prudence in the choice of a house or a wife, just as with "prayer" as a condition of God's blessing.

If you choose to go thus far, I think you will be consistent, but you will certainly be undone. You may say, if you please (as, I dare say, a metaphysical sophist would, though I hope you would not), "Well, my philosophy still holds true; - for it seems the 'laws' are unvarying, and you have but introduced another; and as all the phenomena are concatenated, if I am to pray as an indispensable condition, it is already decreed that I shall; and if not, I am exempted from further troubling myself about the matter." In that case I shall not think it worth while any longer to argue with you ; only remember that if prayer be an indispensable pre-condition of God's favour, then if you do not pray, you "lose the blessing." If you act on such a theory, you may triumph in your soi-disant philosophy; but such a victory, my young Pyrrhus, without waiting for another, will ruin you.

I have not thought it of moment to reply to the logical refinement sometimes urged - that even if it be granted that prayer is an indispensable pre-condition of the divine favour, its inefficacy, as a proper cause, may still be maintained; -for I am convinced that you would not urge it seriously. As to the event, it is all one, and I do not think it worth while to discuss such subtleties. If a man were to offer you an estate on the payment of a peppercorn rent (and our prayers" are worth not so much to the Deity), it is certain that the man's bounty, and not the peppercorn, would be the cause of your good fortune; but as without the peppercorn you would be without the estate, I imagine you would have little inclination to chop logic with him about its being "causal" or otherwise.

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It is my unfeigned "prayer,” my young friend, that you may speedily revise your opinion, and not be "spoiled by philosophy and vain deceit," which, by the way, in the present case, are but different terms for the same thing.

Ever yours faithfully and affectionately,
R. E. H. G.

LETTER LII.

To

Aug. 1849.

My dear Friend,

So you have really the effrontery to suppose that I shall admit your caricature of the doctrine of the Atonement to be a true picture! I am resolved to be plain with you on this subject, and tell you, once for all, my mind. I shall first vindicate my own views; but do not imagine I shall stop there; gird your swordbelt tight, for, be assured, you shall be put on the defensive before I have done with you. But I cannot write to-day. In a day or two expect to hear from me. I could not delay, however, sending this brief protest against your most odious and unjust caricature.

In spite of all,

Your affectionate friend,

R. E. H. G.

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you cannot believe the I am sure you cannot,

You have discovered, it seems, that mysterious doctrine of the Atonement." neither can I, if the doctrine of the Atonement be what you represent it. You will say, perhaps, that it is the doctrine of the majority of Christians. I am certain it is not; but if it were, it is not mine; and it is mine that I am bound to expound, and you to confute.

I will talk to you in freedom, as we used to do when we lived

nearer; with love, as our long friendship demands; and with the honesty no less claimed by truth. And, my dear friend, bear with me, if, here and there, affection seems urgent; for I do, in very truth, believe that the essence of the Gospel consists eminently in this one article. And so have thought many far greater and better men than I pretend to be- and (which is significant) have thought so more strongly as they grew older, and felt increasingly, by personal experience, the value of what they held so dear. In this eminently was their HOPE. Thus it was with R. Hall, Foster, Chalmers, Dr. Johnson.

And now for your fancy sketch. You say, that according to the "current" notions of Christians, "God is represented, in moody inexorable wrath, as averse to save man till, Moloch-like, He was unjustly propitiated by innocent blood; till Christ's sufferings wrung from Him a sullen and ungracious pardon." Who can believe this, you ask? Who, indeed? I cannot, for one; but then I know of no one else who does.

I grant that in some bygone ages, and even now, among some uneducated folks, that know not how to think clearly or to speak justly,-perhaps also in some fanatical or injudicious hymns, of whose authors the same may be said, and, of course, in the select but very limited circle of antinomianism,—you may meet with extravagances of statement which, more or less, justify your caricature; but it is certain, nevertheless, that it is a caricature, even of the most injudicious representations; and the immense majority of Christians would, I am perfectly confident, refuse to accept it as their doctrine of the Atonement just as much as I do.

At all events, if it is with me you think you are in controversy, you are quite mistaken. I reject and abhor your description of the doctrine as much as you can do, and you must therefore give a very different reply to my arguments; and when I say my arguments, I know I also speak the sentiments of the vast majority of Christians. But at all events, be pleased to argue with me.

In the first place, then, so far from believing God averse to save man, I believe that it was the very intensity of His desire to do so (as the New Testament plainly teaches) which prompted Him

to interpose in our behalf: "God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son;" and as to what you say of "injustice,” I believe that whatever was done, was done with Christ's own perfectly voluntary concurrence, as the same book teaches: "No man taketh my life from me; I lay it down of myself." Now, if this were done by Christ's voluntary act, where is the injustice? How, indeed, was it more unjust for God to allow Christ thus to lay down His life, of His own freewill, on my theory than on yours? I shall presently show that it is at least more incomprehensible on yours. For since you admit that Christ did not die for any fault of His own, and contend that He did not die for any fault of ours, for what did He die, and for what reason did God let Him? On your theory, all this not a little perplexes me. But I shall come to that presently. Depend on it I shall not fail to ask you for a theory of the rationale of Christ's death.

Well, then, we believe that it was God's intense love for man which led Him to adopt so stupendous a method of evincing it, and that He justly could do so, because Christ was as willing to be "given" for man as God to " give" Him. But you say: Why could not God forgive the sin of man without any such intervention? Could He not forgive just as a father can— - absolutely and without any compensation to law? Who can believe the contrary?"

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I can, for one. I do not mean to say that I should be justified, apart from what I deem the revealed fact, that Atonement has been provided, apart from the evidence of Scripture on the matter, in affirming the contradictory of your proposition, or in pronouncing at all confidently either way. The subject is, in my judgment, "far too high for us to be dealt with à priori. But in spite of the confidence with which this seemingly simple view of yours is often propounded, I do mean to contend that, even by the light of nature (if we enter into the subject at all profoundly), there is quite as much reason to doubt your theory as to affirm it. And the more the subject is investigated, the less reason I apprehend will there appear for a summary à priori determination of it.

Nor do I fear lest one of your candour should indulge in the usual talk of "absurdity," "antiquated prejudices," and the like. I know that you will concede that I am as qualified by thought and reading to form an opinion as yourself; I know you will admit that many minds of the very first order have also arrived at the same conviction, namely, that there may have been, that there may be, a moral impossibility in the way of proclaiming a universal amnesty to a guilty world without some homage, like that of the Atonement, to the principle of LAW.

To your question, therefore, "Can we conceive that it is not always possible for a father to forgive, as a father, simply and absolutely? And cannot God do so too?" I reply, it does not follow that even man can forgive his own son, simply and absolutely, if he be a King as well as a Father: and, for a similar reason, it does not follow that God can. And it is precisely here, as I conjecture, that we should find, if we could comprehend the entire problem instead of a very small part of it,—if we knew the great arcana " of the divine government in all its immensity, -if we knew all the relations of this world to other worlds, of our race to other races, and of the bearings of Time on Eternity, —the origin of the real difficulty in man's salvation, and the necessity for the Atonement. We can only reason a little way; but as far as we can reason, I do not flinch from saying that every fact we know is against the theory of your simple unconditional forgiveness.

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We can but reason in reference to a subject so vast, and in all its bearings so infinitely transcendental to our comprehension, by analogy. Now it is certain, that in any moral government with which we are acquainted, or of which we can form any conception, -in any government whose subjects are ruled by motives only, and where will is unconstrained, the principle of the prompt unconditional pardon of crime on profession of repentance, and purpose of amendment, would be most disastrous ;- -as we invariably see it is, in a family, in a school, in a political community. Now, have we any reason to believe that in a government most emphatically moral,-a government of which all the moral govern