tion are synonymous; yea, they are one and the same thing, in the New Testament. This will lead to an easy explanation of the subject.

Reconciliation, or satisfaction, presupposes the existence of unreconciliation, or dissatisfaction. And it is obvious that the reconciliation or satisfaction must take place, where the unreconciliation or dissatisfaction previously existed.

The subject, therefore, supposes two parties; yea, we may admit the third, as mediator, or medium, through which the reconciliation is made.

For the sake of distinction, therefore, and to make the matter perfectly plain, I shall call these parties the Major, the Minor, and the Medium, or Mediator.

By these parties I mean to represent God, human nature, i. e. man, and the mediator between God and men.

There is an unreconciliation existing between the two first of these parties: and it is the object to produce a reconciliation between them. Now the first thing to be done is, to find out where the unreconciliation exists. This is as necessary as it is for a good physician to find out the disease of his patient, before he attempts a cure.

Unreconciliation always presupposes some fault, some blame, either in one or both of the parties: and the parties always stand, as they must in this case, in one of the three following predicaments: viz.

Either the blame is wholly in the major, and none in the minor; or wholly in the minor, and none in the major or else, it lies in the major and minor both. It is impossible to conceive of a fourth predicament. Now, as it respects the unreconciliation between God and man, where is the blame?-where is the dissatisfaction? Is it in God? or is it in man? or is it in both? No one will admit, for a moment, that there can be any blame in the Deity! But yet it may be supposed that God is dissatisfied with, and unreconciled to, man, because man is a sinner. But is man a greater sinner now, than what God knew he would be, when he made him?-and if not -admitting that he is dissatisfied with him now, on that account, was he not just as much dissatisfied with him

then, on the same account?-and whenever the satisfaction takes place, admitting it ever should, will there be no change in the Deity? O, in what a labyrinth it involves us, the moment we admit even the possibility of there being any dissatisfaction, any unreconciliation, in the mind of God! If God ever were dissatisfied with any of the works of his hands, he is dissatisfied still, and will be to all eternity! i. e. unless he should cease to be what he is, the Being who changeth not. We must take care, or we shall be brought up against that mountain again, which infinity itself could not remove!

Now all this difficulty is removed at once, by supposing that man, and man only, is the dissatisfied and unreconciled party. Then let man be reconciled; and all is as it should be. And the knowledge of that glorious truth, which produces this reconciliation, is communicated from God, the father of light, with whom there is no variableness or shadow of turning, through_Jesus Christ, the Mediator, or medium, between God and man.

This, therefore, is what the apostle means, when he says, we joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. See the text. He does not say, that God had received a satisfaction for sin, through our Lord Jesus Christ, (which has ever been the doctrine of the schools,) but that we have received it.

Sinners are generally informed, that, while they are in a state of unreconciliation to God, they not only hate God, but they are hated of God. By and by, some how or other, (but no one could ever yet tell exactly how,) the sinner is supposed to meet with a change; and now he is supposed to love God: and God, of course, is supposed to love the sinner. Admitting all this correct, I beg to know who has met with the greatest change, God, or the sinner? The sinner, certainly, being finite, never could have hated God with any thing more than a finite hatred: but if God hated the sinner, that hatred was infinite. The sinner, although changed, yet being still finite, is not capable of loving God with any thing more than a finite love: but if God love the sinner, or

him who has been a sinner, that love is infinite. Hence, while the sinner has met with a finite change, the change in God, according to these premises, must have been infinite!!! O, from my heart, I pity both the abettors and deluded followers of such false creeds! Turn a false system in divinity any way whatever, view it in any light you please, and you immediately run foul of the most glaring absurdities.

In order for the soul to be reconciled to God, it must be brought to love God. And if it be asked, by what means the sinner is brought to love God? I shall answer in the words of the apostle: "We love him because he first loved us." (1 John, iv. 19.) No sinner would ever love God, were it not for the previous love of God to the sinner: and this idea, which certainly is well founded, completely refutes the notion, that God receiveth the atonement.

I shall here take the liberty of making a few valuable extracts from the Treatise of my worthy friend, on this subject; believing that what is here subjoined will be an inducement to my readers (if they have not already done it) to examine the whole work from which these extracts are taken.*

"The method, by which we are brought to love any object whatever, is, by seeing, or thinking we see, some beauty in that object; and our love is always in proportion to the apparent good qualities of the object seen.

"While our minds are darkened, by the veil on the heart, in reading [the law] of Moses, so that the beauties of the ministration of life are hidden from our eyes, and its excellent glories are out of our sight, it is impossible that we should love Christ or his word. Yet, during this darkness, we must love something; therefore, as sin and the vanities of elementary life present the greatest beauty to our eyes, of any objects which we behold, our affections are placed on those corruptible things."

Admitting the above statement correct, which, I be

* See Ballou on Atonement, p. 125, and on.

lieve, none will deny, it is only necessary to ask, whether God has sufficient power to cause all men to love holiness, and to hate sin? Answer: Yes, most assuredly, if he have only power to reveal his own nature to the understanding of the creature; to take the veil from our hearts, and to cause us to see himself altogether lovely. In whom is that power vested? Answer: In Jesus Christ, whom the Father hath exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour; to whom he hath given to have life in himself; and hath given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to as many as He hath given him; in whom God was manifested; for God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, &c.-that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (Acts, v. 31. John, v. 26. xvii. 2. 1 Tim. iii. 16, 2 Cor. v. 18—21.)

"When the sinner views God as an enemy, when he feels an aversion to him, and wishes to avoid his presence, it is certain that the Son hath not revealed the Father to that soul. The ideas thus entertained of God are altogether wrong, and the mind that entertains them has no just conceptions of the Almighty. But, blessed be the express image of the Invisible; he hath power to reveal the true character of the Father, to remove the veil from the heart, and to let the sunbeams of divine light gently into the understanding; then God appears altogether lovely, and the chiefest among ten thousand, while the soul in ecstasy embraces the brightness of his glory, crying, My Lord, and my God.'

6

"There is nothing in heaven above, nor in the earth beneath, that can do away sin, but love; and we have reason to be eternally thankful, that love is stronger than death, that many waters cannot quench it, nor the floods drown it; that it hath power to remove all the moral maladies of mankind, to reconcile us to God, and to wash us pure, in the blood, or life, of the everlasting covenant. O love, thou great physician of souls! All souls are thy patients; prosperous be thy labours, thou bruiser of the head of carnal mind.

"The divine efficacy of this atoning grace may be communicated to the most vile and profligate person in

the world, and stop him in his full career of wickedness; it can show the sinner, in a moment, the deformity of sin, and the beauty of holiness. In other instances, the morally virtuous are led a long time in concern and great trouble, about themselves, before they find him of whom Moses and the prophets did write.

"God is not confined to character, time, or place, to work the work of atonement (or reconciliation) in the soul; he does all things well, and in the best time and manner; and Christians do very wrong, to contend about those differences which sin and deception caused in them, before they knew Christ.

"Atonement by Christ, was never intended to perform impossibilities; therefore, it was never designed to make men agree, and live in peace, while they are destitute of love one to another; but it is calculated and designed to inspire the mind with that true love which will produce peace in Jesus. As atonement [i. e. reconciliation] is a complete fulfilment of the law of the heavenly man, it causes its recipient to love God and its fellow creatures, in as great a degree as he partakes of its nature. Ask one brought out of darkness into the marvellous light of the gospel, how God appears to him; and he will answer, more glorious than he can describe. Ask him how he feels towards his fellow men; and he will say, even of his enemies, he wishes them no worse than to enjoy the blessings of divine favour."

But it is too often the case, that this new, this heaven born soul-born of the spirit, and partaking of the powers of the world to come-goes and joins itself, if not to the mother, to one of the daughters of mystical Babylon; in which case, it most assuredly loses its first love. And, having pledged itself to support a particular creed, can be as zealous in persecuting those who do not fall in with it, as any one.

It may be well for us all to call ourselves to a close and careful examination, whether we really possess the spirit of Christ, which is the spirit of the gospel, or not. If we say we love God; what do we love him for? If it be because we feel it a duty to love him, or because we