 
 The order knew God's estimate of his character. They 
 knew why they were appointed to take his place ; any 
 direct attempt on their virtue was impossible ; " in vain 
 the net is spread in the sight of any bird." He must con- 
 trive in some way to lull their suspicions. This is the first 
 principle of temptation in all ages and all worlds. It re- 
 veals itself in the ordinary idioms of vulgar speech, " to 
 throw dust in one's eyes," "to hoodwink," "to blind." 
 It is simply self-evident that Lucifer must in some way 
 contrive to blind them, to shut their eyes, or he cannot 
 take the first step towards tempting them to sin. His 
 method then began as it always begins, by deceit. 
 
 But it is equally evident how he must deceive. He 
 
214 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 could not operate on their eyes ; lie must operate on what 
 their eyes looked at. The way to blind people's eyes is 
 to put on a mask, to assume a disguise. It has the same 
 effect as if the eye itself were blinded. Hence we read, 
 "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." It 
 is his way. It is the very law of his deceptive methods in 
 all ages and all worlds. The libertine assimilates himself 
 to the purity of that very virtue he would seduce. The 
 black betrayer of his country assumes the guise of patriot- 
 ism, and is even fierce for the Union. When Saul would 
 lay a snare for David's life, when he would lure him to 
 certain death, he gave him his daughter Michal to wife ; 
 that paternal goodness might be the prelude to bloody 
 assassination. 
 
 Lucifer, therefore, assimilated himself to the character 
 of the new order. As rapidly as could be done without 
 exciting attention he reformed his administration, ceased 
 from his controversy with God, assumed the air of humility 
 and the practice of self-denial. He came over, in short, 
 was converted, and, so far as was practicable, identified 
 himself in principles and practice with his contemplated 
 victims. He succeeded in deceiving them. Although 
 they were warned, although sleepless vigilance was the 
 price of virtue, they, in fact, accepted his conversion for 
 genuine. So great was his power of dissimulation, so con- 
 summate his skill in acting, no eye save the Omniscient 
 did, in fact, completely fathom his purposes. 
 
 The Bible, therefore, speaks of the mystery of iniquity 
 as though there were something in all ages truly mys- 
 terious in the power of fraud and guile possessed by the 
 Devil. We see it in the rise of the papacy. How such 
 a perfect masterpiece of diabolism ever could spring up 
 out of primitive Christianity, and call itself the bride of 
 God and mother Church, is indeed a mysterious exhibi- 
 tion of deceptive power. 
 
THE OEDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 215 
 
 So, too, in our own land ; how such a system as slavery, 
 one so perfectly infernal in its whole character, could take 
 root and grow in a republic, just fighting the battles of 
 liberty, how it could become the governing power of 
 Church and State in that republic for three quarters of 
 a century, is a most wonderful thing. It is a mystery 
 of fraud and guile. 
 
 All such things are instructive specimens and instances 
 of that mystery of deceit by which Lucifer succeeded in 
 blinding the eyes of the new order, and thus being able 
 to strip that order naked. 
 
 How this was effected is also plain, with nearly equal 
 certainty. He sought to impair confidence in God. Any- 
 thing which altered their view of God, and divided them 
 from him, removed them from righteousness. The right- 
 eousness of an unfallen soul is conditioned on its life in 
 God. God only is independently good. Creatures are 
 righteous no longer than they are in vital relation to him. 
 Just as a plant is green no longer than it is in vital rela- 
 tions with the soil, the air, and light and moisture. Any 
 false philosophical notion therefore, whatever, concerning 
 God, introduced into the mind of the order, would separate 
 them from God and righteousness, that is, it would strip 
 them naked. 
 
 Now, the methods of the Devil are radically the same in 
 all ages and all worlds. If we know his methods now, we 
 know them from the beginning. If we can discover by 
 what philosophy, falsely so called, he detached the nominal 
 Church from God, and stripped her naked, and holds her 
 so to this day, we know by what philosophy he first broke 
 their faith in God before the foundation of the world. 
 
 But it is a remarkable fact, that the theology of the nomi- 
 nal Church, from the rise of the papacy until now, has given 
 to the natural attributes of God an undue prominence over 
 his moral attributes. The Divine omnipotence, omnis- 
 
216 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 cience, and immutability have been practically placed in 
 the foreground, and his parental character, and sense of 
 honor and right, thrust into the background. 
 
 The character popularly exhibited of the Supreme Being 
 is a character of force and will and arbitrariness, more than 
 of thought and sympathy and moral influence. 
 
 Hence Christendom has for twelve hundred and sixty 
 years or more conceived of the character of God in such 
 a light as to excite hard feelings and alienation. The 
 Church, in all its branches, publicly professes that the Di- 
 vine dealings with the human race are incapable of any 
 rational explanation and defence. 
 
 That humiliating profession is on record in every denom- 
 ination under heaven. And although the Church clings to 
 a belief in a Divine rectitude which she cannot see, being 
 blinded, the world will not, but declares distinctly and con- 
 stantly and universally that such a God as the Church con- 
 ceives of is unjust and tyrannical. 
 
 This is the simple working, by the law of moral cause 
 and effect, of the disproportionate exhibition of truth. God 
 is omnipotent, omniscient, and immutable. But facts show 
 that it is perfectly easy to state those truths in such an un- 
 balanced way as to produce the worst effects of falsehood. 
 
 This method — which the Devil now follows, and has, 
 for the last twelve hundred and sixty years, in a most signal 
 manner — is the method he has pursued in all ages in this 
 world, and the method by which he first brought the 
 Church under his deadly power before the world began. 
 
 Having ingratiated himself with the new order, and se- 
 cured their confidence, he dwelt continually on the abso- 
 lute omnipotence of God, and his infallible foreknowledge 
 of all events, and his immutability, — truths all of great 
 importance, but needing to be complemented by the moral 
 attributes or qualities of the heart of God. These Lucifer 
 left out, or mentioned, if at all, in a cursory, formal 
 manner. 
 
THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 217 
 
 The consequence was, that certain trains of thought 
 started themselves hi then.' minds as their own instinctive 
 reasonings. 
 
 God is infinite ; he foreknows all things ; his power is 
 absolute ; and if anything be foreseen disagreeable to him, 
 he can prevent it. Whatever comes to pass, therefore, 
 must be agreeable to him. He has his own way perfectly 
 in all things and forever. Of course there is no such thing 
 as self-denial to him. There can be no self-sacrifice ; but 
 everything, from greatest to least, is exactly as he wished, 
 and because he wished. 
 
 Now, the truth is, God is infinitely self-denying. And 
 when he saw that to create the universe on the best possi- 
 ble principles would in fact, as it has done, involve the oc- 
 currence of sin and suffering, he determined to create, 
 although he saw that; because it was right, and because 
 he was willing himself to be the chief sufferer, as Calvary 
 testifies he has been and is. 
 
 To reach the conclusion, then, that God was not and 
 could not be self-denying, was to believe a lie, and accept 
 the exact opposite of the Divine character for the truth. 
 Yet the order reached this conclusion themselves ; Lucifer 
 did not say it for them. They reached it by starting from 
 premises every one of them true in themselves, but so put 
 as to be only a part of the truth needed as premises to a 
 just conclusion. 
 
 They reached a conclusion, too, having a decisive bear- 
 ing on their own character and end as an order. They 
 were to reign. They were to stand in the place of God, 
 representatives of the Divine Majesty. In affirming that 
 he was not self-denying, they logically overturned their 
 own platform. 
 
 For if God was not, why need they be ? Why practise 
 self-denial when thereby they would exhibit a direct con- 
 trast to the God they represented ? This was the prime 
 
218 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 mistake Lucifer made. He led them by the same path he 
 trod himself; he effectually drove in this philosophical 
 wedge, and split them off from God, and in so doing 
 stripped them naked. 
 
 They knew it not : they were deceived. They realized 
 not that it was a false God they thought of, and that God 
 himself, the true God, was hid. 
 
 In this state and stage of being, they are shadowed out 
 in the Eden tableau. The curtain rises at this stage of 
 development. They are already blind, already naked. 
 
 The Serpent is already there, most subtle of all crea- 
 tures ; and, from the readiness with which Eve enters into 
 conversation with him, it is irresistibly suggested that it is 
 not the first time. They have talked before. 
 
 Those subtle processes by which the celestial race were 
 blinded and made naked, are of a nature so occult as not 
 to admit of dramatic representation. Therefore Adam is 
 brought on to the stage already in a blind and naked state, 
 not made so in the garden, but made so outside of the gar- 
 den, and then put inside in order to act his part in the tab- 
 leau. 
 
 The overt act, by which the order, already deceived and 
 already void of righteousness, incurred sentence of expul- 
 sion from heaven, can be exhibited and is. Exalted and 
 blessed as their state was, it involved the necessity of pro- 
 tracted self-denial. It demands self-denial to submit to 
 temptation. It demands constant patience and self-com- 
 mand to be the object of constant, relentless, unscrupulous 
 attack. 
 
 Moreover, self-denial was involved in the deferring of 
 their coronation. It was a great trial of David's patience 
 to be anointed, and wait so many years, fiercely persecuted 
 by Saul, before being crowned even over Judah ; and so 
 many years more, in the midst of the divided tribes, before 
 receiving the crown of all Israel. 
 
THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 219 
 
 So it was a test of the patience and self-denial of the 
 order anointed to supplant Lucifer and his angels to be 
 obliged to wait long. That dignity was great. Their 
 place and power were high. They were to be as gods. 
 They were to know good and evil, — that is to say, they 
 were to administer justice. 
 
 The knowing of good and evil is a Scriptural attribute 
 of royalty. It is not mere knowing or experiencing for 
 one's self, but it is discerning or deciding between them for 
 others. 
 
 Thus the wise woman of Tekoah says to David, "As an 
 angel of God is our lord the king to discern between 
 good and bad." So Solomon prays, " Give, therefore, thy 
 servant an understanding heart, that I may judge thy peo- 
 ple, that I may discern between good and bad." Here the 
 knowing good and evil is evidently the same as judging the 
 people, deciding for them between right and wrong. 
 
 This was the very office to which the order of the King 
 of Righteousness was appointed. They were to be by and 
 by, in the fulness of time, as gods, knowing good and evil, 
 or judging the universe ; and this is still the Church's des- 
 tiny. " Know ye not that the saints shall judge the 
 woi'lcl? " 
 
 In the mean time, however, they must not grasp at em- 
 pire. It is said of Christ, that, though in form of God, he 
 thought it not a thing to be seized upon, as a robber seizes 
 his prey, to be equal with God. He was not impatient, 
 eager ; the order must not be. They must not snatch at 
 power ; they must not seize it as robbers seize plunder. 
 The public mind must be prepared, and all things ripened 
 to the change, so that the universe be not distracted, but 
 truly gathered and united under one Head. 
 
 Any premature attempt on their part would be fatal to 
 them, fatal to their enterprise, every way fatal. They 
 were warned ; they were straitly enjoined by no means to 
 attempt such a thing. 
 
220 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 But now Lucifer, assuming the garb of meekness and 
 humility, begins to dwell on their future destiny. 
 
 He is aware they are destined to succeed him. He 
 knows such is the Divine pleasure. He rejoices that it is 
 so. He is weary of the cares of state, and would gladly 
 relinquish them to younger, more competent hands. He 
 has tried to do his best, but is sensible of his incapacity, 
 and is rejoiced that so fit and every way suitable a selec- 
 tion should be made to succeed him. He wonders they 
 are not already in their proper place. Why is it ? Has 
 God indeed forbidden it, as he has heard reported ? If 
 so, no doubt he has wise reasons into which we ought 
 not to inquire. 
 
 He does not see what hurt it would do. He cannot 
 imagine why God should say it would surely be fatal 
 to them. God knows they are competent, and that as 
 soon as they had once made the experiment, and become 
 a little experienced, they would manage perfectly well. 
 It cannot be that reason. 
 
 It is most likely as a needed trial, a test of their 
 self-denying spirit. And so he dwells on the immense 
 importance of self-denial to all creatures. I must be 
 self-denying ; thou must be self-denying ; we must be 
 self-denying ; ye or you must be self-denying ; they must 
 be self-denying. 
 
 And the thought springs up in their minds, And why 
 not he must? Why roll all the self-denial on us, and 
 take none himself? Why keep us in suspense, in this 
 tantalizing, humiliating position ? Why this wearisome, 
 vexatious delay ? Does he think us incompetent ? Or is 
 he arbitrary and exacting, and disposed to keep us down 
 and show his power ? We will not submit to this. We 
 will assert our rights, and show that we are perfectly com- 
 petent to our high duties. 
 
 And so, opportunity being skilfully afforded by Lucifer, 
 
THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 221 
 
 the door being left open, they enter, seize npon sceptre 
 and crown, and public deeds of judicial sway ; and in the 
 very act are arrested on charge of high treason against 
 the state. They instantly discover, then, their lost con- 
 dition. They are destitute of justification, exposed to the 
 displeasure of God, and completely helpless under the 
 charges of Lucifer, who holds over them the power of 
 death. 
 
 And this brings us to consider, more directly, the condi- 
 tion into which the order was brought by its fall. The 
 first most obvious feature of their case was their coming 
 under the accusing power of Lucifer. They were imme- 
 diately in the position of accused parties, and Lucifer in 
 the position of accuser. Hence, he now became the 
 accuser of the brethren, as he is named Rev. xii. 10, and 
 commenced those accusations which ceased not day nor 
 night before the throne of God, till they were silenced 
 by the blood of the risen Redeemer. 
 
 This accusing power was in all respects deadly to them, 
 most fatal in its spirit, its matter, and its effects ; it is that 
 power of death which, Romans ii. 14, we read it was the 
 express object of the death of Christ to destroy. 
 
 Lucifer had so conducted his temptations as to be him- 
 self uncommitted, unimplicated as the contriver of their 
 fall. He even, in turning against them, affected regret 
 for their fate, and pretended that only a stern sense of 
 duty, as official head of the universe, compelled him to 
 arrest and impeach them. 
 
 The second fact of the condition of the order is its 
 forfeiture. Viewed in relation to the end proposed in its 
 institution, it was, to all appearance, and for the time 
 being, a total failure. It was completely wrecked and 
 broken. It was gone. It was no longer the order of the 
 King of Righteousness, but the reverse. The contem- 
 plated substitution was defeated. 
 
222 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 " Is this the order," Lucifer could now demand, " that 
 is to supersede me in the government ? Even before they 
 committed this offence, did they not indorse the principles 
 of my administration ? Will God reward in them what 
 he punishes in me ? Have they not now flagrantly sinned, 
 revolted, as I never was even accused of doing ? Shall 
 that rebellion be rewarded and my loyalty dishonored and 
 punished ? That be far from thee, O Lord ! It is impossi- 
 ble, consistently with the interests of good government, 
 to carry out the proposed change. In the name of the 
 moral universe, I demand sentence of forfeiture and out- 
 lawry against them. I demand their disfranchisement 
 and expulsion from heaven, in returnless exile." 
 
 To these demands there could be no answer. There 
 was no justification, there was no defence ; sentence was 
 pronounced. The race was driven forth, and though 
 their names were still left written in the census-rolls of 
 the empire, no one noticed the fact. They disappeared 
 from view. They passed away from the sight of the world 
 of glory, into a realm unseen, the realm thence named 
 Hades, and the gates of that native land were defended 
 against them by the flash of the blazing cherubic sword. 
 
 Their holy and beautiful house was laid waste. Their 
 metropolis, Jerusalem above, mother of them all, was made 
 heaps ; and over the ruins of their greatness the haughty 
 foe strode insulting, saying, " Shall the prey be taken 
 from the Mighty One ? Shall the lawful captives be 
 delivered ? " 
 
 So far from being displaced by them, he was strength- 
 ened, and apparently fortified forever. What could ever 
 shake him ? Not their release, to all created minds past 
 thought even. Will God create another order ? Can any 
 order be organized that shall stand against him, when these 
 failed ? No ; it is beyond the power of God to shake him. 
 
 And thus, while on the fallen order he rolls down the 
 
THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 223 
 
 weight of infinite odium and crushing contempt, he himself 
 stands firmer, prouder, haughtier than before. 
 
 The third feature in their case was, the reality of their 
 guilt. Apart from all exaggeration by Lucifer, who from 
 party spirit would set everything in blackest colors, viewed 
 even from the Divine stand-point with a merciful eye, the 
 guilt of the order was real and great. 
 
 They were the espoused bride of Jehovah, they had gone 
 aside and committed whoredom. Such is the constant illus- 
 tration the Holy Spirit employs throughout Scripture. They 
 were the adoptive first-born ; they had rebelled against 
 their father. They had thus inflicted the deepest wound on 
 the Divine affections, and the darkest stain upon his honor. 
 
 At the same time, the interests of the universe staked 
 upon them were betrayed and lost. A false, deadly, mur- 
 derous administration, instead of being dethroned by them, 
 was by their defection rendered apparently impregnable. 
 Thus their guilt, both in its consequences to the universe 
 and in its affront to God, was great. 
 
 Will it be said, that the temptation was so subtle, in- 
 genious, and irresistible, as to take off the edge of condem- 
 nation ? Will it be said it excites pity instead of indigna- 
 tion, — that they seem like victims more than culprits ? 
 
 It is admitted, to a certain extent, that this is an element 
 of a correct judgment of their case ; and we shall endeavor 
 to show the use made of it in their favor by their advocate 
 in his mediatorial argument on their behalf. 
 
 But at present we only observe, it was no justification. It 
 enhanced Lucifer's doom, but did not absolve them; for 
 there was a circumstance in their case not before noticed, 
 which it is time now to consider. It is this. Though we 
 have spoken of the order as a unit in its fall, there was one 
 exception. One creature there was, in the language of the 
 poet, 
 
 " Faithful found among the faithless, 
 Faithful only he," — 
 
224 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 and that was the creature-head of the order, afterwards 
 united with the second person of the trinity as the Son of 
 God. 
 
 This individual, not yet deified, a creature human like 
 the rest, in no wise superior in nature or faculty to his 
 brethren, hut of exactly the same make and pattern as 
 they, had stood fast. 
 
 Lucifer had not blinded his eyes in the least. His right- 
 eousness had not been stripped off, and when the whole 
 order went with a rush into apostasy, he stemmed the tide. 
 Thus he alone resisted, not only all the power of Lucifer 
 and the angelic dynasty, but the more infectious contagion 
 of his own order. 
 
 But if he stood, they could have stood. If it was possi- 
 ble for one, it was for another, for they were all alike, 
 naturally. Nay, it would have been vastly easier for all to 
 have resisted in concert, than it was for one to stand alone 
 against combined numbers. His innocence enhances their 
 guilt, therefore. Their guilt is seen by contrast to be real 
 and deep, and without any valid excuse or justification. 
 
 The fourth feature of the situation of the order was the 
 appointment of a priest and sacrifice. As a reward for his 
 obedience, that creature-head of the order was now taken 
 up into peculiar and eternal union with the second person 
 of the trinity, thus constituting a complex person, both God 
 and man, to whom it was said by the Father, " Thou art my 
 son ; this day have I begotten thee " ; and at the same time, 
 " Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec." 
 
 Visibly he was but a creature still. The change that had 
 passed upon him was not cognizable to celestial senses. To 
 see in him an infinite nature was possible only to the eye 
 of faith. Creatures could see only the glorious humanity 
 they had seen before. They could believe that that hu- 
 manity had now become the form of God, brightness of the 
 Father's glory, and express image of his person. But this 
 was faith, not sight. 
 
THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 225 
 
 From various intimations of Scripture, moreover, we are 
 led to the belief, that his anointing to the headship of the 
 universe was in a manner private. As David was anointed 
 privately, and unknown to Saul, so Christ was anointed pri- 
 vately, unknown to Lucifer. 
 
 This anointing, especially in its sacerdotal and sacrificial 
 aspect, is the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the 
 world unto our glory, — which none of the princes of this 
 world knew ; for had they known it, they would not have 
 crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Cor. ii. 7, 8.) 
 
 But while Lucifer was excluded from the Divine councils, 
 and while the plan of redemption was " from the beginning 
 of the world hid in God " from principalities and powers 
 (Eph. hi. 9), nevertheless, in those astonishing words, 
 " Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchise- 
 dec," the amazing fact was implied, that, though the order 
 was fallen, gone, under power of death, it was not aban- 
 doned. God had not let go his hold upon it. He would 
 not give it up. Lucifer thought he had. The universe 
 thought so. The order thought so themselves. But God's 
 thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor his ways as our ways. 
 Then, when there was no eye to pity and no arm to save, 
 his eye pitied and his arm wrought salvation. Then he 
 laid help upon One that is mighty, saying, " Save them 
 from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom." 
 The Mediator joyfully accepted the charge. He became 
 surety for his order. He became responsible for them. 
 He assumed their debts, took all their sins on his own head, 
 all their odium and disgrace on his own name, and pledged 
 his kingly word to satisfy all claims on their account. 
 He would do all that Avas necessary to atone for them, 
 and make it every way consistent to restore them to their 
 standing, and carry out that design of substituted birthright 
 which had bean interrupted, and apparently defeated. 
 
 In a word, he engaged to begin, conduct, and finish a 
 
 10* o 
 
226 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 grand mediatorial economy, or plan of redemption, which 
 should destroy Satan and his angels, and unite the whole 
 universe under himself and his redeemed bride, the glorious 
 order of the King of Righteousness. 
 
 Such was the condition into which the order came, sub- 
 ject to the deadly accusing power of Lucifer, but provided 
 with a mediatorial advocate to manage their defence. Under 
 total forfeiture in their own name, yet holding title in the 
 name of another, their head. Guilty, and utterly destitute 
 of justification, yet provided with an infinite atoning high- 
 priest and sacrifice. The end of their institution frustrated, 
 and the order a wreck, yet a plan devised by which the lost 
 order should be saved, and the frustrated end accomplished 
 with additional glory and exaltation. 
 
 Such was the state of the fallen order out of which the 
 preparation of this world and introduction of man arose, 
 and all the dispensations of time. Such is its state now, 
 though the vast process is wellnigh accomplished. 
 
 The day of exile is nearly ended. The hour draws nigh, 
 when that same mighty Power that raised Christ to the 
 right hand will raise his body, his bride, the Church, and 
 glorify her with him far above principalities and powers, 
 and every name that is named, not only in this world, but 
 in the world that is to come. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE ORDEAL. 
 
 " Who, foe the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, 
 despising the shame." — Heb. xii. 2. 
 
 IT is obvious that, in undertaking the redemption of his 
 order, Christ undertook a difficult, a dangerous, a ne- 
 cessarily painful work. 
 
 To undertake the rescue of the order was to become the 
 object of the concentrated jealousy and revenge of the 
 reigning angelic dynasty of the universe, with Lucifer at its 
 head. To appoint him to that undertaking was to appoint 
 him to be bruised, as it is written, " Thou shalt bruise his 
 heel," and "it pleased the Lord to bruise him." If it 
 pleased the Lord to anoint him priest of the ruined order, 
 it pleased him to put him where he would inevitably be 
 bruised by the serpent's deadly fangs. 
 
 All this Christ must have clearly foreseen, so that antici- 
 pation becomes an important element to be considered in 
 musing upon his ordeal. 
 
 It often happens that anticipated evil inflicts more sorrow 
 than the reality. Indeed, anticipation is rarely proportion- 
 ate to after experience. We apprehend too little or forbode 
 too much. The vividness of our presentiments, therefore, 
 is no sure criterion of impending tribulation. Not so, how- 
 ever, in the case before us. Anticipation here was infallible, 
 and a sure gauge of the magnitude of the ordeal. 
 
 Hence, if we consider a moment that anticipation in the 
 mind of Christ, we may judge somewhat of the crisis fore- 
 seen and prepared for. 
 
228 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 It was an anticipation dating far back in eternity. It 
 was no hasty scheme, no ill-considered project. As far 
 back in the past as before the foundation of the world 
 Scripture assures vis the anticipation of the cross was 
 present in the mind of the Redeemer. And the more vast 
 science makes all geologic cycles, the more remote the epoch 
 of that anticipation. 
 
 Before the first foundation, the lowest rudimentary strata, 
 or gaseous evolution, " as a lamb without blemish and with- 
 out spot, he was foreordained" to die. If, then, those pe- 
 riods of ages which geology reveals are vast, so must the 
 anticipation be which bridged their mighty duration. 
 
 And if we ascend the heights of bygone ages, and out 
 of the fastnesses of eternity look forward, with Christ in 
 anticipation, some impression of the august reality may 
 grow upon us. 
 
 Let us stand in thought among those bright armies styled 
 "the sons of God," who 
 
 " Saw, of old, on chaos rise, 
 The beauteous pillars of the skies." 
 
 Let us suppose ourselves acquainted with what they could 
 not guess, — that the anticipation of a cross was already 
 mature in the Divine breast. 
 
 With that conception, we behold him come forth to create 
 a material system to be the theatre of that wonderful pur- 
 pose. We see summoned into existence a universe strangely 
 contrived to mirror forth spiritual analogies, and be a pic- 
 ture world, where, day unto day shall utter speech, and 
 night unto night show forth knowledge. 
 
 Angels at the sight burst into an irrepressible shout of 
 praise. They know not that it is to suffer there he called 
 it into being. We know it. Borne on wings of inspiration, 
 searching the deep things of God, we venture where angels 
 feared to tread. 
 
THE ORDEAL. 229 
 
 To them it was a mystery why the newly formed earth 
 should bear the impress of decay ; why Nature's seasons 
 should be one grand resurrection pageant ; life forever 
 evolving out of the loathsome arms of Death. To us it is 
 plain that, if the Lamb was determined to die and rise 
 again, it is precisely such a world he would erect as conge- 
 nial to his purpose, — a world where he might be, together 
 with the order he would redeem, sown in weakness, dis- 
 honor, corruption, and animal organization, to rise again 
 spiritual, incorruptible, powerful, and glorious. 
 
 Meanwhile, there must have been a kind of prelibation 
 of the approaching humiliation. For though the full scope 
 of the mediatorial anointing was hid from principalities and 
 from powers, it could not be so entirely veiled as not to 
 excite their watchful jealousy. As Saul eyed David with 
 intuitive suspicion and dislike, even before he knew of his 
 having been anointed, so Lucifer looked askance upon Christ. 
 He hated him for his order's sake. He hated him on account 
 of the attempt at dethronement. He hated him because he 
 manifested pity for his brethren, and refused to join in the 
 torrent of obloquy and abuse the angelic powers caused to 
 roll across their memory. He evidently took their reproach 
 to heart. He mourned their fate. 
 
 The Covering Cherub hated him for it, and energized to 
 cast their odium upon him. 
 
 Long, long before he stooped to earth, we see him stand- 
 ing before the Lord, clothed in filthy garments, interceding 
 for Israel, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist 
 him. 
 
 With instructed eye we pass onward toward the fulness 
 of time, and as we see the Anointed One begin to empty 
 himself of infinite plenitude, disrobe himself of immortal 
 splendors, and disappear from those realms of ineffable 
 glory, — as we see the mysterious veiling of that infinite 
 nature under a fleshly form, we begin to tremble. O won- 
 
230 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 derful seed, we exclaim, thus sown in corruption, weakness, 
 dishonor, and decay ! 
 
 How near has holiness forced itself down to the level of 
 sin ! How close the contact infinite purity suffers with vile- 
 ness and uncleanness ! Herein is shame ! Brought into 
 the midst of sin, encompassed and environed round there- 
 with, sin's vile weeds and filthy rags upon him, sinners for 
 his only earthly friends, a sinner guilty and lost in herself 
 for a mother, sinners for relatives, sinners for acquaintance, 
 countrymen, subjects, and a world full of sin and shame and 
 death for an abode. He who for ages had known other 
 society in the bosom of the Infinite Blessed, other com- 
 munion and service in the songs and adorations of celestial 
 myriads, — O what a foreign shore ! what a sad, benighted 
 exile ! what a dreary banishment ! what a deep, degrading 
 change of position ! what shame, what humiliation, not for 
 himself, but with and for others ! 
 
 But if we were to examine his earthly course, in the few 
 ,brief sketches given us of him, we should find that course 
 full of anticipations of impending fate, rendered now more 
 weighty and gloomy by that change of stature. Sown in 
 weakness, enfeebled by being made flesh, sown in corrup- 
 tion and dishonor, he no longer looks upon that suffering 
 with the unmoved aspect of an infinite being, but now feels 
 the dread and the sensitive shrinkings and terrible recoil of 
 physical nature. 
 
 Early in infancy, we are informed, he grew in knowledge. 
 And those divine abilities, hid by the act of incarnation 
 within, and forced to develop like ours only by means of 
 physical organs, began to manifest themselves with aston- 
 ishing force, at twelve years of age exciting the attention 
 and wonder of the learned. 
 
 Before that time the Spirit of God had informed him of 
 what memory alone could not have supplied. The grace 
 of God was on him, and he grew in knowledge. And that 
 
THE ORDEAL. 231 
 
 grace of God early led him, from the circumstances of his 
 own birth, and the intimations of Scripture and the testi- 
 mony of his mother, to identify himself as the Messiah, and 
 to penetrate to the deep insight of things written of him. 
 
 Hence, he at twelve years said : " How is it that ye sought 
 me ? Wist ye not I must be about my Father's business ? " 
 
 Even at this early age, therefore, that child's mind had 
 gone through with deep and profound courses of thought. 
 And, reasoning his way under guidance of the Spirit up- 
 ward from a starting-point in the finite, had been made to 
 believe the facts of his previous existence, as revealed in 
 Scripture, and from them to infer his present posture and 
 approaching suffering. 
 
 This knowledge thus acquired was to him human knowl- 
 edge. Obtained by such processes in kind as human minds 
 in general obtain theirs, it was knowledge differing in this 
 from that he had had before. That was knowledge origi- 
 nal. This was knowledge reproduced, reappearing under a 
 veil, — knowledge that could not remember itself to have 
 been in exercise before. 
 
 This knowledge, or this faith, — for he was like his breth- 
 ren in this respect especially, that he walked by faith, not 
 by sight, — this faith characterized his whole career. The 
 anticipation of suffering was with him everywhere. He 
 knew he must suffer, and in repeated instances that con- 
 sciousness betrayed itself. 
 
 It formed the key to his entire earthly, as it had to his 
 previous heavenly career. He came to seek and to save 
 that which was lost. He came to give his life a ransom for 
 many. He came down from heaven to give life to the 
 world. Except they ate his flesh and drank his blood, 
 there was no life in them. 
 
 And in moments of peculiar suffering, when the antici- 
 pation of the cross and shame was most intense, he said, 
 " Now is my soul distracted ! What shall I say ? Shall I 
 
232 KEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 say, Father, save me from this hour ? But for this cause 
 came I unto this hour." 
 
 And when before Pilate the bitterness of the crisis was 
 almost full, " For this cause was I born," he said, " and to 
 this end came I into the world, that I should testify unto 
 the truth." 
 
 Here, then, we are enabled to judge somewhat of the 
 reality of the thing suffered, by the anticipations of the suf- 
 ferer, — anticipations preceding the world, occasioning its 
 existence, shaping its laws and progress, — anticipations ac- 
 companying the person in his change of worlds, and giving 
 tone and character to his whole life up to the latest hour. 
 
 How great must that cross be, and that shame, which 
 was worthy to be the subject of forebodings so mighty and 
 so protracted as these ! 
 
 If, then, we attempt to ask, what were the elements of 
 that suffering, it may be answered, that perhaps we are 
 not capable of analyzing it. It is quite likely — nay, it 
 seems, almost beforehand, as if it must be so — that in a 
 crisis so vast, for which he had prepared from such remote 
 antiquity, on which such amazing interests were at stake, 
 there should be elements involved which should go beyond 
 our present capacity to analyze and appreciate. 
 
 Does it not seem unlikely that we, whose minds are so 
 darkened by sin, and enfeebled and limited by sense, should 
 be able to achieve the solution of a problem like this? I 
 confess that, so far from wondering why we do not under- 
 stand more respecting it, I feel disposed to wonder that we 
 know so much, or that we dare think of attempting to 
 know all. Still, some elements of that suffering we un- 
 doubtedly do know, and can partly appreciate. 
 
 The first and lowest element, and one therefore we can 
 best understand, is physical anguish. This was undoubt- 
 edly one element of the cross and of the shame that he 
 anticipated ; that he might condescend to know the pangs 
 
THE ORDEAL. 233 
 
 and agonies of material torture, the throes of dissolving 
 nature. 
 
 And it is on this account, physical as we are, and ex- 
 posed to physical suffering, we can best understand it, that 
 so much prominence is given to this in the record, and 
 he is said to have suffered in the flesh, suffered in his own 
 body, to have been wounded, pierced, bruised, to have 
 suffered stripes, to have been broken, to taste death, and 
 the like. Not because these were his chief sufferings, but 
 because they are those we can chiefly appreciate ; at any 
 rate, mankind at large. We may be sure that these were 
 but a small part of the reality he anticipated, — the smallest 
 part. We may be sure that there were other elements 
 of suffering connected with what was physical, — suffering 
 of the heart, anguish of the spirit, that were far more 
 dreadful to him, although they may be less appreciable 
 by us. 
 
 But those physical sufferings, if they were but the 
 lowest element of what he endured, are worthy of our 
 deepest wonder. For it was an exalted being that con- 
 sented thus to know in himself what physical anguish 
 might be. It was the Lord of glory that endured that 
 undeserved, that strange bodily torture. This renders it 
 amazing. For it was so strange an experience for him, — 
 so novel, so unnatural a lesson, for one of his character 
 and past station to learn so bitterly. 
 
 Another element of a grade higher than this was the 
 mortification and anguish of his social ignominy ; his being 
 rejected, set at naught by a whole community, — con- 
 fessedly the only community that had the worship of the 
 true God, — a community to which he sustained peculiar 
 relations. 
 
 It was the peculiarity of his experience to be cut off 
 from his pi'evious existence and his Divine attributes, ex- 
 cept as matters of faith. In the shape of knowledge, that 
 
234 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 former reality of his existence could not come in to render 
 him insensible to human vicissitudes, but only as he grasped 
 it by faith, on testimony. In this particular, his faith of 
 glories had with the Father before the world was, was of 
 like kind with ours of glories to be enjoyed in a world that 
 is to come. 
 
 Ours is a faith that can support, sustain, enable to en- 
 dure, but does not render insensible to earthly motives. 
 If our faith of the heavenly glory were more than faith, if 
 it were knowledge, absolute sight and open vision, we 
 should be at once incapable of being tried by earthly 
 motive. Trial, suffering, would be, in the absorbing vision, 
 annihilated forever. Therefore we see in a glass darkly. 
 Therefore he saw in a glass darkly that which had pre- 
 ceded his earthly career. 
 
 Had he retained full, open knowledge, not faith, he 
 would have been incapacitated for being touched by stress 
 of earthly motives. He could not have felt sensitive to 
 the opinion of his age and country, nor felt the keen 
 edge of universal obloquy and detraction. But, as it was, 
 heavenly things were present with him by faith as sustain- 
 ing realities, yet so with him as to leave him liable to the 
 promptings of human feeling. He could be tempted in all 
 points as we are. He could desire to be believed, to 
 be respected, trusted, loved. He could desire the good 
 opinion of his country. He could feel hurt when his ideas 
 were received coldly, as new, as visionary, — when they 
 were scornfully rejected, and his whole intellectual labor 
 trampled in disgust. 
 
 He could feel as keenly as another man the invasion of 
 his personal rights to freedom of thought, speech, action, 
 and the gross outrage of those rights when he was insulted, 
 attacked, and by high and low, rich and poor, abused as a 
 blasphemous and abominable thing. 
 
 There were chords in the heart of Jesus that could 
 
THE ORDEAL. 235 
 
 vibrate to the keenest anguish under all this social, this 
 national rejection and reproach. Nor can we at all appre- 
 ciate how much anguish a man like him can be made to 
 drink in a few bitter hours, till we have thoroughly lived 
 his life over again, and been imbued with the ideas and 
 feelings of his age and country ; and this is what none of 
 us can do, except partially. 
 
 It must have been bitter indeed for Jesus to stand and 
 hear heaven and earth ringing with shouts of a vast multi- 
 tude of his own kindred, — shouts in which " Crucify him ! 
 crucify him ! " rose high above everything else, while 
 " Barabbas ! Barabbas ! " was the degrading accompani- 
 ment. 
 
 It must, have been intensely humiliating to see a public 
 bravado and ruffian thus chosen by his nation, priests, and 
 people, while he was dragged to the gibbet ; and, what was 
 worse than all was, that he should see that heathen Pilate 
 become his intercessor, — yes, that Gentile, ignorant of the 
 true God, to see him stand forward and labor earnestly, and 
 labor long, — as long as he dared, — to effect his rescue. 
 
 Never was there an instance where the suffering from 
 such sources was at all comparable to those of this sufferer. 
 Aside from what faith told him of former worlds and high- 
 er glories, it was on Zion's brow that condemnation met 
 him, — it was where David had lived, and under the very 
 shadow of his ancestral walls, and surrounded by the insig- 
 nia of a royal line, emphatically his own, that he heard 
 these shouts. It was the same voices which one hour 
 cried, " Hosanna to the Son of David ! " which the next 
 shouted, " Crucify him ! " And it was from Zion's top 
 that he was brutally dragged to Calvary's mound. 
 
 Another element, still higher than this, was, a sight 
 and sense of the extreme vileness of objects dear to him. 
 These manifestations of sin that were about him, causing 
 him such acute anguish, were manifestations of the depth 
 
236 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 to which beings dear to him had sunk ; and to a gen- 
 erous, unselfish heart, this is ever one of the heaviest 
 of woes. 
 
 When an earthly father first finds out how deep his 
 profligate son has sunk in infamy and unprincipled villany, 
 the pang is greater almost than he can bear. The discov- 
 ery of the trusting wife that her husband has become an 
 inebriate, and not only so, but that he is losing, or has lost, 
 every trace of the manliness and virtue she loved, — this 
 breaks her heart, this lays upon her soul in an hour the 
 weight of years, the blight of winters. 
 
 But what was it, then, for this man, whose heart was 
 truly disinterested, who was unselfish, who knew that he 
 came to redeem the wandering, and who knew that the 
 love he bore them surpassed the love of earth, — what 
 was it for him to find himself in their hands, in the 
 midst of their lawless violence, as in a heated caldron ? 
 Were these, alas ! — these wretched, morally deformed, 
 and maddened miscreants, — the sons of light he loved so 
 well, — these the beings created in a Divine image and 
 likeness, sunk to such deeps of awful undoing, thus lost 
 to all sense of honor, generosity, gentleness, and true 
 nobleness ? Was this the searing, scorching brand of sin 
 upon them, — shrivelling up, blackening, and blasting into 
 deformity all he loved to look upon ? 
 
 There was a woe which no earthly heart ever felt the 
 like of save his, nor ever can feel. It prompted that 
 amazing prayer : " Father, forgive them ; they know not 
 what they do." 
 
 Nor was this a mere outside sight and sense of their 
 vileness. There is a principle by which one mind so iden- 
 tifies itself with another by sympathy as to participate in 
 the shame of that other. This is universally recognized. 
 All persons naturally feel some degree of shame at the bad 
 behavior of their near relatives. They blush for them. 
 They are said figuratively to share their punishment. 
 
THE ORDEAL. 237 
 
 Some of the highest efforts of poetry are given to por- 
 tray this principle. Thus Leonato, on hearing the supposed 
 dishonor of his only daughter, Hero, exclaims, — 
 
 " Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes ? 
 Why had I not, with charitable hand, 
 Took up a beggar's issue at my gates ; 
 Who, smirched thus, and mired with infamy, 
 I might have said, No part of it is mine ! 
 This shame derives itself from unknown loins ? 
 But mine ! And mine I loved, and mine I praised, 
 And mine that I was proud on ; mine so much, 
 That I myself was to myself not mine, 
 Valuing of her ; why she — O, she is fallen 
 Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea 
 Hath drops too few to wash her clean again ! " 
 
 In this most beautiful passage is vividly illustrated how 
 one mind by love and sympathy can bear sin for another. 
 This father feels the shame, the contamination of his sup- 
 posed criminal child, to be his shame and his blackness. 
 
 And over whom, then, was it, or what, that our Redeemer 
 was called to mourn? Had he, 
 
 " with charitable hand, 
 Took up a beggar's issue at his gates " 1 
 
 Nay, verily, " both he that sanctifieth and they that are 
 sanctified are all of one." He is " first-born among many 
 brethren." It is brother, sister, mother, bride, all names 
 of love in one, for whom he sorrows, and who 
 
 " is fallen 
 Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea 
 Hath drops too few to wash her clean again." 
 
 In this sense, and in this only, by the law of sympa- 
 thetic love, he bore all our sins, and took our punishment, 
 and drank the wrath of God for us. 
 
 Another element of that cross and shame still higher is, 
 the peril of its temptation. For it was through these and 
 other elements of suffering that he was tempted and set 
 upon to be swerved from his uprightness. 
 
238 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Nor could that temptation be real, such as is represented 
 in Scripture, unless there was a possibility of his falling. 
 Unless he was' really and truly as a free-agent placed on 
 probation, with full liberty to choose wrong and suffer the 
 consequences ; unless this were the case, it could not be 
 said that he was tempted in all points as we are. Tempta- 
 tions which are absolutely impossible to be yielded to, are 
 no temptations. It enters into the very essence of tempta- 
 tion that the mind feels itself impelled strongly to do a 
 thing which it can do, and knows it can, but from which 
 it voluntarily refrains. 
 
 Hence the vividness, indeed, the awfulness of his suffer- 
 ings. " Ye," says the Apostle, " have not yet resisted 
 unto blood, striving against sin." But, the implication is, 
 he did so resist in that hour when, in fear of death, in 
 fear of moral overthrow and contamination, he prayed to 
 God with strong crying and tears, and was heard in that he 
 feared. 
 
 That was an hour when he resisted unto blood, striving 
 against sin ; and the sweat of that striving, that agony, was 
 as it were great drops of blood. 
 
 In those hours, and in the similar hours upon the cross, 
 he learned not alone how evil others had become, but how 
 mighty was that power that had ensnared them and held 
 them captive. He felt how dire and dark and appalling the 
 mastery of that murderous guile that wrestled to sink him 
 with them down to endless night. 
 
 Still another element, and, so far as we are at present 
 able to analyze the subject, the highest, was the absence of 
 the Father's comfort and solace. 
 
 There was an hour when it appears that it was necessary 
 to the completeness of his trial and his conquest that the 
 Father should withdraw, not in wrath, not in anger, nor in 
 vindictiveness ; for never could the Everlasting Father feel 
 more agonizingly his love for that sufferer than in the mo- 
 
THE ORDEAL. 239 
 
 ment of his highest sufferings, but that he might allow him 
 to be perfected the Captain of salvation without external aid. 
 Then first was there a kind of sundering between eternal 
 natures which eternity had never witnessed before, nor shall 
 eternity witness again. Of it we know little ; but we read 
 that the sun was darkened, and the rocks rent, and the 
 graves opened. The ordeal was finished, his heart was 
 broken, and in the mysterious and tremendous deep of 
 Hades the lowest point of descent was reached, and the 
 head of the order shared the exile and the humiliation of 
 the order he would redeem. 
 
 This, then, was the cross and shame which he endured, 
 despising them. Not despising them absolutely, but rela- 
 tively. " For the joy that was set before him he endured 
 the cross, despising the shame." Despising the shame not 
 intrinsically, but comparatively. In itself it was fearful.. 
 It was worthy of being anticipated as it was for ages, and 
 prepared for, and met with strong crying and tears, and 
 conquered with heavenly shouts of victory. 
 
 It is not as if the shame were light, of no account abso- 
 lutely, and all he endured a trifling thing to be despised, 
 that it is said he despised the shame. Far from it. But it 
 is by reason of the vast preponderance of that joy that was 
 set before him. Compared with that he could despise what 
 was in itself far from despicable. That cross and shame, 
 was great, but that joy was greater. That woe was mighty, 
 but the joy far more exceeding and eternal in its weight 
 of glory. And so great was the excess, the preponderance 
 of glory and of joy, that he was able to despise what was 
 too dreadful for us to conceive. 
 
 But what, then, was that joy? What was its particular 
 description and character ? Was it to be the equal of the 
 Father ? That he was before, and counted it a thing easily 
 to be laid aside in comparison. 
 
 Was it majesty, exaltation, official station, and the recep- 
 
240 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 tion of ascriptions of homage from sinless myriads ? All 
 these he had and might retain, — needed not to gain by 
 sacrifice. 
 
 What, then, was it ? Evidently something higher, nobler, 
 dearer to his heart than all these. Something without 
 which all these were to him not enough ; something, too, 
 which could not be obtained without sacrifice. 
 
 And what was that ? It was the life of the dead. That 
 was the joy. It was the ransom of the enslaved. That was 
 the joy. It was the redemption of the lawful captives. 
 It was the breaking of the bond of death's dominion over 
 souls created in the Divine image, but enthralled by sin. 
 That was the joy. 
 
 It was to wash them and make them white in his blood. 
 It was to array them in white as his bride. It was to re- 
 store them to a seat by his side upon his throne as heirs of 
 God, and joint-heirs with himself in the headship of the 
 universe. That was the joy. 
 
 It was to hear the Father say in the morning of eternal 
 day, " This my Son was dead, but is alive again, was lost, 
 but is found." That was the joy that made him consent 
 to be their sacrifice before the world was ; that made him 
 consent to be foreordained for them before the world be- 
 gan ; that made him create all things, conduct all things, 
 endure and overcome all things. 
 
 It was because he loved them before time began. It was 
 because his love was Divine, because it was of the quality 
 of God, because it was love's eternal self, unchangeable, 
 unalterable, refusing to part with its best beloved, and con- 
 senting to suffer with and for them anything but sin, rather 
 than give them up. 
 
 That, indeed, he would not suffer for them even. If to 
 redeem and restore them, it were necessary to sin, to do 
 wrong, to be in the least iota unjust, to violate the smallest 
 filament of fundamental law, then they must perish indeed, 
 
THE ORDEAL. 241 
 
 and he could not save them. But anything less than that 
 he could and would endure, yea, count as nothing in pros- 
 pect of their recovery unto himself. 
 
 He would count nothing the labor of creation, nothing 
 the ages of waiting, nothing the shame and humiliation of 
 contact with flesh, nothing the anguish, danger, and deep 
 sorrow of his cross, nothing the descent to Hades, if only 
 by these they might be pardoned, purged, emancipated, 
 brought home, and placed eternally above the reach of a 
 second apostasy. 
 
 That was his joy. And he set it before him, and he did 
 endure. He did despise the shame, and he sits at the right 
 hand in glory. 
 
 Therefore it is, my brethren, that you and I to-day are 
 in this house of God and gate of heaven, listening to the 
 calls of infinite love and mercy. Therefore it is we have 
 not long since been cut off, and lifted up our eyes in end- 
 less despair. Therefore, because that was his joy which 
 he set before him, the heralds of the cross are sent to 
 you to say, " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from 
 the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. He loved thee, 
 sinner, the Lord of glory loved thee. Thee he would 
 not give up. Thy life eternal was precious in his sight. 
 For thee he shed blood, precious blood. Unto thee he 
 says, " Live ; yea, live." 
 
 And thou, if thou wilt hear his voice, shalt live. He 
 will be thy Shepherd. He will lead thee to green pastures 
 and beside still waters. He will restore thy soul. He will 
 bring thee to cloudless climes of light, and mansions of 
 everlasting day, and a sceptre of universal power. 
 
 O believe the joyful tidings. Believe the Gospel, the 
 heavenly Gospel, and rejoice in believing. Ask not what 
 you shall do, but, instead of asking, Believe. 
 
 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as the author and fin- 
 isher of thy faith, and thou shalt live. In his name I call 
 11 p 
 
242 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 you. In his name I invite you home. Believe. It is the 
 homeward, heavenward road. Believe. It is the path of 
 peace. This way salvation lies. This way hope is born. 
 This way peace, purity, and freedom. Believe, and thou 
 canst not come into condemnation, but art passed from 
 death unto life. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE ADVOCATE. 
 
 " NOW TO APPEAR IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD FOR US." — Heb. IX. 24. 
 
 WHEN Christ returned to heaven, he returned to ap- 
 pear for us as advocate. " He was delivered for 
 our offences and raised for our justification," in securing 
 which he also secured his own, having been clothed in filthy 
 garments on our account, but being now "justified in 
 spirit " in the sight of angels. 
 
 Having by his sufferings laid the premises of an argu- 
 ment, he returns to appear in the court of heaven and 
 construct that argument, to reason logically from premise 
 to conclusion. From the nature of the case, that plea must 
 have been the highest exhibition of the kind that ever was 
 or will be in the universe. What interest such arguments 
 before earthly tribunals can excite we know. What this 
 must have excited before the supreme tribunal of the uni- 
 verse we can by analogy faintly imagine. 
 
 His claim is, that the banished order be restored to their 
 native skies, and crowned joint-heirs with himself over all 
 things, as had been contemplated before their fall. He de- 
 mands, that the design of their substitution in the birthright, 
 temporarily interrupted and frustrated by Lucifer's success 
 in deceiving them, be now taken up and carried into execu- 
 tion in all respects as if they had not fallen. He asks a 
 justification so complete and entire as that it may issue in 
 a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 
 
 And, in the first place, he claims that the forgiveness of 
 the truly penitent is intrinsically right and proper. It is 
 
244 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 congenial to the instincts of the Divine nature, which is the 
 ultimate standard of comparison. 
 
 It is also according to the instincts of all creatures made 
 in the Divine image, in proportion as they are made par- 
 takers of the Divine nature, and elevated to a lively sym- 
 pathy and communion with God. The need of argument 
 in defence of a principle so intuitively certain, he affirms, 
 arises solely from the wide-spread influence of t Lucifer's 
 false philosophy, even over loyal minds. That renders it 
 necessary to seem to prove a self-evident proposition, that 
 to forgive a penitent is essentially lovely and good. 
 
 Yet the Divhie administration, he shows, has been avow- 
 edly based upon this principle from the beginning. When 
 Lucifer sinned, God was patient and long-suffering, and 
 offered freely to forgive him if he would repent. Those 
 offers were repeated, and continued, and pressed upon him, 
 for a long, long period, while every effort was made to con- 
 vince him of sin, and restore him to the path of rectitude. 
 
 There was no wish to dethrone and destroy him. There 
 was no desire on God's part to disturb the original order of 
 the created universe. Had he repented, and been humble 
 and self-denying, his early aberrations and mistakes would 
 have been forgiven, and he would have been confirmed in 
 office as anointed Covering Cherub. 
 
 It was simply and only because he denied forgiveness to 
 be either necessary or right that his removal became inev- 
 itable. 
 
 To forgive this order, now penitent, was therefore simply 
 to carry out consistently the principle upon which the Su- 
 preme Executive had administered the government from 
 the outset of the controversy with Lucifer. It was to vin- 
 dicate that principle, and place it far above all future denial. 
 
 Indeed, he shows it to have been one leading aim of all 
 earthly dispensations to reveal in historic development this 
 principle of the kingdom of God. Even on Sinai, where 
 
THE ADVOCATE. 245 
 
 law in all its majesty was made to appear, Jehovah pro- 
 claimed himself (Ex. xxxiv. 6), " Merciful and gracious, 
 long-suffering and abundant in goodness, keeping mercy for 
 thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and 
 that will by no means clear the guilty." This was Jeho- 
 vah's public statement of his character and principles as 
 a lawgiver and executive. 
 
 By his Spirit in the Psalms and prophets he had con- 
 stantly reiterated the same idea (Psalm li. 16, 17) : 
 " Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it ; thou 
 delightest not in burnt-offering. The sacrifices of God are a 
 broken spirit ; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou 
 wilt not despise." Isaiah lvii. 15 : " Thus saith the high 
 and lofty One whose name is Holy, ' I dwell in the high 
 and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and hum- 
 ble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive 
 the heart of the contrite ones.' " Ez. xviii. 27, 28 : " When 
 the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, and do- 
 eth that which is right, he shall save his soul alive, because 
 he considereth and turneth from all his transgressions." 
 
 Above all, the Mediator refers to his own recorded utter- 
 ances in the days of his flesh, Matt. v. 45 : " Love your 
 enemies ; bless them that curse you ; do good to them that 
 hate you; and pray for them that despitefully use you 
 and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your 
 Father which is in heaven ; for he maketh his sun to rise 
 on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just 
 and on the unjust." Matt, xviii. 21 : " Lord, how oft shall 
 my brother sin against me, and I forgive him, till seven 
 times ? .... I say not unto thee, Until seven times, but 
 Until seventy times seven." Again, Luke vi. 36 : " Be ye 
 merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful." 
 
 Thus the Mediator traces through all his own earthly 
 teachings this beautiful idea, and the Father sanctions it as 
 his own ; and, as if to demonstrate it beyond denial as the 
 
246 KEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 true, essential character of God, he points to the cross, 
 and to those words spoken in the midst of his dying ago- 
 nies, " Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." 
 Here a forgiving spirit is manifested under the highest 
 climax of injury with reference to a merely possible re- 
 pentance. And if the Divine nature then truly suffered 
 and spoke, the demonstration is infinite that forgiveness is 
 congenial to absolute perfection. 
 
 Indeed, what else than this can account for the existence 
 of the material universe ? The Mediator who built it de- 
 clares that it was built, and all its dispensations conducted, 
 with a view to the ultimate exercise of mercy to the unde- 
 serving. It was with a view to gratifying the Divine de- 
 sire to forgive the penitent, that the heavens were spread 
 abroad and the earth founded. 
 
 Was, then, the Father everlasting the subject of an 
 irregular and lawless impulse ? Was that unlawful propen- 
 sity so strong, that creation's frame must be contrived, and 
 time's ages roll, to enable the Maker to dispense with the 
 obligations of absolute right, and do evil with impunity ? 
 Such must be the fact, the Mediator urges, unless it be 
 granted that to forgive the penitent is in itself, apart from 
 all considerations of expediency, essentially and unchange- 
 ably right. 
 
 On the other hand, what is the character of the being 
 who impugns this principle ? who refuses foi^giveness as 
 not needed, denies God's disposition to bestow it, nay, 
 denies the right to exercise it altogether? Is he to be 
 accepted as the representative of absolute justice ? Is his 
 word to be taken ? Is he sincere, honest, truthful ? 
 
 In answer to this question, the Mediator presents his 
 blood. He is represented as sprinkling it before the 
 throne, as purifying the heavenly place with it ; by which 
 we understand, that he discloses for the first time the his- 
 tory of his sufferings, and traces them home to Lucifer as 
 the real, responsible cause. 
 
THE ADVOCATE. 247 
 
 From his own personal knowledge and recollection he 
 lays bare the arts by which his order fell ; arts, the fatal 
 power of which he learned by resisting, while seeing his 
 beloved swept away. In this disclosure he proves him liar 
 from the beginning, in order to be man-slayer. Then 
 he traces all his own subsequent humiliation, before this 
 world, when loaded with ignominy on our account, — in 
 this world, when despised and rejected of men, and in 
 the deepest realm of Hades. 
 
 Particularly in his public ministry on earth, he discloses 
 the history of Lucifer's temptations, both those which were 
 direct, and those in which social engines were invisibly 
 wielded by him as God of this world. He reveals minutely 
 and infallibly how, having beset him all the way with in- 
 creasing snares, at last he procured his death by false 
 witness, and a mockery of justice under the forms of law. 
 
 He shows how, in every age, the Church has been hated 
 for his sake, and reveals how, out of spite to him, Lucifer 
 has wielded, is wielding, and shall wield the great civil and 
 ecclesiastical organizations of time, on purpose to intimidate 
 or corrupt, and in every way injure his people. And all 
 this while pretending on high to be the immaculate repre- 
 sentative of justice ! 
 
 Thus, by his blood, by his blood alone, he demonstrates 
 the accuser both murderer and liar, destitute of the slight- 
 est respect for justice or right. 
 
 And can his denial of the principle in question then 
 have any weight ? Can the opinion of a thoroughly unjust 
 spirit concerning justice be entitled to the least respect? 
 Can the decision of a soul immeasurably false and cruel, 
 that forgiveness of penitents is wrong, possess the slightest 
 conceivable title to regard ? Impossible. The reverse is 
 the case. The mere fact, that a spirit so utterly fraudulent 
 and deadly abhors forgiveness, is sufficient proof of its in- 
 trinsic excellence. That Satan hates the very idea of 
 pardon is proof positive that it is infinitely dear to God. 
 
248 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Thus far, the cause is gained, the argument of our 
 Advocate triumphantly sustained. But this covers the 
 ground only in part. Forgiveness may be right, but it 
 does not follow that it is consistent or safe. And broken 
 down as Lucifer is, on the mere question of abstract right, 
 he may rally with desperate energy upon that of con- 
 sistency. 
 
 The espoused bride became a vile harlot, he says, it is 
 impossible to place reliance on her repentance as genuine. 
 It is impossible that purity once sullied can ever be 
 restored. She can never be fit to be placed at the head 
 of the whole family in heaven, and have the charge of 
 future races. 
 
 And if she were fit, it could not be permitted. To 
 elevate beings from a career of such degradation, above 
 the head of angels that never fell, must strike them with 
 surprise and disgust. It must relax the bonds of law and 
 order, and open the door to incalculable mischiefs. 
 
 However right in the abstract, therefore, the pardon of 
 the order is practically impossible, consistently with the 
 honor of the Divine administration and the best good of 
 the universe. This brings on the second position of the 
 argument of our risen Advocate, namely, that the full 
 pardon of this penitent order is consistent and safe. 
 
 It is safe and consistent, evidently, so far as the opera- 
 tions of the Divine mind are concerned. A thing right 
 in itself can only be abused through mistake. But God is 
 infallible. He is incapable of abusing a principle intrinsi- 
 cally right. Therefore, no evil consequences can originate 
 in the action of his mind. 
 
 It is safe and consistent, also, so far as the normal 
 action of loyal, unfallen orders is concerned. They, too, 
 can only be supposed capable of abusing or perverting a 
 principle right in itself, through mistake or by abnormal 
 action. So long as their action is normal, and in health- 
 
THE ADVOCATE. 249 
 
 ful sympathy with that of God, no evil consequences can 
 arise in that quarter. 
 
 It is only through the indirect influence of Lucifer, 
 then, and minds identified with him, that the loyal orders 
 of unfallen beings might be liable to innocent mistake on 
 this subject, and so evil consequences be apprehended. 
 It is only by not rising fully to the Divine stand-point, 
 and not entering fully into healthful sympathy with the 
 Infinite mind. 
 
 But his sufferings, the Redeemer shows, have had the 
 effect to elevate the loyal mind to the Divine level, and 
 bring it into healthful sympathy with that of God. The 
 loyal see by his example that true greatness is self-sacri- 
 ficing in its nature; that the object of all rule is the 
 good of those ruled, not the aggrandizement of the ruler. 
 They realize that qualification to do good is the only title 
 to office, and that those should rule whom God sees to be 
 best adapted on the whole. 
 
 If, then, God decides that this repentant order is best 
 adapted to promote the good of all, they will not be jealous. 
 Such a feeling the blood of Christ has made impossible. 
 
 On the contrary, they will rejoice. They see that there 
 is something in the return of a banished order to purity, 
 place, and power, peculiarly adapted to excite joy in every 
 well-regulated mind. 
 
 To bring in a race from outside, not natives of heaven, 
 might possibly, seem strange. To give supreme sway to a 
 race totally corrupt by its very creation, — a race that 
 never drew breath in heaven, nor knew primeval holi- 
 ness, — might possibly give occasion for murmurs. 
 
 But this order is to the manor born. It is no foreign 
 importation. This order was once here. This order was 
 holy like the angels themselves. This order was appointed 
 to the adoptive birthright. The history of this order is 
 like household words in heaven. 
 
250 KEDEEMEK AND KEDEEMED. 
 
 And though in evil hour they fell, and their guilt was 
 great, and for a time the tide of odium set strong against 
 them, the loyal orders now see that they were less guilty 
 than their betrayer and accuser. They see that the 
 onset of temptation was tremendous, and, while they 
 are indignant at the perfidious power that triumphed, 
 they feel sympathy and compassion for the fallen, the 
 defeated. 
 
 And if they can be really purged of that stain, if they 
 can be qualified to go back and carry out that interrupted 
 career, there is not a loyal heart among the innumerable 
 angels of light that will not leap for joy. They will say, 
 " It is meet that we rejoice, for this our brother was dead, 
 but is alive again ; was lost, but is found." 
 
 Nor will such restoration logically tend to relax the 
 bonds of good government or dimmish the respect for 
 law in the bosoms of the loyal. If law be intrinsically 
 forgiving in its very nature, as towards the penitent, then 
 to forgive the penitent cannot weaken respect for law. 
 
 Moreover, it was in this order that the principles of 
 righteous rule were embodied after they had been repu- 
 diated by Lucifer. For the sake of those principles the 
 order was founded, and named Order of the King of 
 Righteousness. What now, if this order shall be restored, 
 will the universe have seen ? 
 
 They will have seen, as soon as those principles were 
 forsaken, the order banished and under forfeiture ; and 
 as soon as, at infinite expense, in spite of Lucifer's intensest 
 opposition, those principles were resumed by the order, 
 asserted against world majorities, suffered for and sealed 
 with blood, that order redeemed from forfeiture, and its 
 original career continued. What does that show ? 
 
 It shows that those principles are everything to God, 
 and all else in comparison nothing. Even the dearest 
 object, Christ's own brethren, his bride, without those 
 
THE ADVOCATE. 251 
 
 principles must be treated like the vilest criminals, must 
 die eternally. And, on the other hand, even the guiltiest 
 and vilest order, sunk to the depths of Hades, once con- 
 verted to those principles, and identified with them beyond 
 possibility of change, can be raised to highest glory. 
 
 Does not this show that principles are all, and persons 
 nothing? Does not this assert those principles as all in 
 all to God more than could be done in any other way ? 
 
 And, in the counter development of Satanic and of 
 Christ-like character, in the attack and defence of those 
 principles during the process of redeeming the order, has 
 not the nature, truth, and moral beauty of those principles 
 been made to shine with dazzling effulgence ? 
 
 So far, then, from relaxing the bon< of law and right- 
 eous rule, and letting the universe run down, the opposite 
 effect is produced. The public mind is toned up, in- 
 structed, invigorated, braced beyond the possibility of 
 future change. 
 
 Moreover, the full pardon of the order is safe and con- 
 sistent in so far as the order itself is concerned. 
 
 Is it said that their degradation has been so great, that 
 no confidence can be placed in their repentance ? 
 
 The reply is, that the successive dynasties and dispensa- 
 tions of earth have been so arranged as to test this matter 
 thoroughly. The Church in every age has been sub- 
 jected to tremendous pressure. Lucifer has in fact had 
 every advantage to retain his hold ; the whole pressure 
 of corrupt civil and ecclesiastical organization for ages 
 has been in favor of his principles and against those 
 of Christ. He has had every imaginable advantage to 
 fasten those principles on the Church, by force and by 
 fraud, he could possibly ask. 
 
 To renounce them and adopt Christ's principles has 
 been to be stoned, sawn asunder, torn of wild beasts, and 
 made the scum and offscouring of all things. No person 
 
252 KEDEEMEK AND REDEEMED. 
 
 could possibly be Christ's disciple in such a world, without 
 taking up his cross and following him to execution. 
 
 If under such circumstances his people look upon his 
 blood, and are heart-broken at the sight ; if the mere 
 foresight of his sacrifice, through type and symbol, had 
 power for ages to melt to tears ; and if the retrospect of 
 the cross increased that power, amidst fierce flames of 
 persecution, — that would show to the loyal universe that 
 they could put confidence in their repentance. 
 
 If, after getting them completely under his power of 
 death, Lucifer could not keep them, if at the sight of 
 their slain Lord they broke out into weeping, if they 
 renounced their sins, if they welcomed reproach, and loved 
 not their lives unto the death, the universe might depend 
 on it, their repentance was radical. 
 
 If Satan could not keep his power, when he had it, on 
 earth with every advantage, how could he ever regain that 
 power after he had lost it, — in heaven where he had no 
 advantage at all, but was himself the object of intense 
 scorn, and abhorrence of all holy minds ? 
 
 It is her deadly enemy that says her repentance is not 
 genuine. It is a mind radically and eternally corrupt and 
 reprobate, that says the stain of her defilement will never 
 wash out. But it is her husband who says, it is that just 
 One in whom is no guile who has chiefest reason to be 
 offended with her, who has amplest opportunity to read 
 her heart, it is he, the Lord of life, who presents her a 
 glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such 
 thing, and avows that he reposes unlimited confidence in 
 her honor forever. 
 
 Nor is she disqualified by what has passed for the 
 station she was to have filled. 
 
 On the contrary, her qualifications are enhanced. Her 
 powers and faculties are restored to health and balance, 
 and are stronger for the exercise they have had. The 
 
THE ADVOCATE. 253 
 
 whole tendency of earthly life has been to exercise and 
 strengthen them. In the family, the school, the state, 
 and the church, the order has been drilled in the main 
 problems of their future business. Eternity in miniature 
 has been condensed into time. 
 
 They have a profound knowledge of what misgovern- 
 ment is, for they have been for ages the victims of it in 
 every conceivable form. There is not an evil from the 
 abuse of power they have not smarted under. 
 
 By a terrible education, they know by contrast what 
 righteous rule is. They have learned what the principles 
 of the Divine character and administration are from living 
 in a world where they were systematically hid, carica- 
 tured, denied, — a world where Satan put his character, 
 in church and state, in place of the character of God, 
 and sat in the temple of God, showing himself that he 
 is God. 
 
 He who has lived in arctic winter knows how to enjoy 
 the milder seasons of a temperate clime. And they who 
 have lived for ages in a world of polar ice will know how 
 to appreciate the unchanging tropics of the skies. 
 
 But, above all, they are specially qualified to reign, 
 because they are humble. Other things being equal, he is 
 most fit to reign who most resembles God in meekness 
 and lowliness of heart. The experience of the penitent 
 order has developed these qualifications in a surpassing 
 degree. 
 
 They were humble and self-denying before they fell ; 
 they are unspeakably more so now. Other celestial orders 
 are meek and self-sacrificing, but incomparably less so 
 than this. Their deep experience of the evil of sin — its 
 power, its guilt, its woe, the difficulty of its cure, the infi- 
 nite price by which that cure was effected — works in 
 them a lowliness and self-sacrifice no other beings in the 
 universe can equal. 
 
254 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 They are forever one with the Father and with the 
 Son, in meekness and lowliness of heart, and therefore 
 qualified to reign forever. 
 
 That forgiveness, then, which is right in the abstract, is 
 also consistent and safe, so far as the order itself, the loyal 
 universe, and the Divine mind are concerned. 
 
 There can be no objection, except on the part of the 
 disloyal. The full restoration of the order can dissatisfy- 
 only those who have been her most implacable, most 
 treacherous foes, because they were the foes of her Head 
 and Husband, and the foes of God and all good gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 They have hated Christ's bride because they hated him. 
 They have exhausted the capabilities of deceit and mean- 
 ness and cruelty, to crush her because she was his, and in 
 her his principles were embodied. 
 
 Her rescue from their deadly power will indeed be their 
 death, crushing the head of their serpent conspiracy for- 
 ever; but that remediless destruction is the deliverance of 
 the universe. 
 
 If there were any reasonable scruples which a loyal 
 subject might entertain to the granting of the Mediator's 
 claim, those scruples might well be waived in considera- 
 tion of his word pledged on her behalf. But there are no 
 scruples. The Advocate in his whole argument, and the 
 Father before whom he pleads, are one. 
 
 Every syllable of the Advocate's plea is but the echo of 
 the Judge's thought. The loyal universe are one with 
 both the Father and the Son. 
 
 That, therefore, which is both right and consistent, all 
 things considered, he asserts to be what is due to him and 
 to his cause. To refuse it would be to reward Satan and 
 punish him, which is impossible. He demands it as a 
 reward of merit, fairly earned by his sufferings and by 
 his argument, — a reward against which no voice can be 
 
THE ADVOCATE 255 
 
 lifted save that voice that ought to be hushed in the 
 silence of everlasting reprobation. 
 
 To the believer this subject is peculiarly precious. It 
 is calculated to draw the mind away from the discourage- 
 ments of this world, and fix it on something most exhila- 
 rating. We often think too much of ourselves, of our sin, 
 of our difficulties. Our minds grow morbid. We faint, 
 we disbelieve, we despair. Now the Bible says, " If any 
 man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father." The 
 practical remedy for our sins, our darkness, our despond- 
 ency, is to think of our Advocate. He was raised for our 
 justification. If we desire to feel our justification, we 
 must think of him as our Advocate. It is a great theme. 
 It will bear and repay much meditation. His career as 
 Advocate was wonderful in its beginning, — it will be won- 
 derful to the end ; for he ever liveth to make intercession. 
 He is able to save to the uttermost. Take his advocacy 
 where we will, it is a glorious, soul-reviving theme. 
 
 How sublime that moment when Almighty power raised 
 him from the deepest abyss of Hades, and set him at God's 
 own right hand ! How transcendent the contrast between 
 the preceding humiliation and the exaltation consequent 
 thereon, — an exaltation more than repaying the degrada- 
 tion, as indicated by the unique word virepv-tycoae, " Him 
 hath God super-exalted." So buoyant was the illustrious 
 pageant of the returning conqueror, that it overshot its pri- 
 meval measure with swift-rushing momentum of majesty. 
 Infinite, indeed, the condescension, but more than infinite 
 the exaltation. 
 
 The return of Jesus is the key-note of the everlasting 
 
 " Loose all your bars of massy light, 
 And wide unfold the ethereal scene ; 
 He claims these mansions as his right : 
 Eeceive the King of glory in ! " 
 
256 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Now the deep-hidden plan of the banished order's rein- 
 statement is to be first publicly disclosed, filling all heaven 
 with amazement, and making known to principalities and 
 powers the manifold wisdom of God. 
 
 Something the angels had conjectured of peace on 
 earth, good-will to men ; but this transcends all their 
 thoughts. To the disloyal the conception is as a gathering 
 thunder-cloud, frowning and portentous. How they had 
 gloried over the exiled order, covered with ignominy; 
 how they had maligned the Son of God, and pursued him 
 from one stage of humiliation to another, with vindictive 
 hate and short-lived exultation ; how they had triumphed 
 to see him reach the lowest stage of shame in Hades, 
 where the banished order lay beneath piled mountains of 
 disgrace ! 
 
 Now suddenly there is a return. For the first time 
 since the order's expulsion, there is an arrival in the courts 
 of heaven from the invisible realm of exile. A sensation, 
 deep and undefinable, of some impending development fill3 
 all heavenly places. 
 
 There stands the Crucified, the marks of Calvary fresh 
 on hand and foot and side. But before he will put on his 
 royal robes, before diadems many are allowed to replace 
 the thorns upon his brow, he must first determine rights 
 and titles for her he holds dearer than himself. 
 
 Her justification must be secured before he will accept 
 his own. " It is my will," he says, " that where I am 
 my bride shall be." He opens the mighty argument : — 
 
 " If I am to have any glory, if that glory is to possess 
 any charm to me, she must share it with me. Without 
 her I am resolved not to reign, not to enjoy blessedness. 
 None can honor me who cannot honor her, whom I honor 
 with implicit trust. 
 
 " Whom I pardon, no friend of mine can wound by sign 
 of accusation. In a little wrath I hid my face from her 
 
THE ADVOCATE. 257 
 
 for a moment, but with everlasting kindness have I had 
 mercy upon her. If she is to be discrowned, I abdicate. 
 If she is to lie under ban, her stigma must be mine. 
 To what station am I summoned by suffrages univer- 
 sal, both finite and infinite ? To that station by those 
 same suffrages must she be summoned also. Her re- 
 pudiation is my defeat ; in her justification only can I be 
 justified." 
 
 And the answer to this appeal goes forth in the procla- 
 mation, " Let all the angels of God worship him." That 
 is the justifying answer of the Father, echoed with loud 
 acclaim by innumerable companies of angels prostrate at 
 his feet. In that sentence he is seen of angels justified 
 in and upon our justification, for which he is risen ; and so 
 accepting it, he goes up through all the heavens, through 
 rank after rank, past throne after throne, far, far above all 
 principality and might, — goes as our representative and 
 head, our forerunner to the throne. What is done to him 
 is done virtually to his order, his bride. " For whom he 
 did foreknow, them he also did predestinate to be con- 
 formed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first- 
 born among many brethren ; and whom he did predes- 
 tinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them 
 he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also 
 glorified." 
 
 War-worn Christian, how ravishing the contemplation ! 
 Look away from the sin to the sacrifice ! Look away from 
 the fight to the victory ! Drink new life, certainty, cour- 
 age, and joy from the vision. Gaze till the spirit, faint from 
 excess of light, and the feeble frame, seem about to fall 
 as dead before the feet of Him that shows you such things. 
 Yet fall not, but pray to be strengthened with all might 
 in the inner man, that you may endure the glory. Pray 
 without ceasing that he would lay his hand upon you, and 
 say, Be strong ; that he would grant you to be filled with 
 
 Q 
 
258 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 the spirit of revelation, that you may be able to compre- 
 hend the breadth and length and depth and height, and 
 know the love of Christ that passe th knowledge, being 
 filled with all the fulness of God. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 DIVINE SORROW. 
 " My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." — Matt. xxvi. 38. 
 
 IT may be doubted whether an absolute happiness be 
 possible, and whether the nature of mind does not ren- 
 der some contrasts of emotion inevitable. 
 
 If we are to have concord of musical sounds, we cannot 
 avoid the possibility of discord. So that the possibility of 
 the harshest dissonance is implied in the very existence of 
 harmony. Nay, more, it is found that discords introduced 
 according to certain laws, not only do not injure the effect, 
 but are indispensable to its highest perfection. And a 
 composer who should be compelled to construct his com- 
 position wholly of perfect chords would abandon his profes- 
 sion in despair. 
 
 So, in the execution of Nature's mighty landscape, we 
 find a similar principle of contrasts. In order to have 
 lights there must be shadows. The whole picture cannot 
 be made with bright lights. The brighter you wish the 
 light to be on some points, the darker the shade must be 
 in others. If the sun makes the peak of the precipice and 
 its shattered pinnacles glow like fire, it makes the deep 
 gorge and glen below seem black as night. Nor are Na- 
 ture's objects all painted of one bright color, nor even of 
 bright colors alone. There is an endless variety of colors ; 
 some bright and dazzling, some dark and sombre, others 
 of a neutral tint, and that of every possible shade. And 
 any eye that will study Nature's pictures will find that she 
 loves sad and gloomy colors just as much as bright and 
 joyous ones. 
 
260 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Moreover, the forms in nature show the same principle 
 of contrast. If there is symmetry in nature, there is also 
 deformity. If there is the line of beauty, there are lines 
 of uncouthness. And there are in nature as liberal stores 
 of the grotesque, the deformed, and the repulsive, as of the 
 beautiful. Wherever we turn our attention, in whatever 
 department of matter or of mind, this principle of contrasts 
 meets us as a necessary law of all being. 
 
 Now happiness is that light in the mental landscape of 
 which sorrow is the shadow. Bliss is that concord in the 
 moral symphony of which sadness is the discord. And 
 no sooner could landscapes have light without shade, music 
 concord without discord, than mind experience joy with- 
 out possible regret. 
 
 In the highest enjoyment there seems to be an element 
 of pain as the condition of its being. Enjoyment is the 
 gratification of a desire, and its intensity is in proportion 
 to the fervor of the craving. If the desire be cloyed or 
 stupefied or dead, the gratification of it can afford no 
 pleasure. The full soul loatheth an honeycomb. The 
 very acme of delight is that moment when desire is most 
 intense and thrilling, and when, if it did not obtain its 
 object, it would writhe in disappointment and anguish. 
 
 Every desire is a wish. Every wish is a want. Every 
 want contains in itself an element of pain. It is the felt 
 absence of a good. If this pain be kept within certain 
 limits it enhances pleasure, like the discords in music, like 
 contrasts and shadows in painting. To the hungry soul 
 every bitter thing is sweet. Hunger is the best sauce ; real 
 fatigue the best soporific. In summer we take kindly to 
 icebergs ; in winter we are on good terms with volcanoes. 
 
 What we call happiness seems nothing but an exquisite 
 balance between pleasure and pain. The line must be 
 drawn very fine, or the equilibrium is lost. It is not well 
 to sit too near the fire, nor too far off. Comfortable 
 
DIVINE SORROW. 261 
 
 warmth lies in the exact middle between freezing and 
 burning. The best cheer lies midway between satiety 
 and starvation. Neither extreme fatigue nor indolent 
 sluggishness is commendable. The true line of health- 
 ful, contented industry runs about midway between idle- 
 ness and bondage. 
 
 And if the sufferings of mankind could be analyzed 
 carefully, the greater part would be found to lie in the 
 disturbance of the equilibrium between want and supply, 
 desire and gratification. One class of mankind are miser- 
 able because the line is drawn too far on the side of desire. 
 They want everything, their desires are intense and vivid, 
 but they have nothing. Another class of mankind are 
 miserable because the line is drawn too far on the side 
 of satiety. They have everything, in such profusion that 
 desire is cloyed, sated, jaded, and they really want nothing. 
 They are miserable because they cannot feel a real healthy 
 desire for what they have. 
 
 This principle of equilibrium between opposing prin- 
 ciples seems to pervade nature. Two forces drive the 
 worlds in their orbits. One impels them to, the other 
 from, the sun. So long as these are exquisitely balanced, 
 the obsequious world wheels contentedly round and round 
 her annual path. Thus with minds, so long as the force 
 of want, which is painful, is balanced by the force of 
 supply, which is pleasurable, so long the contented soul 
 revolves in its appointed orbit of existence. 
 
 Therefore, of the happiest mind it may be said, with 
 philosophic accuracy, it is happy because it can feel the 
 uneasiness of strong desire, and knows how to let pain lift 
 the latch to pleasure, and the very pangs of desire resolve 
 into the thrills of ecstasy. 
 
 These principles would seem applicable to all mind as 
 mind. Difference of grade can hardly infer diversity of 
 principle. Or if an exception were to be sought, it would 
 
262 EEDEEMEK AND REDEEMED. 
 
 hardly be in the ascending, but in the descending series. 
 The higher the grade of mind, the more perfect the sus- 
 ceptibilities, the more, not less, these principles must hold 
 good. Even — with reverence be it spoken — when we 
 contemplate the laws of the Divine mind, we can discover 
 no reason for a reversal of this principle. 
 
 If there were in His eternal bosom no element of want 
 or desire, no craving, — if He were an infinite, stagnant 
 ocean, without tide or wave or ripple, — then where would 
 be the possibility of joy ? Joy would be impossible, simply 
 because desire was impossible. The Divine blessedness, 
 then, rests not on the impossibility of a Divine sorrow, but 
 on its possibility. It is because God is a being of true and 
 genuine emotions, of delicate susceptibilities to good and 
 evil, pleasure and pain, that he can be divinely blessed. 
 And if we reflect patiently on this subject, we shall see 
 that these principles not only apply to the Divine Being, 
 but that they apply in an ascending ratio, — in proportion 
 to his exaltation. 
 
 Does the infinite perfection of his attributes exempt him 
 from the liability to suffering ? This is the same as to ask 
 whether the more delicate a mind becomes the less sensi- 
 tr^e it grows, — whether the more perfect its faculties the 
 less impressible. Or whether, in proportion to the refine- 
 ment, scope, elevation, and intensity of emotion of a mind 
 is its insensibility. What would be thought of the philos- 
 opher who should affirm that the perfection of a thermom- 
 eter consisted in sensitiveness to heat, but not to cold ? or 
 of a barometer, in sensitiveness to atmospheric dryness, and 
 not moisture ? "What of a physiologist who should say that 
 the perfection of a living body would be sensitiveness to all 
 pleasurable sensations and functions, but not to their oppo- 
 sites ? Yet such would not be more incongruous concep- 
 tions than that the perfection of a mind should consist in 
 sensitiveness to sood, but not to evil. 
 
DIVINE SORROW. 263 
 
 On the other hand, observation shows us that as minds 
 ascend in the scale of possible enjoyment they ascend 
 equally in that of possible suffering. If you seek for 
 creatures least susceptible of pain, you do not go up among 
 the angels, but down among the oysters. It is the polypus 
 and the mollusk that are nearest to exemption from pain ; 
 but they have no eye, ear, smell, sense, nor organs, unless 
 it be a mouth, and faint touch and taste. 
 
 Ascend from the zoophytes. Add organ after organ. 
 The eye adds as wide a field of susceptibility to suffering 
 as to good. The ear the same. The smell the same. 
 Delicate organs of touch and of locomotion the same. And 
 when you reach such races as the dog, the elephant, the 
 horse, you certainly reach those where the susceptibility to 
 suffering is as widely enhanced as that of enjoyment. 
 Add, then, the faculties peculiar to man, and does not the 
 same law hold good ? If the lowest and most degraded 
 human beings can enjoy more than the highest of the lower 
 species, can they not suffer more ? 
 
 Is not that very reason that is most divine in us, that 
 conscious selfhood, that conscious accountability to eternal 
 truth and right, that lofty yearning after ideal good which 
 is in man the very signature of his godlike origin, — are 
 they not the very attributes that enable us to suffer as no 
 species of a lower grade can ? Is there not a quality to 
 the sorrow of a human being in its various vicissitudes of 
 sorrow, — in the very fact that it can reflect on its sorrow, 
 remember, compare, judge, foresee, and exercise all the 
 functions of conscious reason, — that makes that sorrow 
 more poignant ? 
 
 And among men, does not the principle still further de- 
 velop itself? Who is most acutely sensitive to false har- 
 mony ? Evidently he who is most delicately sensitive to 
 the delight of true concord. Who feels most bitterly the 
 pain of bereavement? He who experiences the tenderest 
 
264 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 delight in social relationships. Who writhe most ago- 
 nizingly under the stings of conscience ? Those who are 
 most alive to the claims of virtue and holiness. Who are 
 most oppressed with the woes and wants of their fellow- 
 men ? Those who are most tenderly gratified with the 
 sight of common prosperity and happiness. Thus the 
 higher the tone and calibre of a mind, and the greater its 
 susceptibility to intense enjoyment, the keener its liability 
 to the reverse. 
 
 Now if this be the general principle upward to man, and 
 through all the grades of human development, how must 
 it be when we ascend still higher? If we find angelic 
 races with still more exalted susceptibilities and wider 
 scope of being, with capacities for enjoyment far beyond 
 ours, must there not be a corresponding increase in their 
 susceptibility to suffering ? 
 
 They will see more clearly what is beautiful and what is 
 ugly, what is good and what is evil, what is benevolent 
 and what is selfish. All contrasts of moral qualities will 
 affect them more vividly. Their attachments must be more 
 intense, and their disappointments, if they have any, more 
 deep. And the higher w r e ascend, the wider the scope of 
 powers, and the more exalted their refinement, the greater 
 will be the possibility of experiencing suffering. 
 
 At the last, then, at the highest stage of being, must the 
 entire argument be reversed ? When we reach the highest 
 grade of mind, the widest scope of faculties, the greatest 
 strength and depth and intensity of emotion, the most 
 subtle refinement of susceptibility, shall we suddenly dis- 
 cover that there is an infinite increase of capacity for 
 pleasure and an infinite decrease or cessation of suscepti- 
 bility to pain ? 
 
 Far otherwise ! In the infinite capacities of the Divine 
 Being we find the highest possible scope for contrasts of 
 emotion. And if the Divine blessedness be a reality too 
 
DIVINE SORROW. 265 
 
 august, too ecstatic for us to conceive, it is so for this 
 reason, namely, that the mind which feels it is susceptible 
 to every variation, every possible tone and hue of feeling 
 throughout the mighty diapason of emotion. 
 
 If now from nature we turn to revelation, what light 
 does that throw on the question ? Does it not confirm the 
 general train of thought? The main elements of the 
 Divine blessedness,,, as revealed in Scripture, are, — the 
 conscious enjoyment of such attributes as eternal and 
 independent being, omnipresence, infinite power and 
 knoAvledge, conscious moral strength and rectitude, the 
 communion of the Trinity, and the filial affection of the 
 majority of His offspring, together with his foreknowledge 
 and anticipation of a redeemed and reorganized universe. 
 These constitute the Scriptural elements of the Divine 
 blessedness ; and it is indeed a glorious theme. 
 
 But the question is, whether the Bible breathes the im- 
 plication that this blessedness is absolute, — without con- 
 trast or admixture of any elements of regret or pain or 
 suffering of any kind? 
 
 On this point we find that from all pain or suffering or 
 regret inconsistent with his own attributes, as above con- 
 sidered, God is free, and must be forever. He has no such 
 sorrow or suffering as results from weakness or ignorance 
 or mistake or moral obliquity or imperfection of any kind 
 in himself. No sorrow which would impeach his charac- 
 ter, or essentially dim his glory, or abase that which is his 
 true majesty. But, aside from this, and with the subject 
 thus carefully guarded, we find that the Scriptures freely 
 use language implying some kind of painful emotion. 
 
 Thus in respect to sin, in all its forms, God is repre- 
 sented as expressing the most decided feelings of opposi- 
 tion and dislike. To a perfectly truthful nature, the mere 
 contact with fraud and guile must be repulsive. To 
 Infinite meekness, pride must seem loathsome. To infi- 
 
266 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 nite love, selfishness must appear odious. Under a per- 
 fectly wise, just, and kind moral government, an act of 
 insubordination must appear to God peculiarly unreason- 
 able and wrong. Therefore he says, " Pride, arrogancy, 
 and a fro ward mouth do I hate." Therefore he is said to 
 be offended. His wrath is revealed. His anger burns 
 like fire. And when sin extends, and rebellion organizes 
 itself from age to age, he endures with much long-suffer- 
 ing vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. And men^ 
 therefore, are said to treasure up wrath against the day of 
 wrath. 
 
 Are these feelings, then, of the Divine breast agreeable 
 feelings? Is God pleased with sin in itself? Is the sight 
 of it pleasant to him ? What do we mean by saying he is 
 displeased with it? — that it is unpleasant to him? Is 
 there not a contrast here ? God is pleased with holiness, 
 displeased with sin. Holiness is pleasant to him ; sin, un- 
 pleasant. Are both states of mind the same, and equally 
 agreeable ? Into what abyss of contradictions does the de- 
 nial of the Divine capability of suffering plunge us ! The 
 Lord is as well pleased when he is displeased as when he 
 is not. To what irreverence does it logically impel us ! 
 To the Infinite purity sin is as pleasing as holiness. How 
 can we maintain the holiness of God unless we admit a 
 contrast in point of agreeableness of feeling in witnessing 
 holiness and sin ? If he is indifferent, or feels just as agree- 
 ably at sight of sin as of holiness, how can we conceive him 
 to be holy ? Is it not the essential nature of holiness to be 
 painfully affected by the very existence of sin ? 
 
 But there is another consideration that comes in here. 
 Not only is a pure mind painfully affected by that which is 
 impure in itself, but it is especially so when the impurity 
 is seen in a beloved object. To witness the gradual corrup- 
 tion and final downfall of a dear child or relative or friend 
 is especially painful to an affectionate heart. Can parents 
 
DIVINE SORROW. 267 
 
 see their children become intemperate or vicious without 
 peculiar sorrow ? If sin be in itself painful to a virtuous 
 mind, is it not additionally so when seen in a beloved 
 object ? 
 
 Does not God speak as if it were so with him ? Does 
 he not seem to feel the rebellion of his children against 
 him ? And when, as a moral Governor, he is called to 
 pass sentence of death on them, does he not speak as if it 
 occasioned painful emotions ? Have I any pleasure in the 
 death of the wicked ? As I live, saith the Lord, I have 
 no pleasure at all in the death of him that dieth ! 
 
 What is the meaning of such language ? Does it not 
 seem to express real sorrow, real grief, real pain ? Must 
 we deprive the language of all meaning ? Must we force 
 upon these words, contrary to then nature, the signification 
 of absolute joy ? Does not such a course repeal the laws of 
 language, confuse all distinctions of right and wrong, and 
 plunge the mind into inextricable confusion ? 
 
 But the fullest and most convincing argument on this 
 matter lies in the person of Christ. There are those who 
 take Christ as a mere man, divinely inspired, indeed, but 
 not an incarnation of Deity. Yet even on this ground, 
 low and imperfect as we deem it, there is room for a pow- 
 erful appeal. For, even on this hypothesis, Christ was a 
 man whom God peculiarly sanctioned and set apart for the 
 special purpose of showing forth the Divine character. So 
 that in him we see God, at least by a true moral resem- 
 blance. So that, at least, by a close spiritual likeness, in 
 him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and he is to 
 us the brightness of his glory and the express image of his 
 person. 
 
 But if so, what an affecting idea does this present of that 
 God who selected this man of sorrows as his most expressive 
 representative ? Does Jesus, viewed as a mere man, filled 
 with pity, bearing all our sins and sorrows and diseases, and 
 
268 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 heart-broken at the ingratitude of his subjects, — does he 
 convey the idea of a God that is incapable of a feeling of 
 disquiet ? — whose heart has never known, and never can 
 know, the most superficial ripple of regret for all the sins 
 and sorrows and distresses of Ins children ? On the con- 
 trary, is not the idea of God which Jesus illustrates, taking 
 him as a mere man, just the opposite of this ; does he not 
 illustrate to us a Divine Father who can and does feel most 
 acutely both the ingratitude of his children and their deep 
 degradation ? 
 
 Even this view of Jesus, imperfect as it is, has enough in 
 it, one would think, to melt the heart and bring it in peni- 
 tence to a Father's feet. How much more when we take 
 the higher, and, as I believe, the only Scriptural view, that 
 Jesus, though a perfect man, was God become man. 
 
 Was it indeed the Word that was with God and was God 
 that became flesh and dwelt among us, and experienced all 
 fleshly vicissitudes painful as well as others ? Was it the 
 Lord who spread the heavens and founded the earth, who 
 humbled himself to be born of a virgin, and was there in 
 that humiliation no reality, and in the being who under- 
 went it no capacity for sorrow or suffering ? Was it indeed 
 the Lord who had glory with the Father before the world 
 began, who stood in servile form on earth, and toiled and 
 taught, hungered and thirsted, prayed and wept? Was it 
 indeed Jehovah, Israel's only Redeemer and King, who 
 visited them as David's son only to be insulted, smitten, 
 spit upon, and crucified? And was it Jehovah who, 
 through those pale and patient lips, could say, " My soul 
 is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." If it was, then 
 methinks the question is settled for all eternity whether the 
 Divine Being can experience sorrow and suffering and pain, 
 or not. 
 
 As we stand in the shadow of that cross, amid rending 
 rocks and yawning graves, under the darkness of a sky 
 
DIVINE SORROW. 269 
 
 of sackcloth ; as we see those trickling drops of blood 
 Divine ; as we hear that prayer, that last, loud, bitter cry ; 
 as we gaze upon the victim, dead at last, — methinks the 
 mighty lesson designed to be taught us, as with infinite 
 appeal, is the lesson of a sorrow not human merely, but 
 Divine, a grief not of any mere finite sufferer, but of an 
 infinite ; an anguish and a woe not of a mere created vic- 
 tim, but of an uncreated Ransom, whose expiation, like his 
 suffering, might be infinite. 
 
 The entire plan of redemption, from the laying the 
 foundation of the world to the last shout of redeemed 
 myriads about the Redeemer's throne, is a plan springing 
 out from, and illustrative of, the Divine sorrow. 
 
 Not, indeed, that the Divine blessedness was thereby 
 annihilated or obliterated. But it was a blessedness 
 mixed with endurance, a cup of felicity mingled with drops 
 of bitterness. It was a blessedness largely of anticipation, 
 and qualified by present sorrow. It was for the joy set 
 before him that he endured the cross despising the shame. 
 It was in the anticipation of a redeemed and regenerated 
 universe, that the Divine mind sustained itself in the pos- 
 session of a conscious blessedness through an age-long 
 night of storm, and darkness, and self-denial, and suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 In taking leave of the discussion, we observe that it is a 
 point of great importance to know what God men are 
 worshipping. This was the great question anciently, — 
 Jehovah or Baal, — the living God or idols ? It is so now. 
 For though no outward shrine be raised, though there 
 be no image, though the name of God be retained, yet 
 it is as easy to fashion an idol out of ideas as ever it was 
 of wood or stone. It is easy to conceive of a false char- 
 acter and false attributes, and dress up in the thoughts a 
 being that shall be no more like the reality of God than 
 Moloch. And therefore, even among professing Christians, 
 
270 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 the great question is, what God are you worshipping, — 
 the true God as he is, as he reveals himself in Christ, in 
 his word, in nature, and in the soul, or some monstrous 
 philosophical idol enthroned in his place ? 
 
 For if they call on us to worship any such deity, — a 
 being heartless and unsympathetic, a being as opposite to 
 Christ as arctic winter to tropical spring, — and if they 
 invoke all the tremendous sanctions of endless retribution 
 to enforce such worship, it is our duty to refuse the 
 blasphemous idolatry. We will not bow the knee. This 
 God, we reply, — when any such portrait is drawn before 
 us, — is not our God. Ours is a God of infinite tender- 
 ness and sympathy, and the best idea of his susceptibility 
 of heart is revealed in Jesus. Any other is a false God, 
 a philosophical idol, — we will not bow down to it nor 
 serve it. 
 
 This view of the character of God, once more, is 
 adapted to soften the heart and bring men to repentance. 
 As long as it is possible to persuade men that their father 
 is indifferent, unfeeling, and that all their evil conduct 
 does not trouble him, or diminish his happiness in the least, 
 so long men will grow colder and harder, and more des- 
 perate in alienation. Nothing will so soon melt the heart 
 of man, as to see that God is and always has been patient, 
 much enduring, long suffering, and that in Christ the story 
 of his feelings is all told. 
 
 This, reader, is the God you have sinned against. When 
 I summon you to repent of sin, this is what I mean by sin, 
 namely, your treatment of such a Being as this. When I 
 speak to you of confession, of forgiveness, this is the Being 
 in whose ear you are to say, "Father, I have sinned," and 
 whose lips must answer, " Thy sins be forgiven thee." 
 You may refuse to repent and seek forgiveness, but all 
 eternity cannot make your conduct either right, honorable, 
 or blest. He is good, patient, and magnanimous. " His 
 
DIVINE SORROW. 271 
 
 work is honorable." His complaint against you is not 
 imaginary nor trivial. You have truly wounded him. He 
 is both grieved and indignant. You must confess your sin. 
 You must ask forgiveness. If not, that feeling of displeas- 
 ure will abide on you forever. But if you do, if you say, 
 " Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee," 
 he will not only pardon, but call on angels to rejoice, say- 
 ing, " It is meet that we should make merry, for this my 
 son was dead, but is alive again, was lost, but is found." 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 
 
 " Of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment." — 
 Heb. vi. 2. 
 
 THE principles of the doctrine of Christ are those 
 simple truths that lie at the foundation of religion, <— 
 alphabet truths, elementary to higher knowledge, always 
 taken for granted both in the Divine treatment of man- 
 kind and in the Bible. 
 
 Repentance is a first principle, since the whole treat- 
 ment of the race by Providence is as if it were a revolted 
 race, and the Bible always so speaks of it. Faith is a 
 first principle, all God's conduct, as well as his language, 
 proclaiming him the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and 
 gracious, slow to anger and abundant in goodness, forgiving 
 iniquity, transgression, and sin. Baptism and the laying on 
 of hands are elementary to the social well-being of believ- 
 ers, during Christ's absence in heaven. They need to be 
 associated, edified, taught, governed. The resurrection 
 and eternal judgment consistently close the list of ele- 
 mentary truths. It is the obvious winding up of all, that 
 believers should be glorified and crowned in immortality, 
 while unbelievers should be judged according to their deeds. 
 
 All these elements are simple, plain, and vitally united 
 as parts of one living body of truth. They must live or 
 die together. If repentance be denied, eternal judg- 
 ment falls as a matter of course ; and, vice versa, if the 
 resurrection and eternal judgment be undermined, repent- 
 ance and faith will not long survive. If repentance, faith, 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 273 
 
 resurrection, and eternal judgment are lost, baptism and 
 the laying on of hands are lost also, or if the latter are 
 rejected, the former will not long be retained with any life 
 and power. 
 
 Against one of these elementary truths, however,— 
 eternal judgment, — a wide-spread reaction exists, not 
 only among the immoral and profane, but among many 
 of moral lives and apparent piety. The denial of eternal 
 punishment, in one form or another, is doubtless the great 
 characteristic of the age, and the animating principle of 
 the assault upon the authenticity and inspiration of the 
 Bible. That onset, the most formidable ever known, 
 arises in great measure from the difficulty of detaching 
 the idea of everlasting punishment from Christianity. 
 
 Now, that the disloyal should be opposed to the execu- 
 tion of the penalties of treason is not strange ; but that 
 the loyal should sympathize with them is remarkable, and 
 indicates the presence of error and misconception. If a 
 man does not sympathize with his government in the 
 execution of just penalty upon traitors, it evinces that he 
 himself is either disloyal or deceived. And as it is difficult 
 to argue against prejudice, caused by latent misconception, 
 it becomes necessary first to define the doctrine and clear 
 it of misrepresentations, and then to prove it. Concisely, 
 then, I observe, the doctrine of eternal judgment is not 
 
 1. That a part of mankind were created on purpose to 
 sin and suffer forever. 
 
 " The chief end of man," we are taught, " is to glorify 
 God and enjoy him forever." And if that be the chief 
 end of man, it is the chief end of man's Creator in creat- 
 ing him. The chief end of God in creating man, and 
 all his creatures, was, that they should glorify and enjoy 
 him forever. If any fail of the true purpose of their 
 being, it is a departure from the original end and aim of 
 God in their being. 
 
 12* E 
 
274 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 It would be just as reasonable to say that the ship- 
 wright created the ship that dashes upon the rocks and is 
 wrecked for that express purpose, as to say that God 
 created souls that rebel and are lost for that purpose. 
 What ! a government create creatures expressly to rebel ? 
 Is it, indeed, the highest conception we can form of a wise 
 moral government, that it should initiate, develop, and 
 ripen a rebellion against itself? 
 
 2. The doctrine is not that the sufferings of the lost are 
 in themselves an element of happiness to the righteous, 
 and necessary to enhance their bliss by contrast. 
 
 True, when great Babylon falls we hear a voice from on 
 high exclaiming, " Rejoice over her, thou heaven ; . . . . and 
 again they said Allelulia, and her smoke rose up forever." 
 But this only represents in a vivid manner the rejoicing of 
 benevolent minds over the downfall of a despotism of ages. 
 
 So, all patriots in this land would rejoice were Richmond 
 taken, Charleston swept off from the face of the earth, and 
 the smoke of an atrocious rebellion ascending forever to the 
 eye of back-looking generations of the Republic. Yet it 
 would not be in the personal sufferings of the defeated 
 conspirators we should rejoice, but in the deliverance of 
 the country and the world from a tyranny so thoroughly 
 diabolic. 
 
 All heaven and all holy beings will rejoice, not in the 
 personal sufferings of the Devil and his angels and lost 
 men, but that a gigantic rebellion has failed, and failed for- 
 ever, the majesty of the Divine government been vindi- 
 cated the interests of the loyal universe eternally secured. 
 
 3. The doctrine is not that there is a literal place of 
 physical torment by material fire. 
 
 Such a conception belongs to a superstitious age and an 
 unreasonable religion. An irrational system needs a brutal 
 conception of punishment to intimidate reason and overawe 
 investigation. 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 275 
 
 Those ages of the Church in which sensuous images have 
 been most prominent have not been the purest, but the 
 reverse. Nowhere do we find the literal sense of the 
 emblems so insisted on, and the imagination of Christen- 
 dom so saturated therewith, as in those ages when holiness 
 was most nearly extinct, and the corruptions of the Church 
 at their height. The insufficiency of gross material con- 
 ceptions on this subject to purity or restrain is also demon- 
 strated in various heathen systems, — such as Boodhism 
 and Brahminism, which even rival Rome in the vividness 
 of their descriptions of physical suffering hereafter. 
 
 Such exhibitions, no doubt, may have exerted some 
 restraint in a rude and barbarous age. But they un- 
 doubtedly contributed to perpetuate the rudeness and the 
 barbarism to which they were naturally allied. 
 
 The true law by which the vivid imagery of Scripture 
 on this subject is to be interpreted is, the law of analogy, 
 a law the opposite of fanciful, and as rigidly scientific as the 
 law of geometric proportion. 
 
 Pride, ambition, deceit, hatred, selfishness, are, in their 
 own nature, like fire to the soul inflamed by them ; and as 
 they have no tendency to self-recovery, so they are, if not 
 Divinely quenched, an eternal fire. Moreover, the sense 
 of blame, from exposure to the just displeasure of God and 
 holy beings, affects the mind like fire. Men shrink from 
 it as they do from flame ; they seek to cover themselves 
 from it by fig-leaf excuses, by self-justification, as instinc- 
 tively as they cover the naked body from the scorching 
 tropical sun. 
 
 What the emblems of the Bible really mean, then, is, 
 that a time will come when the rebellion shall be entirely 
 defeated, all its designs frustrated, and its real history, 
 principles, and character disclosed, and the righteous judg- 
 ment of God in respect to it fully and finally revealed. 
 
 If the rebellion in this land, for example, chooses to 
 
276 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 identify itself with pride, fraud, and cruelty, and if our 
 government, in any good degree, chooses to identify itself 
 with humility, honesty, and universal benevolence, then 
 the failure of rebellion, and total defeat of its desperate 
 machinations and exposure to the universal abhorrence of 
 mankind must be, to the desperate conspirators, like fire 
 unquenchable. 
 
 And this we take to be one design of Divine providence 
 in this whole national convulsion. The providence of God 
 so overrules it as to give a striking illustration on a temporal 
 stage of the principles of eternal judgment as they will be 
 applied in the suppression of the revolt against God's throne. 
 
 And if we would understand the doctrine ; if we would 
 be in a right position to estimate the evidence bearing upon 
 it, and to resist the sweep of disloyal sympathies setting 
 through the community against it, we must be sure that our 
 minds are purged of those gross and sensuous conceptions, 
 by which as much as by any other one means the great re- 
 bellion has manufactured a sympathetic public sentiment 
 against God, and in its own favor. 
 
 4. The doctrine is not that those who would gladly submit, 
 if they might, will be endlessly punished for a single sin, or 
 for the sins of a brief existence. 
 
 The Bible gives no authority for supposing a time will 
 ever come when, if all in rebellion against God should sub- 
 mit, they would not be pardoned. It is true, a time will 
 come when all offers of mercy and all special efforts to per- 
 suade them to submit will cease, but that is all. And that 
 is a very different thing from supposing a time when, if they 
 did submit, they would not be pardoned. The efforts cease 
 because they are useless ; because they have been carried 
 as far as they can be consistently. But it does not therefore 
 follow that, should submission take place, it would not be 
 accepted. 
 
 Seventy years have elapsed since my honored father 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 277 
 
 taught that " the exile from heaven " of the wicked will be 
 " as voluntary as it is just," and that God " will send to 
 hell none who are not by voluntary sin and rebellion unfitted 
 for heaven." x Nor have these declarations ever been called 
 in question, nor are they likely to be, if the following passage 
 in a leading quarterly is allowed to pass without particular 
 animadversion : — 
 
 "Even in hell, if a sinner shall choose God instead of 
 himself, as his object of supreme affection, .... his choice 
 thenceforth will be satisfactory to God and to his own moral 
 nature, and the sting of present sin will be extracted. And 
 it is even more certain that the benevolence of God would 
 find a way to pardon his past sin, than that any one will 
 ever in a future world thus form the choice which God's 
 law will there as here require." 2 
 
 5. The doctrine is not that the capacities of the mind for 
 suffering will eternally increase and expand, and omnipo- 
 tence expend all its energies in filling those capacities with 
 torture to the utmost. 
 
 Views of this kind have been resorted to, no doubt, with 
 a good motive, in order to rouse men to a sense of danger. 
 But the conception is so fearful that many Christians have 
 felt unable to bear it. And this feeling has contributed not 
 a little to a reaction against the doctrine itself. 
 
 Now, while we ought not to make the consequences of 
 sin any less fearful than they certainly will be, there is no 
 need of trying to make them more so. We want, on a 
 subject so solemn, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
 but the truth. 
 
 On what authority, then, is it asserted that the capacities 
 of the wicked will eternally increase ? It is not self-evident. 
 It is not demonstrable by the light of nature. On the con- 
 trary, from the observed tendencies of sin to dwarf and 
 
 1 The Government of God desirable. "Works, Vol. II. p. 14. 
 
 2 Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1863, p. 184. 
 
278 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 degrade the powers, we might infer, aside from revelation, 
 that the consciousness of the wicked would finally become 
 extinct. It is only from the word of God that we learn 
 the contrary. But in what part of God's word is it revealed 
 that the wicked will increase in capacity forever ? Is not 
 this an unauthorized statement, an invention of man ? 
 
 And as to the idea that omnipotence will expend itself 
 forever in filling that capacity with direct positive torture 
 to the utmost, on what authority is so much asserted ? Is 
 the doctrine of an absolute misery self-evident ? Can it be 
 proved by the light of nature ? Can the mind choose with- 
 out motive ? Is not choice always as the greatest ap- 
 parent good ? If exile from heaven is voluntary, is it not 
 an apparent good ? Is it not because, however miserable 
 without, the reprobate would be more miserable within? 
 Is is not because, while his character remains unchanged, 
 outer darkness appears less intolerable than the light unap- 
 proachable of the Divine purity? And does not pride 
 refuse to yield because submission appears more painful 
 than all the torments of perdition ? 
 
 On what, then, rests the doctrine of a suffering meta- 
 physically absolute ? Does the Bible unequivocally reveal 
 it ? Does it not rather invalidate it by such expressions as 
 " whatsoever loveth and maketh a he," and by sanctioning 
 the principle that sin will be voluntary forever ? And has 
 not the Church in all ages allowed this latitude of theologic 
 speculation without protest or censure ? 1 
 
 Milton, for instance, represents Lucifer as saying, 
 
 " Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." 
 
 And describes his infernal palace as built 
 
 1 It is a maxim of Catholic theology, derived from Augustine, " that the 
 ■will necessarily seeks good, and cannot seek evil ratione mali, but only 
 ratione boni, whence all sin that ever has been committed, up to the first lapse 
 from God of Satan, has been caused by the desire for apparent good." — 
 Brownson's Quarterly, July, 1863, p. 294. 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 279 
 
 " with the sound 
 Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet." 
 
 He also represents Satan, when going in quest of earth, 
 as exhorting his assembled angels to 
 
 " intend at home, 
 While here shall be our home, what best may ease 
 The present misery, and render hell 
 More tolerable." 
 
 Indeed, Milton is not afraid to ascribe some moral excel- 
 lence to the fallen angels, — 
 
 " For neither do the spirits damned 
 Lose all their virtue." 
 
 He represents their various efforts during Lucifer's ab- 
 sence to 
 
 " entertain 
 The irksome hours " 
 
 by games, and feats of skill, and military evolutions, or by 
 music, poetry, philosophy, and even by theology, as 
 
 " Others apart sat on a hill retired 
 In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high 
 Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, 
 Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, 
 And found no end in wandering mazes lost." 
 
 Yet Christendom has neither censured nor defended this, 
 but simply acquiesced in it as the only view on which an 
 epic could be written so as not to offend the common sense 
 of mankind. Indeed, we are constrained to think it as im- 
 practicable to compose a story on the theory of the strictly 
 absolute misery of the principal characters, as it would be 
 on the theory of their invariably choosing contrary to the 
 strongest motive or the greatest apparent good. 
 
 It is true, the emblems of the Bible with respect to 
 eternal judgment are fearfully impressive. The wine 
 of the wrath of God is poured out without mixture into 
 the cup of his indignation. The dispensation of Divine 
 
280 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 silence and restraint ends. The dispensation of the reve- 
 lation of his righteous judgment begins. 
 
 But it has been well observed, " that the fearful de- 
 scriptions which the Bible presents of the condition of the 
 lost are such as a holy mind would give, and not such as 
 the sinner himself would draw. The picture which a 
 sober, virtuous, and true man would put upon the canvas, 
 of a drunken, profane, and polluted wretch, would scarce- 
 ly be recognized by the vile man himself. He might 
 boast, even, of his bad eminence, glory in his shame, and 
 account his ruin a reward." 1 
 
 To us, indeed, the filthiness of a swine in its sty is dis- 
 gusting ; to the swine it does not appear so. To an honest 
 man, the rage of speculation in the country's hour of 
 need seems like a fire in the soul ; to Shylock it may 
 appear otherwise, as he clutches his bags of gold. The 
 orgies of vice and debauchery are regarded with very 
 different eyes by the virtuous and by the vicious. To the 
 one they seem like a scene of torment, by the other 
 they may be termed paradise. 
 
 There are places on earth so infernal, that, in the cus- 
 tomary language of society, they are called hells. Yet 
 gamblers do not appear to realize that they are places to 
 the eye of God full of unquenchable fire. It seems to 
 be the very nature of sin to blind the mind of the sinner 
 to his own unhappy state, and make him say, 
 
 "Evil, be thou my good." 
 
 Hence, however miserable the condition of the wicked 
 in eternity will appear to them, it is certain that to God it 
 must appear infinitely more so, and must be described in 
 terms expressive of his view of the case rather than 
 theirs. Nor does the suggestion impair the force of mo- 
 tive, but the reverse ; for, in the language of the writer 
 
 1 Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1863, p. 188. 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 281 
 
 already quoted, " Although in a certain way it modifies the 
 impression in regard to the severity of God made by the 
 Bible descriptions of future and eternal punishment, it 
 does not in the least abate the solemn meaning of the 
 Scriptures ; for the picture which the holy mind of God, 
 by his prophets and apostles, draws of the condition of the 
 lost, is the true one. The sinner will not be unconscious 
 of suffering, any more than the drunkard who can give 
 the most graphic account of his miserable experiences is 
 unconscious of suffering ; and the fact, that the sinner will 
 be in a state to choose his sins, with the sufferings they 
 involve, only makes his doom the more fearful to contem- 
 plate." 1 
 
 We should remember, also, that the style of the Bible on 
 this subject is highly figurative and emblematic, and that 
 hyperbole is one of the most familiar characteristics of 
 such a style. This is the case in the language of ordinary 
 life. The office of figures and emblems is to kindle the 
 torpid imagination, and carry the dull mind to a higher 
 pitch than it would otherwise attain. Hence the figure 
 must always flash above and beyond the reality. Like 
 cannon at long range, figures must be pointed too high. 
 
 The language of every-day life is replete with hyper- 
 bole. Descriptions of political revolutions are full of 
 images of earthquake, tornado, and volcanic eruption. 
 
 How often is some defeated aspirant described in terms 
 which, if literal, would imply excessive torment. No one 
 misunderstands this. All know that, though intensely 
 chagrined and mortified by the defeat of his ambitious 
 projects, he is living quietly in retirement. True, he may 
 have no taste for the simple pleasures of home ; the en- 
 joyment of existence is in a manner spoiled ; but he is 
 still conscious of many sensations that are of a pleasurable 
 description. 
 
 1 Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1863, p. 188. 
 
282 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Such being the law of figurative language in every-day 
 life, we turn to the Bible and find that all portions of 
 prophecy relating to Divine judgments in this world are 
 constructed on this principle, and are always so regarded 
 by interpreters. 
 
 What possible hyperbole stronger, for example, than 
 Isaiah employs to denote the destruction of Idumsea ? 
 u Their slain shall be cast out, and their stink shall come 
 up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be 
 melted with their blood." Or than is used 2 Kings xxi. 
 13, to foretell the captivity of Judah ? " And I will wipe 
 Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning 
 it upside down." 
 
 Let any one open a treatise on the Apocalypse, of any 
 school of interpretation, and see to what extent hyperbole 
 is universally recognized in all portions relating to temporal 
 things. How, then, can it be proved to be confined to 
 them ? How can it be shown that, in respect to eternal 
 things, prophecy is constructed upon a wholly different 
 principle ? If not, if there is a probability that the principle 
 is uniform throughout all prophecy, both in regard to things 
 temporal and things eternal, then the foundation of the 
 theory of a strictly absolute suffering would be removed. 
 
 Men never misunderstand hyperbole in every-day life. 
 They never misunderstand it in prophecies of temporal 
 judgment; but there is some reason to think they have 
 misunderstood it in prophecies of eternal judgment. Men 
 have infused into God's language a tinge of malignity that 
 does not properly belong to him. They have, as it were, 
 bit and stung God's words till they are red and angry. 
 They have judged God by themselves, or rather made him 
 worse than themselves, for they have infused a venom into 
 his language they never think of injecting into their own. 
 
 God is a moral Governor, and his government the ideal 
 of good government. All that is essentially right in earthly 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 283 
 
 governments is but a faint reflex or copy of the Divine, and 
 nothing that is plainly a vice or defect in earthly govern- 
 ments can claim the sanction of a Divine example. 
 
 Is, then, the direct torture of prisoners by earthly govern- 
 ments an excellence ? History answers in the negative. It 
 is the savage who puts his captive to death by slow tortures. 
 It is scarcely less than savage Roman civilization that em- 
 ployed a mode of execution so cruel as crucifixion. It was 
 the civilization of the Dark Ages, in countries misnamed 
 Christian, that legalized the rack, the wheel, the thumb- 
 screw, and the boot, and made prisons frightful abodes of 
 misery. More enlightened days have laid aside the torture 
 and reformed the prison system. And should this govern- 
 ment, in case the rebellion were suppressed, proceed to the 
 torture of its chief, the spectacle would excite the abhor- 
 rence of Christendom. 
 
 Now it is the Reformation of the sixteenth century that 
 has revolutionized the mind of Christendom on this subject, 
 and abolished forever the practice of torture. Of course 
 it is impossible to continue to view the Divine government 
 as it was viewed before this change, or to use colors that 
 might be freely employed by minds familiarized to the 
 usages of barbarism. 
 
 Representations of the Divine government have been 
 made in former times that transcend in horror all that was 
 ever practised or conceived on earth. All that savages 
 ever invented at the stake, all that inquisitors ever perpe- 
 trated in their gloomy adyta, all that the brutal legislation 
 of a midnight world ever sanctioned, is as nothing to that 
 which the Divine government has been described as prac- 
 tising upon the persons of its criminals, omnipotently and 
 forever. 
 
 But that same risen Redeemer, who by his word and 
 spirit and providence has rendered it impossible for us to 
 allow our government to torment the worst rebel that ever 
 
284 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 breathed, renders it impossible to conceive of the Divine 
 government, which is ours as no earthly government can 
 be, doing the same. 
 
 The Divine government will use all force necessary to 
 break the power of rebellion utterly and forever, and 
 will express fully its just abhorrence of the conduct of 
 Satan and all identified with him, and will place the repro- 
 bate under due restraint, where they can do the state no 
 harm, and may yield coerced service as convicts in the 
 penitentiary. But to the infliction of direct, positive, abso- 
 lute torture for its own sake, the Divine government will 
 not proceed. 
 
 The just indignation of God against the ineffable atrocity 
 of the rebellion will be expressed, because to express it is 
 right and consistent with the highest benevolence, not for 
 the sake of inflicting pain. All the inflictions of future 
 retribution will be perfectly consistent with benevolence. 
 They will have not the slightest tinge of malevolence. 
 
 The Divine government will eternally conform to its 
 own revealed precept, " Love your enemies." God will 
 never to all eternity do anything to his enemies which is 
 not, all things considered, for the best good of the universe, 
 themselves included. It is no paradox to say that it is for 
 the supreme good of spirits fixed in pride, fraud, and cru- 
 elty, for God to abhor them, and express his abhorrence. 
 It would be worse for them, continuing what they are, for 
 God not to abhor them and not to manifest his abhorrence. 
 And if the Divine treatment does not in fact make them 
 happy, it is not because God is not willing they should be 
 happy provided they would submit, but because he sees 
 that they will not submit, and because they see that he 
 justly abhors their conduct ; in short, it is because truth 
 can never please a liar, meekness never satisfy pride, dis- 
 interestedness never make selfishness happy. 
 
 6. The doctrine is not that the race as a race will 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 285 
 
 be finally lost, and that only a small remnant will be 
 saved. 
 
 As in Adam all die a natural death, so in Christ shall all 
 be made alive with spiritual and eternal life. But in Adam 
 all do not die a natural death with no exceptions. Enoch 
 was an exception. The whole generation of believers living 
 at the second advent will be exceptions, as Paul implies by 
 saying, " We shall not all sleep," that is, we shall not all 
 die. Now as there are exceptions under the first clause, 
 so there are exceptions under the second. As, with some 
 exceptions, all die in Adam, so with some exceptions shall 
 all be made alive in Christ. 
 
 Half the race die in infancy, and are saved, and these, 
 with such adults as find the narrow road, make a majority 
 in the darkest ages, even on the assumption that all adult 
 heathen are lost. But is this assumption capable of proof ? 
 That they will not be saved by mere natural religion with- 
 out Christ is, of course, certain. But is it certain that the 
 judgment-day will not show every human being to have 
 had Christ offered to him, and his eternal destiny to have 
 been fixed by his accepting or rejecting Christ? On what 
 does the " Come ye blessed " and " Depart ye cursed " of 
 the judgment-seat depend, but upon " Ye did it," or " Ye 
 did it not, — to me"? 
 
 Can it be that " Him hath God set forth a propitiation, 
 not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world," 
 and yet the immense majority for six thousand years have 
 no opportunity to avail themselves of his propitiation ? If 
 " God so loved the world as to give his Son to die, that 
 whosoever believe th in him shall not perish," and if 
 Christ came " not to condemn the world, but that the 
 world through him might be saved," does it seem likely 
 that the almost entire world for sixty centuries must per- 
 ish eternally, without any opportunity to believe and be 
 saved? 
 
286 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 No. It cannot be. Christ, who " tasted death for every 
 man," Christ, who said, " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all 
 men unto me," will not be found at the judgment to have 
 been withheld from the immense majority of mankind from 
 the beginning of the world to the millennium. 
 
 The offer of Christ to the adult heathen is as probable 
 as to heathen infants dying in infancy. The acceptance 
 of the offer in the one case is as probable as in the other. 
 The salvation of the latter, according to the creeds, de- 
 pends entirely on the assumption of their being elect, and 
 so comprised in the declaration, " Elect infants dying in 
 infancy are regenerated and saved by the Holy Spirit, who 
 worketh when and how and where he pleaseth." x But is 
 there not as much evidence that some adult heathen are 
 elect, as that all dying in infancy are ? By what logic can 
 it be proved that in heathen countries all elect persons die 
 in infancy, and only the non-elect live to grow up ? If that 
 could be proved, would it not diminish someAvhat the horror 
 with which the practice of infanticide in past ages has usu- 
 ally been regarded? 
 
 If we are at liberty, without any special evidence, and 
 chiefly because we like to think so, to consider all heathen 
 infants elect, may we not with equal propriety for the same 
 reason consider some heathen adults elect, and apply to 
 them the words of the Confession, "So also are all other 
 elect persons, who are outwardly incapable of being called 
 by the Word." There is no more difficulty in regard to 
 time, place, and manner, in the case of the adult heathen, 
 than in that of the infant. The " when, how, and where 
 he pleaseth," which avails for the latter, avails equally for 
 the former. 
 
 Hence, however small in any particular age thus far the 
 number of adults who find the narrow road, there is no 
 evidence that, when we reach the end of the millennium, 
 
 1 Confession of Faith, Chap. X. Sec. 3. 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 287 
 
 in which generation after generation have been marching 
 in unbroken ranks into the kingdom, we shall find the ma- 
 jority of the race ready to say of Christ with the Jews of 
 old, " Not this man, but Barabbas." The Arch-apostate 
 no doubt likes to have it generally supposed that at the 
 very last he will carry the race against Christ by a hand- 
 some majority. Let us be careful how we concede to the 
 rebellion all it is pleased to claim. 
 
 The Scriptures countenance no such boastful pretence. 
 On the contrary, the vote of the overwhelming majority, 
 of the race is to put the crown on the brow of the Re- 
 deemer, and those who do not say amen are so insignificant 
 a minority, that they are nowhere and nothing in the final 
 outburst of hosannas. The wicked shall be as though they 
 had not been. They shall wake to shame and everlast- 
 ing contempt. Nor can we find better language in which 
 to sum up our conceptions on this subject than the follow- 
 ing, uttered years before we were born, and received by 
 Christians generally with unanimous approval : — 
 
 " How vast soever the kingdom of darkness may be, in 
 itself considered, it is certainly nothing but the prison of 
 the universe, and small compared with the realms of light 
 and glory. The misery of that unholy community whose 
 exile from heaven is as voluntary as it is just, when the 
 eye is fixed upon that only, fills the soul with trembling ; 
 but when .... we raise the adoring eye to God, reigning 
 throughout his boundless dominions and rejoicing in their 
 joy, the world of misery shrinks to a point, and the wail- 
 ings of the miserable die away and are lost in the song of 
 praise." 1 
 
 Neither of these is the true doctrine of eternal judgment 
 which the Holy Spirit sets side by side with repentance 
 and faith. They constitute no part or portion of it. They 
 are ail more or less of the nature of rebel lies, imposed on 
 
 1 Works of Lyman Beechcr, D.D., Vol. II. p. 18. 
 
288 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 the credulous loyal mind by sleight and cunning craftiness, 
 to excite odium against God, manufacture sympathy for the 
 rebellion, and prevent true conviction of sin. 
 
 They all hide the true issue, and misrepresent the na- 
 ture of the controversy, and tend to keep the revolted will 
 from returning to its allegiance. What, then, is the true 
 doctrine ? It is this : — 
 
 Some now in rebellion against God will never sub- 
 mit, AND THEREFORE WILL NEVER BE PARDONED, BUT WILL 
 EXIST FOREVER TO EXPERIENCE THE LEGITIMATE CONSE- 
 QUENCES OF THEIR OWN EVIL PASSIONS, AND OF THE FULLY 
 REVEALED ABHORRENCE OF GoD AND OF THE HOLY UNI- 
 VERSE. 
 
 To this exhibition of the subject two classes may per- 
 haps object, — those who think we concede nothing, and 
 those who think we concede everything. 
 
 The former will probably say that, if one single soul is to 
 suffer eternally, it vitiates for them the bliss of heaven, and 
 eclipses the glory of God. 
 
 Of such we would respectfully ask, would you have us 
 deny the evidence of the senses which testify the existence 
 of lies and murder ? Would you have us concede that 
 lying and murder are normal, are divine ? Would you have 
 us hold God accountable for the existence of all lying and 
 murder, and therefore for their removal ? And is it your 
 opinion that because lies and murder have existed six thou- 
 sand years consistently with the Divine perfections, there- 
 fore they cannot exist another six thousand, and another, 
 and so on ad infinitum? Is it your idea of an intuitive 
 truth, that what has been cannot be ? 
 
 Is it possible that there is no foundation whatever for 
 the tremendous belief of Christendom for so many ages ? 
 Is truth all on one side, error all on the other? Or would 
 vou desire us to present the cause of the Divine govern- 
 ment, at issue with rebellion, in such a light as to make it 
 either odious or contemptible? 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 289 
 
 To such as think too great concessions have been made, 
 we beg leave to submit, that it is the most honorable as 
 well as the most expedient method in controversy, to 
 concede all that a fair-minded opponent can reasonably 
 claim. Christianity is thoroughly reasonable, — intensely 
 so. The voice of God in the whole mediatorial economy 
 is, " Come, let us reason together." God needs no false 
 premises nor sophistical and fallacious methods. He is not 
 obliged to us if we volunteer to defend him by unsound 
 arguments. "Will ye lie for God?" he says. It is a 
 first principle in theology, as in war, to abandon indefen- 
 sible positions, and fortify those which are defensible. 
 
 And why should we not concede all that has now been 
 indicated? Can any desire to think that God created 
 some on purpose to rebel forever; that He enjoys the 
 sufferings of the wicked; that He will exert omnipotence 
 for the direct, excruciating torture of state prisoners ? Can 
 any one feeL sorry that so many are to be saved, or regret 
 that more will not be lost? Can any Christian heart be 
 pained at the idea that the race, by an overwhelming vote, 
 will put the crown on the brow of the Redeemer ? 
 
 And is it not our true wisdom to concede to the spirit 
 of the age all it can with any show of reason claim, and 
 join issue only on points so simple, so clearly defensible, 
 that our opponents must feel that they are fighting against 
 reason, which is fighting against God? 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 
 
 " Of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment." — 
 Heb. vi. 2. 
 
 THE doctrine of eternal judgment, we have shown, is 
 not, that God created a part of mankind on purpose 
 to be miserable forever ; nor that the sufferings of the 
 lost will, in themselves considered, enhance the enjoy- 
 ment of the saved ; nor that any will be eternally rejected 
 who would gladly submit ; nor that there will be a place 
 of physical torment by literal fire and brimstone ; nor 
 that the Divine government will put state prisoners to the 
 torture for the sake of torture ; nor that the great major- 
 ity of the race will be lost. 
 
 The true statement of the doctrine, as held by the 
 majority of Christians at the present day, and as we pro- 
 pose to prove it, is as follows. Some now in rebellion 
 against the Divine government will never submit, and 
 therefore will never be pardoned, but will exist forever 
 to experience the legitimate consequences of their own 
 evil passions, and of the fully revealed abhorrence of God, 
 and of the holy universe. 
 
 1. Rebellion exists. 
 
 The advocates of universal salvation often, if not al- 
 ways, deny this. To deny it, however, one must, appar- 
 ently, suppose God's government over mind to be just 
 like his government over matter. But this is a mistake. 
 They are widely different. The former is moral, over 
 accountable agents, by motive ; the latter natural, over 
 inert atoms, by necessary causation. 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 291 
 
 Under the latter rebellion is impossible. Stones, streams, 
 stars, and storms cannot resist his will. If moral govern- 
 ment were equally absolute, minds could not. But the 
 foundation of moral government is laid in the free consent 
 of the governed. God has, indeed, the power to force his 
 measures through without the intelligent approval of his 
 subjects, but he has no taste for the method of absolutism. 
 He is lovely, and desires to be loved with free, spontaneous 
 love. He is wise and just, and desires to be obeyed with 
 intelligent appreciation. A coerced love, a mechanical and 
 slavish obedience, he plainly shows, are his abomination. 
 
 But love that is free is love that can be withheld. If it 
 cannot be withheld it is compulsory, and not free ; and 
 love that is withheld is rebellion. Hence we might almost 
 venture to assign as the definition of moral government, a 
 government under which rebellion is possible. To deny, 
 then, the possibility of rebellion, is to deny the existence 
 of moral government, and consign the universe to unmiti- 
 gated absolutism. 
 
 But observation suffices to show that rebellion is not 
 only possible, but actual. Lies and murder exist. Yet lies 
 and murder are not normal products, or evolutions of a 
 Divinely given constitution. To affirm it would be to 
 make God the father of lies, and murderer from the begin- 
 ning. Lies and murder are unconstitutional and abnormal, 
 and therefore just to the extent that they exist rebellion 
 exists. 
 
 The existence of rebellion is confirmed also by the exist- 
 ence of wide-spread conflict. Only rebellion against a 
 wise and benevolent government can account for the dis- 
 turbance universally existing under that government. 
 The analogies of nature are suggestive of war : darkness 
 perpetually pursued by the blazing shield and glancing 
 spear of day, winter annually subdued by all-conquering 
 summer, the earth reclaimed from briers and thorns to 
 
292 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 fruitful increase, carnivorous races, in earth, air, and sea, 
 warring against the defenceless species, and warred upon 
 by man, their defender and king. 
 
 Science points at the same conclusion, by telling us 
 that this " has never been such a world as perfect benev- 
 olence would have prepared for perfectly holy and happy 
 beings." 1 From the earliest geological epochs it has been 
 a battle-field between life and death, propagation and de- 
 struction. 
 
 History confirms the argument. Almost the earliest, 
 certainly the chief occupation of mankind, has been war. 
 The drama of the ages is one long campaign between 
 civilization and barbarism, liberty and despotism, truth 
 and falsehood. Read " The Fifteen Great Battles of the 
 World," and see how every one of them has been, with 
 increasing clearness as we come down the course of ages, 
 a battle of ideas, a step in human progress. 
 
 If then we open the Bible, we find it the most bellige- 
 rent book that ever was written. It opens with the an- 
 nunciation of a war of races ; it closes with the battle of 
 the great day of God Almighty, and the crushing of the 
 head of one race by the head of the other. 
 
 The Old Testament, with its alpine chain of miracles, is 
 the natural evolution of a plot so sublime. Intimations 
 of a wide, outlying conflict repeatedly appear. Our 
 eyes are dazzled with the blaze of angelic myrmidons. 
 We hear the rush of cherubic wings as the noise of many 
 waters. 
 
 The New Testament is still more martial than the Old, 
 nor can there be found in the whole compass of human 
 literature a development of military destructiveness so 
 awful as that disclosed in the emblems of the Apocalypse. 
 A rebellion prostrated and punished after age-long war is 
 the one idea of the Bible. 
 
 1 Hitchcock's Geology, p. 288. 
 
ETEENAL JUDGMENT. 293 
 
 2. Rebellion has no tendency to self-recovery. 
 
 It seems to be self-evident that the practice of sin does 
 not tend to the establishment of a holy character. The 
 habit of lying has no tendency to produce veracity. The 
 perpetration of murder does not in the least favor the 
 development of true benevolence. 
 
 All the analogies of nature shadow out the possibility of 
 irremediable ruin. Disease, curable to a certain point, 
 becomes incurable beyond that point. All violations of 
 natural law tend to a stage at which they become remedi- 
 less. If we enter the realm of will, the same analogies 
 meet us. Men form habits of sinful indulgence which they 
 know will wreck them temporally and their families ; and 
 those habits do become incurable. Men commit them- 
 selves to courses of conduct wicked and unprincipled, 
 against the clearest light and the convictions of their 
 better judgment, and become unchangeably fixed in them. 
 Everywhere we are met by the startling phenomenon of 
 what may be called a tyrannical free-agency. A free 
 choice in a wrong direction, — so free that there is in it 
 no element of self-reversal. 
 
 This is the tendency of rebellion, as we see it in our 
 country before our eyes. Mercy and justice alike enrage 
 it. Its inveteracy is equally enhanced by success and by 
 defeat. So with rebellion against God. Sin has no ten- 
 dency whatever to reformation. Such is the testimony of 
 experience and observation. The testimony of the Bible 
 is only a repetition of that of nature. Sinners are deaf, 
 blind, palsy-stricken, mad, possessed, dead, in Scripture 
 parlance, not because they cannot submit to God, but 
 because their will is all expended in the direction of 
 revolt, and has no tendency to flow back. 
 
 Sacred history illustrates this mournful truth. The 
 flood was God's verdict " incurable" on the antediluvian 
 empire of the Titans. The overthrow of Sodom pro- 
 
294 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 claimed a corruption beyond the reach of motive. Nations 
 have uniformly degenerated, never risen in the scale, 
 except in consequence of Divine intervention ; and then, 
 only after desperate resistance. 
 
 The Jews are a case in point. They were stiff-necked 
 and rebellious from the first. The impetuous tide of 
 revolt, dammed up by the law, rose, overflowed, burst 
 through, undermined, and foamed on its turbid way. 
 Stopped here, it broke out there. Checked there, it un- 
 dermined elsewhere. The whole Mosaic dike and mound 
 was full of jets, and seemed every instant about to dis- 
 solve and sink and be swept away. They worshipped a 
 calf at Sinai's foot. They burned children to Moloch. 
 God repeatedly declares them worse than the heathen. 
 They broke every statute. Each generation surpassed in 
 guilt the preceding. Nothing stood for two generations 
 as God placed it. They stoned the prophets, and when 
 Christ came they crucified him. Christianity was, indeed, 
 given to the world through the Jews, but it was in spite 
 of them. 
 
 Among Gentiles, revelation has fared no better. Man 
 has done little but corrupt the Gospel. It has never ele- 
 vated a single heart, till a lively resistance has been over- 
 come by the special influences of the Holy Spirit. Hence 
 all experience and revelation render it certain that there is 
 in rebellion itself no tendency to self-recovery ; and that, 
 if God do not reclaim rebels, they never will be reclaimed. 
 
 3. If God do not reclaim rebels by that system he has 
 contrived and adapted to the purpose, he certainly will 
 not without that system, or where its appliances and adap- 
 tations do not exist. If a man is to build a ship, he must 
 have certain conveniences and tools. If he cannot build 
 one with all his appliances, it is certain he cannot without. 
 
 Now the mediatorial system, comprehensively consid- 
 ered, including all its parts, is the highest embodiment 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT.' 295 
 
 of Divine contrivance for two joint objects, namely, the 
 detaching from rebellion, and restoration to loyalty, of as 
 many as possible, and the total suppression and punish- 
 ment of the rebellion itself. The Gospel is the wisdom of 
 God and power of God for both of these objects, not for 
 either singly. It is expressly declared to be, even under 
 inspired ministrations, " a savor of life unto life and of 
 death unto death." In this world God has instituted the 
 highest form of attack infinite wisdom could devise, upon 
 a long-established, deeply rooted, and thoroughly organized 
 rebellion, side by side with the highest known agencies for 
 detaching rebels from the revolt, and restoring them to 
 loyalty. 
 
 There are many, indeed, who seem to regard this world 
 as a sin-producing contrivance. They imagine that it is so 
 powerfully adapted to produce sin that it is useless to try 
 to be holy. The soul is pure, but this world defiles, it; 
 the spirit is honest, but the world makes it deceitful ; the 
 heart is benevolent and godly, but this world forces selfish- 
 ness and ungodliness upon it. The man himself would be 
 holy, if he had a fair chance, but circumstances will not 
 let him. God has contrived the body so as to fasten sin 
 upon the innocent spirit against its will ; he has contrived 
 the whole material and social system with wonderful power 
 to drag down, deprave, and pollute the soul, and frustrate 
 all its laudable endeavors after righteousness. To have 
 a fair chance for virtue, one must die and get out of this 
 world into one better adapted to its cultivation. 
 
 But what evidence is there that other worlds will be less 
 depraving than this ? If God can contrive one world to 
 produce sin, he can another. If he has done it once, he 
 may again. If there was nothing in his character to 
 prevent his establishing a vast sin-manufactory, there is 
 nothing to prevent him from establishing any number of 
 them and keeping them agoing forever. Is it, indeed, 
 
296 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 reasonable to infer that, because God has made the uni- 
 verse, so far as known, with admirable adaptations to 
 corrupt and deprave, therefore he has made it, so far as 
 not known, to purify and reform ? 
 
 If this world is divinely adapted to produce sin, it is 
 illogical in the highest degree to infer that therefore other 
 worlds are adapted to produce holiness. On the other 
 hand, if this world is divinely adapted not to produce sin, 
 but to detach as many as possible from rebellion while 
 prostrating the power of revolt, then what need is there 
 of a better ? Why ask for better than best ? Why argue 
 that, because here God has lavished all the resources of 
 omniscience, therefore elsewhere he has surpassed them ? 
 
 Now God declares that all things were made by Christ 
 and for Christ. The material universe was built for 
 redemptive ends. Nature exists in its present form sub- 
 serviently to mediatorial designs. The material system is 
 not of itself defiling, but auxiliary to cure. The body is 
 not corrupting to the soul. " There is nothing from with- 
 out a man that, entering into him, can defile him, .... 
 that which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. 
 For from within out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, 
 adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, 
 wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, 
 pride, foolishness. All these things come from within, 
 and defile the man." 
 
 All the corrupting influences there are in the world are 
 from within, not from without ; exerted by depraved 
 spirits upon the system, not by the system upon sinless 
 spirits. The guilty spirit abuses the body, degrades the 
 family, perverts society, corrupts business, and pollutes 
 civil and ecclesiastical institutions. There is nothing in 
 the body, the family, society, business, church, or state, 
 that tends to corrupt the soul, but the reverse. The 
 motives to good behavior, drawn from these sources, are 
 
ETEENAL JUDGMENT. 297 
 
 mighty, and no one becomes reprobate without a terrible 
 battle with and victory over them. 
 
 In this world, too, it is possible for the loyal and the 
 disloyal to live together as husband and wife, parent and 
 child, neighbor and friend, without distinctly perceiving 
 the profound antagonism existing between them. Salu- 
 tary influences are thus exerted of incalculable force by 
 the former on the latter. Eternity only can reveal the 
 amazing aggregate of motive necessary to be resisted in 
 order to become reprobate. In other worlds, however, no 
 such mixing of opposite characters by artificial relation- 
 ships is possible. The moment souls pass behind the veil, 
 they find the chasm between the holy and the sinful, the 
 loyal and those in rebellion, a great gulf, fixed, and inca- 
 pable of being passed over. 
 
 Here, then, in this life on earth, is the only place in the 
 wide universe where things are contrived and adapted 
 with reference to recovery. And here they not only are 
 so contrived, but, in Christ's atoning death and mediation, 
 and the gracious influences of the Spirit, carried to the 
 highest point possible under the circumstances. 
 
 If, now, the restorationist denies that reformatory influ- 
 ences are in the ascendant, and affirms that temptation 
 amounts to a fatality, we ask him what sort of being it is 
 who could make such a world, and send unfallen innocent 
 spirits into it to be corrupted ? The supposition enthrones 
 an infinite Devil over the universe. It is therefore false. 
 The world is remedial. Temptation is not fatality. Re- 
 formatory influences are vastly preponderant. And the 
 reason souls are not reformed is, that they bring with 
 them into life a strength of sinful habit, and a power of 
 resistance that neutralizes the remedial agencies employed, 
 and preads contagion and death on every side. 
 
 What hospital is not defiled by the malignant diseases 
 that are healed therein? What school of reform is not 
 
 13* 
 
298 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 impregnated with the effluvia of the degraded classes 
 undergoing the process of reform ? What country is not 
 desolated by the war necessary to prostrate rebellion ? 
 And how is it conceivable a proud, false, and cruel apos- 
 tasy could be dealt with, both for destruction and for resto- 
 ration, in a world that would not be wrecked and racked 
 and desecrated and defiled during the process? 
 
 The remedial powers of God's moral system cannot be 
 justly estimated till after the battle of the great day of 
 God Almighty, when the power of rebellion is broken, its 
 chief confined, its organization dissolved, and the efficacy 
 of mediatorial remedies developed in a pacified world in 
 full millennial omnipotence. 
 
 If, then, rebellion have in itself no recuperative ten- 
 dencies ; if only God can conquer it, or redeem from it ; 
 if God can do so only by the mediatorial system he has 
 instituted for that express purpose ; then those not re- 
 deemed by that never will be redeemed, but remain eter- 
 nally fixed in rebellion. 
 
 4. There are some who will never be cured by this sys- 
 tem, because they were already incurable before it was 
 made, and it was not designed to attempt impossibilities. 
 
 There is one rebel known to Scripture under various 
 titles, among which one of the most significant is the Ad- 
 versary, a term appropriate to the head of a great rebellion, 
 just as Captain of Salvation, and Lord of Hosts, are titles 
 appropriate to the head of the movement for the suppression 
 of rebellion and restoration of the penitent to favor. 
 
 There are those who would regard the Devil as a mere 
 abstraction, an allegory, a fable. But they might as reason- 
 ably call Mr. Davis an abstraction or slavery an allegory. 
 Rebellion and despotism are not such abstractions in human 
 experience as to justify the turning of the originator of all 
 rebellion and all despotism into a myth. The existence of 
 Jehovah is no more clearly revealed in the Bible and in 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 299 
 
 nature than the existence of Satan. The being of God can 
 be as rationally turned into an abstraction, a fable, as the 
 being of the Devil. And the denial of the latter, as all 
 experience shows, is the logical prelude to the denial of the 
 former. For if the Devil be not the father of lies, the 
 inevitable conclusion is that Jehovah must be. But this 
 is so shocking that the mind reacts into pantheism, which 
 is virtual atheism. If, then, the being of a personal God 
 be certain, the being of the Arch-rebel against God, liar, 
 and father of it, murderer from the beginning, is no less 
 certain. 
 
 Now, is there any reason to believe the atonement was 
 intended for Satan? Does the Bible say Christ partook 
 flesh and blood, " that through death he might save him 
 that had the power of death, that is, the Devil " ? Was the 
 Son of God manifested for this cause, " that he might save 
 the works of the Devil " ? Scripture often speaks of salva- 
 tion from the Devil, but where is there a hint of such a 
 thing as salvation for Mm ? The silence of the Bible on that 
 head is awfully significant. Its express declarations are 
 more awful. Christ himself implies that from the founda- 
 tion of the world everlasting fire was prepared for the 
 Devil and his angels. For that the world was founded, to 
 destroy his power, to cast him down, to make him the 
 object of the fully revealed abhorrence of God, and the 
 abhorrence of the holy universe. And at the close of the 
 Bible we see it done. 
 
 Here, then, is one rebel who never will submit, and 
 never will be pardoned. And one well-authenticated in- 
 stance is enough to settle the principle. Make eternal 
 judgment certain in a single instance, and there is nothing 
 left to contend about. But it is not a single case. With 
 the Devil are included his angels. They are cast out with 
 him; they share his fate. So that eternal judgment is 
 established, not for a unit, but for a class. 
 
300 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 But it may be said, Why will not the Devil be annihi- 
 lated ? And strong pleadings have been recently put forth 
 in behalf of this conception. We reply, The language of the 
 Bible, according to any principles of interpretation yet 
 known, is against the idea. The solemn language of Scrip- 
 ture is, " He shall be tormented day and night, for ever and 
 ever." Nor is there any valid reason why the plain import 
 of these words should be overruled. 
 
 Why should the author of rebellion and the guiltiest of 
 rebels be permitted to escape from the duty of submission ? 
 Is it not his duty to submit ? Has the law of God ceased 
 to be binding on him? Has not the Divine government 
 made issue with him on that point from the beginning? 
 Has not Lucifer denied the right of government to hold 
 him to his allegiance, and manifest displeasure at his re- 
 fusal ? And must the government, at last, recede virtually 
 from its position, and cease to insist upon submission as both 
 possible and reasonable ? 
 
 To annihilate the rebel would be, on the part of the 
 government, equivalent to a surrender of the whole point 
 in controversy from the beginning. It would be to say to 
 the arch-conspirator, Your refusal to submit is so far reason- 
 able, that further prosecution of the claims of government 
 would be too severe ; lie down, therefore, in oblivion, and 
 rest day and night forever. 
 
 5. There are some rebels who will wilfully resist all the 
 influences of the remedial system, and become in so doing 
 eternally hardened hi rebellion. 
 
 It will be admitted that Christ was a perfect teacher. 
 The father openly declared himself well pleased with his 
 ministry, saying, " Hear ye him ! " Even his enemies con- 
 fessed, " Never man spake like this man." Nor was the ef- 
 fect of his teaching neutralized by any inconsistency or sin in 
 the teacher. In his mouth was no guile. He was a lamb with- 
 out spot, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 801 
 
 Now, Christ could read the heart. He could see when 
 truth had its proper contact with the mind, and when it was 
 decisively rejected. Did Christ meet any such cases ? He 
 did. There was a class of men, most intelligent and highly 
 cultivated, who often heard, and with whose minds the evi- 
 dence of his mission had full contact, who yet rejected him. 
 
 Between Christ and this class an antagonism develops 
 itself even more decided than that between him and the 
 unclean spirits who cry out on his approach, " What have 
 I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high ? Art 
 thou come hither to torment us before the time ? " For 
 while demons thus believe and tremble, there are mortal 
 men who dare to say, " This fellow doth not cast out demons 
 but by Beelzebub, the prince of demons." 
 
 He on his part unhesitatingly accepts the issue. " Ye 
 are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father 
 
 ye will do Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how 
 
 can ye escape the damnation of hell ? . . . . Woe unto you, 
 scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! Ye compass sea and land 
 to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him 
 twofold more the child of hell than yourselves ! " Nor is 
 this antagonism a phenomenon peculiar to that age. It is 
 present through all history from dawn till eve, recognizable 
 even by the semi-prophetic instinct of the popular nomen- 
 clature. 
 
 The apostolic conception of the interval between Christ 
 and the millennium was that of a period in which a great 
 apostasy should run its course, under the auspices of a class 
 described as " speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their con- 
 sciences seared as with a hot iron." Of this class, Paul 
 says, " Because they received not the love of the truth that 
 they might be saved, therefore God shall send them strong 
 delusions that they should believe a lie, that they might all 
 be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in 
 unrighteousness. ' ' 
 
802 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 The ripe embodiment of this apostasy in the man of sin, 
 he says, " The Lord shall consume with the spirit of his 
 mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming." 
 Peter also speaks of a class of minds, corrupt and fixed in 
 sin under the very focus of Gospel rays, as " sporting them- 
 selves with their own deceivings while they feast with you, 
 having eyes full of adultery, that cannot cease from sin, an 
 heart exercised with covetous practices, cursed children, 
 wells without water, clouds carried with a tempest, to whom 
 is reserved the mist of darkness forever ! " 
 
 In the Apocalypse, that grand and solemn panorama of 
 things temporal and eternal, this class is denoted by a harlot 
 drunk with blood riding upon a wild beast, and those led 
 and governed by them are characterized as worshipping a 
 beast, and receiving his mark in then forehead and in their 
 hand. The symbolization includes all civil and ecclesiastical 
 despots, and their willing slaves. For next to the wicked- 
 ness of being a tyrant is that of submitting to despotism for 
 the sake of ease, wealth, and carnal prosperity. The beast 
 and harlot, and all who receive the mark, are described as 
 not written in the Lamb's book of life, or as having had 
 their names blotted out. They are spoken of as deceived 
 by the Devil, with whom they are finally cast into the lake 
 of fire, which is the second death. 
 
 Here the curtain falls upon them. Here the Bible leaves 
 them, saying, " He that is unjust, let him be unjust still ; 
 and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still ; and he that is 
 righteous, let him be righteous still ; and he that is holy, let 
 him be holy still " ; and, " Without are dogs, and sorcerers, 
 whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whatso- 
 ever loveth and maketh a he." 
 
 Thus God declares most solemnly that there will be those 
 who will reject the Gospel, on whom it will make no salu- 
 tary impression, who will become fixed in sin. They have 
 no tendency to reform themselves. He has done for them 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 303 
 
 all he can consistently do. He will not violate their free 
 agency. He will let them alone. They will treasure up 
 wrath against the day of wrath. They will go out into 
 eternity incorrigible in sin. Yet it will be just as consistent 
 with benevolence to prolong their existence then as it is 
 now. The consequence will be, the law will execute itself 
 in them and upon them forevermore. They will be a mi- 
 nority, a number never receiving accession. But the holy 
 universe will go on, eternally increasing and expanding, 
 until the disproportion will be inconceivably vast. They 
 will be a fraction so small, so infinitesimally minute, that 
 their existence will cease to affect seriously the sensibility 
 of the stupendous whole. 
 
 This is the argument. Is it sound ? Is it fair ? It may 
 not convince you. But can you meet it ? Can you seri- 
 ously object to one of its positions ? I appeal to your 
 honest judgment. Do you think I have misinterpreted the 
 word of God ? There may be plausible objections, cavils, 
 sophistries. Passages may be tampered with in detail, — 
 one by one forced by great ingenuity from their too obvious 
 sense, — but what of that ? 
 
 There is one thing I have never seen attempted, namely, 
 to show how so many details happened to he ; how they hap- 
 pened to need such exceeding dexterity to parry their 
 meaning, how they happen to combine and cohere, pointing 
 with tremendous circumstantial evidence to one, and only 
 one conclusion. It is this that gives to circumstantial evi- 
 dence its terrible power with a jury. And to this I appeal 
 as unanswerable in the Bible. For if eternal judgment be 
 not plainly the doctrine of the Bible, I see not how it can 
 be shown to be the doctrine of any uninspired book or 
 creed, or the belief of any man or body of men on the ace 
 of the earth. Thus the denial of eternal judgment subverts 
 the foundations of all reasoning, and plunges us into unlim- 
 ited scepticism. 
 
804 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Let us now glance for a moment at some of those objec- 
 tions that are most commonly employed to break the force 
 of evidence, and shut out the fearful looking for of judg- 
 ment and fiery indignation that shall devour the adversary. 
 
 1. What have I done that is so very bad ? What that 
 can merit endless torments? 
 
 You have done enough to need forgiveness, have you 
 not ? Or do you propose to rob God of all chance of show- 
 ing mercy by bringing him in debt to you ? If you need 
 to be forgiven, and will not submit and ask pardon, you 
 deserve His displeasure moment by moment till you do, if 
 it is forever. 
 
 2. But I believe men are punished as they go along as 
 much as they deserve, and therefore all will finally be saved. 
 
 If so, there is no such thing as forgiveness. The state 
 cannot forgive a convict who has served out his time in the 
 state-prison. The Divine government cannot both punish 
 rebels to the last farthing, and yet forgive them. Therefore 
 all that is said in the Bible about mercy, pardon, forgive- 
 ness, free grace, according to this, is a mere delusion. 
 
 3. But if God wanted me good, why did he not make 
 me so? 
 
 He did. Why have you marred his work ? 
 
 4. But why did God permit me to rebel ? 
 
 Permit ? — permit what he forbids ? A government 
 permit rebellion against itself? Is, then, permission and 
 prohibition the same in your opinion? 
 
 5. But God is omnipotent. He had the power. Why 
 did he not exert it to render my rebellion impossible ? 
 
 And what is this but to tell God that nothing but omnip- 
 otence could make you love him ? All he asked was your 
 love. You refused it and rebelled. And you now virtually 
 assign as a reason, that he did not make it impossible. How 
 much would your love be worth to God on such terms ? 
 " I shall not love you if I can help it. You can make me, 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 305 
 
 because you are omnipotent, and can do anything. But so 
 long as you leave me free, nothing shall persuade me not to 
 hate you." 
 
 6. But it is unaccountable to me how a perfectly holy 
 «being could sin. 
 
 If you could account for it, it would not- be sin. To 
 account for a thing is to assign some cause or reason for its 
 existence. But a cause or reason is an excuse, and an 
 excuse is a justification. But a justifiable sin is no sin. 
 Sin that is excusable is a contradiction. It is of the very 
 essence of sin that it is unjustifiable, inexcusable, and 
 therefore, absolutely unaccountable. Sin is anomalous and 
 mysterious by its very nature. It is portentous and irra- 
 tional from its very birth. To say sin is unaccountable, 
 therefore, is nothing but to say, sin is sin. 
 
 7. But, after all, though this seems specious, I cannot 
 conceive how it is possible a perfectly upright being should 
 fall. 
 
 Can you conceive of any but an upright being falling ? 
 Must not a thing stand upright before it can possibly fall 
 down ? Must not a thing be on the right side of the line 
 of rectitude before it can cross over that line, that is, trans- 
 gress to the wrong side ? 
 
 8. But you never can make me see how a perfectly 
 truthful being could become the father of lies. 
 
 Hold. Let us try and see. Lies do, in fact, exist. Men 
 do not always speak the truth. You cannot say that God 
 is the father of lies. You do not suppose lies existed from 
 eternity. There must have been a first lie, and a first liar. 
 Moreover, a being must first exist before he can lie. Now 
 what was the first liar, before he told the first lie ? Do you 
 not see he was not a liar, and could not be, before he told 
 the first lie, for that would be to say there was a lie before 
 the first lie. Either, then, God created him in the act of 
 telling a he, or else he existed in the truth, before he told 
 
 i 
 
306 * REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 the first lie, as Christ says : " He abode not in the truth. 
 He is a liar, and the father of it." 
 
 9. But, if there is a rebellion, it seems to have the upper 
 hand. The Devil seems to have it pretty much his own 
 way, so far, in this w T orld. And though eighteen centuries 
 have rolled away since Calvary, things seem worse than 
 ever. 
 
 But remember that, though a thousand years to us 
 seem long, to God, who inhabits eternity, and measures 
 on the scale of infinity, a thousand years are as one day. 
 God can afford to bear the insults of rebellion, and sup- 
 press the tokens of his just displeasure for a thousand years, 
 more easily than this government can afford to exercise 
 forbearance towards rebellion a single day. Now have not 
 the clemency and the severity of the government of this 
 land alike exasperated rebellion ? And in proportion as we 
 have driven it in from the frontiers and seaboard on its 
 main centres, has it not fortified those centres, and become 
 relatively stronger and more intensely malignant? And 
 if rebellion should be crushed, would not its greatest rage, 
 and its highest concentration of strength, be at the very 
 time and place of the last decisive attack ? 
 
 Enough, then. You know why it is that things are as 
 they are in this world. Shut off from all other worlds, — 
 hemmed in, — the Devil has come down in great wrath, 
 knowing he hath but a short time ; and the intensity of his 
 rage, the malignity of the forms of sin, the concentration 
 of all elements of resistance to Christ, proclaim unmistak- 
 ably that we are just on the eve of the decisive battle, the 
 battle of the great day of God Almighty. But, think you, 
 the righteous displeasure of God will be any the less dread- 
 ful for this patience of centuries and cycles ? — and is the 
 Divine forbearance a motive to go on treasuring up wrath 
 against the day of wrath ? 
 
 10. But if God knew rebellion would break out, and 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 307 
 
 some persist forever, why did he create those ? How can 
 he let them suffer forever, when he need not have created 
 them ? 
 
 And what is this but to hold the government virtually 
 accountable for the rebellion, and liable for its debts? 
 God might have prevented the rebellion, and did not. 
 Therefore he is responsible for it; and therefore he can- 
 not punish it, but is bound to secure the restoration of 
 every one implicated. Will that style of logic bear exami- 
 nation ? Does it not virtually put rebellion on the judg- 
 ment-seat, and summon the Divine government to the 
 bar ? Does it not make the chief conspirator say to the 
 Supreme Executive, " Why hast thou suffered thyself to 
 be rebelled against? " Can the absurdity of this be paral- 
 leled by anything save its effrontery, its guilt ? 
 
 All these objections are nothing but reasons offered by 
 rebellion why it should not submit, and why the govern- 
 ment should surrender at discretion. Lay them aside. 
 Bring the doctrine to a practical test. In what does the 
 actual condition of your mind, if impenitent, differ from 
 what it would be in eternity as a lost soul? 
 
 There, the simple fact would be, you would voluntarily 
 choose wrong and suffer. Is not that what you are doing 
 now ? Does not God bring motives to bear on you, and 
 do you not resist them ? Are you not every day accustom- 
 ing yourself to resist all the motives God does bring ; and 
 is it not probable you will thus acquire the habit so as to 
 resist all motive he ever will bring? 
 
 Why do you not now exert the power of your free 
 agency? God is now bringing motives to bear. This 
 argument is a motive. A present spirit is a motive. Your 
 own conscience is a motive. Your Saviour and his bleed- 
 ing wounds are motives. Heaven's glories are motives. 
 The angels that wait to rejoice over you are motives. 
 The hatefulness of selfishness and rebellion is a motive. 
 
308 EEDEEMEK AND REDEEMED. 
 
 The loveliness of obedience and benevolence is a motive. 
 God's honor and glory, and your sonship to him are mo- 
 tives. The woe and despair of endless banishment are 
 motives. The horror of society with Satan and reprobate 
 spirits is a motive. And all these motives are now present. 
 It is the time for their use. God is employing them. It 
 is their legitimate purpose to secure now, if ever, by the 
 preached Gospel, the right exercise of your free agency. 
 
 Left to yourself, you will never exercise it aright. There- 
 fore God does not leave you to yourself. He follows you. 
 He thrusts the subject on you. It is disagreeable to you, 
 but that only shows how certain it is you never would 
 reclaim yourself if left alone. You want to be let alone, 
 but he will not let you alone. He gathers all these mo- 
 tives and thrusts them on you. He rolls the responsibility 
 upon you. He threatens. He invites. Your conscience 
 is troubled. Your peace is disturbed. You cannot evade 
 the subject. God's motives throng in about your soul, so 
 that now, — in this day of salvation, — you may choose 
 right and so be reclaimed forever. Do you now resist ? 
 Do you fight off the subject ? Can you, now, with despe- 
 rate opposition, break away from God and rush on in sin ? 
 
 How can you expect ever to be reached by motives, if 
 you so resist them now ? Will God's love touch your heart 
 a million years hence, when it falls like a sunbeam on a 
 rock now? Will Christ seem lovely to your soul when 
 ages older in sin ? Christ is near you now. You see him. 
 His cross stands before you. You hear his expiring groans. 
 You see the blood flowing for your sins. He turns his lan- 
 guid eye on you ! But your hard heart feels no impression. 
 You care not. You laugh, you trifle. You care more for 
 a song, a jest, a piece of gold, a cup of wine, some toy of 
 earth, than for him. Will a million years' added ingratitude 
 make that heart tender? Will ages of implacable rejection 
 and scorn make you more impressible ? 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 309 
 
 The very motives God employs now are the highest, 
 most perfect, to which an intelligent being can be subject, — 
 a being with a heart. Eternity could only repeat them. If 
 you triumph over them when you are young and they fresh, 
 how can you expect to yield when you are far on hi eter- 
 nity and they have lost the charm of novelty ? You shrink 
 from Christ now ; will you not recoil then ? If now the 
 advancing shadow of Christ's presence makes your hardened 
 soul almost cry out, " Let me alone ; what have I to do 
 with thee ? " will ages of hardening in sin diminish that 
 conscious antagonism ? 
 
 And yet all your hope for eternity rests on the mad idea 
 that motives which utterly fail here, where the advantages 
 are greater, — where you are more impressible, and they 
 more fresh, — will then succeed where the chances are all 
 against them, the gloss of novelty gone, your susceptibility 
 deadened, and conscience seared as with a hot iron. If 
 this be not the very acme of insanity, at least to the clear- 
 seeing eye of God, what can be ? 
 
 And even if your anticipation were not preposterous, it 
 would be base and dishonorable. If it were true that God 
 would make you love him a million years hence, is that a 
 reason for hating him now ? If he will bring you to repent 
 and believe in Christ in eternity, will you therefore mock 
 Christ in time ? If, after death, he will purify and forgive 
 you, is that an argument with you to be as vile and disobe- 
 dient as you please in life ? 
 
 O child ! child ! what logic is this, what desperate wicked- 
 ness, what midnight darkness of soul ! My mother has 
 patiently toiled for me from morning to night, therefore I 
 will let her slave as long as she lives ! She always has for- 
 given me ; I am sure of her forgiveness, no matter how I 
 treat her, therefore I '11 fill her house with riot, insult her 
 gray hairs, and inherit her property after she has pardoned 
 me with her dying breath. 
 
310 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Is this your plea ? God has been long-suffering toward 
 you. All your guilt he has seen, but refrained from fully 
 punishing. Christ has loved you, and poured out his blood 
 for you. The spirit has striven to reclaim you to honorable 
 affection and filial duty. Patiently God has waited and 
 borne with your strange manners, your waywardness, and 
 insult. And because you think he will bear it, and will 
 contrive finally to make you decent, therefore you give 
 way to temptation, throw the reins on the neck of passion, 
 cast off fear, restrain prayer, and say to God, "Depart 
 from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways." 
 
 O man ! How can this be ! How can a mortal act thus, 
 and maintain his self-complacency? How can a rational 
 being follow such courses, flattering himself till his iniquity 
 becomes hateful? 
 
 O sinner ! Your sins are high as mountains ! They are 
 black as ink. The dimensions of your guilt are incalculable. 
 The depth of the abyss of guile and depravity in which you 
 are sunk is unfathomable. You are in the horrible pit and 
 the miry clay. Your heart is deceitful above all things and 
 desperately wicked. You are undone. If God should flash 
 full conviction on you, it would shrivel you like the blast of 
 a furnace ! If anything can merit the description " lost" 
 it is a soul so abandoned to dishonor and ungodliness as 
 yours. Dead in trespasses and sins, covered from head to 
 foot with the foul leprosy. Unwilling to be clean, because 
 expecting to be cleansed in some unknown vague hereafter ! 
 Reluctant to be made whole, because anticipating a miracu- 
 lous transformation after death ! Incorrigible, because of 
 expected correction ; inexorable, because to be persuaded 
 by and by. Leagued and banded with Christ's foes, because 
 to be enrolled his friend at the judgment. Under bonds of 
 Satan here, because expecting to serve Christ hereafter. 
 Living in sin to die in the Lord. Friend of the world and 
 enemy of God below, because heir of God and joint-heir 
 
ETERNAL JUDGMENT. 311 
 
 with Christ above. Paradox of guilt, climax of absurdity ! 
 Rushing on ruin ! Making haste to perdition ! Touching 
 the very threshold of everlasting downfall ! Your plea is 
 false, your theory delusive, your expectation vain, your hope 
 a spider's-web. Without apology for your sin, bearing the 
 wrath of God, bound to the judgment ! 
 
 O shiner, pause ! Stop before it is too late. You cannot 
 strive with your Maker. You cannot contend with him. 
 You cannot endure his calm, yet just and infinite displeasure. 
 O repent, and fly from the wrath to come ! 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 CONDITION OF THE LOST. 
 " For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, anq 
 
 LOSE HIMSELF, OR BE CAST AWAY ? " — Luke ix. 25. 
 
 IN these words we have a question whose solution out- 
 runs the rules of arithmetic, and bids defiance to the 
 ordinary processes of numerical calculation. It is a ques- 
 tion of profit and loss in the business of eternity, the 
 merchandise of unending ages. He who died for the soul 
 summons us to estimate its value, to strike the balance be- 
 tween earthly gain and heavenly loss, between temporal 
 success and everlasting failure. 
 
 I shall not, at this time, dwell particularly on the value 
 of this world, its brevity, uncertainty, the difficult attain- 
 ment and unsatisfying nature of its joys. You all know 
 that no man ever does gain the whole world, and that, if he 
 did, it would not make hhn happy. Leaving this part of 
 the subject to the mind of each and all, I propose to dwell 
 awhile on the other alternative, and what may be involved 
 in losing one's self, or being cast away. 
 
 One element of loss will be the forfeiture of self-respect. 
 
 In this world men contrive to be on good terms with 
 themselves. They invent excuses, self-justifications ; they 
 are naked, but not ashamed. But in eternity each mind 
 will have its own condition fully revealed to it. And 
 when a man is ashamed of himself, without excuse in his 
 own sight, yet without contrition, then the charm of self- 
 society is at an end forever. 
 
 With no intention of amendment, with a will of iron 
 
CONDITION OF THE LOST. 313 
 
 and a brow of brass, hating the throne of God, as rebel- 
 lion always hates good government, he will, nevertheless, 
 know perfectly that he is in the wrong utterly, from begin- 
 ning to end, and the throne of God spotless. 
 
 He has lost, secondly, that respect of all creatures which 
 is the foundation of social enjoyment. 
 
 From the society of the good the bad will be forever 
 voluntarily separate. The loyal and the disloyal, when 
 the truth concerning the rebellion is fully known, will go 
 apart with infinite antagonism. The enemies of Christ 
 could no more breathe the same air with his friends, than 
 traitors to this government can live in friendship with 
 those loyal to the government. Yet the society of heaven, 
 with its purity, its refinement, its sympathy, its lofty intel- 
 ligence and radiant affection, will appear to those who 
 never more can enjoy it desirable beyond description. 
 But it is lost. They have lost the society of the kind, 
 reasonable, sympathetic, and holy, for that of the cruel, 
 unreasonable, heartless, and vile. 
 
 Another element of loss will be the failure of every 
 source of intellectual enjoyment and progress. 
 
 This arises from the fact that all the universe, being 
 created by God, manifests his wisdom and his character. 
 And all truth being an unfolding of his thoughts, is con- 
 nected with him, and suggests him. It is possible for a 
 man in this world to pursue various branches of study, 
 and contrive not to see God in them, although he is there ; 
 although in the most abstruse sciences — geometry, astron- 
 omy, mathematics — God is present, although he pervades 
 all nature and all history, yet it is the peculiarity of the 
 present material economy that it is left optional with men 
 whether they will see him or not. 
 
 But in eternity this will not be so. It will not be op- 
 tional to see or not to see God's presence and character in 
 all truth. There will be no part of the universe, and no 
 
 14 
 
314 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 branch of science, in which he will not be brought up, and 
 stand, as it were, in his true character, face to face with 
 the mind. 
 
 Now if the mind does not love him, this revelation of 
 his being and character will be painful, and will make all 
 possible branches of science and knowledge painful. The 
 soul will be thrown off from knowledge and intellectual 
 progress forever by its antipathy to God, the sun and scien- 
 tific centre of the universe. At the same time it will know 
 what knowledge is. It will realize what its career might 
 have been. It will see what the redeemed are doing. 
 From its own self-imposed darkness and stagnation it will 
 look out upon a universe growing and developing in 
 knowledge forever, and will see that it might have kept 
 pace with the foremost, — might have shone like a star of 
 the firmament; but all that is lost, and, instead, it is be- 
 come " a wandering star, to whom is reserved the blackness 
 of darkness forever." 
 
 Another element of loss is that of the manifested appro- 
 bation of God. 
 
 The power of God to bless his creatures by signifying 
 his approbation is infinite. Instances are seen in the death 
 of martyrs, where the pains of the body have seemed an- 
 nihilated by the joys of the soul. Now in heaven God 
 will exert that power to the full. The redeemed will be 
 made as fully conscious, not only of his affection, his love, 
 but of his approbation, as their finite faculties admit. And 
 it will be the highest element of their joy and strength. 
 Now all beings will be aware of this. It will by no means 
 be hid from the wicked. Lucifer will eternally see that 
 those he tried to blast are not only safe, but recipients of 
 God's infinite approval ; and lost men will see it, and real- 
 ize that they might be enjoying the same, but are not. 
 They have lost it, and lost it forever. 
 
 Another element of loss will be that of exalted station. 
 
CONDITION OF THE LOST. 315 
 
 All that is denoted by the crown of glory, and joint- 
 heirship with Christ, and reigning with him forever; all 
 that is indicated by being kings and priests unto God, asso- 
 ciated with Christ in the judgment of the world and of 
 angels ; all that which is called " a far more exceeding and 
 eternal weight of glory," will be lost. A sense of its worth 
 will be realized by seeing it in actual exercise by the re- 
 deemed. They will be seen shining above the brightness 
 of the firmament, exalted far above angels, principalities, 
 and powers; intensely luminous and glorious, nearest to 
 Christ of all orders and ranks of being ; and all this, the 
 soul will say, was appointed to me, redeemed for me, by 
 blood divine, — might have been mine, but for my own 
 inexcusable folly and guilt. 
 
 O, what must be the feelings of him who was once a 
 bright archangel, son of the morning, now fallen and 
 degraded, when he thinks of his original exaltation, and 
 reflects that it might have been his forever ! What emo- 
 tions must fill the hearts of those angelic hosts he led 
 away, when they see their seats occupied by others ; even 
 by those they so long tempted, oppressed, enslaved, and 
 held in gloomy and disgraceful bondage ! 
 
 Still more poignant will be the sense of loss, of ruined 
 men, who, instead of being crowned above the unfallen, 
 will be degraded beneath the fallen angels, their victims 
 and their slaves. " I have exchanged," the castaway will 
 exclaim, " the highest place in the universe for the lowest ; 
 lordship for bondage, supremacy for slavery. I have lost 
 endless dominion over holy myriads, and have become the 
 servant of convicts and outcasts forever. 
 
 In the present world men do not believe this. They 
 will believe neither the one extreme of possible exaltation 
 nor the other of possible degradation. Not because it is 
 not plainly revealed; — it is not in the power of words to 
 reveal it more plainly; — but because words have lost 
 
316 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 their power, — because they will not hear, will not believe, 
 will not understand. But in eternity the reality will arrest 
 them. The accomplished reality of the exalted glory of 
 the faithful will nevermore be hid from them ; the consum- 
 mate reality of their own dishonor and extreme degradation 
 will forever realize itself to their minds. It will no longer 
 be possible to deny it, or misunderstand it, or forget it. 
 
 Should the chiefs of the rebellion in this land be finally 
 seized, and condemned to hard labor among felons, we can 
 imagine how they would look back on the time before the 
 rebellion, when they were loyal, when they trod the floors 
 of Congress, and when their eloquence shook the Senate, 
 and their wisdom contributed to shape the legislation of a 
 vast continental empire ! But now that the rebellion is 
 crushed and they are convicts, eloquence is not for them, 
 statesmanship and jurisprudence, the lofty and ennobling 
 aims of legislation and government, the exhilarating excite- 
 ments of public affairs, — all are theirs no more. They 
 move with the chain-gang, and break stones on the road. 
 They see men, once their inferiors, thunder along in state, 
 engrossed in those high affairs that they so well remember, 
 casting a glance of mingled pity and abhorrence as they 
 pass ; and, stung to the soul, they continue their degrading 
 toil till night remands them to their cell. 
 
 But all these things shik into nothing, compared with 
 the wrath of God. 
 
 Infinite love, truth, and rectitude is offended with ob- 
 stinate rebels moment by moment, because they do not 
 submit. All their rebellion they repeat each successive 
 moment. The whole malignity of their guilty career is 
 gathered up and concentrated, as it were, in every instant 
 of refusal to bow. 
 
 God sees it there. They see it. They see that it is 
 wicked as plainly as God sees it, but they will not give 
 up ; and that obstinacy excites God's intense displeasure. 
 
CONDITION OF THE LOST. 317 
 
 It is not that they cannot yield, but that they can and 
 will not. It is not that they have been guilty and deserv- 
 ing of wrath, but that they voluntarily continue to be. 
 The entire rebellion is taken up and carried on fresh and 
 immortal in every moment of refusal to repent, and the 
 displeasure of God is eternally fresh as towards a present 
 offence. 
 
 It is not wrath for sins long past, merely ; it is wrath 
 for a state of mind that virtually repeats all the sins of 
 ages in each successive moment. Against that, the wrath 
 of God will justly burn forever as a consuming fire. 
 They ought to submit ; they can submit ; they would be 
 pardoned if they would: they do not submit, and show 
 God that they never intend to yield, and he shows them 
 fully what he thinks and feels of such incorrigible wicked- 
 ness. 
 
 The universe which is pervaded with God is filled with 
 his thoughts and emotions as pure, spiritual, immortal fire. 
 Omnipresence is a boundless deep of consuming intensity, 
 a fire to goodness, meekness, and truth, innocuous, and 
 genial as the summer sunshine. But in it the remorse 
 and hatred of their defeated malice and detected villany 
 kindle and burn with sulphurous flames forever. The fire 
 is the fire of the Divine holiness. The brimstone is the 
 brimstone of their malignant passions. 
 
 And what, then, has it profited them to gain what they 
 did gain of earth for a few fleeting years, and lose all 
 these things for ever and ever? 
 
 They have realized that final extinction of spiritual life, 
 and possibility of amendment, which is called death, the 
 second death, eternal death. They are dead to goodness 
 and to God forever. 
 
 They have gained the lively and undying abhorrence 
 of the ever-growing universe. Their history will be ever 
 new. The scenes of the rebellion will be ever vivid in 
 
318 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 the view of all ages. The smoke of that final storm of 
 wrath by which its organized power was finally crushed 
 shall forever ascend up before the eyes of back-looking 
 generations. And as race after race rises into being, and 
 of the increase of God's government there is no end, so the 
 tide of public abhorrence against ingratitude so monstrous, 
 falsehood so black, cruelty so unnatural, rebellion so unrea- 
 sonable, and persisted in so freely and gratuitously forever, 
 will be ever deep and fresh and strong. 
 
 How foolish, then, how wrong, how needless, to live an 
 impenitent life, and die eternally ! There is nothing to 
 prevent a man's repenting of sin now, believing in Christ 
 now, embracing his service now, loving him now, being 
 taught and cared for by him now. On the contrary, mo- 
 tives are strong, and the strivings of the Spirit powerful. 
 Men have to resist. They have to do violence to them- 
 selves, and despite to the Spirit of grace. 
 
 If a man develops now a power of resisting truth and 
 motive, and the Spirit of God, and nullifying the whole 
 redemptive economy, and forms the habit of it, he can keep 
 on so to all eternity. Men think it improbable they will. 
 But why ? Is it not probable they will do what they are 
 doing ? Does it seem incredible you should hold out for- 
 ever and be miserable forever ? Why, then, do you hold 
 out now ? If you can hold out against God in the focus of 
 a redemptive system, you can much more in a system not 
 redemptive. When you pass from this world, you pass from 
 a redemptive to a non-redemptive system. If you now 
 habitually resist God, you will much more resist him then. 
 You are sealing your own destiny. You are deciding your 
 own fate. You are selling your birthright. You are not 
 gaining the whole world, and you are losing yourself. 
 
 O, answer me the question, or answer it to the Spirit that 
 strives with you, What shall it profit you, if you gam the 
 whole world and lose yourself, or be cast away ? 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE WORLD CONVINCED. 
 
 " He shall convince the world of judgment, because the prince of 
 this world is judged." — John xvi. 11. 
 
 FROM these words, it is plain that there is to be a day 
 when the world will be convinced of judgment, and 
 when the public sentiment of the world will be on the side 
 of the Dmne government in the controversy with rebellion, 
 so as to sustain it in inflicting the penalties of treason. 
 
 It is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring in that day, by 
 disclosing the truth with regard to the chief of the revolt, 
 author and mainspring of rebellion from first to last, so that 
 the public sentiment of this world shall entertain a correct 
 judgment of him, and of the rebellion in him. 
 
 That day will usher in the millennium. Whenever the 
 world is convinced of judgment because the prince of this 
 world is judged, Satan is logically bound as with a great 
 chain, and shut up as in a deep abyss, and a seal set upon 
 him to deceive the nations no more. 
 
 As that day approaches, we may expect that the question 
 of eternal judgment will be more and more interesting. It 
 will be more and more prominently discussed. All that 
 can be said on both sides of the question will be said. And 
 after a thorough examination the mind of the world will be 
 convinced and at rest. 
 
 It is not strange, then, that there should be, at the 
 present day, a strong reaction against the doctrine. It is 
 natural there should be. It is the inevitable accompani- 
 ment of the Spirit's work. * 
 
320 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 The reaction is not caused merely by constitutional or 
 experimental peculiarities. 
 
 It is not the naturally benevolent and compassionate, nor 
 yet the irreligious exclusively, who reject eternal judgment, 
 and the selfish and unfeeling, or the devout, who maintain 
 it. The reaction is felt more or less by all of all classes 
 and temperaments. It is not a mere matter of experience 
 or of disposition. It lies deeper. It is more universal. It 
 is a characteristic of the age. It springs out of causes too 
 profound to be traced to individual peculiarities. 
 
 Nor is the cause to be sought in denominational pecu- 
 liarities, Calvinistic or Arminian, old school or new, evan- 
 gelical or unevangelical. 
 
 The causes, so far as they pertain to doctrine, are com- 
 mon to all. They lie in the common belief of Christendom, 
 evangelical and unevangelical alike. 
 
 Romish masses are dead, and do not think enough to be- 
 lieve or disbelieve intelligently on this or any other subject. 
 But wherever Protestantism has awakened the intellect of 
 the nations to life, there, under all forms of church govern- 
 ment, under all creeds, this tendency develops itself with 
 about equal force. The history of New England furnishes 
 a striking illustration of this. Here the theology of the 
 Reformers in its strictest form had the ground in advance, 
 and laid the foundations of society to suit itself, and reigned 
 supreme for more than a century. 
 
 But it did not escape the tendencies of which we are 
 speaking. The first Universalists in New England were 
 Calvinists. Their arguments were all drawn from the Cal- 
 vinistic system. To meet them arose the New Divinity. 
 Universalism and New Divinity are twins. But though 
 they struggled together in the womb, Jacob has never been 
 able to drive out Esau. 
 
 The New Divinity met the arguments from Old Calvin- 
 ism, but the Universalists found others in the common sys- 
 
THE WOELD CONVINCED. 321 
 
 tem of Christendom as good, and went on Increasing in 
 numbers and strength. 
 
 The demonstration from history is perfect, that the ten- 
 dencies to deny eternal judgment are not peculiar to any 
 of the denominations of Christendom, but spring out of 
 elements common to them all, — elements of unsuspected 
 power, on Avhich Catholic and Protestant, Calvinist and 
 Arminian, evangelical and unevangelical, stand together, 
 and make common cause. Our text shows us where to 
 look for these elements, namely, in connection with the 
 character and history of the prince of this world. 
 
 The first element is, the idea that the origin of evil is 
 a subject that cannot be understood and ought not to be 
 discussed. 
 
 Now the origin of evil is simply the rebellion of Lucifer, 
 and to say that the origin of evil is to be let alone is to say 
 that the origin of Lucifer's rebellion is to be let alone, and 
 that the real issue between the government and the rebel- 
 lion cannot be understood. But if the issue between the 
 government and the rebellion cannot be understood, how 
 can it be intelligently perceived which is right? And 
 without being intelligently convinced that the government 
 is in the right, how can the government be sustained in the 
 execution of penalty? 
 
 What would be the effect in our country if all parties 
 should agree that the origin of secession and rebellion was 
 an inscrutable mystery ? Would not that cut the nerves of 
 war, and paralyze government in dealing with rebels ? Is 
 not the origin of secession the precise thing, above all others, 
 that it is important there should be no doubt about ? Do 
 not the enemies of the administration always try to cover 
 it up in a fog, and the friends of the administration try 
 to pour sunlight upon it? And is it not the same in the 
 Divine campaign against rebellion ? If the origin of revolt 
 be covered up, will it not render it impossible for minds to 
 14* u 
 
322 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 sympathize with the Divine government in the execution 
 of the penalties of treason ? 
 
 Eternal penalties for what? Eternal penalties for an 
 utterly unintelligible thing ? Eternal penalties for an issue 
 we must not attempt to understand ? Eternal penalties for 
 that which must be to our minds a virtual nonentity, so far 
 as any intelligent appreciation of guilt is concerned ? Yet 
 this is the logical result of the principle that the origin of 
 evil is to be carefully ignored. The denial of eternal pen- 
 alty is the natural consequence. And are not all parties, 
 evangelical and unevangelical, a unit here ? And does not 
 this account for the tendencies of the age ? 
 
 The next element is a kind of dualistic conception of 
 Satan as a being essentially and necessarily evil. 
 
 It was anciently believed that there were two self- 
 existent and eternal natures, one good, the other evil, and 
 that from the conflict between these all the mixture of good 
 and evil now apparent has arisen. This belief appears in 
 ancient Egypt, Chaldea, Persia, and the East, and in the 
 Gnostic and Manichean heresies of the early centuries. 
 Outside of Christendom it still may be reckoned among 
 the active elements of human speculation. And even in- 
 side, though nominally condemned, it doubtless exercises an 
 indirect and unsuspected influence. Probably multitudes 
 unconsciously conceive of the evil one as essentially and ne- 
 cessarily, and not voluntarily evil, in a manner but slightly 
 differing from the ancient notion of an eternal evil principle. 
 
 Now, in so far as such ideas or any approaching them 
 lurk in the mind of man, they logically weaken conviction 
 of Lucifer's guilt and exposure to just punishment. If he 
 has a necessarily evil nature, it is difficult to blame him for 
 acting according to it. It is impossible to blame him as we 
 should if his nature was originally pure. It is the idea of 
 his having violated his own nature, and corrupted it, that 
 alone can make us feel that he is really to blame. 
 
THE WORLD CONVINCED. 323 
 
 The very nature of sin, its definition, implies change, pas- 
 sage from good to evil, transgression, crossing over, violation 
 of previous right relations. A pure nature must first exist, 
 or a sinful nature cannot exist. Holiness must be first, or 
 sin cannot be. That which is called sin is not blameworthy 
 unless it was preceded by holiness. 
 
 It is often said that perfectly holy creatures cannot sin. 
 The exact opposite is true. Only holy creatures can sin. 
 For if a creature sin, with an original nature that way, 
 sin is no longer sinful, that is, there is no blame in it. 
 Blame always implies a violation of one's nature, and that 
 nature good. Hence if the prince of this world was evil 
 from eternity, or created evil, he does not deserve to be 
 blamed or punished. It is the fact that he was created 
 pure, and was first positively holy, that clothes all his sub- 
 sequent conduct with blameworthiness, and makes him 
 really deserving of death. 
 
 The next cause of the tendencies in question, common 
 to all, is either a denial of the existence of Satan, or such a 
 representation of him as amounts nearly to the same thing. 
 All unevangelical denominations deny the existence of the 
 Devil. Rome describes him in such a gross, material way 
 as tends to utter contempt and scepticism. Protestant 
 conceptions are but little better. The ideas associated with 
 him in the popular mind are, for the most part, material, 
 magical, and absurd. The conception of him as the leader 
 of a vast rebellion, a being of profound knowledge and con- 
 summate abilities, whose power is logical and philosophical, 
 presiding over the civil and ecclesiastical systems of the 
 world, is rarely entertained. His position as the great 
 adversary of Christ, and master spirit of the political and 
 religious campaigns of time, is little thought of. His his- 
 tory, character, organizing power, the principles of his 
 kingdom, and his relations to Christ, and the mode by 
 which he is to be bound, are little studied. 
 
324 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Practically, evangelical theology ignores him about as 
 much as unevangelical. Thus, in the Confession of Faith 
 and Catechisms of the Westminster Assembly, if you turn 
 to the index of subjects, you do not find his name men- 
 tioned at all. If you search the book through, you will find 
 some ten or twelve instances where his name occurs, or 
 where he is alluded to, but in the most cursory manner. 
 His history is nowhere given in full. His relations to Christ 
 and Christ's to him, as leaders of the opposite armies of 
 loyalty and of rebellion, are nowhere stated. So that 
 practically it is not far from the truth to say, that he is a 
 mere cipher in the book. 
 
 Now, suppose the history of the United States from 
 1776 to 1876 to be written by some future historian, and 
 in the general index of subjects the word slavery should 
 not be found, and in the body of the work the existence 
 of that institution should be only a few times casually and 
 incidentally alluded to. Could such a work give to future 
 readers any adequate impression of the government policy 
 during this tremendous war, and enable them to sympathize 
 with our struggles to suppress rebellion? 
 
 How, then, is it possible that a system of theology that 
 writes the history of the universe from eternity to eternity, 
 as the Confession of Faith does, with the name of Satan 
 left out of the table of contents, can possibly initiate us 
 into the councils of the Divine administration in the war 
 of ages ? How can it possibly make us sympathize in the 
 final execution of the penalties of treason, when the Devil 
 is cast into the lake of fire forever ? And how can there 
 but be a reaction from eternal penalties of a treason the 
 whole history of which, in the prime contriver and master 
 mind throughout, is practically concealed? 
 
 In ignoring the true history of Satan, and thrusting him 
 into the background, the evangelical denominations are 
 nearly a unit with the unevangelical, and but little less 
 
THE WOELD CONVINCED. 325 
 
 responsible than they for the reaction from eternal judg- 
 ment. 
 
 A fourth element of the popular belief, inconsistent with 
 a conviction of eternal judgment, is the idea that Lucifer 
 is infernal. 
 
 The imagination of Christendom locates the head-quar- 
 ters of the prince of this world in the world below, the 
 world of punishment. There he is popularly regarded as 
 occupied in tormenting the lost, in various ways, and sally- 
 ing forth upon earth in quest of new victims. The 
 bearing of such a conception on the question of future 
 retribution is easily illustrated. 
 
 Let it be supposed that the existing rebellion in our land 
 were suppressed, and its chief tried, convicted, and sen- 
 tenced to imprisonment for life in some government fortress 
 or place of strength. Let it then be imagined that the 
 government should allow him to correspond with friends in 
 all parts of the country ; to go and come at pleasure ; to 
 levy war, organize armies, and carry on military operations 
 against the government, still using the government fortress 
 as his head-quarters ; — conceding to him the title of Pres- 
 ident of the Confederacy, allowing him a free pass within 
 the lines, to go out and come in at pleasure, while at the 
 same time making war against him in all the revolted States. 
 Is it possible that the inhabitants of those States, and the 
 soldiers of those rebel armies, could, under those circum- 
 stances, be made to feel that their disloyalty to government 
 was either criminal or dangerous ? " We can carry on 
 war," they might say, " with perfect safety. If we over- 
 throw the government, well and good. If we are de- 
 feated, the government will provide us a fortress, and give 
 us unlimited range, as it does our chief. 
 
 So the world may reason and does reason in regard to 
 the government of God. The great majority feel that 
 the Divine government is responsible for the existence of 
 
326 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 rebellion here on earth, and is hound in honor to pardon 
 all concerned. And why do they feel so ? Because they 
 are taught to believe that, one rebellion being crushed, 
 and its leader punished, God allowed him to go out of 
 his prison and get up another. A condemned and incar- 
 cerated traitor was allowed free passage from his prison to 
 this world, with full knowledge that he would organize a 
 revolt of ages. 
 
 The argument from such a conception against eternal 
 punishment is direct, pointed, and of almost infinite 
 power. The human mind so feels it, and acts accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 A fifth element, antagonistic to conviction of eternal 
 judgment, is the belief that the fall of Lucifer was neces- 
 sitated by Divine decree. 
 
 The impression has been made on the popular mind 
 quite extensively that God intended that Lucifer should 
 fall, arranged causes with reference to it, and decreed 
 it unchangeably from all eternity. However Lucifer 
 might be a free agent, the circumstances, it is commonly 
 thought, were so contrived that it was morally neces- 
 sary that he should choose wrong. The motives were so 
 arranged on purpose. They were so strong, that, though 
 there might be a bare natural possibility of his standing, 
 there was a moral impossibility. 
 
 Now this impression, that sin entered the universe by 
 Divine decree, or designed permission, is directly in the 
 way of convincing the world of judgment. It is so logi- 
 cally, and it is so used in fact. Logically it follows, that, 
 if the Divine government wanted to have a rebellion, 
 planned it, adapted motives with infinite skill to produce 
 it, then it is responsible for it. The government is the 
 real getter up of the rebellion, and Lucifer is but the 
 instrument of the governmental policy. 
 
 But if so, — the inference is fair, — the government 
 
THE WORLD CONVINCED. 327 
 
 ought, sooner or later, to restore all rebels to loyalty. As 
 it planned and contrived their fall, adapting motives to 
 that end, which they could not, or certainly would not, 
 resist, so it is bound as a benevolent government ulti- 
 mately to adapt motives the other way, and extricate all 
 unfortunate creatures from the predicament in which it 
 contrived to place them. 
 
 This reasoning is sound. It will stand the test of the 
 judgment-day. And the human mind actually so accepts 
 it, and makes it one ground of its delusive belief of 
 universal salvation. 
 
 But the premises are false. God decrees the existence 
 of moral agents, foreknows their actions, and decrees his 
 own. He does not foreknow their actions because he first 
 determines them and makes them inevitable. He fore- 
 knows because he is omniscient, and can pass over, as it 
 were, all chains of causes, and alight anywhere, on any 
 particular fact or act, and see it independently of its 
 causes. He is not dependent for his knowledge of the 
 future on a chain of reasoning. All things are open and 
 naked. He sees the things that are not as if they were. 
 
 If God really decreed, and by his will determined the 
 acts of creatures, those creatures would be capable of 
 neither praise nor blame. Their actions would not be 
 theirs, but his, and to him would belong the praise or 
 blame of them. The idea that God predetermines the 
 actions of his creatures, differs but little from Pantheism, 
 by making the will of God the only active will in the 
 universe. 
 
 Now that God had a plan is certain. That his plan in 
 some sense was comprehensive of all events is certain ; 
 and that he decreed all events which could be decreed 
 without destroying responsibility, and making himself re- 
 sponsible for sin, is also plain, and is all that the Confession 
 of Faith by strict construction teaches. After saying that 
 
328 BEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 God did ordain whatsoever comes to pass, it adds, " Yet 
 so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is 
 violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the 
 liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but 
 rather established." That means, that God did not in any 
 proper sense decree sin. He decreed all things except sin, 
 in all its forms. That is Calvinism, and that is common 
 sense. 
 
 When God created Lucifer and the angels, he created 
 them on the best possible model. There is such a thing, 
 abstractly considered, as the best way of making a mind. 
 God knew what that ideal way was, and chose it because 
 it was best. It was essentially right to create minds on 
 the best conceivable pattern, as the Confession says he did. 
 " God created all angels spirits, immortal, holy, excelling 
 in knowledge, mighty in power, to execute his command- 
 ments, and to praise his name, yet subject to change." 
 
 He did not make them to sin, not one of them, but " to 
 execute his commandments and to praise his name." 
 
 Moreover, as in individual minds, so in a public mind, 
 or society or body politic. There are certain forms of 
 social order which are intrinsically best. God chose those 
 because they were best, independently of whether they 
 would be abused or not. He chose them because it was 
 right to organize society on the best possible principles and 
 in the best possible forms and systems, and throw the 
 responsibility of maintaining them on the community so 
 constituted. 
 
 Hence, as sin has entered in fact, it entered as a thing 
 foreseen, but not directly decreed. God decreed the best 
 system, with that possibility in it, because without that pos- 
 sibility it would not be the best, because not free. He 
 decreed the system with the foresight of the fact of sin, 
 but in spite of that foresight, not on account of it. He de- 
 creed the best possible scheme of powers and organization, 
 
THE WORLD CONVINCED. 829 
 
 in spite of the painful foresight of sin, because it was right 
 to do what was intrinsically the best. 
 
 To say, then, that God permitted sin, is like saying that 
 a machinist permits friction in his steam-engine. To say 
 God decreed the fall of Lucifer, is like saying that the 
 founders of this republic decreed the revolt of the South ; 
 a scarcely parallel case, for though their system was a noble 
 one, it had great faults out of which the secession grew, 
 while the system God adopted had no faults, and the revolt 
 
 of Lucifer grew out of nothing, but was a self-born monster. 
 
 The doctrine of decrees, then, is simply the doctrine of 
 divine self-denial. God determined to do what he saw to 
 be right and best in itself, though he saw that he should 
 in fact be rebelled against, unthankfully treated, abused, 
 slandered, and subjected to profound moral suffering for 
 ages. He determined to do right, notwithstanding. And 
 that is simple self-denial. The decrees of God are nothing 
 but his determination from all eternity to do exactly right, 
 and suffer for it all he has suffered, and is suffering, by 
 the uncaused, unprovoked, ungrateful, unutterably wicked 
 rebellion of the objects of his love. 
 
 Another element closely connected with the last is the 
 belief that Lucifer was unmercifully treated. 
 
 We refer to the common impression, that when he sinned 
 he was immediately punished, without any chance for 
 repentance. The common impression with respect to Lu- 
 cifer appears to be that he was fated to fall, and subjected 
 to temptation practically irresistible, and that his punish- 
 ment was immediate upon the first offence, without the 
 chance of repentance. 
 
 Now if these things are true, they constitute what may 
 properly be called unmerciful treatment. What mind can 
 help feeling it? Hence, just so far as this conception is 
 entertained, the doctrine of eternal judgment is felt to be 
 an unmerciful doctrine from the very foundation. For if 
 
330 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 the doom of the Son of the Morning is felt to be unmer- 
 ciful at the very outset, then for mankind to be involved 
 in that doom will also be felt to be unmerciful, and the 
 tendency to deny eternal judgment is inevitable as gravi- 
 tation. 
 
 A further element of the general belief inimical to 
 conviction of judgment to come is the conception in which 
 all sects agree, that this material system is, on the whole, 
 defiling to the soul. This idea is less manifestly con- 
 nected with the character and history of the prince of this 
 world, but no less really. 
 
 However evangelical and unevangelical systems differ in 
 details, they all agree substantially in this, that the mate- 
 rial system, including the laws of hereditary descent, is 
 adapted to produce sin. That evangelical theories imply 
 this need not be proved ; it is not denied. Will it be said 
 that unevangelical theories do not ? Why, then, the idea 
 held by some, that sin dies with the body, and the soul goes 
 out free ? All the sin there is is from the body, according 
 to that class of thinkers. And why do another class place 
 their hopes of restoration in progressive spheres after 
 death ? Why not be holy here ? Is it not evident that 
 they feel, whatever their theory may be, that this world 
 is depraving, — that immaculate spirits come here to be 
 soiled and spotted ; that it is in vain here to sigh for purity ; 
 that we must die and get into a less defiling system ? 
 
 The idea, then, that this material system is defiling is 
 the common belief of Christendom. In that belief evan- 
 gelical and unevangelical denominations are a unit. They 
 think alike and reason alike. They make common cause 
 against the Scripture doctrine that the material system is 
 not defiling but purifying, mediatorial, remedial. 
 
 And what is the logical effect of this state of things ? Is it 
 not to create the impression that sin is our misfortune, not 
 our crime, — that the Divine government brought it upon 
 
THE WORLD CONVINCED. 331 
 
 us, and is therefore bound to remove it ? Can that feeling 
 be resisted? Is it not a just and proper feeling, provided 
 the theory on which it rests be true in fact ? If this is 
 a divinely contrived sin-producing machine, of irresistible 
 contaminating power, the Divine government is respon- 
 sible. It must remove that which it has itself occasioned. 
 The reaction from eternal judgment, from this source, is 
 resistless and universal as the attraction of gravity or the 
 motion of the spheres. 
 
 Still another element is the idea that sin occasions no 
 feeling in the Divine mind of a painful cast, none that is 
 disagreeable, none that partakes of the nature of suffering. 
 
 God is incapable of any feeling which is in the least 
 ^egree painful or disagreeable, or the opposite of pleasura- 
 ble. He cannot feel any real sorrow ; he cannot feel any 
 real grief, at least, not so far as sorrow and grief are painful 
 emotions. He can feel sorrow and grief that have not the 
 least degree of pain in them, but no other. 
 
 Now what is the logical result of this philosophy ? What 
 bearing must it have on the question of the treatment 
 due to sin, — the final treatment of rebels by the Divine 
 government ? 
 
 Was the revolt of Lucifer at all unpleasant to God ? No, 
 it was as pleasant — he was just as free from pain, just as 
 happy in it, as he would have been had Lucifer remained 
 loyal. And when myriads of bright angels followed Luci- 
 fer, and organized a kingdom of lies and murder, was not 
 that disquieting to God ? Did it not awaken some emo- 
 tions of regret, — something that might be said to be of a 
 painful cast of feeling ? No ; not in the least. The organ- 
 ization of a vast and deadly rebellion, that was for ages to 
 fill the universe with, groans and blood, excited in the 
 Divine breast emotions as free from pain of any kind as 
 their continued loyalty would have done. True, he is 
 nominally displeased and offended and angry ; but it is an 
 
332 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 anger and a displeasure that is in no sense painful or differ- 
 ent from pleasurable. 
 
 And when man fell, and human history unrolled, as it has, 
 a history of sin, sorrow, unutterable guilt, and unutterable 
 affliction, age after age, did God contemplate that with- 
 out any emotion of the nature of sorrow and grief? Does 
 all the combined shi and sorrow of all rebel angels and men 
 come up before his mind, and does he not in any painful 
 sense grieve over it? 
 
 No, we are told. He uses such language for effect, but it 
 means nothing. He is as really free from the least element 
 of a painful cast, as absolutely undisturbed in his enjoyment 
 of the spectacle, as he would have been if all angels and 
 all men were adoring and praising together round his 
 throne ! 
 
 How can the intelligent mind but revolt from the idea of 
 eternal judgment, — eternal judgment upon a thing in no 
 degree disagreeable to God, eternal judgment upon a rebel- 
 lion in which, from beginning to end, the government took 
 as much pleasure as it would have taken in loyalty ? 
 
 Does it tend to produce sympathy with the Divine gov- 
 ernment on the part of its subjects to tell them it makes no 
 difference in God's feelings of pleasure or pain whether 
 you love or hate, obey or disobey ; — it never has made any 
 difference, and it never will ; — God will feel as much joy 
 in the endless sin and sorrow of incorrigible rebels as in the 
 purity and glory of the redeemed? 
 
 The tendency of this is almost infinite to prevent the 
 possibility of conviction of sin, to cast odium on the Divine 
 government, and to cause a universal reaction against the 
 doctrine of eternal judgment in all its forms. 
 
 To these causes of reaction must be added the instinctive 
 working of rebel mind in a rebel world. 
 
 A rebellion exists, and all mankind are involved in it. 
 Christians are indeed extricated from it, and restored to 
 
THE WORLD CONVINCED. 833 
 
 loyalty, essentially, but they are surrounded by it, and not 
 yet wholly divested of habits of thought, feeling, and action 
 formed under it, and are more or less susceptible to its pub- 
 lic sentiment. Now, when was a rebellion ever known to 
 cherish feelings favorable to the strict execution of law upon 
 treason ? The instinctive workings of rebel mind, deep, 
 latent, unconscious, incessant, mighty, are all toward self- 
 exculpation, the crimination of the Divine government, and 
 the denial of his right to doom traitors to the second death. 
 
 But all these causes are enhanced and skilfully wielded 
 by the presiding intellect of the rebellion. 
 
 As the rebellion in this land has a presiding intellect of 
 great power, that wields all the resources of the revolted 
 States with consummate ability, so in the great rebellion 
 against God there is a presiding intelligence of great power 
 that wields all the resources of visible and invisible revolted 
 orders, according to a connected plan, with astonishing 
 power. 
 
 He knows full well that the next step in the Divine cam- 
 paign is to be his dislodge ment from control of public senti- 
 ment in this world for a thousand years, — a development 
 entirely distinct from his final and eternal doom, a develop- 
 ment to be brought about by the Holy Spirit, convincing 
 the world of judgment. Against that result he energizes 
 with all his power, taking advantage of all such elements 
 of the common belief of Christendom as serve his purpose, 
 and using them to form a deceived public sentiment, and 
 set it flowing in wrong channels. 
 
 It is this cause in which all other causes combine and 
 reach their height. It is the rebellion in its chiefs, in its 
 master minds, in its presiding intelligence, energizing to 
 prevent the Holy Spirit from convincing the world of sin, of 
 justification through Christ alone, and of eternal judgment. 
 
 From all these causes combined, it is not surprising that 
 there is a wide-spread antipathy against eternal judgment, 
 
334 EEDEEMER AND EEDEEMED. 
 
 and a growing hostility to the inspiration of that book that 
 teaches it. The wonder is, that, with the rebel version of 
 the controversy generally conceded on the part of the loyal, 
 Christianity has been able to survive even in name, and the 
 Bible to retain its hold on the public mind as the Word of 
 God. So long as the chiefs of the Conspiracy of Ages can 
 palm off their fictions for facts, their outrageous impostures 
 for authentic history, so long they will deceive the whole 
 race into alliance with its hereditary foes and oppressors, 
 and into desperate resistance to its hereditary King and 
 Redeemer. 
 
 But let the Holy Spirit disclose the Divine version 
 of the facts from the beginning, — let Lucifer's history, 
 character, principles, and aims be correctly revealed and 
 appreciated by mankind, — and the public sentiment of the 
 world will veer round. The war will thenceforth be a 
 war of races as well as of principles, with a more definite 
 knowledge of both. The exiled race of man, under Christ 
 its legitimate Head and Redeemer, will become a unit 
 against their hereditary tyrants and oppressors, the original 
 angelic dynasty of the universe under Lucifer their chief. 
 And when the moral sense of the race is sufficiently en- 
 lightened to sustain the Divine government in the execution 
 of the penalties of treason upon Satan and the fallen angels, 
 much more will it be enabled to sustain it in executing 
 those penalties upon such of the human race as have de- 
 serted from their own standard, gone over to their heredi- 
 tary tyrant, and made war against their own Redeemer. 
 When the Spirit of God shall have finally convinced the 
 world of judgment because the prince of this world is 
 judged, when those who have become identified with him 
 shall wake from the grave, they will wake to shame and 
 everlasting contempt. Nor will one chord of sympathy 
 vibrate in their favor, when the voice of Christ is heard say- 
 ing unto them, " Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire 
 prepared for the Devil and his angels ! " 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE VIAL ON THE AIR. 
 
 THESE are the words John hears bursting forth from 
 the throne of God, when the seventh vial is poured 
 out. 
 
 Let us endeavor to bring before our minds the scene as 
 described. Previous vials have affected parts of the 
 visible system, — earth, sea, river, sun, throne of beast, 
 Euphrates, — this strikes what is more universal, the 
 atmosphere. 
 
 From our heavenly stand-point, we look down on the 
 earth through the crystal depths of an aerial sea. One 
 moment this sea is transparent and serene, bathing the 
 wide landscape in amber and gold ; the next, clear round 
 the world, it is blazing with lightning, reverberating with 
 thunders and mysterious voices, and at the same time the 
 entire surface of the globe is seen heaving with earth- 
 quake. The ground opens under Babylon, dividing it in 
 three parts, which reel and tumble into the yawning chasm. 
 All over the expanse cities are seen falling, mountain 
 chains everywhere are sinking down, and islands en- 
 gulfed in the raging ocean ; and from above, all over the 
 world, a great hail-storm is seen descending, every stone 
 one hundred pounds weight, crashing through and shatter- 
 ing to pieces whatever is exposed to their fury. Those 
 who have received the mark of the beast are seen perish- 
 ing in great numbers, and in imminent peril, yet impeni- 
 tent still, and blaspheming God because of the hail. 
 
336 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 Such is the vision. What, then, is the import? In 
 general, the analogy is as follows. As a change in the 
 air such as to shatter the crust of the globe would be to 
 all works of man on the surface, so an analogous change 
 shall pass upon the atmosphere of human thought, revolu- 
 tionizing society from its foundations, and demolishing all 
 existing civil and ecclesiastical despotisms. 
 
 Thus viewed, it is the climax of the vials, just after a 
 hush of expectation, such as precedes the earthquake. 
 Under previous vials, we have seen the age of revolution- 
 ary tendencies, popular soreness, revenge, sanguinary 
 views, a gradual approach of God raising the moral tem- 
 perature to equatorial heat, the reaction of the fundamental 
 principles of selfish society to shut off his beams, the drying 
 up of sources of spiritual despotism, and a final rally of 
 the mind of the race to meet the coming shock. 
 
 And now the voice from the throne says, " It is done." 
 The effect, whatever it is, on human thought takes place, 
 and the result is a revolution, not of one nation or country, 
 but substantially universal, coextensive with the race. It 
 is the final crisis in the world's thought. It is the decisive 
 stroke in the grand moral war. It ends the campaign. 
 God says, " It is done." It is quick, vivid, and accom- 
 panied by all the indications of intensely excited and 
 explosive emotion, of the highest grade, voices, and thun- 
 ders, and lightnings. 
 
 It is, moreover, not a conservative revolution, but a 
 destructive one. That is, the crisis is presented, not in 
 its conservative aspects, though it has them, but exclusively 
 in its destructive. It is ecclesiastical and civil despotism 
 that is to be dealt with. It is the cup of the wine of the 
 fierceness of God's wrath that is administered. 
 
 Twice before, once under the sixth seal, and again 
 under the seventh trumpet, have the visions conducted us 
 onward to this same crisis, described with symbols of sub- 
 
THE VIAL ON THE AIR. 337 
 
 stantially similar import; and yet, again, in succeeding 
 chapters, with more ample detail is the same crisis held 
 up. Four times, in separate and independent series, we 
 are brought down to this grand crisis, the end of one age, 
 the beginning of a new. Or if by the term the world 
 we denote all that is selfish and corrupt in society, the 
 total of civil and ecclesiastical despotism, then it is the 
 end of the world, and introduction of millennial day. 
 Thus far all is general and probably undisputed. 
 
 Let us, then, endeavor to attain a somewhat more 
 specific conception of this crisis. And we remark, first, 
 that there are social structures which cannot be reformed. 
 There is in them so much that is false and selfish, that to 
 reform would be to destroy them. 
 
 When the Israelites went into Canaan, they found a 
 species of leprosy that infected even houses of brick and 
 stone. And when, after due cleansing, that plague in the 
 walls, with its greenish or reddish streaks, was pronounced 
 by the priest incurable, the house had to be torn down, 
 and the stones, timber, and mortar carried out of the city 
 to an unclean place. So there are houses built by vio- 
 lence, and cemented by blood, in whose very stones and 
 mortar lurks the plague of falsehood and selfishness so 
 deeply that there is no cure but demolition and disinte- 
 gration. 
 
 This principle was illustrated in some degree at the 
 deluge, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and 
 siege of Jerusalem, which are all used by the Spirit as 
 specimens or types of this last crisis under the seventh 
 vial. 
 
 How can the caste system of India ever be reformed ? 
 How can pagan civil and religious society ever be reor- 
 ganized without first being taken wholly to pieces ? The 
 plague is in the very walls, and in every stone, and the 
 cement is saturated. So with such a system as the Papacy. 
 15 v 
 
66o EEDEEMER AND EEDEEMED. 
 
 What reform is even conceivable which must not amount 
 to a total disintegration ? So with the immense civil des- 
 potisms of Europe. Reform them, according to the Divine 
 idea of truth and goodness, what would be left? 
 
 So with commerce. Suppose business, suddenly re- 
 formed on the basis of the golden rule, would not the 
 property of the globe change hands ? Would not some 
 lucrative branches utterly disappear? Would not what 
 was left unmodified be a part here, a part there ? In 
 short, would not the great commercial Vanity Fair be laid 
 in heaps? 
 
 It needs no particular keenness of vision to see that 
 the world, is built over with structures that cannot be 
 reformed but by a previous process of dissolution and 
 disorganization. And it is this, on the great scale, that is 
 pictured in the vision. Babylon can never be patched up 
 and mended into the New Jerusalem. It must be de- 
 molished, and the New Jerusalem take its place. 
 
 Now the atmosphere of thought of these systems is the 
 same in all ages and countries, just as the natural air is 
 the same to all nations, in all parts of the earth. These 
 systems stand in the atmosphere of selfish and corrupt 
 human thought, as spires and turrets in the air of heaven. 
 And in this thought-atmosphere Lucifer finds his con- 
 genial home, his intrenched fortress. Hence, Eph. ii. 2, 
 he is called the prince of the power of the air, energizing in 
 the hearts of the children of disobedience, and the course 
 of this world, or this age, is said to flow according to him. 
 All who commit sin are of him, his servants, his goods, his 
 subjects, in his kingdom. Paul calls him " the god of 
 this world," and names him, with his confederates, cosmoc- 
 racy, or world-government. 
 
 Now it is Lucifer and his associates, thus at home in the 
 atmosphere of human thought, who are the real architects 
 of those structures of which we have just spoken, that can- 
 
THE VIAL ON THE AIR. 339 
 
 not be reformed without being destroyed, — such as the 
 papacy and civil despotisms. No one mind or generation 
 builds them. They are the slow growth of centuries, and 
 yet they exhibit marks of design and contrivance, as much 
 as a watch or a world. And the designer was one who lived 
 on while generations rose and fell, worked by a plan of 
 his own, subtly philosophical, but evil, seizing hold of all 
 advantages as they rose, and using men as his materials. 
 
 This is shadowed by the Dragon giving throne and 
 power and authority to the Beast. That is, unseen 
 satanic agents giving intellectual and moral sway to civil 
 despotism. They speak through the false prophet, that is, 
 make worldly ministers their special mouth-piece in found- 
 ing ecclesiastical despotisms. By means of these organ- 
 izations Lucifer fortifies himself in the control of society, 
 and intrenches himself against all attempts to dislodge 
 him. 
 
 This of course implies that he knows a movement is on 
 foot to dislodge him. He knows it, although he does his best 
 to conceal it from public attention. He knows that, since 
 Eden, God has threatened to bruise the serpent's head. He 
 knows, since Christ's resurrection, the terrible power of his 
 attack, which has already hemmed him in upon this Water- 
 loo world. And, as the emblems evidently show, he fore- 
 sees the decisive battle, and makes desperate efforts to rally 
 his forces and hold his ground in the intellectual, scientific, 
 political, and religious atmosphere of the world. 
 
 It is easy, then, to see what change in the atmosphere of 
 human thought is meant, in consequence of which all selfish 
 structures are demolished. 
 
 It is, that God should reveal fully in the sphere of human 
 thought the facts in regard to Satan, and the Divine judg- 
 ment, and emotions on those facts. This involves certainty 
 as to the existence and agency of Satan. There is to be a 
 revelation of Satan, as well as a revelation of God, and one 
 
340 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 in order to the other. God cannot reveal his righteous 
 judgment concerning the whole kingdom of Satan without 
 first revealing the fact of Satan's existence, and the main 
 facts of his history. 
 
 " Then," says Paul, " shall that lawless one be revealed." 
 And so vivid is that revelation to be, that some have even 
 taken the impression that it was to be an actual incarnation. 
 
 At least, Satan will stand forth to human thought with 
 as great a reality as incarnation could give him, and the 
 main facts of his career will be correctly revealed to human 
 intelligence, and the emotions of God on the same brought 
 home to human consciousness. 
 
 This revelation of the righteous judgment of God could 
 not be made till the preparations for it were complete. It 
 was necessary that multitudes should be redeemed against 
 majorities. It was necessary Christ should prove the gen- 
 uineness of his people's repentance by securing it under 
 circumstances the most disadvantageous. It was necessary 
 Lucifer should be unable to say he had not had a fair 
 chance to test the sincerity of their return to loyalty. It 
 was necessary that he should have time and scope and 
 majorities, and that he should fortify and entrench himself 
 by organizations to the utmost. It was necessary that there 
 should be a long-continued and most wonderful forbearance 
 on the part of God, a suspension of the full expression of 
 his infinite ideas and emotions, as he says in the fiftieth 
 Psalm, " These things hast thou done, and I kept silence." 
 
 Nevertheless, from the beginning of the world there have 
 been intimations of a day when this reserve would end. 
 The prophets all look forward to it in connection with vari- 
 ous crises of providential judgments, e. g. on Sodom, Baby- 
 lon, and Jerusalem, which they use as specimens or types. 
 It is called " that day," " the day of the Lord," " the day 
 of God," " the day," " day of the revelation of the right- 
 eous judgment of God," " day of his redeemed," " day of 
 vengeance," " day of wrath," and the like. 
 
THE VIAL ON THE AIR. 341 
 
 Then great Babylon comes in remembrance before God, 
 to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of 
 his wrath. Before, it seemed as if God had forgotten. 
 He acted, to human view, as if he had. He gave no full 
 and unequivocal utterance to his emotions. Now such 
 self-restraint ceases ; now he acts as if he had just re- 
 membered, that is, he gives full expression, in the sphere 
 of human thought, to his views and feelings concerning 
 Babylon. 
 
 Let us endeavor, then, to conceive of this revelation and 
 its effects. Let us suppose each individual of the human 
 race to have no more doubt of Lucifer's existence than of 
 his own. Let us suppose all rebel lies swept away, and 
 the Divine version of his history seen by each eye as clear 
 as day. 
 
 God made Lucifer noble and nobly endowed. He gave 
 him a high and responsible position. He asked of him 
 nothing unreasonable. All he wished was, that he should 
 administer the trust confided to him in a spirit of meekness 
 and devotion to the general welfare and the glory of God. 
 But Lucifer abode not in the truth. In the exercise of his 
 own autocracy of free will he created a new kingdom of 
 lies and selfishness, which is virtual murder. 
 
 When aberration first commenced, God was not abrupt 
 and impatient. He exhibited the same forbearance and 
 long-suffering that he now exhibits to all sinners. He used 
 all means consistent with self-respect to prevent a final rup- 
 ture, and those results of disorganization and conflict which 
 must ensue. It was in vain. Lucifer persisted in his un- 
 reasonable course, and changed the empire intrusted to 
 him into a despotism. 
 
 It became necessary to displace him, and those who sym- 
 pathized with him, and appoint others to succeed in their 
 stead after a due season of probation and preparation for the 
 change. That season of preparation Lucifer employed in 
 
342 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 corrupting and betraying in the most perfidious manner 
 those thus anointed in his room, and securing their expul- 
 sion from heaven. 
 
 At this point the mediatorial system arose. A sacrifice 
 was appointed, and a Redeemer provided for the banished 
 race, and the mighty drama of redemption began to unfold. 
 
 Then come the campaigns of earthly history summed up 
 in one sentence, " Enmity between thee and the woman, 
 and between thy seed and her seed." Lucifer takes pos- 
 session of the atmosphere of human thought from the first. 
 He founds collossal empires, Titanic, Egyptian, Assyrian, 
 Persian, Roman, Germanic. He arrays these like wild 
 beasts against private judgment and liberty of conscience. 
 At the same time he corrupts the Church by flattery and 
 worldly joys. Thus, by alternate intimidation and seduc- 
 tion, he reduces to extremities the few who remain loyal. 
 
 Among these appears the Son of God, a sacrifice for the 
 royal order. Lucifer crucifies him, and is himself cast 
 down the first stage of descent in consequence. His sway 
 over public sentiment of other worlds than this terminated. 
 Here his power is intensified. He builds the papacy. He 
 intrenches himself by all those organizations to which we 
 have referred, in his possession of the atmosphere of human 
 thought. He perpetrates the most unheard-of atrocities and 
 enormities. He parodies the history of the universe, traves- 
 ties the fall, burlesques the atonement, slanders God, throws 
 the blame of the revolt and of sin on him, paints him in 
 diabolic colors, puts his own false and malignant character 
 into the theological temple and calls it God, dresses up a 
 filthy harlot, drunk with blood, and calls her bride of God, 
 object of his special affection. 
 
 Thus, for centuries, he exhausts the possibilities of lan- 
 guage and action to express his hatred, contempt, and loath- 
 ing. He alternately intimidates and debauches the objects 
 of his vengeance, because the heirs of glory. In every 
 
THE VIAL ON THE AIR. 343 
 
 way lie tries to cajole and deceive them, put them in false 
 and ridiculous positions, commit them to the most abomina- 
 ble errors, intoxicate them with flatteries, and madden them 
 with carnal elixirs, or rend and tear them, and trample 
 them mangled in the mire. 
 
 These things he has done, and God has kept silence. 
 But he has seen it all. He has felt it all. He has not for- 
 gotten one iota of it. And when the proper moment 
 comes, he knows how to blaze it out before human thought 
 as it is before his own, and reveal to human consciousness 
 the full sense of his living indignation. 
 
 And what, then, must be the effect ? It is the instant 
 drawing of the lines, — the good, and those who mean to 
 be good, on one side, and those who do not mean to repent 
 on the other. And this is equivalent to instant disorganiza- 
 tion to all mixed systems composed of good and bad. 
 
 The chief strength of Lucifer has lain in the art with 
 which he could involve partially sanctified men in corrupt 
 movements, and identify them with selfish institutions. 
 That is the way the papacy gained and keeps its great 
 power. That is the secret of the longevity of slavery. 
 That is why civil despotisms bear such a charmed life. It 
 is because no human mind possesses adequate discriminative 
 power to make head against Lucifer's blending of good and 
 evil. It is his amazing skill in employing the conservative 
 element of good men in evil systems, that those systems 
 are so invulnerable. 
 
 But the instant effect of the full revelation of God's view 
 of facts concerning Lucifer would be to draw all good men 
 to his side. And this would be like drawing the nails and 
 pins and braces out of a vast edifice. It would collapse. 
 Or, like suddenly extracting the keystone from every arch 
 supporting an immense temple, it would crush down in 
 ruins. 
 
 Let this take place, and the lines are drawn, the good all 
 
344 EEDEEMEB AND REDEEMED. 
 
 on one side, and the bad on the other, and there is instant 
 shock of battle. There can then be a fair fight, with noth- 
 ing to break the force of Divine logic. There will be no 
 bad men on the good side to break the force of example. 
 There will be no good men on the bad side to lend respect- 
 ability to evil. 
 
 Christians will no more be sundered by mistakes and 
 misconceptions, and turn their arms against each other ; no 
 more time and strength will be wasted in terrible fratricidal 
 combats ; for the Christian fights with desperation when he 
 does fight, — he never gives up, never knows when he is 
 beaten ; and hence, when Christians turn their weapons 
 against each other, the shock of battle is dreadful and the 
 conflict inveterate. 
 
 In the mistakes and divisions of Christians in their feuds 
 and dire conflicts with each other, one great secret of 
 Satan's safety and strength has lain. The moment that 
 ceases to be possible, — the moment God's righteous judg- 
 ment is so revealed that all who are of God are a unit, — 
 that moment the Waterloo battle is joined, the battle of 
 the great day of God Almighty. 
 
 Then, indeed, earth quakes. Then there are voices and 
 thunders and lightnings. Then logical arguments go crash- 
 ing through the gloomy structures of despotism, and the 
 hail-stones of Divine wrath sweep away the refuges of lies. 
 Then the voice from the throne proclaims, "It is done ! " 
 The campaign is closed. The hosts have been fairly ral- 
 lied in battle array. The shock of conflict has come. 
 The enemy's centre has been broken. The army is annihi- 
 lated. The war of ages is over. 
 
 Well is the book whence our subject is chosen called 
 Revelation, for it reveals. It casts a revealing radiance, 
 clear and strong, on life and all that it contains. 
 
 Not that our interpretation is infallible, or that of any 
 man. Mistake must, doubtless, be largely mixed with it, 
 
THE VIAL ON THE AIR. 345 
 
 as with everything human. But that, in spite of mistakes, 
 there is such an approximation to the Divine idea as to 
 throw a flood of light over an otherwise gloomy and chaotic 
 world. 
 
 There are many that treat this book as if its name were 
 concealment. There are those that ridicule every attempt 
 to understand it. One would imagine they thought it 
 God's book of puzzles. One would suppose they read the 
 benediction at the opening, Blessed be he that despises, and 
 they that scorn to hear the words of the prophecy of this 
 book. We cannot thank such people. We cannot accept 
 their offices as friendly, however well meant. We can 
 conceive of nothing more dark and gloomy than this world 
 would be without prophecy shining as a light in a dark 
 place. A world full of dungeons and bastiles, a world of 
 wars and fightings, plagues and pestilences, a Golgotha, a 
 valley of the shadow of death ! 
 
 Without the Bible, and especially without the prophetic 
 portions, what omens are ours ! To what could we think 
 ourselves coming? And before us what could we discover 
 but wars and rumors of wars, and trouble such as was not 
 since God created man on earth, distress of nations, the sea 
 and waves roaring, and men's hearts failing them for fear, 
 and for looking for those things that are coming on the 
 earth. 
 
 But the Bible, and especially the Book of Revelation, 
 pours a flood of light all over the near future. 
 
 It forbids us to expect the final peace without intervening 
 revolution and commotion. It puts us on our guard, fore- 
 warns and forearms us. It makes us know that there 
 is to be an evil day, defends us against delusive expecta- 
 tions, and enables us to stand in the evil day, and then 
 opens before us an end. 
 
 There is an end. There is a denouement. There is a 
 climax. Houses built by iniquity and cemented in Mood. 
 
346 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 are to be all torn down, and the beams, mortar, and tim- 
 bers carried out to an unclean place. Society is to be 
 rebuilt, and the New Jerusalem is the ideal. There is to 
 be a decisive battle, not eternal guerilla skirmishing. There 
 is to be, and that soon, a battle of the great day of God 
 Almighty. 
 
 Then the forces of civil and ecclesiastical despotism are 
 utterly defeated, routed, crushed, destroyed. The Devil is 
 chained, and, for the first time, incarcerated to deceive the 
 nations no more for a thousand years. Earth is purified by 
 the same logical and moral developments by which heaven 
 was purified at the resurrection of Christ. The cosmocracy 
 of hostile spirits — the original angelic dynasty — has passed 
 away, the air is purged of their baleful and corrupting 
 presence. The principles and ideas of Christ are in the 
 ascendant, and the influences of his remedial system for 
 the first time developed in ideal perfection without being 
 alloyed, corrupted, or neutralized. Generation after gen- 
 eration of beauteous and healthful children arise under 
 institutions wisely and benevolently organized and spirit- 
 ually administered. Health, vigor, purity, prevail. Sick- 
 ness and death cease to reign. Want is unknown. Science 
 is immensely stimulated, and art perfected. The spiritual 
 and ideal in man becomes predominant over the material 
 and sensuous. Men at length breathe the air of freedom. 
 Civil and religious liberty proves a sweet and exalted reality. 
 All the more delicate aspirations and sensitive yearnings 
 of the soul expand without fear. The roses of the heart 
 bloom in a summer that fears no frost. Mortals, grown 
 heavenly, welcome to their society bright visitants of higher 
 spheres, and the mountain-tops are often flashing with the 
 radiance of celestial wings. The kingdoms of this world 
 are then become the kingdoms of Christ. Nations are no 
 longer bestial and brutal. They learn war no more. They 
 are what we have never seen, — humane, just, generous,, 
 
THE VIAL ON THE AIR. 347 
 
 spiritual. And in that thousand years, the race, as a race 
 sitting clothed and in its right mind at Jesus' feet, shall 
 be healed of its wounds, purged from its stains, and tri- 
 umphantly qualified to resume, under better auspices, and 
 carry out to final accomplishment, the interrupted and 
 long-suspended plan of union to Christ in the headship of 
 universal empire. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 UNIVERSAL PEAISE. 
 
 " All nations shall come and worship before thee, foe tht judg- 
 ments ARE MADE MANIFEST." — Rev. XV. 4. 
 
 A TIME is here brought to view when the thoughts 
 of mankind shall have undergone a great change. 
 Their attention will be absorbed in God. In Him they 
 will perceive qualities more enrapturing than all they had 
 ever known. Praise will be the natural result. Even in 
 the moment of his fiercest wrath, a sense of holy beauty 
 and divine comeliness will take possession of their breast. 
 And in the intensity of the general feeling, a spontaneous 
 burst of wonder, admiration, and love will fill the sky. In 
 reflecting on that worship, we observe, — 
 
 1. It is an intelligent worship, based upon a full knowl- 
 edge of the character of God, as revealed in his actions, 
 not merely of one side, namely, as of pity revealed in acts 
 of mercy, but equally of the other side, of wrath revealed 
 in acts of judgment. Indeed, it is the outpouring of those 
 vials in which is filled up the wrath of God that constitutes 
 the immediate occasion of the outburst. "Great and mar- 
 vellous are thy works ! Just and true are thy ways ! Thou 
 only art holy ! Thy judgments are made manifest ! " It 
 is because of this stupendous vindication of himself that 
 all nations are represented as coming and worshipping be- 
 fore him. 
 
 Previous to that crisis the Divine indignation has been 
 withheld, while His works have been maligned, his ways 
 questioned as neither just nor true, his very character 
 
UNIVERSAL PRAISE. 349 
 
 impeached as not absolutely holy. Usurping powers have 
 assumed His place, and mankind have been portrayed, in 
 the vivid emblems of the visionary scene, as worshipping a 
 wild beast, and receiving the mark of that blasphemous ser- 
 vice upon their forehead and their hand, while the few who 
 have clung to his true worship have been represented as the 
 objects of the fury of the destroyer. As regards the ma- 
 jority of the race, the public mind has been obscured and 
 the public judgment bewildered by Satanic deceptions. 
 
 As a consequence, worship would become formal. Praise 
 would consist in the ascription to God of qualities he ought, 
 rather than those he seemed, to possess. Truth, justice, 
 and love would of course be nominally ascribed to him, 
 while his deeds would appear to the shuddering worshipper 
 at variance with those traits. Such, all history shows, has 
 been the case with the vast majority of men. Shut up 
 under false representations of God, they have been forbid- 
 den even to think of calling those representations in ques- 
 tion. The very intuitions of their souls have been set 
 aside, the eternal principles of right and wrong summarily 
 repealed, and they prohibited from judging of the alleged 
 courses of the Divine procedure. Supposing them to be 
 in reality facts in the Divine administration, and feeling 
 a shuddering consciousness of their real injustice, cruelty, 
 and falsehood, men have rebuked their own minds. Let 
 me not dare, they have said, to question. My reason is 
 fallacious. My conscience is invalid. My standard of 
 right and wrong is deceptive. The intuitions of my mind, 
 however deep, however sacred, however universal to all 
 ages, climes, and kindred, are not correct when applied to 
 the Infinite. Therefore let me veil the eye, nor dare 
 examine my Maker's conduct ; let me bow and adore in 
 blind acquiescence. 
 
 Thus, too generally, praise has been obliged to take for 
 granted a goodness it could not see, to celebrate as genuine 
 
350 EEDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 a truth and honor it could not identify. Praise under such 
 circumstances, of necessity, became formal and hypocritical. 
 The suitor who compliments the rich heiress with charms 
 she does not possess flatters, but does not truly praise. The 
 inferior who seeks emolument and influence by attribut- 
 ing to his superiors unreal virtues, is a sycophantic slave. 
 Praise means what it says. Adulation laughs while it in- 
 sidiously flatters. Such is the distinction men draw in 
 their treatment of each other. Such in principle is the 
 distinction God has drawn in their worship of him. Just 
 in proportion as God's truth and justice are not seen by 
 the mind, just in that proportion does the ascription of 
 them to him in solemn words become a lying mockery, 
 exciting his deepest displeasure. 
 
 On the other hand, in proportion as his real character is 
 discerned, whether in the world of nature or of grace, and 
 intelligently adored, just in that proportion is praise a de- 
 light, a fragrant incense, before his throne. The husband- 
 man in the field, who learns to trace the surpassing skill and 
 beauty of an ever-present God, can praise him at the plough. 
 The student of history, who sees him benevolently presiding 
 over the changes of nations, can adore him in his literary 
 toils. Especially as the scheme of redemption is opened, 
 and the deep things of God are revealed to us by his spirit, 
 may we even now say, " I will praise Thee with joyful lips ; 
 I will sing praise unto Thee while I have any being ! " 
 
 How much more, then, in that day of the full revelation 
 of his righteous judgment ! No more then shall the blind 
 lead the blind, and both fall into the ditch. No more shall 
 liars with consciences seared as with a hot iron deceive the 
 world. No more shall destroyers destroy, tread down, and 
 lay waste the fair heritage of God. On such the vials of his 
 wrath will be poured, and that wrath will give rest to the 
 mind and heart of his saints. Then when the hail beats 
 down the refuges of lies ; then when omnipotent ven- 
 
UNIVERSAL PRAISE. 351 
 
 geance shows who is to blame, and what God really thinks 
 of the despotisms of ages ; then when there is nothing hid 
 that is not revealed, nothing covered that does not come 
 abroad, when all Satan's lies are detected, and every act of 
 God's administration vindicated from aspersion ; then it is 
 that the nations, astonished, lift up their souls to God, and 
 say, " Thy judgments are made manifest." Then, in a 
 manner wholly unprecedented, shall praise become a pub- 
 lic institution. Then nations shall be regenerated, a nation 
 in a day. Then the whole family of man, of every kindred, 
 people, and tongue, shall say, " Thou only art holy ! " 
 
 2. Another characteristic of true praise is joyful fervor. 
 This is the natural result of sincerity and intelligent con- 
 viction. Insincerity is cold. Sycophantic praise is like 
 frost to the heart. The atmosphere of society, where men 
 falsely praise each other for interested ends, is wintry and 
 bleak. And if from man they transfer the same habits 
 to God, — if they address to him what must appear to him 
 little better than heartless flattery and unmeaning com- 
 pliment, — their praise becomes joyless. An air of cold 
 restraint palls their assemblies with gloom. But a meet- 
 ing of Christians ought to be, of all places on earth, lively 
 and cheerful. A circle of redeemed pilgrims, forgiven, 
 bound for heaven, met to speak of the love that ransomed 
 them, ought to be a burning focus of light and heat ; and 
 so, in proportion as worship becomes genuine, it will be. 
 The emotions we are capacitated to feel toward God are 
 the deepest in our nature. Where fully developed and 
 kindled towards their object, they burn with a vehement 
 flame. 
 
 Nor is the object of those feelings inaccessible. In 
 Christ they find their object. He is Emmanuel, God with 
 us. Those sentiments which would be diffused and lost, if 
 we went out after Infinite Spirit, are concentred and con- 
 densed upon Jesus. About God, thus winningly embodied, 
 
352 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 every attraction clusters. Our fears are disarmed, our mis- 
 conceptions corrected, our alienation and distrust reconciled 
 and obliterated. All Satanic slanders of the blessed God 
 are seen to be false ; for if this be He, — if this Jesus be 
 very God, — then not one of those hard things he has 
 alleged can be true. We look at His whole life : it is a 
 chain of benefactions. We regard his teachings : they are 
 simple, intelligible, and adapted to the plainest comprehen- 
 sions. If these are God's thoughts, then we see how and 
 why God's thoughts are not as our thoughts, because they 
 are so pure and clear and transparent, while ours are so 
 confused and darkened. We contemplate His Spirit : there 
 is not a trace of superciliousness ; no pride offends us, no 
 haughtiness bears us down ; we detect not the slightest 
 flavor of arrogance ; there is no stiffness, no reserve, noth- 
 ing said or done for effect ; all is natural, easy, gentle, open, 
 affectionate. If this be very God, — if from this flower 
 the very aroma of heaven exhales, — then we know with 
 absolute certainty that the very different character of God 
 which Satanic philosophy has set forth is not true. No 
 matter whether we can philosophize about it or not, — 
 whether we can in words demonstrate its falsehood, — we 
 know it, as we know a counterfeit by the side of a genuine 
 work of beauty ; as we know a real fruit of autumn from 
 a waxen imitation ; as we know a living, breathing body 
 of a dear friend from a ghastly corpse, from whence every 
 trace of life's glory is fled. 
 
 Above all, we look at Christ's whole Career of temptation 
 and resistance ; of subjection to law and obedience ; of trial 
 and endurance ; of atoning sufferings and resurrection ; and 
 we say, If this be very God, then we know that all the 
 specious impeachments of his goodness are fabrications. 
 We know that all acts of fraud ascribed to him are lies ; 
 that all acts of injustice represented as his are unreal, 
 never done by him ; that all courses of policy, all plans, 
 
UNIVERSAL PRAISE. 353 
 
 arrangements, providences, constitutions, dispensations, vio- 
 lative of simple fairness and affection, are utterly forged and 
 fabricated by the Father of lies. We know it as certainly 
 as we know the sun when it rises, — as certainly as chil- 
 dren know their father when he enters the room, or their 
 mother, as she kneels by their bedside to teach them their 
 infant prayers. 
 
 And in proportion as the stupendous forgeries and frauds 
 of Satan roll off, and drift like the mists of morning before 
 the rising sun, in that proportion do our deep fountains of 
 honorable feeling begin to be unsealed. If this be God, 
 we say, then I am a sinner ; there can be no mistaking that. 
 There is no object in concealment, no dishonor in the 
 avowal. Nay, if this be the holiness of my God, this 
 which I see in Jesus, this most lovely sight my eyes ever 
 beheld, — if this be the quality of infinite goodness, why, 
 then, it is what I want ; this is the kind of holiness I can 
 worship ; and I can with entire freedom and sweet self- 
 abandonment say it is something far purer than I possess. 
 O yes ! If this be the holiness of the living God, I can 
 fall at his feet, and confess that I have been dead in tres- 
 passes and sins ; for such a life of exalted goodness I have 
 not led ; such matchless magnanimity was never mine, or, 
 if it was, I have lost it, and the very memory of it is per- 
 ished within me. 
 
 And while thus rejoicing to become as nothing in my 
 own esteem, deep fountains of emotion towards this new, 
 this wondrous, this blessed Being astonish me by bursting 
 forth within. These deep, soft, sweet, yet mysteriously 
 strong emotions, — whence come they ? Have I ever felt 
 them before ? Nothing earthly that I can remember is 
 like them ; and yet they have a strange, indescribable 
 familiarity of bliss, as if now, at last, I had come to myself 
 again, — now attained a second spiritual childhood, — now 
 fallen once more upon the bosom of my earliest friend. 
 
354 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 When such emotions are dominant in the soul, praise 
 is as natural as breathing. Out of the abundance of the 
 heart the mouth speaketh. Childhood is loquacious of its 
 little toys, youth of its pleasures, manhood of its sterner 
 interests. But, ah ! when all idols are discarded for the 
 one new-found object of beauty ; when lighter flames are 
 quenched in the brightness of this consuming fire, and the 
 whole being is surrendered to Him who is chiefest among 
 ten thousand and altogether lovely, — then the tongue is 
 loosed indeed, and praise becomes the absorbing impulse 
 of existence. New forces reveal themselves within ; new 
 energies force their way out of deep, imprisoned recesses. 
 Men. are no longer barren, coarse, brutal, destitute of ideas, 
 bound down, and base. The fountains of the great deep 
 are broken up ; floods rise from below. They discover 
 the greatness of their own being, the grandeur of their 
 own powers ; God, who made them great, has made them 
 great again ; God, who placed in them powers and ener- 
 gies, in comparison with which a world is dust, has un- 
 locked those energies, broken down the prison doors, and 
 brought them forth from thraldom ; and they find them- 
 selves able to praise God after another sort from what they 
 ever supposed. One man fully redeemed of God develops 
 the moral energy of a thousand sunk in sin. One shall 
 chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight. 
 And when, not in one here and another there, such work 
 is wrought, but when in each and all ; when the fathers 
 and the mothers, the sons and the daughters, when churches 
 and communities, shall be seized with the glad surprise, — 
 shall feel the august rushing of the mighty wind, — then 
 indeed will praise to God be developed on a scale unknown 
 before on earth. The world shall be filled with the knowl- 
 edge of God as the waters cover the deep. As the mighty 
 tides of the emerald sea fill the vast valleys of the Atlantic, 
 and bathe the submerged mountains, with all their marine 
 
UNIVERSAL PRAISE. 355 
 
 forests and secret hiding-places of strange things, so, like 
 another ocean, shall the knowledge of God overleap the 
 mountain-tops of society, fill every vale and dark recess, 
 submerge the mountains, with all their waving pride, and 
 dash with sparkling crests of fire against the sky. Of all 
 the millions that people the globe, not one will hide from 
 the face of God in Christ, not one wish to be excused, but 
 all, from least to greatest, unite in saying, " Great and mar- 
 vellous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty ! just and 
 true are thy ways, thou King of saints ! Thou only art 
 holy ! thy judgments are made manifest ! " 
 
 In the light of this discussion we may discover why our 
 worship of God is so faint and low. The real character of 
 God, his real acts, are so glorious, that, if we do not tend 
 strongly to praise, it is certain that they are hid from us. 
 Either sin hides them, — a fixed, inveterate indulgence in 
 known sin, by which we shut our eye on God, and will not 
 see him, — or else some mistake of our own, or some contri- 
 vance of the enemy, has shut him out from the view. One 
 or both, usually both, are true, when praise is not spontane- 
 ous and vital. Whatever in our life indisposes us to praise 
 God, is sin. Whatever in our belief chills our worship, is 
 false. Have you either a practice or a creed which dulls 
 the edge of devotion, which you suppose to be true, but 
 which yet always depresses you, and fills you with apa- 
 thetic gloom, then such practice is sinful and such creed a 
 delusion ! By their fruits ye shall know them. It is not 
 the life of God nor the truth of God. It is part of that 
 dark cloud of forgery and lies with which Satan has de- 
 ceived the nations. 
 
 We discover, moreover, the true method of perfecting 
 praise. We are to perfect knowledge. We are to grow in 
 the knowledge of God. Taking Jesus as the beginning 
 and end, we are to found the whole system of our thoughts 
 upon him. If we would study nature, and the chain of 
 
856 REDEEMER AND REDEEMED. 
 
 arts and sciences, we are to study them in the light of the 
 Cross. In proportion as we investigate the laws of the 
 material system, in this light will every part grow clearer. 
 And as one mystery after another is unfolded, — as one dis- 
 closure after another of hidden wisdom is effected, — we 
 rise to increasing heights of praise. 
 
 So we are to study human history and the great princi- 
 ples of revealed religion. So the first principles and the 
 higher truths of Christianity. Theology will thus be to us 
 an ever advancing path of light. And while we leave the 
 things behind, and press on to new discoveries, it will be 
 our stimulus, not our discouragement, that we can never 
 find out the Almighty unto perfection ; that, while contin- 
 ually finding him out in stage after stage of knowledge, 
 degree above degree in attainment, we know for our con- 
 solation that there is an infinite store of riches beyond, 
 which all eternity cannot impoverish nor exhaust. 
 
 Suffer me, then, to incite you betimes to engage in the 
 true worship of God. If sin hide him from you, forsake 
 sin by repentance and turning to God. If mistake hide 
 him, abandon mistake. Cast aside every weight, every 
 easily besetting sin. Look unto Jesus, author and finisher 
 of faith. Have you unsettled and vague notions in refer- 
 ence to the Bible ? Let them speedily become settled. 
 Have you sceptical doubts and difficulties ? Let them be 
 resolved. .Do parts of the Christian scheme appear repug- 
 nant to reason and right ? Discover your mistake, for you 
 have not rightly apprehended that scheme. There are no 
 parts which are not easily reconcilable with the simplest 
 principles of common sense. Of course you will not un- 
 derstand me to say, that the scope of the system does not 
 reach out into the unknown, and take in future consequen- 
 ces which we cannot measure. You will not suppose me 
 to imply, that much of past history is not concealed from 
 us. Far be it from us to affect infallibility or omniscience 
 
UNIVERSAL PRAISE. 357 
 
 in regard to things unrevealed ; but it is in reference to 
 tilings revealed that you will understand me to say, that 
 they contain no part or portion repugnant to right reason, 
 and that cannot be reconciled to the common sense of a 
 child. Seek, then, for settled and satisfactory views of the 
 Word of God and the Christian economy, and be sure that 
 you never have found them so long as praise is a stranger 
 to your heart. 
 
 And while cherishing the outward means of worship, 
 endeavor to complete and crown the whole by a life of 
 praise. The highest praise you can render to a man is to 
 embrace his views, yield to his requests, imitate his exam- 
 ple, and promote his interests. So it is the highest form 
 of praise to God when we yield our bodies and spirits 
 living sacrifices to Christ, when we learn of him what to 
 believe, when we imbibe his spirit and principles, when we 
 strive to promote his interests. This is unspoken worship ; 
 but O how eloquent ! It speaks louder than words. It 
 reflects on men the glory of the Saviour when his image 
 is formed in us. When we breathe his spirit, men take 
 knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus. So let us 
 worship him, and soon the day will come when all the earth 
 will join and own him Lord. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
 
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