and overwhelms, and melts the soul of a believer, whenever he gets a glimpse of it, for more than this, he cannot have at present-It is emphatically "a love which passeth knowledge." for the time and labour bestowed on them. It only remains to contrast the two theories in relation to the нoNOUR they reflect on the DIVINE law, and on our BLESSED REDeemer. Both schools concur in pronounc encomiums; believing it to be a transcript of his moral perfections, and worthy of the profoundest obedience of every rational creature. They agree in the sentiment, that the penalty which guards the sanctity of the law, involves a degree of misery far greater than is felt by any human being on this side the grave, and that it will run parallel with the eternal existence of the damned; and they strenuously maintain, that the infliction of this fearful penalty on every impenitent and unbelieving sinner, is a righteous procedure on the part of the Supreme Ruler of the universe. But they differ widely in their views of the bearing of the Mediator's work on the law. The wrath of God endured by our blessed Lord when he was acting on the Law of God the highest ing as a surety for his people, chiefly appeared in his agony in the garden, when he said "My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death; and when he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground;" and again on the cross, when he cried with a loud voice, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me." Ah, my dear youth! "if these things were done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"-If Christ suffered thus when he bore the sins of others, how will sinners themselves suffer, when the wrath of God shall be let loose upon them, for their own deserts? How earnest should you be to escape this, by immediately flying to the Saviour, that your sins may be forgiven for his sake-that they may all be blotted out in his precious atoning blood. (To be continued.) ON THE ATONEMENT. On the Law. My dear Friend,-I must draw my epistles to a close; the importance of the subject discussed, has induced me to spend so much time in the investigation. They are now in a course of publication; and if the great Head of the church shall condescend to honour them as a means for rectifying the error of any reader, or for establishing the minds of the wavering in the doctrine that has hitherto prevailed in the Presbyterian church, I shall deem myself well rewarded You know, sir, that, in the contrast I am drawing, I do not refer to our brethren, who, while they believe in a general atonement, hold to its true nature as involving a real satisfaction to divine justice, and a real infliction of the threatened penalty on the sinner's glorious and spotless substitute. In my second letter it was shown, that between them and the advocates of a definite atonement, the difference is merely verbal, and that they have no ground for controversy with each other. This I wish to be kept in mind. The new school believe the perfect obedience which Christ yielded to the precepts of the divine law to have been necessary to his work as Saviour, and that the least defect in it would have defeated his benevolent design of saving sinners. But this belief is grounded, not on the necessity of the saved having a finished righteousness as the basis of their justification, but on the necessity of perfect holiness in the person of the Redeemer. Accordingly they deny that Christ, as the legal representative of his people, obeyed all the precepts of the law FOR them, that his righteousness, when received by faith, might be imputed to them, and render them righteous before God. They speak indeed of the sufferings of Christ as being a substitute for our sufferings; but at the same time deny that HE was our substitute, standing in our law place, bearing our sins and enduring the penalty due to them. The sufferings of the Saviour were a consequence of sin; but they were not an infliction of the curse of the law; because, say they, the law had no demands on him. The result is, that, according to the new theory, sinners are saved without a righteousness, and without a satisfaction for sin and the death of Christ is made a mere expedient for SETTING ASIDE both the preceptive and the penal demands of the law upon them. Neither the one nor the other has been complied with by them, or for them, by a surety. In opposition to the righteous demands of a holy law, they appear in heaven in the presence of the great Lawgiver, who has pledged his truth that sin shall not go unpunished, and proclaimed it as part of his name or nature, that he will by no means clear the guilty. Such views are deemed by the old school to be highly unscriptural, and really dangerous in their tendency, and in fact subversive of the TRUE NATURE of the atonement. They are unable to see how the law could be magnified and made honourable, by a transaction and scene of suffering which it did not require, and which in fact were intended to prevent the fulfilment of its just and good demands. Very different are their views of the relation which the obedience and death of Immanuel bore to the law of God. In them they behold a complete fulfilment of all its demands on sinners, both preceptive and penal. Taught by an inspired apostle that "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law," (Gal. iv. 4, 5,) they believe that the law had demands on Christ; and that by his holy life and bitter death he fulfilled them all, as the substitute and legal representative of every true believer. Assured too by the same apostle that "God imputeth RIGHTEOUSNESS without works;" (Rom. iv. 6.) "Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe" (Rom. iii. 21, 22,) they hold that the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ even unto death, constitutes that righteousness by which sinners are justified; and that it is imputed for this purpose to every one who believes in Jesus. Thus sinners are saved in a way perfectly consistent with the honour of the divine law; none of its demands remain sacrificed; all are fully satisfied, not indeed by fallen man, but by his immaculate Redeemer; sin is pardoned, and yet punished. The saved appear in heaven before God in a complete righteousness; not a personal one, not through their "own righteousness, which is of the law;" but in that perfectly finished and glorious righteousness, in which the great apostle desired to be found, even "that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Phil. iii. 9. Such a transaction is glorious to the law. By the obedience of Immanuel unto death, its precepts and its penalty have been declared to be just and reasonable and good. More honour has been done to the one than would have been rendered, if all mankind had persevered in sinless obedience; and higher honour put on the other, than if it had been inflicted on our whole race. Let it not be objected, that the character of a substitute and representative is unknown to the law. Not so. The principle of representation was connected with it in its first operation on man; for, in the first covenant, Adam was constituted the federal head and representative of all his natural posterity and if the world was ruined under such a dispensation without any reflection on the justice or goodness of the Almighty Creator, how can it be deemed inconsistent with these attributes of his nature, to establish a new and similar dispensation, for its recovery to holiness and happiness? That there is a striking analogy between the way in which we were ruined and the way in which we are recovered, is plainly taught in holy scripture. Having run a parallel between Christ and Adam, whom he styles "the FIGURE of him that was to come," and the corresponding ef fects of the offence of the latter, and of the righteousness of the former, the apostle adds, " For as by ONE MAN's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of ONE shall many be made righteous." Rom. v. 14-19. And, in 1 Cor. xv. 22, he asserts the same analogy; "for as IN Adam all die, SO IN Christ shall all be made alive:" meaning, not as the Universalists teach, that all men will be ultimately saved by Christ, but that all who are in Christ, united to him by faith, and represented by him in his mediatorial work, shall be raised from the dead to the enjoyment of an immortal life of happiness and glory; just as all united to Adam by natural generation, and by the relation established by the original covenant or constitution made with him as their representative, have become subject to death in all its terrible forms. From this comparison, it is easy to see which of the two theories reflects the highest honour on the divine law. The one maintains its THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. We have recently, in the department of Religious Intelligence, stated both the importance of this institution and its lamentable want of funds. In our last number, we published the acknowledgment, by the corresponding secretary, of one liberal donation. It is our earnest wish that this may be only the precursor of many more of the same character. The Presbyterians in the central, western, and southern parts of our country, are, we believe, not aware how much they are outdone in patronizing this charity, by their brethren in the east and north. The disparity is great, and we wish it may be considered whether it is not reproachful. We know not how the zeal of those who have been remiss in this important concern, is more likely to be awakened, than by the following extracts from an eloquent discourse delivered by the Rev. William Engles, of Philadelphia, in May last, at the instance of the Board of Education; and which has been put into our hands in manuscript. We wish our space would permit us to publish the whole sermon; but we can take no more than two extracts; the first exhibiting the extensive demand for more labourers in the gospel vineyard, and the second, the duty 1827. The Board of Education of the Presbyterian Church. of Christians in relation to this subject, and the interesting considerations by which that duty is enforced. We know that sermons, and extracts of sermons, are often passed over, when they appear in periodical works; but we do hope that every reader of the Christian Advocate will not only read, but ponder, on what follows-The text of the sermon was Matt. ix. 36-38. "But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Then said he unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest." "Conceiving ourselves as now occupying a centre, let us imagine a circumference which shall merely include the limits of our city, and we shall find a community numerically great, for whose eternal wellbeing no adequate exertion is employed. Let the circle be extended to embrace our state, and not only neighbourhoods but counties will be disclosed to view, enshrouded in ignorance more dense than their mountain mists-where literature has no consecrated asylum, and our holy religion scarce an altar-where a spirit of grovelling worldly-mindedness is predominant, and eternity has few joyful and intelligent expectants. And all this is true of a commonwealth which may be styled veteran, from the comparatively ancient date of its political organization. As we follow westward the tide of emigration, we may therefore expect even less religious devotedness among those who are zealously occupied in felling the forests, planting villages, and encouraging the growth of their yet infant settlements. Whilst in a natural sense the solitudes are made glad by the increasing influx and bustle of the adven 55 turous and enterprising, we dare not say in a spiritual sense, that the wilderness in its wide extent has budded and blossomed as the rose. "Now, whilst it is acknowledged that much of this irreligion exists in despite of means, or in regions where the gospel is ably and faithfully proclaimed, who will deny that a large proportion of it is manifestly attributable to an entire absence of divine ordinances? It is alas! most true, that the message of reconciliation has never yet reached many sections of our republican union; that its attractive invitations have not been heard to recal sinners from their estrangement-nor its plenteous mercy unfolded to cheer the drooping spirits of the desponding-nor its glorious promises proclaimed to establish hope and give energy to faith. Hence, to such, life has none of the pure enjoyments of piety, and death none of its sustaining influence-their existence is a fluctuating and boisterous ocean, and the anchor of their hope has no lodgment within the vail! Is this a condition to be envied? Is it not pitiable and sad so sad as to demand the sympathy of Christians, and to require the interposition of Him, who having long proffered peace to Jerusalem, wept over it when it was doomed; even of Him who when he saw the multitudes, was moved with compassion, because they fainted and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. This we are sensible is but a picture, in outline, of the augmented necessities of the community of which we are a component part-it might receive much colouring from the pencil of truthbut our object is accomplished, if it impresses you with the necessity of furnishing labourers for a harvest already prepared for the reaper. "But the prospective enlargement of this field should not be disregarded. Our country is mul tiplying her population by a ratio perpetually increasing the wilds are converted into territories, and territories into independent commonwealths-feeble provinces have already become an empire, and that empire is pursuing the march of her political greatness, and encircling within her extended arms a community, which by established rules of increase, will amount in a century to nearly 200 million! The prospect is mighty! It is eminently gratifying to national feeling, and proudly exemplifies national prosperity; but upon the presumption that the means of religious instruction are to be multiplied only according to the present ratio of increase, the prospect becomes deplorable; for the existing disproportion between the harvest and the labourers will then be immeasurably greater, and hundreds of thousands will be destitute of that gospel, the proper entertainment of which, by any people, is their surest exaltation in a moral, and their securest safeguard in a political, point of view." "An explanation of the duty of Christians in general, in relation to this subject. "Pray ye the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.' Here it is intimated that the cordial interest and co-operation of Christians in the concerns of the church, are requisite that its well-being is in no small degree dependant upon their zeal, and that through their instrumentality, its cords are to be lengthened and its stakes strengthened. "It becomes the duty of all who love the gospel, to entreat the Lord of the harvest to designate, by his Spirit, suitable labourers for the work. The intercessions of believers are invaluable-the chiefest of the apostles thus estimated them when he besought an interest in them-by them has the church been enriched, and it still regards them as one of the available means of its defence, stability, and glory. The fervent prayers of the righteous are never powerless-they wrestle with Jacob's God, and prevail with the God of Israel-they are the precursor of Zion's jubilee, and present in themselves an unassailable phalanx, against the foes of the church. We regard it, therefore, not only as the reasonable but incumbent duty of Christians, in all their addresses to a throne of grace, to give prominence to the object contemplated in the textthey should pray for the multiplication of faithful heralds of the cross, and they should pray with fervour and importunity. "Sincerity in prayer, however, always implies external acts of charity. Of this Christ and his apostles have proposed themselves as an example, for they not only prayed much, but evinced their sincerity by demonstrations the most unequivocal. Let the apostle James illustrate this subject. If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit? And may we not with equal justice say, what will your prayers profit, if they be the offspring of a heart which is a stranger to every generous impulse, and cold and unaffected under appeals which might stimulate the most penurious to active benevolence? We pronounce such religion to be vain-it will be neither honourable nor profitable to the possessor, nor available for the church, nor acceptable in the sight of God. How, we ask, is the gospel to be propagated, except through faithful pastors and missionaries? And how can these preach unless they be qualified and sent? And by whom are they to be sent, if professed Christians turn |