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Christ: "I and my Father are One." To all those in whom Christ's Spirit is, God imputes the righteousness which is as yet only seminal, germinal; a seed, not a tree; a spring, not a river; an aspiration, not an attainment; a righteousness in faith, not a righteousness in works. It is not, then, an actual righteousness, but an imputed righteousness. Hence we see what is meant by saying, "reconciled or atoned through Christ." We do not mean that each man reconciles himself as Christ did, by being righteous; but we mean that God views him favorably as partaking of that Humanity which has been once exhibited on earth, a Holy, Perfect, and Divine thing. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them."

But we must distinguish this from a vulgar notion of the Atonement. Some use it as meaning appeasal, not reconciliation: not that the All Holy One was reconciled to Humanity by seeing in it His own image, and received full satisfaction by beholding the perfect sacrifice of the Will of the Man to the Will of God; but that not having taken out the full satisfaction of punishment in one place, He was content to do it in the other. Justice, they say, must strike: and if He can strike the innocent, it is richer satisfaction of justice than striking the guilty. Strange justice! Unjust to let the guilty go free, but quite just to punish the innocent! So mournfully do we deface Christianity! It is singular that the Romanists have a similar perversion. There are pictures which represent the Virgin as interposing between the world and her angry Son; laying bare her maternal bosom by way of appeal, and the Son yielding that to His mother's entreaty, which He would not do for Love. What the Virgin is to the Romanist, that is Christ to some Protestants. Observe that, according to both opinions, there are two distinct Beings, one full of Wrath, the other full of Mercy. Those Romanists make Christ the Person of fury, and Mary the Person of mercy. Some Protestants represent God the Father as the wrathful Being, and Christ

as the Loving One. But the principle in both views is the same.

No! this text contradicts that notion. It was not Christ appeasing his Father's wrath, but His Father descending into Humanity through Him; and so, by taking the manhood into God, reconciling the world unto Himself. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself." It was God's infinite Love which redeemed the world, and not God's fury which was appeased. God created a Divine Humanity, and so, changing the relation between man and Himself, reconciled Himself to man. And this Divine Humanity sacrificed itself for us. It was a vicarious sacrifice. The sacrifice of Christ was the meritorious cause of our acceptance. What was there in it which satisfied God? Was it the punishment inflicted? No! It was the free offering of Christ's Will even unto death. "Therefore, doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life for the sheep."

II. The work of the Christian ministry the reconciliation of man to God.

It was

Now distinguish Christ's position from ours. Christ's work to reconcile God to man. That is done, and done for ever; we cannot add anything to it. That is a priestly power: and it is at our peril that we claim such a power. Ours is ministerial: His alone was priestly. We cannot infuse supernatural virtue into baptismal water; we cannot transform bread and wine into heavenly aliment. We can offer no sacrifice: the concluding sacrifice is done. "By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." So far, then, as we represent anything besides this as necessary, so far do we frustrate it, and turn the Christian ministry into a sacrificial priesthood. We are doing as did the Galatians of old.

Therefore the whole work of the Christian ministry consists in declaring God as reconciled to man: and in beseeching with every variety of illustration, and every

degree of earnestness, men to become reconciled to God. It is this which is not done. All are God's children by right; all are not God's children in fact. All are sons of God; but all have not the Spirit of sons, "whereby they cry, Abba, Father." All are redeemed, all are not yet sanctified.

LECTURE XLVI.

DECEMBER 19, 1852.

2 CORINTHIANS, vi. 1 – 10. - -"We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.

(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) — Giving no offence in anything, that the ministry be not blamed :- But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, — In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings; - By pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, - By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, By honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; - As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; - As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."

THE last chapter closed with the subject of Reconciliation. It declared that the atonement between God and man consisted of two parts: God atoned to man by the work of Christ; man atoned to God by the work of the Christian ministry. For the work of the Christian minister presupposes the work of Christ; and his message is, "God is reconciled to you, be ye reconciled to God." In this sixth chapter, St. Paul proceeds with this ministry of reconciliation. We will consider

I. His appeal.

II. The grounds of that appeal.

I. St. Paul's appeal was, "that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." The grace of God. Grace is favor, and the particular grace here spoken of is the reconciliation of God in Christ (vs. 14-19). That

Christ died for all, and that God is reconciled to allthis is the state of Grace. Now the word grace being exclusively a Scriptural one, is often misunderstood, and seems mysterious: it is supposed to be a mystical something infused into the soul. But grace is only God's favor; and a state of grace is the state in which all men are, who have received the message of salvation, which declares God's goodwill towards them. So speaks St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. The Corinthians had received this grace; they were baptized into the name of God the Father, and Christ the Son. They were told that God was their Father and their Friend. Now we shall understand what St. Paul meant by beseeching them not to receive that grace in vain. It was a question once discussed with great theological vehemence, whether men who had once been recipients of grace could fall from it finally and irrevocably. Some replied warmly that they can, while others, with equal pertinacity, affirmed that it was impossible. Part of the cause of this disagreement may be taken away by agreeing on the meaning of the word grace. By grace some meant the Spirit of God, and they held, that the soul which has once become one with God, is His for ever. Undoubtedly this has the sanction of Scripture in various forms of expression. For example, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom: “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Again: "No man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand : "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition: * ́❝ Whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." We cannot read these passages, without perceiving that there is an inner circle of men in the Kingdom of Grace, in whom God's Spirit dwells, who are one with God, in whom His Holy Ghost is a well of water