chapter and: observances. But we shall be struck, in the review of them, not with

observances. But we shall be struck, in the review of them, not with any discovery of an expiatory element, but with the fact, that every thing is ordered with such a manifestly artistic study and skill, to beget, in minds too crude for the reflective modes of exercise, a whole set of impressions answering to those of the christian doctrine of salvation; the holiness of God, the uncleanness and deep guilt of sin, and the faith of God's forgiving mercy. The whole day, from sunset to sunset, as Jahn describes it, is to be a day of strict fasting. All the common works of life are to cease, and the people are to have it as a day in which to "afflict their souls." Not that, by such self-affliction, an expiatory penance or pain is to be suffered for sin. The same expression is familiarly used by us in reference to fasting, with no thought certainly of expiation. It simply means that, with and by help of it, we may settle our mind into a just impression of the unworthiness and guiltiness of our sin, and feel it as we ought in the sorrow of a true repentance. We do not afflict ourselves that God may be placated by our pains, but we choke down the appetites, we put the body under by a violent downward thrust, and proclaim a truce to the strivings of gain, that, in stillness and before God, we may receive a just impression of our ill-desert as sinners.

Having the day fenced about in this manner, and devoted to such purposes, all the rites of the day are contrived to give it effect. A kind of fundamental conception which lies back of all and colors every thing in the feeling, is that there is a universal, overspreading uncleanness to be removed,--"because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins." It is as if every thing handled, touched, breathed upon, or even looked upon by them, had taken some defilement from them; "the holy sanctuary," "the tabernacle of the congregation," "the altar," "the priests," and "all the people of the congregation;" all which are accordingly to be atoned, or purified, in turn. And the rites of the day are all so ordered as to produce the profoundest impression possible of the separateness, or holiness of God; also to encourage the faith of his acceptance, and of the actual remission; that is, of the removal or cleansing of, the sin.

The high priest forbidden, on pain of death to enter the holy of holies, the sacred recess of the temple where God dwells, on any other day of the year, is this day to go in and be accepted there for himself and the people. This he is to do, putting the people back even from the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may not come too nigh, while their sin is upon them. He is to be anointed and sanctified for this, with a particular ointment, not to be made or used for any other purpose on pain of death.h. [125] And the incense he is to offer is made by a divine recipe, and is to be kept sacred in the same manner, for this particular use. [126] And the blood he is to sprinkle on the mercy-seat, and the altar, and the tabernacle of the congregation, is made sacred, as was just now observed, by a fixed separation, under the same penalty, from all common uses; because it has in it the sacred mystery of life. The offerings too, the bullock that is offered for the priest, and the goat that is offered for the people, are permitted, in no part, to be eaten, as in the ordinary and more festive celebrations but are to be carried outside of the camp, or city, and there to be wholly burned; because they are supposed to bear the taint of the sin upon them. And to make the impression more complete, that the sin is taken away, the men who carry out the offerings to burn them, come back, as unclean, publicly washing them selves for their cleansing. And, to make the removing of the sin more impressive, it is dramatically represented, by the introduction of another goat beside the one that is offered, on the head of which the priest is to confess and representatively place all the sins of the people, and which is to be driven out alive, bearing "on him all their iniquities, into a land not inhabited." And then, as the man who drove out the goat, having such uncleanness upon him, must be supposed to have suffered defilement in consequence, he is to return and wash himself, in token of his cleansing.

And the conclusion of all is, not that certain penalties for sin are satisfied, or removed by expiation, but that the sin itself is covered, or taken away. "For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord."

I do not, of course, affirm that every worshiper concerned in the rites of the day is ipso facto justified, born of God. In all such rites of the altar, two results are concerned, going along, or designed to go, together, but under very different conditions. First there is to be a ceremonial cleansing, which is wrought absolutely, every person concerned being made ceremonially clean. And secondly, there is or is designed to be, a moral and spiritual cleansing, wrought implicitly, or transactionally; every thing as regards exercise and impression being adjusted to favor, and make it the privilege of the worshiper, if only he, on his part, will offer his heart to it. If he takes the sense of his uncleanness with a true feeling, if he is so cast down by it that he wants to comfort himself in seeing all most sacred things offered for his sin; if he truly believes that God, in the holy of holies, receives him, and that what the scape-goat signifies is a confidence truly given him; then he is more than ceremonially clean; the seeds of a better life are quickened in his heart. And this is what the promise signifies; it speaks of a privilege given, not of a fact accomplished,--"that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord."

There is then I conclude, for that is the result to which we are brought by this very careful inquiry, no such thing as expiation in the sacrifices Result, how honorable to the Hebrew Scriptures. of the Old Testament religion. And I hardly need say how great a satisfaction it is, and what strength it contributes to the evidences of this ancient, or ante-christian dispensation of God, to find that it is clear of a notion so abhorrent to all right feeling, and so essentially dishonorable to God. And the discovery is the more satisfactory, that it puts so wide a gulf of distance between this ancient, divine institute, and the crudities of barbarism and superstition that infest the sacrifices of all the contemporary and even subsequently developed religions of paganism; proving, at once, the immense superiority it has to all such growths of superstition, and establishing, as it were by incontrovertible evidence, its essentially divine origin.

It is scarcely necessary, after this extended exposition of the Old Testament sacrifices, to show, by a distinct No expiation, of course, in the sacrifice of Christ. argument, that there is no such thing as expiation, in the proper and defined sense of the term, in the sacrifice of Christ. Only two or three passages occur to me in the New Testament, that even appear to allow such a construction, without a look of violence. Thus when Caiaphas [127] "thought it expedient that one should die for the people," and so "prophesied" verbally, without inspiration, I think it likely that he was contriving how the murder of Christ, in the pious pretext of an expiation for the people, was altogether expedient; and probably enough too, he believed in expiations; but it does not follow that he would be a reliable teacher of Christian doctrine. The conception of Paul [128] that "Christ is made a curse for us," is cited often as a text for expiation. But the meaning is exhausted, when he is conceived to simply come into the corporate state of evil, and bear it with us--faithful unto death for our recovery. The text most commonly cited as a conclusive and indubitable assertion of expiation, is that which was just now referred to--"for without shedding of blood there is no remission." [129] As if the word blood" were to be taken with all our uncircumcised associations of murder and death and terror upon it, not as a life giving and restoring word; and as if the word "remission" were to have our lightest, most superficial, merely human meaning of a letting go; when we know that, in order to really mean any thing in religion, it must signify an executed remission, an inward, spiritual release or cleansing. Suppose then that our great apostle had said, what to him signifies exactly the same thing, "for without the life-renewing blood there is no cleansing for sin." It is difficult to speak with due patience of this unhappy text, so long compelled to grind in the mill of expiation; turning out, always, in the slow rotation of centuries, this creak of harsh announcement, that God must have some bloody satisfaction, else he can not let transgression go!

Sometimes it is imagined, that there is a peculiar and most sacred impression of God and his law made upon us, by the assertion of expiation, or penal The supposed effects of expiation remain without expiation. satisfaction; as for example, in this text. There stands, it is said, the inexorable, awe-inspiring fidelity of God, and the conscience-piercing word that tells of the immovable necessity by which he is holden, wakens an impression of too great power and benefit to be willingly lost. A theologic friend, whose opinions I much respect, can not break loose from the dogma of expiation, or penal satisfaction, though it confessedly infringes somewhat on his rational convictions and even his moral sentiments, because he imagines, in the impression just referred to, that it must have some transcendental virtue, which, without knowing exactly whence it comes, or how it works, proves it to be from God, Now there certainly is an impression of great value made upon us by this same text, and it is the deeper, both for the conscience and the heart, when it is taken with no moral offense of expiation, or penal satisfaction, included. And yet the reference of it to God's inexorable fidelity, and the sense of an immovable necessity by which he is holden, is here made good as before. Here stands, fast by God's throne, the everlasting must, commanding even righteousness to suffer, that justifying grace may have its way. For there comes out here, in grand, appalling mystery, the immovable necessity and everlasting fact, that goodness in all moral natures has a doom of bleeding on it, allowing it to conquer only as it bleeds. We can not even contrive a way for it to be, in this or any other universe, without having pains to suffer and deaths to undergo. Why, the simple thought of ascending into good, puts us, forthwith, in a condition of great cost, and if we should come off without the shedding of blood, that will at least be a good type of what we are required to suffer. Our hatred of sin is a pain, our struggle with it painful every way. Pity is itself a pain, beneficence for pity's sake a state of war. If we give ourselves to truth, truth is unpopular, and we may have to die for it. Good in no shape, whether of love or mercy, can press upon evil, without being maligned, or conspired against; and it is well if the evil is not exasperated, even up to the point of phrensy and bloody violence, Good laws and liberties cost blood. Slavery is vanquished and wild rebellion crushed, only by what years of suffering, and how many blood-sodden fields of conflict, The inexorable law is upon us--"And without shed. ding of blood there is no remission." All good conquers by a cross, and without a cross it is nothing. Ascending hence to God, we go not above this doom, this inexorable law, but simply go up to the point where it culminates, and whence it begins. The eternal righteousness of God has in it this inherent doom of war. It must suffer, it must bleed, and only so can reign. The cross is in it, even before the foundation of the world. We have, in our theodicy, all manner of ingenious showings, but the short account of God's great way and work is, that goodness and right must propagate goodness and right; and must therefore create souls capable of goodness and right; which also, being capable of badness and wrong, will infallibly propagate badness and wrong. And this is evil--evil to be mastered, cleansed, forgiven. Evil therefore lowers over the eternal possibilities of God, and God is linked, in that manner, by a prior, unalterable necessity to conflict and suffering; so that if the good that is in him will get into men's bosoms, it must bleed into them. "Ought not Christ to suffer" "For it became him, [it was even a fixed necessity upon him,] for whom are all things, and by whom. are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." And so returns upon us, still again, the same great text of expiation--"and without shedding of blood there is no remission"--returns with a face wholly turned away from expiation, and yet with no abatement of the power. What, in fact, can be more impressive, than the inherently tragic fidelity of good--that which, at the summit of omnipotence, will not swerve from being confronted with evil, and suffering for it, and bleeding to cleanse it?

We are brought on thus, finally, to the conclusion, that expiation is no Christian idea, and is not contained in the Christian Scriptures. Excluding Atonement resumed and shown to be at-one-ment. it then, as a false third meaning given to the Hebrew word cover, we return to the two others, assigned for it in our English translation, atonement and propitiation, and resume the discussion of these, at the point where we left them, in the beginning of the chapter.

To atone, or make atonement then, is to remove transgression itself, or reconcile the transgressor. It fulfills, in a figure, the original physical sense of the word to cover; as when, for example, the ark was covered with pitch. It is such a working on the bad mind of sin as at-ones it, reconciles it to God, covers up and hides forever the wrong of transgression, assures and justifies the transgressor. In one word, constantly applied to it in the atonements of the old ritual, it makes clean. The effect is wholly subjective, being a change wrought in all the principles of life and characters and dispositions of the soul.

A passage from the Epistle to the Romans [130] is sometimes cited in support of a different conclusion--"For, if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled shall we be saved by his life." This reconciliation denotes simply a change of condition, it is said, not of character; a being brought upon the new footing of pardon; for it is something accomplished "when we were enemies." The reconciliation therefore signifies the placation of God, and not our restoration to God. What then remains, following the same style of argument, under the conditions of time, but to infer that our salvation by Christ is to be accomplished wholly by his life; that is, by his second life, after the resurrection? Whereas, if we can take a more dignified way of construction, we shall understand the apostle to be only raising an argument of degrees, for the confidence of our complete salvation--For if when we were yet enemies God undertook our reconciliation by the death of his Son, much more, being now reconciled, will he stand by us, since he lives again to finish the salvation begun.

Atonement then, as applied to Christ, is just what is figured so carefully in the atonement of the ancient sacrifice. For as every thing about the temple was reconsecrated and made clean, by the sacred things offered in the sacrifice--the sacred incense burned before the mercy-seat, and the sacred blood sprinkled on whatever had taken the defilement of our sin--so the sprinkling of the far more sacred blood of Jesus, dying as the Lamb of God, in the volunteer obedience of his vicarious sacrifice, reconsecrates the law broken by our sin, dishonored and defiled by our defilement, and by its life-touch in our feeling and faith, purges our consciousness from dead works, to serve the living God. And as the old sacrifice made a remembrance of sins every year, and opened a way, once a year, into the holy of holies, so Christ, by an offering once for all, has made a reconciliation that is perfect and complete; so that we may all, as being now made priests unto God and ourselves, enter at all times and with boldness, into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus. That altar blood, or sprinkling, purified the patterns of the heavenly things; this other, holier sprinkling, the heavenly things themselves; viz., God's throne, law, and truth--every thing defiled by our transgressions--and also our transgressions themselves.

The true Christian idea of propitiation is not far hence. The pagan color of the word is taken off; Propitiation and prevailing prayer. there is no such thought as that God is placated or satisfied, by the expiatory pains offered him. It supposes, first, a subjective atoning, or reconciliation in us; and then, as a farther result, that God is objectively propitiated, or set in a new relation of welcome and peace. Before he could not embrace us, even in his love. His love was the love of compassion; now it is the love of complacency and permitted friendship. This objective propitiation of God answers exactly to another objective conception, commonly held without any thought of correspondence. Thus we have a way of saying, as regards successful prayer, that it prevails with God. Is it then our meaning that it turns God's mind, makes him better, more favorable, more inclined to bestow the things we seek? Probably enough many persons think so, and it is much better that they should, than to conclude, with many others, that it accomplishes nothing; obtaining no gifts that would not have been given as certainly without any prayer at all. But the true conception is this--that God has instituted an economy of prayer to work on Christian souls and brotherhoods and churches, encouraging them to come and make suit to him, for the blessings they need. This draws them nearer to him than before, chastens their spirit, kindles their holy desires and aspirations, unites them to aims of mercy like his own, brings them into a more complete faith, bands them together, two, or three, or many, in a more living fellowship of heart; and so, having gotten them, by this economy, into a state more configured to himself--which is the very object for which he orders the world--he is now able to grant, or dispense, things which before he could not, and he is prevailed with. Is he then better than before? is he induced to alter his plans? No, by no means. But he has now new subjects, or subjects in a new relationship, and if he were now to carry on all the courses of events, just as if the prayers were not, he would even violate a first principle of nature, that every event shall have its own consequences. Prayers are events like all others, and what forbids that, having their consequences, the consequences should be answers?

God then is propitiated by a change of relationship, that permits him to greet the souls whom Christ has reconciled, in cordial welcome, as he otherwise could not --just as he is prevailed with in prayers, that are Objective propitiation supposes subjective faith. new conditions prepared for new blessings. And that this is the true conception is most effectually shown by the standard text itself, in that particular clause which was reserved to this point of the argument [131] --"Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood." The apostle does not say, it will be observed--"propitiation through his blood"--as the scheme of expiation requires, but "propitiation through faith in his blood." No propitiation therefore reaches the mark, that does not, on its way, reconcile, or bring into faith, the subject for whom it is made. There is no God-welcome prepared, which does not open the guilty heart to welcome God.

The apostle, in this manner, takes away from the Greek word he uses, which it must be confessed is commonly used by the pagan writers in a way that implies expiation, any possibility of such a meaning; for they have never a thought of any such thing as an expiation through faith; and, what is more, expiation itself excludes the supposition, that any kind of moral condition is necessary in the subject for whom it is offered; the very idea being, that it avails, as being a contribution of evils to obtain the release of evils; not as having now a state of faith prepared, as a new receptivity for good. I know not how often this language of the apostle is, quoted, as if it asserted a propitiation that is accomplished before faith, and wholly apart from faith; a placation of God that has respect to no human conditions whatever--precisely that which he carefully and even formally excludes.

Atonement then is a change wrought in us, a change by which we are reconciled to God. Propitiation is an objective conception, by which that change, taking place in us, is spoken of as occurring representatively in God. Just as guilty minds, thrown off from God, glass their feeling representatively in God, imagining that God is thrown off from them; or just as we say that the sun rises, instead of saying, what would be so very awkward to us, and yet is the real truth, that we ourselves rise to the sun. The necessity and uses of this objective language will be considered more at large, in the remaining chapter, and therefore need not be insisted on here, as in reference to the single word propitiation. __________________________________________________________________

[100] Romans v, 11.

[101] Not even Dr. Magee, when asserting expiation, will allow that God is made placable by it, insisting that He simply appoints it "as the means by which to bestow forgiveness." And when it is urged that the expiation can have no use "but to appease a Being who otherwise would not forgive us," he takes shelter under his ignorance, from a conclusion so revolting, and answers--"I know not, nor does it concern me to know, in what manner the sacrifice of Christ is connected with the forgiveness of sins."--(Vol. 1, p. 19.) When however the crisis of the argument, at this point, is gone by, he recovers from his ignorance and is able to assert very positively that the justice of God is satisfied by the sacrifice of expiation.

[102] Fox's Journal, Glasgow edition, p. 262.

[103] Lev. viii, 15; 2 Chron. xxix, 24; Ezek. xlv, 20; Dan. ix, 24.

[104] 2 Chron. xxx, 18; Jer. xviii, 23.

[105] Ex. xxix, 36,-xxx, 10; Numb. xxxv, 33; 1 Sam. iii, 14; Ezek. xliii, 20-26; Isa. vi, 7.

[106] Exodus xxix, 37.
[107] Exodus xxxii, 30.
[108] Numbers xvi, 46.
[109] 2 Chronicles, xxxiv.
[110] Ezra x, 1-15.
[111] 1 Samuel xiii, 12.
[112] 1 Samuel xv, 10-22.
[113] As in Psalms xl, 1, and li.
[114] Hebrews x, 6-9.
[115] Isaiah i, 10-18.
[116] Jeremiah vii, 21-23; Amos v, 21-24.
[117] Micah vi, 6-8.
[118] Exodus xii, 46.
[119] Exodus xiii, 7-8.
[120] 1 Chronicles xxix, 21-22.
[121] 2 Chron. vii, 5.
[122] 2 Chron. xxix and xxx.
[123] Job i, 5.
[124] Leviticus xvi.
[125] Exodus xxx, 30-33.
[126] Exodus xxx, 34-38.
[127] John xi, 50.
[128] Galatians iii, 13.
[129] Heb. ix, 22.
[130] Rom. v, 10.

[131] Rom. iii, 28. __________________________________________________________________