now look at it a little more distinctly. We are often unwilling either to see this inability or to admit it, on the very same ground, perhaps, that we like not to contemplate the character of God as in any way connected with terrible majesty. Hence the feeling of self-sufficiency so prevalent in the world-the crying up of meritorious actions and the readiness to take it for granted, that because we are not so externally vicious as some, we are therefore almost every thing we ought to be! If this be intended to imply a reckoning up of the virtuous character of man in the sight of God, it is absolutely worse than meaningless. It is substituting our way of viewing things for God's view of things. It is arrogating to ourselves the possession of what never belonged to us. It is depicting the moral image we fancy we sustain, without ever having looked at the countenance as it is! Now have we any thing to object to the delineations of another protraiture? The hand that drew the picture was a Master-hand. No objection will be offered to the colouring, provided it be not exhibited as the moral potraiture of ourselves, will be the feeling of many. But the likeness shall speak for itself. “I was born in sin, and shapen in iniquity." "From the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, there is nothing but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores ;"-so true is it that though God made man upright, the crown has fallen from his head, and wo! is denounced against him because of his sinfulness! We are not to be told either as the way of evading the argument, that the language we have here taken out of the scripture is eastern allegory or metaphor. We maintain that every word has to do with the apostacy of man-that in him there dwelleth no good thing as seen by the eye of pure Omniscience—that, in fact,

he is so utterly a moral leper, as to be altogether incurable but by the touch of Him who is the Physician of the soul! Neither is it sufficient to set aside the description, which we hold to be a description of facts as they exist, to say, that the language may go far to depict the moral turpitude of those, who are notorious for profligacy and vice, but can have no application to the more virtuous classes of society. This is but telling us over again that these are the views which certain societies entertain of the present condition of human nature, without telling us, however, where and how these views originated. They never thought of deriving them from the bible ;-not that the book is too learned or too figurative, but they like not its representations! It is our business to endeavour to correct this mistake; and would to God we could impress it on every reader's mind, that the language above is precisely the description of every reader's heart until remodelled by grace. We like not to speak of human nature in this way for gratification-but we are bound to do so for the purposes of truth and where this thorough depravity of man is admitted, the inability of man to effect an atonement for transgression is as obvious as the necessity of an atonement itself. It arises, in fact, out of the very circumstances of his history. If he fell at a time when he was holy by creation, what does he now possess to render him acceptable with God? Or supposing he had a capacity for present and future obedience, what is to be done with transgressions that are past? Are these to be unheeded? Is no atonement needed for them? If we look at divine justice, it flames to be satisfied !—If we turn to the debtor, he has nothing wherewith to pay his debts! He may offer the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul-but it is not

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the ransom that is demanded.—It is unequal to the debt! Or he may consent to the laying down of his own life that he may take it up again in Heaven, but neither is that "the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."-Or repentance, though it might indicate a sorrow for the past, offers at the same time no compensation for the past. So that turn we as we please to man, he is utterly unable either to retrace his steps to primitive happiness on earth, or to assure himself of happiness hereafter. "What shall I give for the sin of my soul?" is a question that may often be asked, but it is not in human nature to answer it. It is not we who give the atonement for the sin of the soul— it comes from the hands and the labours and the sufferings of another. It is not by our works, "lest any man should boast." The application of its blessings is to us, but the procurement of these blessings is the result of the bloodshedding of an immaculate substitute.

Let us now for a moment glance at the connexion in which the text stands with other passages of scripture. The whole of the verse reads thus-" For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." Not that the sacrifices offered up under the ancient dispensation expiated sin; they were merely the adumbrations of another and a better, by faith in which the believing Israelite was saved. It may be worth while here to look at the original institution of sacrifices, for in this consists their connexion with the text. They must have been commanded, and the text reminds us of the command. To look at scripture in this way is to make scripture speak for itself. It is admitted that the institution of sacrifices was of God; but for what

purpose was their institution? It cannot for a moment be supposed that the Almighty delighted himself with the slaughter of animals, or attatched any meritorious efficacy to their blood; and the only conclusion, therefore, to which we can come on the subject will be, that whilst they were typical in their effects, every one of them proceeded on the assumption that an atonement for the sin of the soul was certainly indispensable, if man was to be pardoned. The whole of the numerous ceremonies connected with the Jewish church, must have been to those who were the members of it most distinct intimations of the necessity of an atonement; and hence says the apostle in the tenth chapter of his epistle to the Hebrews; "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers, once purged, would have had no more conscience of sins."-" But,” says the same inspired writer, "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins :" neither "in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin" did the Almighty ever take pleasure, any further than that these inferior offerings aimed to shew that justice demanded to be satisfied, and that an atonement was thus in the process of prefigurement. The ark, moreover, was an important symbol amongst the modes of Jewish worship. The colouring of that ark was red. It was ordered to be so; and here was another indication of the necessity of bloodshedding; and as over this stood the mercy-seat, so when both are taken together, they teach us a lesson of momentous truth, that mercy to be exercised, justice must approve

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of the way by which it is shewn. If, again, we come down to the age of the prophets, they frequently speak of a sacrifice for sin, without ever supposing that the legal sacrifices were intended to be sufficient for the purpose. Indeed they distinctly speak of a Messiah to come. when he came, was his teaching different from theirs? 66 Even," ," said he, "as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." And after his resurrection from the dead, the theme was resumed by the apostles, who attest it as a truth, that "Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures;" and "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." It would be needless to multiply passages, or in fact to extend our arguments for the necessity of an atonement. Every thing proclaims not only the apostacy of man, but his own inability to bring himself back to God. This lies at the foundation of what we are contending for. Man needs redemption-redemption implies satisfaction to the divine law. Where is that satisfaction to be found? Not from the creature-no; but abundantly provided by the sacrifice of another. Let us then

II. Notice the nature of that atonement presented to our faith under the Christian dispensation. It is impossible to say how much, without saying that every thing is included in the declaration of the apostle, that "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us." It intimates the necessity of the thing, and by a reference to the qualifications of Christ as a Redeemer, we are at once conducted to the conclusion of the adequacy of his sacrifice, as answering all the purposes of divine justice, and effectual to the salvation of man. Such a scheme was wonderful in its origin,