God's revelation and man's moral sense considered in reference to the sacrifice of the cross : a sermon, preached before the University of Oxford, on the fifth Sunday in Lent, March 9, 1856

^€^^^ -^^ ---^^^

GOD'S REVELATION AND MAN'S MORAL SENSE

CONSIDERED IN REFERENCE TO THE

SACRIFICE OF THE CROSS.

A SERMON,

PREACHED BEFOKE

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFOIID,

FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT, MARCH 9, 1856.

REV. FREDERICK MEYRICK, M.A.,

FELLOW OF TKINITT COLLEGE, AND OKE OF TUE SELECT PHEACHEE8 BEFORE
THE UNIVERSITY.

PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE VICE-CHANCELLOR.

OXFOKD,

AND 377, STRAND, LONDON:

JOHN HENKT and JAI^IES PAEKER.

M DCCC LTI.

A SEEMON,

Heb. ix. 11, 12.

" But Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come,
by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with
bands, that is to say, not of this building ; neither by the
blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered
in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemp-
tion for us."

Each book of the New Testament implies the
whole of the Christian scheme ; yet each teaches
its own lesson. One is the doctrine throughout ;
yet, as that unity of doctrine contains within itself
variety, so each portion of Holy Writ more empha-
tically lays down and enforces one particular por-
tion of the truth. Thus the Epistles to the Gala-
tians and to the Ephesians, to take no other exam-
ple, entirely coincident as they are in their teach-
ing, yet dwell more specially each on different
points of the faith ; and so the Epistle to the
Hebrews, from which my text is taken, will be
found to contain a special lesson of its own. That
lesson is the connexion between the dispensations
of the Old and New Testaments, and more espe-

A 2

cially the position held by our Lord Jesus Christ
in relation to the figures and types of the Jewish
covenant. Thus it is pointed out that He was
the great Prophet and Lawgiver typified by Moses,
the great High Priest typified by Melchisedec and
Aaron, the great Captain of Salvation typified by
Joshua ; but most of all He is depicted to us as the
great antitype, who was dimly foreshadowed by the
Mosaic sacrifices, the one great predestined Victim
to be offered by Himself, the true High Priest, the
Sin-offering for the world, the Expiation for all
mankind.

Thus Bishop Butler writes: — "The doctrine of
the Epistle plainly is, that the legal sacrifices were
allusions to the great and final atonement to be
made by the blood of Christ, and not that this was
an allusion to those\"

Indeed, the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is
the key, and the only key, by which we can under-
stand the meaning of the system of Jewish sacri-
fices, and the prevalent practice of propitiatory
rites among the heathen. Without this key all
is perplexity and confusion ; with it, all is clear
and comprehensible. Everywhere, throughout the
world, we meet with the belief that two things are
necessary for man, by which to approach his
Maker : the one is Prayer, and the other Pro-
pitiation ; and the means by which this propitia-
tion is to be effected is as universally held to be

* Anal., part ii. c. 5.

O

Sacrifice. Thus much is an acknowledged fact,—
acknowledged by all whose dogmatic bias is not
so strong as to prevent them from accepting the
plainest evidence of history. How are we to ac-
count for the fact ? Among the Jews, we know
that propitiatory sacrifices were established directly
by Divine appointment ; and further, we know, if
we believe the words of Holy Writ, that such sa-
crifices were only efficacious, so far as they were
efficacious, because they were the signs and types
of the Sacrifice of the Cross. The origin of sa-
crifices in the heathen world is more uncertain.
The more common opinion is, that they too were
of Divine original appointment, and that they were
propagated throughout the world together with the
growth of mankind, as commanded at first by
God. Thus Jones of Nayland writes : — " It was
never thought, from the days of Cain and Abel,
that there could be such a thing as piety to God
without sacrifice. And the same holds good to
this day. He that does not offer to God some
sacrifice is not pious, but impious ; his prayers
are an abomination. But how could such a per-
suasion enter into the heart of man, otherwise
than by revelation from God ? No man could
think that the shedding of innocent blood would
take away sin, unless he had been originally told
so on unexceptionable authority ; so that the very
existence of such a thing in the world is sufficient
to prove that it came from revelation ; and divines

think, with good reason, that it came in with the
first promise in Paradise : — * The seed of the woman
shall bruise the serpent's head''.'" And Bishop
Butler : — " Sacrifices of expiation were commanded
of the Jews, and obtained amongst most other
nations from tradition, whose original, probably,
was revelation ^"

If, then, the sacrifices of the heathen were ap-
pointed originally by God, we know at once their
purpose. They were intended, like the Jewish
sacrifices, symbolically to represent the efficacious
Sacrifice of the Cross ; but let us suppose, as
others have thought, that we have not sufficient
grounds for believing in the Divine original ap-
pointment of heathen sacrifices ; still their exist-
ence would imply a universal sense of the need of
expiation by sacrifice ; a craving of the great heart
of mankind, which would indeed speak the voice of
God, for the maxim is a sound one, o ir aa l Sokei,
TOUT eluai (pajxev. And thus they would in
truth support the doctrine of the Cross in a some-
what diflTerent way, indeed, yet as strongly as
though they had, like the Jewish rites, been insti-
tuted directly to shew forth His death until He
earned

^ Religious Worship of the Heathens, vol. vi. p. 196. 1826.

= Anal. ii. 5.

<i Professor Jowett, (Cons men tary, vol. ii. p. 478,) holds that
the Jewish and the heathen sacrifices must stand or fall toge-
ther ; both of them, or neither of them, must, in his opinion,

Now let us suppose a man unacquainted with
the Christian scheme of salvation, as contemplating
this universal fact of expiatory sacrifice. Surely he
would be much perplexed by it. He would mark
" the smoke of the offerings going up," and " the
carcases of dead animals strewing the courts of
the temples. It would be a sight scarcely tolerable"
to him^ He would say that there was no relation,
so far as he could see, between " the death of
a sheep and the pardon of sin^" He would count
the idea of propitiation strange, and the notion
of efficacy in the vicarious suffering of a creature

have owed their origin to Divine appointment, and have had a
typical meaning. It is not at all necessary to hold this " con-
nexion between the heathen and Jewish custom of sacrifices ;"
but is not any one who does hold it, and who likewise professes
a belief in the Old and New Testaments as a Divine revelation,
bound to regard both as of Divine appointment ? But Mr. Jowett
does not so regard them : on the contrary, he ties the heathen
and Jewish sacrifices together, for the purpose, as it would seem,
of overthrowing the authority of the latter by the fact of the
former. The Jewish sacrifices, he argues, cannot be held to
have any other origin, or meaning, than the heathen sacrifices.
The heathen sacrifices he then explains to have been performed
with the following intent: — 1. That the gods might feast
as men. 2. Something magical, and to us unintelligible.
3. To express vague awe. 4. To abolish ceremonial pollution.
Is it not beyond measure strange to see the idea of providing
food to the Lord God of Hosts, the Lord Jehovah, thus attributed
to the Jewish sacrifices by means of the middle term of heathen
sacrifices, as would seem to follow from Mr. Jowett's argu-
ment ? That the thing really signified by heathen sacrifices
was " propitiatory atonement," is shewn by Abp. Magee in
answer to Dr. Priestley, vol. i. pp. 83 and 166.
* Jowett, vol. ii. p. 477. ^ Jones of Nayland, vol. iii. p. 227.

absurd. Then let him be tauarht the doctrine of

O'

the Fall of ]\[an. Let him learn that once God
and man walked together in the garden of the
world as friends ; but that man had, in the abuse
of his free-will, chosen evil instead of good ; that
thenceforth his nature was corrupted by sin ; that
he had severed himself from his Maker ; that God's
face was turned away from him, and that however
merciful his heavenly Father was, still that all that
sinful man could deserve, and therefore receive,
from Him who was the God of Justice, was punish-
ment; and that there was no power left in man
to draw himself out of this unhappy state. Let
him be taught this, and let him feel in himself
the working of original sin, and then he would
acknowledge that there was indeed need for pro-
pitiation ; that prayer was not in itself sufficient ;
and he would search here and there for means
of drawing nigh to God.

But still he would be perplexed. Why should this
propitiation be in the form of a sacrifice ? How, he
would ask, can the blood of bulls and goats cleanse
away my sin, and make me capable of acceptance
in God's sight? True, I understand and feel that
some expiation is required ; but why should not an
offering of the fruits of the ground, or any act of
self-denial on my part, be as efficacious as the
blood-shedding of an animal ?

At this point declare to him the wondrous fact,
that the Son of God condescended to come down

9

from heaven and to die upon the Cross ; open
to hnn the doctrine of the One Great Sacrifice ;
tell him, in the words of Scripture, that Christ is
" the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of
the worlds ;" that " God set Him forth to be a pro-
pitiation through faith in His blood'';" that "we
are reconciled to God by the death of His Son' ;"
that "He redeemed us from the curse of the Law,
being made a curse for usJ ;" that " God was in
Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imput-
ing their trespasses unto them"" ;" that Christ " re-
conciled both Jews and Gentiles unto God in one
body by the Cross ^ ;" " that He is the propitiation
for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins
of the whole world "" ;" that it was not really " the
blood of bulls and of goats" which "took away
sin," but " the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ
once for all";" that "Christ was once offered
to bear the sins of many"." Would there not be
a flood of light thrown back upon his difficulties ;
would he not confess that this did indeed make
clear what was before perplexing to him ; that he
had now been supplied with an explanation which

K John i. 29.

^ Rom. iii. 25. — Professor Jowett translates ^ili nla-Teos eV

Tw avTov aifxaTi, "through faith, by Mis blood;" remarking, as

his reason, that no such expression as faith in the blood, or even

in the death of Christ, occurs in Scriptm*e. — Vol. ii. p. 121.

' Rom. V. 10. J 1 Ret. i. 19. "^2 Cor. v. 19.

' Eph. ii. 16. '" 1 John ii. 2.

n Heb. X. 10. ° Ileb. ix. 28.

10

would, and which would alone, account for the
phenomena which he had been studying?

It is a sore thing, which good men feel very
deeply, that it is necessary from time to time to
recur to, and to argue for, such a prime truth as
the Expiatory Sacrifice of Christ, — the foundation-
stone, without which the edifice of Christianity
must fall headlong to the ground. St. Paul bids us
not linger in such "principles of the doctrine of
Christ," as "repentance from dead works and faith
toward God, the doctrine of baptisms and of laying
on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead and of
eternal judgment ;" which he calls " laying the foun-
dations again," instead of "going on unto perfec-
tion^." How much less, then, in that which is the
foundation of these foundations, without which each
one of them would be unintelligible and meaning-
less. Yet such necessity is sometimes laid upon us,
and it is not without its advantages. Assured as we
are of the soundness of our foundation-stones, we
cannot fear from time to time to handle them, and
try them, and exhibit their strength ; giieving only
that they should serve to any as stumbling-stones
and rocks of offence. In some such way as this
God frequently brings good out of evil. It was the
assaults of the Deists which called into existence
the invincible corps of Christian apologists, — the
Butlers, Berkeleys, Leslies, Paleys, and other writers,
who proved incontestably the reasonableness of ac-

P Heb. vi. 1.

11

cepting Christianity, though itself above reason. It
was the assaults of Priestley and the Socinian school
which brought out Archbishop Magee's unanswera-
ble work on the Atonement and Sacrifice of Christ.
And so we may each of us learn to realize our Lord
Jesus Christ more truly and ^dvidly as our loving
Saviour, when we have been led, by whatever cir-
cumstances, to the nearer contemplation of Him as
the Great Sin-ofFering, who hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, who was wounded for our
transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities ; on
whom the chastisement of our peace was laid, and
by whose stripes we are healed.

It is especially the Cross — that is, the doctrine of
the Sacrifice — which has ever been foolishness to the
perplexed intellect of the world. Men will accept
Christ in part of His character as Mediator. They
will listen readily while they hear of Him as the
reveal er of God's will, as publishing afresh the law
of nature, as enforcing pure morality by precept and
example. They will accept Him, too, as the King,
as well as the Prophet. Nay, they are not unwilling
to acknowledge Him in part of His Priestly cha-
racter likewise. He may be the great Intercessor —
but when the Law, the Prophets, the Evangelists,
and the Apostles, with unfaltering voice and con-
sentient testimony, represent Him as oflbring Him-
self a Propitiatory Sacrifice, and so making Atone-
ment for the sins of the world,— this is foolishness
to the world ; it babbles about its reason or its moral

12

sense, and explains away the doctrine (as anything
and everything else might be explained away) as a
mode of Jewish thought or expression.

I would desire this afternoon, though well con-
scious of the awfulness of the subject, and the
danger of handling it unworthily, to examine the
plea put forward in the name of the Moral Sense.
It is said that the doctrine of the Sacrifice is con-
tradictory to the attributes of God ; for that, first,
it is not in accordance with His Infinite Mercy to
require a propitiation in place of granting a free and
immediate pardon ; and, secondly, that it is not in
accordance with His Infinite Justice to lay upon one
the punishment of another's guilt. The first diffi-
culty is summed up in the word sacrifice ; the
second in the w^ord vicarious. These are, I believe,
the real difficulties felt; and I would say, that the
reason why I have selected them is not so much
because they have been urged by any particular
objector, as because they are the greatest difficulties
that beset this portion of the truth ; and on that
account, when our attention has been called to the
subject, the most worthy of consideration.

I. In a cultured age, there are naturally found
two classes of minds. Of one. Bishop Butler would
serve as the type, who bowed his giant intellect be-
fore the Word of God, because piety told him that
it was the religious, and philosophy that it was the
reasonable, course to pursue. The other is not able
so to humble itself, and deals with Revelation as its

13

superior, harmonizer and interpreter. The one ac-
cepts God's account of Himself, however much en-
veloped in mystery ; the other creates its God accord-
ing to its own conceptions, and rejects any acts or
qualities attributed to Him by revelation, which
militate against such conceptions, as " involving
contradiction to the Divine attributes'^." Is the
latter, I will not say the religious, but the reason-
able, course to pursue ?

1. In considering this subject, the first point to
notice is this, — that God's nature must of necessity
be to us incomprehensible. There are certain limit-
ations to our faculties, within which alone, by a law
of our minds, we are able to form positive concep-
tions. Whatever transcends those limits is to us
incomprehensible. Not to dwell on other points,
there are two conditions under which alone we have
perceived, and we can therefore, correctly speaking,
only conceive or realize the nature of a Being who
exists under the same conditions. These conditions
are Time and Space. But God exists under neither
of these conditions. The attributes, therefore, of
Eternity and Omnipresence, which yet none would
deny belong to Him, prevent the possibility of our
comprehending His nature, and conceiving Him as
He is^

2. Next we must observe that there are ideas or

<i Jowett, vol, ii. p. 482.

•• See the Rev. H. L. Hansel's profound and valuable work,
" Prolegomena Logica;" and also his pamphlet on " Eternity."

14

principles in our own minds which are apparently
contradictory one to the other ; but yet we are un-
able to reject either of them, because we find them
as facts in ourselves. Thus the idea of the necessity
of an external cause for the production of actions, (on
which the Necessitarian founds his system,) and the
idea of the self-originating power of the will, (on
which is based the system of Free-will,) seem to con-
flict with each other. Do we, therefore, conclude that
they are absolutely contradictory, and therefore that
one or other of them must be false ? We cannot do
this, because both of them are given to us by our
nature. What then ? We conclude that it is only
relatively to our powers of apprehension that the
contradiction exists; that while our minds are con-
stituted as they are, the combination of these two
ideas must be to us a mystery ; — not, in short, that
they are contradictory to each other, but that we
cannot reconcile them. So, too, the idea of God's
Omnipotence and Providence, on which the doc-
trine of Predestination rests, seems to conflict with
this same idea of originating power as possessed by
ourselves. Do we reject either? No ; we acknow-
ledge a mystery, and say, not that these ideas are
contradictory, but that we cannot reconcile them.

3. Thirdly, the conception that we have of God,
whether drawn from Scripture or formed by the mind,
is necessarily and rightly that of a nature containing
and made up of all perfections. He is Omnipotent,
Omniscient, Omnipresent, All-merciful, All-good,

15

All-holy, All-just, All-pure, All-loving, All-right-
eous. All good qualities in their utmost perfection
are attributes of Ilim. But can we reconcile these
attributes in their infinite perfection one with an-
other ? Not so : we can take one of them, and
follow it out, as it were, into infinity ; but then it
must exist alone, — otherwise, after we have traced it,
so to speak, for a little distance, we find it impinging
against one of the other attributes. What are we
then to do ? To cry out. Here is a contradiction ?
No ; but to say thoughtfully, Here is to me a mys-
tery : I cannot reconcile these two things, but I
know that they are reconcileable, otherwise there
could be no such Being at all as God.

Thus, we may grasp the idea of Omnipotence ; we
may draw a picture to ourselves of things in heaven
and things in earth, and things under the earth, bow-
ing down before the Almighty One. We can present
Him to ourselves as ruling with sway uncontrolled,
and none saying Him nay ; as doing what He will,
when He will, and as He will. But here we are, as it
were, stopped. Can He do an act that is wrong? No ;
for All-goodness is one of His attributes, as well as
Omnipotence. Shall we then say that He is either not
Omnipotent, or not All-good? No ; we acknowledge
that there is, not a contradiction, but a mystery.

Or, again, we might take the old difficulty of un-
doing the past, — the

Morof yap avTOV kou 6eus arepiaKeTai
Ay€vr)ra iroLeiv aaor av y ireTrpayixeva.

^

16

Can we reconcile this impotence with the perfect
attribute of Omnipotence ? We may throw together
a certain number of words about the difference be-
tween Time and Eternity, and fancy that we have
explained it, but the difficulty remains just the same.
We have only explained why we cannot explain it.
The truth is, that we do not limit Omnipotence by
acknowledging the difficulty, but simply admit that
our minds are not capable of grasping Omnipotence
in its relation to a state of which we have had no
experience.

4. Let us now apply the same line of thought to
the two attributes of Infinite Justice and Infinite
Mercy. We are able, more or less, to represent
to ourselves the idea of a personification of Justice.
We can conceive of an All -just Being dealing with
every one according to his merits ; acting, as it were,
by line and measure, from which He does not and
cannot deflect ; dispensing reward to the righteous,
and punishment to the guilty ; firm, unimpassioned,
unbending ; ready, indeed, to receive the fallen to
His favour, but only when the uttermost farthing
has been paid, and the exact amount of satisfaction
has been rendered.

Again, we are able, more or less, to represent to
ourselves the idea of a personification of Mercy.
We can conceive of an All-merciful Being, ready,
willing, yearning to forgive, projecting Himself, as
it were, from Himself, and starting forward to help
the weak, to console the suffering, to lead the wan-

17

dering, to bind up the broken heart, to overlook
the deficiencies of the unworthy, to put aside the
sins of the guilty, to amnesty the past, to cover all
under His wings, to gather all to His bosom, to
wipe away all tears, and bid sorrow and sighing for
ever flee away.

Separately, then, we may seem to be able to ap-
proximate towards a conception of the attributes
of Justice and of Mercy ; but if we try to combine
the two ideas, w^e are utterly baffled. How can the
righteous Judge cover the sins of the guilty ? How
can the loving Father refuse to gather His erring
children within His arms ?

Suppose, then, that Revelation represents God to
us as the All-just One. What ! exclaims the Moral
Sense of the natural man, will you tell me of a
God who cannot freely forgive the guilty? "Even
a man's debt maybe freely forgiven," and "we have
not so learned the Divine Nature, believing that
God, if He transcend our ideas of morality, can
yet never in any degree be contrary to them'."
Suppose, then, that Revelation represents Him to us
as the All-merciful One. What ! exclaims the same
Moral Sense, will you overthrow the foundation of
law and right? Will you " sully the mirror of
God's justice and overcloud His truth'?" "Will
you cast a shadow upon His holiness?" " How then
shall He judge the world?" "We have not so
learned the Divine nature." Suppose, then, that

f Jowett, vol. ii. p. 472. * Jowett, vol. ii. p. 480.

B

18

Revelation represents Him to us as at once All-just
and All'm?reiful. This can only be done in one of
two ways : either by representing Him in one set
of texts, and in one course (if I may so speak) of
His acts, All-just ; and in another set of texts, and
another course of His acts, All-merciful ; or else, by
limiting the one attribute by the other. If the
former is done, then the Moral Sense objects against
the first set of texts, and the first course of acts,
that they do not represent Him as All-merciful ;
against the second, that they do not represent Him
All-just. If the latter, then cries the Moral Sense,
you do not represent Him as All-just, or All-merci-
ful, at all, but as something which is neither one
nor the other.

Thus "we see, that whatsoever revelation of Him-
self God vouchsafes to man, it 7?mst be open to
cavils brought against it in the name of man's
Moral Sense. If it were not so open, it would be
thereby proved to be false, because it would be
representing to us a Being whose nature our minds
could grasp, and whose attributes we could recon-
cile. I say, in the name of the Moral Sense, for it
is not really that divine faculty which cavils and
objects. The Moral Sense would be willing enough
to confine itself w^ithin its own limits, and when
taught by reason that it was dealing with the
Infinite, w^hich the mind of man could not com-
prehend, it w^ould be ready to acquiesce in the
existence of a mystery. It is not, I say, the

19

Moral Sense, but a subtle form of the " piide
of human reasonV' which refuses to acknowledge
that the powers of the human mind, and its fa-
culties, are not the guage by which everything is
to be tried, of things in heaven, and things in earth,
and things under the earth. Would you span the
heavens v^ith your hand ? Would you count the
sands of the shore with your fingers ? Would you
hold the ocean in a water-glass ? Each one of these
attempts w^ould be more wise, more reasonable, and
more philosophical, than objecting to the revelation
of the Infinite, because our finite minds cannot
reconcile His attributes ; and therefore, that His
acts, of whatever nature they may be, are neces-
sarily open to cavil, if cavil we will, not on account
of the quality of the acts, but of our feebleness of
capacity. When, then, we hear the doctrine of the
Sacrifice of the Cross objected to in the name of
Moral Sense, as ''inconsistent with the Divine attri-
butes," let us recollect what the objection really
means. It means this, — that while confessedly in-
capable of reconciling the requirements of Infinite
Justice and Infinite Mercy ourselves ; while forced to
allow that any wdiatsoever revelation to man of God's
march of mystery must seem to conflict with one of
these attributes or the other, not because it does
conflict with either of them, but because of our own
weakness of comprehension, yet we declare that we
will reject that fundamental truth which Prophet, and

' Jowet.t, vol. ii. p. 468.

b2

20

Evangelist, and Apostle with one tongue proclaim,
which has been accepted by all Christians in all
ages as the basis of Christianity, because it does
seem to us to conflict with one of those attributes ;
the very thing which, if it were true, we had to ex-
pect, in consequence, not of the character of His
acts, but of our limited capacity.

II. Almost all that I have said in reference to the
supposed moral objections against the doctrine of
the Sacrifice of the Cross as irreconcilable with In-
finite Mercy, wdll apply, with little change, to the
supposed moral objections against the doctrine of a
vicarious Sacrifice as irreconcilable with Infinite Jus-
tice. On this point I must be very brief. The ob-
jectors whom Bishop Butler in his day met and re-
futed, declared that it represented God as indifferent
whether He punished the innocent or the guilty. It
will be enough for me at present to remind you
of his answer, — how he points out "the extreme
slightness of all such objections," by shewing " that
they conclude altogether as much against God's
whole original constitution of nature, and the wiiole
daily course of Divine Providence in the government
of the world, — that is, against the whole scheme of
theism, and the whole notion of religion, — as against
Christianity."

" So that," continues the religious philosopher,
" the reason of their insisting upon objections of this
kind against the Satisfaction of Christ, is either that

21

they do not consider God's settled and uniform ap-
pointments as His appointments at all, or else they
forget that vicarious punishment is a providential
appointment of every day's experience : and then,
from their being unacquainted with the more gene-
ral laws of nature, or divine government over the
Tvorld, and not seeing how^ the sufferings of Christ
could contribute to the redemption of it, unless by
arbitrary and tyrannical will, they conclude His suf-
ferings could not contribute to it any other way.
And yet what has been often alleged in justifica-
tion of this doctrine, even from the apparent natural
tendency of this method of our redemption, — its
tendency to vindicate the authority of God's laws,
and deter His creatures from sin, — this has never yet
been answered, and is, I think, plainly unanswerable,
though I am far from thinking it an account of the
whole of the case. But without taking this into
consideration, it abundantly appears, from the ob-
servations above made, that this objection is, not
an objection against Christianity, but against the
whole general constitution of nature. And if it
were to be considered as an objection against Chris-
tianity, or considering it, as it is, an objection
against the constitution of nature, it amounts to no
more in conclusion than this, that a divine appoint-
ment cannot be necessary or expedient, because the
objector does not discern it to be so ; though he
must own that the nature of the case is such as
renders him incapable of judging whether it be so

22

or not ; or of seeing it to be necessary, though it
were so"."

I have here quoted the words of the author re-
ferred to, because they receive a double weight by
the fact of their being the words of Butler — Butler,
whose great calm mind surveyed, and estimated, and
balanced all the objections which have been urged
against the received doctrine of the Atonement, and
after weighing them one by one, and all together,
laid them aside as being " neither philosophy nor
faith"," while the doctrine of the Propitiatory and
Vicarious Sacrifice was both.

I will but add, that the doctrine of Original Sin
is open to exactly the same objection as the doc-
trine of the Atonement, and in equal degree ; and
that St. Augustine, in answering the Pelagian's
question, — " How is it just that other men should
be hable to punishment for Adam's sin?" has in
effect answered the difficulty, " How is it just that
Christ should suffer for offences not His own'' ?" A

" Anal., part ii. c. 5.

^ Jowett, vol. ii. p. 481.

y Professor Jowett rejects the received doctrine of Original
Sin as well as the received doctrine of the Atonement. " How
slender is the foundation in the New Testament for the doctrine
of Adam's sin being imputed to his posterity," (p. 162). " The
language that he (St. Paul) here uses is that of his age and
country," (p. 165.) "It was a confusion of a half-physical,
half-logical, or metaphysical, notion, arising in the minds of men
who had not yet learnt the lesson of our Saviour, ' That which
is from without defileth not a man,' " (ibid.) " Too little regard
has been paid to the extent to which St. Paul uses figurative

2;]

mystery we acknowledge it, and as a mystery we
accept it, but only such a mystery as the feebleness
of our minds necessitates. In itself a deep, and pro-
found, and, to other intelligences, it may be, an
open and patent act, at once of Infinite Justice and
Infinite Mercy, to us it necessarily is mysterious.

It may be said, Is, then, our sense of natural
Justice no guide to our conception of the Divine
Justice ? Nay, it is a guide to it, but it is not the
measure of it. It is a finger-post which directs us
towards it, not the plummet which sounds its
depths. The course at once of piety and of rea-
son, is not to make our own minds, and the ideas
of our own minds, the standard by which to test
God and God's doings, but to accept Him as He
has revealed Himself in His nature and His acts

language, and to the mannei- of his age in interpretations of
the Okl Testament. The difficulty of supposing him to be alle-
gorizing the narrative of Genesis is slight in comparison with
the difficulty of supposing him to countenance a doctrine at
variance with our first notions of the moral nature of God,"
(p. 167). Here we have a specimen of Mr. Jowett's method,
which appears to be — 1. to submit the revelation of the Infinite
to the test of his o\*n finite capacity ; 2. to reject whatever his
moral sense chooses to object to ; 3. to explain away what he
has rejected as something which has arisen from the misunder-
standing of figurative language on the part of interpreters, and
from the use of the modes of thought the manners and the
language of their age and countrj', on the part of the writers.
For a masterly statement of the doctrine of Original Sin, see
The Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, by the llev. J. B.
Mozley,— one of the ablest theological treatises which has been
M'ritten for many years.

24

to us, and then we may and shall see how wonder-
fully the Christian scheme does meet the difficulties
of our moral natures, — how true indeed it is that
the foohshness of God is wiser than men. Let
us then first mark some of those texts in which
Scripture especially sets forth Christ as the Pro-
pitiatory Sacrifice for us : — "Justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitia-
tion through faith in His blood, to declare His
righteousness for the remission of sins that are
past through the forbearance of God^" wTites St.
Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans : " Our Lord
Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins," in
the Epistle to the Galatians^: "Christ our Pass-
over is sacrificed for us," in the Epistle to the
Corinthians^: "Christ also hath loved us, and
hath given Himself for us an offering and a
sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour," in

' Rom. iii. 24.

» Gal. i. 4. — Professor Jo^Yett thus comments on this text :
*' When it is said that Christ gave Himself for our sins, or as
a sin-ofFering, the shadow must not be put in the place of the
substance, or the Jewish image substituted for the truth of the
Gospel. On such language it may be remarked, (1.) that it is
figurative ; natural and intelligible to that age, not equally so
to us . . . (5.) that expressions such as that which we are con-
sidering seldom occur in the writings of St. Paul . . . (6.) that in
general, the thing meant by them is that Christ took upon Him
human flush, that He was put to death by sinful men, and raised
men out of the state of sin, — in this sense taking their sins upou
Himself." -Vol. i. p. 211.

" 1 Cor. V. 7.

25

the Epistle to the Ephesians^ The language of
the Epistle to the Hebrews is the same through-
out'^. "Who His own Self bare our sins in His
own body on the tree," writes St. Peter *"; and
again: "Christ also hath once suffered for sins,
the just for the unjust ^" "He is the Propitia-
tion for our sins," writes St. John ^. "This is

c Eph. V. 2.

^ Hcb. ii. TO, V. 9, vii. 25, ix. 11, 28, x. 4 — 10, &c.— Professor
Jowett apparently rejects the Epistle to the Hebrews, not only
as a work of St. I'aul, which he is quite justified in doing, but
as a part of inspired Scri];ture. I say apparently, because he has
not expressed himself with the clearness which it was desirable
that he should have used on so momentous a sixbject. In vol. ii.
p. 476 he writes : " It is in the Epistle to the Hebrews that this
reflection of the New Testament in the Old is most distinctly
brought before us. There, the temple, the priest, the sacrifices,
the altar, the persons of Jewish history are the figiu'es of Christ
and the Church. In the Epistles of St. Paul it is the rarity
rather than the frequency of such images which is striking. It
is the oiiposilion, and not the identification, of the Law and the
Gospel which is the leading thought of his mind. Rut in the
Epistle to the Hebrews they are fused in one ; the New Testa-
ment is hidden in the Old, the Old revealed in the New. And
from this source, and not from the Epistles of St. Paul, the lan-
guage of which we are speaking has passed into the theology of
modern times." And in p. 482 : " We can live and die, in the
language of St. Paul and St. John, without fear for ourselves, or
dishonour to the name of Christ. We need not change a word
that they use, or add on a single consequence to their statement
of the truth. There is nothing there repugnant to our moral
sense." We can hardly doubt that these hitter words are used
with an exclusive meaning, and that Pjol'essor Jowett intends by
them to put aside the authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
and probably of the Epistles of St. Peter.

• 1 Pet. ii. 24. f 1 Pet. iii. 18. el John ii. 2.

26

My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed
for many for the remission of sins," says our Lord
Himself*. " The Lord hath laid on Him the
iniquity of us all," says Isaiah, in the spirit of
prophecy. But why should I add more ? From
eveiy book and every line of the Bible breathes
forth the same truth. It is the foundation-stone
of all that Christ taught, His Apostles preached,
and Christians believe. Once more to quote Bi-
shop Butler : —

" Christ offered Himself a Propitiatory Sacrifice,
and made atonement for the sins of the world . . .
And this sacrifice was, in the highest degree, and
with the most extensive influence, of that efficacy
for obtaining pardon of sin, w^hich the heathens
may be supposed to have thought their sacrifices
to have been, and which the Jewish sacrifices really
were in some degree, and with regard to some
persons '."

And again : —

" The doctrine of the Gospel appears to be, not
only that lie taught the efficacy of repentance, but
rendered it of the efficacy which it is by what He
did and suffered for us ; that He obtained for us
the benefit of having our repentance accepted unto
eternal life ; not only that He revealed to sinners
that they were in a capacity of salvation, and how
they might obtain it ; but, moreover, that He put

^ Matt. xxvi. 28. ' Anal. ii. 5.

27

them into this capacity of salvation by what He did
and suffered for themJ."

And when we have thus, on the authority of
Revelation, accepted, and grasped, and embraced the
great truth, that (in the words of our Church) He
" truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to
reconcile His Father to us, and to be a Sacrifice, not
only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of
men^j" that "He came to be the Lamb without
spot, who, by the Sacrifice of Himself once made,
should take away the sins of the world ' ;" that " the
offering of Him once made is that perfect Redemp-
tion, Propitiation, and Satisfaction for all the sins of
the whole world, both original and actual, and there
is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone*";"
that " He suffered death upon the cross for our
redemption;" and "made there, by His one obla-
tion of Himself once offered, a full, perfect, and
sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction for the
sins of the whole world" ." When, I say, we have,
on the authority of Revelation, embraced this blessed
truth, then we may see how in fact our Moral Sense
does bear witness to it, how our sense of justice,
and our belief in His infinite love, are both satisfied,
so far as they can be satisfied, by this instance at
once of the goodness and severity of God in Christ
reconciling the world unto Himself. " O the depths
of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of

J Anal. ii. 5. ^ Art. II. ' Art. XV.

"' Art. XXXVI. " Conimuiiioii Service.

28

God ! How unsearchable are His judgments, and
His ways past finding out ! For who hath known
the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been His coun-
sellor. For of Him, and through Him, and to Him
are all things"."

Christ hanging upon the cross for us ! It is
our only hope, our only consolation, our only
confidence, our only trust. " The Jews require a
sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom : but we
preach Christ crucified, unto the JeW'S a stum-
bling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but
unto them W'hich are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men ;
and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
. . . But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of
God is made unto us wisdom, and righteous-
ness, and sanctification, and redemption p." Every
dav during the next week the Church will bring
before you, for reverent and loving contemplation,
the form of the Man of Sorrows, despised and re-
jected of men, bearing our griefs, wounded for our
transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, and pour-
ing out His soul unto death for us. One after
another each Evangelist takes up the tale, and
leads us on with him from the garden to the cross.
Remember that we must be the better or the worse
for each Holy Week as it passes : better, by God's

° Rom. xi. 33. P 1 Cor. i. 22-25, 30.

29

grace, if we linger lovingly and reverently with
Him, and watch the awful agony of that sinless
soul, when He was enshrouded and enveloped in the
sins of men, and His Father's face was for a mo-
ment turned away from Him, the child of Adam, on
whom the Lord had laid the iniquity of us all ; worse,
if we look on as cold spectators, speculating and
criticising, instead of falling on our knees and wor-
shipping ; or growing callous, as though the things
which we saw and heard were but as the scenes and
words of one of our childhood's tales, which now can
stir the heart no more. Oh, brethren, that our hearts
were with Him more constantly in His Passion ;
that in our heart of hearts the image of Jesus cruci-
fied was more deeply impressed ! Surely, then, we
should not fret, and fume, and toss wearily to and fro,
as now we do ; we should not fix our affections on
the wretched prizes that this world has to bestow ;
we should not jostle one another in our course ;
we could not be envious and jealous, — we could not
be proud, revengeful, resentful ; we should recog-
nise each other as brethre i indeed, redeemed by
the same most precious blood ; we should be more
humble, more gentle, more considerate, — less cold,
and harsh, and supercilious,— more worthy to be
called the disciples of the Crucified, who for us en-
dured that agony in the garden of Gethsemane, and
that anguish on the hill of Calvary.

Brethren, we have much to be thankful for, but
there is nothing which should call forth the thank-

30

fulness of our inmost souls like this act of wondrous
love. We have much to be thankful for, — untold
blessings of earth ; — He gives us, as He thinks fit,
the strong limbs and the springing enjoyment of
life, and the stout heart to bear up against mis-
fortune. And He opens to us the gates of know-
ledge, and gives us entrance into the glorious world
of thought and intellect ; and He gives us friends
whom we may love, — some that we may help on, and
cheer, and strengthen in their struggle with the diffi-
culties and perplexities which oftentimes well-nigh
appal the young heart, however gallant, as it buffets
with the breakers that burst along the edge of
life ; some to whom we may look up with affection
and respect, and take courage from the knowledge
that such persons live ; and some with whom we
may interchange our thoughts and feelings, sure of
a responsive sympathy. There is indeed no earthly
blessing so great, no boon among all those that God
gives to man, so precious as that of free, frank, bro-
therly love, when heart meets heart, and eye meets
eye, with no selfish reservation, undeadened by lust,
unhardcned by worldliness,-unperverted by sophis-
try. And these, and many more, are blessings which
God gives to us in this place with a free and open
hand. But what are they, what is anything on
earth, when compared with the gift which God gave
us in His Son, and the reconciliation which that
great Offering once for all effected ? Nay, it is on
account of that reconciliation that we are able to

/

31

enjoy those other hlessings. Now we are as sons,
and may look up into tlie face of our Ahha Father,
and this creates a sunshine in the soul by which all
else is illumined. Why should we not rejoice, like
some high-spirited boy, (and what more touching,
more beautiful spectacle ?) who does not shrink from
his father's eye, who tells him his joys and sorrows,
and whose fear has been mellowed into tender re-
spect by its combination with love ? But what if
tlie chastisement of our peace had not been laid
upon Him ? What if the expiation and propitiation
had not been wrought ? What if God's face were
averted from us ? Then how should we venture to en-
joy the blessings which we now find along our path ?
Nay, rather would it not be our highest wisdom to
go mourning all the day long, or to " cast ourselves
down upon the earth, and put our face between our
knees'!?" or to cry out with Moses, " If Thou deal
thus with me, kill me, I pray Thee, out of hand, if I
have found favour in Thy sight, and let me not see my
wretchedness';" or with Job, " My soul is weary of
my life ; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. . . .
Thou huntest me as a fierce lion ; . . . Thou increasest
Thine indignation upon me. . . . Wherefore then hast
Thou brought me forth out of the womb ? Oh !
that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen
me' ;" or with Elijah, " make request for ourselves,
that we might die and say, It is enough ; now, O

q 1 Kings xviil. 42. ■• Numb. xl. IT). » Job x. 1, 16—18.

•.VI

Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than
my fathers' ?"

There is a deep moral in the account of the con-
version of Justin Martyr, as it is made familiar to
many of us by a living poet". We can see him, as he
is there pictured, wandering forth along the shore of
the sea, desolate, helpless, hopeless ; and the bright-
ness of the sky, and the laugh of the ocean, did but
add grief to his sorrow, for what had he to do with
purity, and joy, and light, — he, the sin-stained, con-
scious of nought within himself but discord and dis-
array ? There w^as no chord to answer responsively
to the joyousness of nature, and accordingly it only
oppressed him with the more intolerable weight.
We can see him as he threw himself down upon the
shore, and burst into tears, — tears such as the strong
man sheds in those few hours of agony w^hich fall to
the lot of most of us but once or twice throughout
our lives. What shall lighten that oppression '? He
had striven in the noble fervour of youth and man-
liness,— striven after holiness, truth, and beauty.
He had said that he w^ould cleanse his soul from
all that defiled ; that he would cast out all that
offended ; that he would fling around himself
the atmosphere of light and love, and tune each
jarring tone within him into harmony. And now
all had failed, — his palace of beauty, which he fain
would have raised, was dashed to the ground, the

* 1 Kings xix. 4.

" See the Storv of Justin Mrrtvr in Trencli's Poems.

33

mirror of his soul was cracked and bedimmed, and
what should now give him comfort ? The riddle of
life was too hard for him to read. What union be-
tween God and such as he ? and what happiness to
an immortal soul without union with God ? From
the verge of despair he was led back by the gentle
words of wisdom of the old man who had been
sent to him in his hour of darkness. And which
of those words would it have been that would have
roused the weary-hearted man from his wretched-
ness ? Would he have been moved, if he had been
told that " a great moral act had been done by one
in our likeness," and that this was " an assurance
that God in Christ was reconciled to the world "" ?"
Would he not rather have bid his teacher, who thus
spoke to him, be gone, and not mock his misery
with unmeaning words ? But when he heard of the
love of the Father in sending His Son ; when he
was told of Him that died upon the Cross for him ;
when he learnt that by His Sacrifice the full satis-
faction for sin had been made, and the ransom
effected, and that his soul might be washed white

* " Not the sacrifice, nor tlie satisfaction, nor the ransom, but
the greatest moral act ever done in this world, — the act, too, of
one in our likeness, — is the assurance to us that God in Christ is
reconciled to the world." — Joioett, vol. ii. p. 481.

I must express my entire inability to discern how any sober-
minded man, with the Bible before him, or by the light of na-
ture, could arrive at an assurance of reconciliation by reason of
any " moral act" whatever, which is neither a " sacrifice," nor a
" satisfaction," nor a " ransom."

C

34

in the blood of the Lamb, — then we can see his eye
lighten and his brow relax ; the good news that he
had yearned for was come, the pearl of great price
that he had vainly sought after was found. We
can well believe how different the face of nature
appeared to him as he retraced his steps ; how the
gladness of earth, and sky, and sea no longer
oppressed him as something alien. He, too, could
take part in their rejoicing, for he knew that he was
reconciled, and brought nigh, and united to God by
the precious blood of Christ.

There are two classes of minds that do not feel
the sinfulness of sin, and have no sense of its
burden. One of these is scarcely to be distin-
guished from the beasts that perish. The sow that
wallows in the mire knows not and recks not that
it is filthy ; and there are men who go on day by day
committing sin and living in sin, and their con-
sciences have become hardened and crusted over;
they know not and reck not of the hideous leprosy
which they have superinduced upon themselves.
The other is very different in appearance from the
first. Upright, moral, self-controlled, its fault lies
not in excess of passion, but in pei*version of intel-
lect. Men have been found who, being led astray
in the mazes of speculation, have dared to pro-
nounce sin to be only a lower form of good, — con-
founding thus the work of Satan with the work of
God. To these men the doctrine of the Fall, and
the doctrine of the Atonement, are alike foolishness :

35

their system does not need them, — nay, does not
admit of them. Little as they themselves intend
it, the main result of their work must be to en-
courage the natural man to cease from struggling
with himself, and to erect an intellectual support
for the brutish man to justify himself in going on
still in brutishness.

There are likewise two states of mind in which the
oppression of sin's sinfulness is appreciated. One of
these is not a permanent state, for if continuous, it
must of necessity lead to madness ; but it is a state
which many have been conscious of passing through.
There is a time in the life of many a man, when
the sinfulness of sin makes itself felt in all its awful
reality, and there is present no sense of expiation to
say, Thou shalt not die. It is a time when the
mystery of existence first sinks down on us, and we
are perplexed and amazed ; when all about us seems
unreal, — when the heavens are brass, and the earth
iron, and men seem made for suffering y, and all we

y " The dreary sickness of tlie soul
That falls upon us in oui- lonely youth ;
The fear of all bright visions leaving us.
The sense of emptiness without the sense
Of an abiding fulness anywhere ;
When all the generations of mankind.
With all their purposes, their hopes, and fears,
Seem nothing truer than those wandering shapes
Cast by a trick of light upon a wall,
And nothing different from these, except
In their capacity for suffering." — Trench, p. 115.

36

know is, that^there is a God far away, out of sight,
above our heads, and that sin is reigning upon the
earth, — sin within us, sin without us, all seems sin
and disharmony, — and still there is conscience stand-
ing by, and telling us of righteousness, and good-
ne^s, and truth, and holiness.

But, blessed be God, neither is this the Christian
frame of mind, though many a Christian has passed
through it, as through the valley of the shadow of
death. The Christian's lot is one of peace and
gladness ; for though sin abound, yet the expiation
for sin has been made, and has been accepted ; the
power of sin is crushed, and its dominion destroyed.
Be it ours, brethren, not to wallow in the filthiness
of sin, not to explain away its sinfulness ; nor, again,
to be confounded by the hoiTor of it ; but while we
go softly, sadly, tearfully, along our way, because
we are sinners, let us still cherish in our heart of
hearts that peace which the world gave not, and the
world cannot take away ; that peace which passeth
understanding ; that peace which arises from the
consciousness of reconciliation and union with our
Abba Father ; that peace which our dear Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ purchased with His own
most precious blood, when He died for us on
Calvary, the one accepted Sacrifice, Oblation, and
Satisfaction for the sins of all mankind, and of each
one of us.

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