SERMON XXI.

THE ATONEMENT.

1. PETER, iii. 18.

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God."

THIS verse is in substance, an epitome of the gospel. It establishes irrefutably a doctrine which is the marrow of correct belief; the life and soul of christianity; the originating principle of evangelical morals; the sun of that divine system whose author is the word and wisdom of Jehovah. You must at once perceive that I allude to the doctrine of the atonement. The religion that we preach, tear from it this doctrine, would appear to me to resemble a superstructure resting on no solid ground-work-a beautiful statue devoid of animation; pleasing, in a certain measure, to the eye, but incapable of influencing, affecting, or even reaching the heart. The scheme which omits this capital article, has been aptly denominated the frigid zone of christianity. There is no warmth in it: nothing genial: nothing productive; nothing that moves, expands, or encourages. Tell me that God, who is holy, expects me to be so, if I would be happy in his presence--tell me this, and no more—and you only chill desire and deaden exertion; because I cannot be ignorant of the radical defect in my moral condition; I cannot be ignorant of my moral distance from God. But tell me that "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God;" tell me this, and

hope revives. Immediately I take encouragement to act, to labour, and to pray.

Every word of our text has force and meaning. To use a popular style of emphasis, every word tells. You have here the annunciation of the fact, that Jesus, anointed of · God, and sent, to, be a Saviour-a mediating priest-prophet-and king-hath suffered. You have the ground or procuring cause of his suffering. "He hath suffered for sins." You have the information that his suffering hath accomplished its intended result; that it is not to be repeated or renewed; and that nothing additional in the nature of atonement is necessary or admissible. "He hath once suffered." You have his moral or spiritual excellence expressed; "the just." You have the demerit of those for whom he suffered declared; "the unjust." You have the final cause of his suffering; "that he might bring us to God."

May the spirit which guided the pen of Peter, aid us in our meditations on his words; that our faith may be strengthened to rest with a holier and more unshaken confidence on our Saviour Jesus Christ!-Amen..

FIRST.-Jesus, anointed of God, and sent, to be a Saviour -a mediating priest, prophet, and king—hath suffered. Of this no man can doubt who will not refuse to accredit historical evidence of the most unexceptionable character. The evangelists represent him as participating in the infirmities of our commion nature; and what is more in point, as exposed to distresses bodily and mental, of peculiar character and aggravation. And this representation harmonizes, in every particular incident, with the predictions concerning his state of humiliation. The whole tenor of his eventful life, and all the circumstances connected with his unexampled decease, fully justify what is said of him; that he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." The great enemy whose works he came to destroy stirred up the prejudices of men already disposed to evil, or excited passions and antipathies which might otherwise have had no existence.

He was assailed in his good name; defamed as having a devil; as casting out devils through Beelzebub, the prince of devils; as a wine-bibber, and a friend of publicans and sinners; as a mover of sedition; as an aspiring mal-content; as an enemy of man, and a blasphemer against God. He was outraged in his person; buffetted; scourged; spit upon; made to toil under the weight of the cross on which he was condemned to die. On that cross he was unrighteously and inhumanly put to torture; being placed between two convicts as though he had been a more flagrant sinner than either. Crucifixion, as all know who are acquainted with the history of the countries where it was a customary mode of capital execution, was attended with the utmost imaginable disgrace, being most frequently inflicted on slaves. Hence, says the scripture, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."* "He endured the cross, despising the shame." On that cross also, a distress of a nature and severity altogether singular, overtook him; a mysterious agony which drew from his lips, until then uncomplaining, that loud cry, "My God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" For it was not without the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God that he was delivered." "It pleased Jehovali to bruise him;" it was "he" who "put him to grief." It was his sword, bathed in the Heavens, that smote this Lamb.

cause.

"He hath

To justify this dispensation, note well, SECONDLY.-Its ground or procuring suffered for sins." But for whose sins? Certainly, not his own. Notwithstanding the number and acuteness of his griefs and pains; notwithstanding he might, without exaggeration, exclaim from the cross on which he was lifted up, "behold, all ye that pass by, and see if there be any sorrow: like unto my sorrow;" yet his deportment had been, not perfectly inoffensive only, but perfectly holy; not merely blameless, but unmixedly excellent. "He hath suffered for sins." † Heb. xii. 2. Isaiah, liii. 10.

* Phil. ii. 8.

But for whose sins? Certainly, not theirs who fled from his rebukė on earth, proclaiming him their conqueror and their tormentor; not for the sins of the spirits once excelling in strength before the throne of God, and afterwards banished with everlasting destruction from his presence. “For, verily, he took not on him the nature of angels." "He hath suffered for sins." But, once more, for whose sins? For ours, my brethren; for the sins of believers. He was the promised "seed of the woman." "In the fulness of time God sent forth his Son made of a woman."* He is bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; and wearing our nature, "his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree."† As we were under a law which we had violated, so was he made under the same law to fulfil it in our behalf; to expiate our offences against it; and to deliver us from its penalty. "He hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." Moral evil is a direct outrage upon the Creator. It is a species of defiance hurled against his providential rule. Divine justice, therefore, will not pass it over with impunity. But instead of exacting from believers a rigid satisfaction for sin in their own proper persons, it has pleased God so to charge it to the account of the propitiating Jesus, that all its penal consequences lie vicariously upon him. "Surely, he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." "For the transgression of God's people was he stricken." "All we like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." So perfect is the atonement thus effected by the vicarious suffering of our Lord, that it does not require to be repeated or renewed; neither is any other atonement or propitiating oblation, requisite or admissible. Hence, says our text,

THIRDLY. "Christ hath once suffered." The intended result of his bitter passion is accomplished. Sin is remitted. The penitent is dismissed in peace. Why, then, should the

Gal. iv. 4. † 1. Pet. ii. 24. Isaiah, liii. 6.

* Gal. iii, 13. § Isaiah, liii. 4. 8.

altar of oblation again be dressed? Why should blood still be shed? Why should the victim expire afresh? Why should the Son of man continue to be numbered with the transgressors? In the iteration of the sacrifice, I can discern neither the spirit nor the letter of the covenant. On the contrary, I read that "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many."* I find a high authority inferring the inadequacy and inefficiency of the sacrifices of the ancient dispensation, from their periodical recurrence; "The law having a shadow of good things to come," says the writer to the Hebrews, "and not the very image of the things, can never, with those sacrifices, which they offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshippers once purged, should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year." I find the same high authority demonstrating the value and competency of the one sacrifice of the gospel to take away sin, from that very circumstance, that it is but one, and but once offered. "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified."‡ Upon whatever specious and plausible pretexts, therefore, men may venture to perpetuate sacrificial institutions in the church of Christ, the practice is no better than superstition. All such observances are unauthorized by Christ himself; and immediately derogate from the dignity of that one great oblation which, through the Eternal Spirit, he made of himself to take away sin. No sophistry can transubstantiate such falshood into truth. God Heb. x, 1.-3. Heb. x. 10.-14.

* Heb. ix. 28.