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And yet, in reality, this does not content them. In their secret silent hearts, they too have their altar to the Unknown God; they too, as sure as they are men. Whom they thus unwittingly and dimly worship, the inspired Paul still declares to them; One such as we have seen, behind all their science, and ennobling it all, the Cause of all causes, the Life of all living, the Being of beings, the God of gods.

Passing now into the sacred precincts of Christian Theology, we need not stop to notice its monuments to the Divine; but even here there are not wanting altars to the Unknown God. Among those monuments are artistically constructed and timehonoured Creeds. No Greek temple was ever framed with a nicer eye to system than some of these, and yet they are felt to be not enough. Their votaries in myriads desiderate something other and better than the God they find set up there. As represented in these theological sculptures, he looks a grim, austere, and partial God, who has foreordained all things whatsoever comes to pass, and has therefore foreordained sin, for sin comes to pass; who necessitates all things which he thus foreordained, not even excepting the choices of the human will; who, nevertheless, holds us responsible for all our actions, the same as if our will had been left free; who has absolutely and unconditionally elected some to eternal life, and reprobated or pretermitted the rest over to eternal death; who sent his Son to make atonement, and open heaven for the elect alone, and his Spirit to convert these same elect, and them alone; who, nevertheless, commands all the rest, for as Paul here tells us, "he commands all men everywhere" to repent, believe, be converted, and be saved, as they shall answer at the judgment, and as they would escape eternal doom-though to do these things, they are further taught, is as impossible for them as for a dead man to walk; who has unconditionally reprobated from eternity, and as unconditionally dooms in time, legions of sinless babes fresh from the bosom of their mothers; who, in short, both in the Gospel and in the law, is incessantly commanding many to do what he has not given them, and never will give, any power to do, thus austerely claiming to reap what has not sowed, and to gather that which he has not strawed. Now though this is really the creed named of Geneva, which the dominant bodies in this northern kingdom still to this hour profess, thanks to the indestructible instincts of our moral nature, not individuals only, but whole bodies, have long given signs of misgiving relentings, and even of stout revolt. They thus stick to their symbolic and national monuments to the Divine; but along with these, they set up in their hearts an altar to the Unknown God. Him Paul still declares to

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them; and him they, in countless instances, really worship like the Samaritans, but in a more enlightened way. They worship Jehovah, but serve" and conserve "their graven images.' With Naaman, they do homage to the True; but with him, too, under the hard law of imposed creeds, they reserve leave to bow, on occasion, "in the house of Rimmon."

All this inconsistency arises out of a transition from views seen to be untenable to something else that is not yet with sufficient clearness seen. Now to all such modern Athenians Paul here proclaims, Whom already ye unknowingly or half consciously worship, as the paternal, impartial, worldloving God-him declare I unto you. Do you feel, I am a sinner under the curse? True; the God Paul declares is one who will by no means clear the guilty. Or, turning to the other point of view, do you sigh and say, May I not hope that the real God is better than my creed, that he is equally loving, kind, and propitious to all? You may. The unknown or partially known God you long after, Paul here declares unto you. Behold him in Christ. Behold him in the world's Sacrifice. Read you not there, as you may in nature, in Providence, in your own very being, "Fury is not in me"? In this very address of Paul, in the letter of it, in the spirit of it, you may read the universalities and impartialities of Gospel grace. "We are all his offspring," says he; all ages and nations have ever shared his benign and propitious regards; and now that the fulness of time has brought the world's Redeemer and the world-embracing propitiation, aye, and the Spirit for all flesh, "God commandeth all men everywhere to repent." Quit the false image, ye idol-bound, and in Paul's name, in God's name, believe that, preach that, and fling wide your world-gospel banner to every wind.

Finally, to turn from theology to Religion-experimental, personal religion-obvious enough are its monuments to the Divine; but here, too, how many altars meet we inscribed to the Unknown God! With all their reading, praying, sermonhearing, God is by many seen through a haze as a God known, and yet unknown; as not a God that is near, but a God that is far off. And yet your soul "follows hard after him." Did my own father and mother, you will say, love me, tend me, work for me; yea, could they have died for me; and shall God love me less who touched them into that yearning tenderness, and whose own fatherly tenderness must surely transcend theirs, as sure as the infinite and eternal fountain must transcend the passing stream? Right; and Him whom ye thus far unconsciously worship, Paul here declares unto you. Does he not tell you in this very address that "we are all his offspring"? therefore

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all dear to him as children, cared for by him, and wooed back to his bosom by every accent of paternal tenderness. "Come," says he, "and I will be a father unto you." Wilt thou not from this time say, My Father." "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." Does not Paul further here tell you that that paternal God is "not far from every one of us"? It is only in the midst of ignorance, or half knowledge, that he seems distant, austere, or is otherwise distortingly imaged. As Paul here says, you are "feeling after him," you grope timidly, as our Poet-Laureate well puts it

"I falter where I firmly trod,

And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the world's great altar stairs,
That slope through darkness up to God,

"I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all;

And faintly trust the larger hope."

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Now God is all the while near, and seeking to clasp you in
his paternal cherishings, and fill you with his fulness. Well
says a German preacher, "He is as near to thee as the law of
the Holy One in thy conscience, as the longing after salvation
in thy soul, as the involuntary cry for help, and the ceaseless
sighing after peace in thy heart and mouth." Oh what a truth
for every man, and especially for the disconsolate, and for
many a noble nature toned to devotion and love! A great
writer, speaking of Robert Burns and his far inferior friends,
says that he, the great noble soul, "threw himself into their
arms, and, as it were, entreated them to love him."
"It is
moving," he adds, "to see how, in his darkest despondency, this
proud being still seeks relief from friendship." Perthes, a fine
German character, wrote when a young man,
"I feel an irre-
sistible necessity to unburden my heart, and so overpowering
is this longing that I could press every man to my breast, and
say, 'Thou, too, art God's image.' Ah, how infinitely greater
a heart is already there to press to our own! Dim, doubted,
distrusted as God is, how near is he, and how dear,-"God, our
exceeding joy," "God, the portion of our soul," "God, our
shield and exceeding great reward," seeking us, our confidence,
our love, our friendship, with infinitely more intensity than we
are longing after him. Oh why should not his great heart
and ours meet-he who is ever bearing in upon us, as the
Fountain of living waters, his love swelling up all around us,
streaming in upon us, and striving to fill us and bless us with
the very fulness of God? Let us open our hearts to him in
return, exclaiming, "Lord, thou art my God," "whom have I

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in heaven but thee? and there is none upon Earth that I desire besides thee. My heart and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever."

J. G.-G.

THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS.

To the Editor of the "Evangelical Repository."

(1) "Why could not the blood of bulls and of goats take away sin?"-R. W.

The Apostle, in his Epistle to the Hebrews (ch. x, 4), says "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." He seems to have thought that answer sufficient. He had indeed argued that such typical sacrifices did not possess inherent merit or efficacy, because they required to be frequently repeated. But it looks as if the idea had suddenly come into his mind that there was no need to argue the point. The bare statement of the case was enough. It was not possible that offerings so mean and valueless should avail to cleanse the soul of man either from the guilt or the power of transgression. They partook of that "weakness and unprofitableness" (ch. vii, 18) which attached to the entire Levitical economy. They could only sanctify ceremonially to the purifying of the flesh, but not efficaciously to the purifying of the soul (ch. ix. 13, 14).

If it should be asked why there was such a system of immeritorious sacrifice appointed, and appointed by God himself, this same Epistle to the Hebrews returns a satisfactory reply-"The law was a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things." The entire system was one of adumbration. The Jewish people, and indeed the entire human race, were in a state of intellectual infancy in the days of Moses and Aaron. Such words and arguments as are intelligible to us would have been unintelligible to them. But white robes taught them purity. A hidden Holy of holies instructed them in the majesty and awfulness and sanctity of God. And the great doctrine of substitution, and pardon coming through substitution, was taught them by the immolation of innocent animals.

We are aware that it has been said by Mr. Maurice and others that "the life is in the blood," and that, therefore, the great lesson taught by animals slain in sacrifice was the offering up of the life to God in holy self-surrender. We have always regarded this representation of the matter as forced and unnatural; because, when blood is shed, life is not offered up in service, but life is ended. No. The natural interpretation to be put upon the sacrificial offerings to which we are referring an interpretation which was understood alike by the Pagan and Jewish world-is pardon coming to the guilty through the sufferings of the innocent, the bulls and goats of typical Judaism

being intended to point forward to the propitiatory blood-shedding of the Lamb of God.

(2) "Why could pardon not be extended to men without an atonement?"-R. W.

"Without shedding of blood there was no remission" under Judaism; in our dispensation, sinners are "justified by Christ's blood" (Rom. v, 9), and by no other means. There must then have been an absolute necessity for the atonement of Christ.

Human government affords a tolerably good illustration of Divine government. Let us approach a sombre prison and ask, Why is it so difficult to get these captives set free? Any one who has tried to effect the liberation of a prisoner, or even get his sentence commuted, must be aware, from painful experience, how serious the obstacles are that render powerless the most benevolent intentions. Law has been broken, and law must be honoured.

Some years ago, soon after Mr. Bright became a member of the Government, a deputation waited upon him to beg him to use his influence with his colleagues, that the Fenian prisoners might be liberated. Mr. Bright replied that, as an individual, he would be most happy to see all these incarcerated men set free; but, inasmuch as law had been trampled under foot, and life and property seriously menaced, he could not recommend his colleagues to hear the prayer of the deputation which waited upon him.

But, suppose that it had been competent for Mr. Bright—as we once heard an intelligent gentleman remark-to go over to Dublin and offer himself to the Viceroy of Ireland as a substitute for every sufferer -to lie in Kilmainham prison for three days and three nights, or three weeks, or three months, in order that an honourable pardon might be dispensed to the transgressors of law, on whatever conditions the Government might see fit to name, and that his offer had been accepted this would have been something like the propitiatory offering of the Lord Jesus Christ for man.

God would not allow the law which had been written on man's heart, proclaimed on Mount Sinai, and published in the Bible, to be broken with impunity. But his heart yearned to set the captives free. Therefore, his Son, "who knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

There are other important ends which the atonement answers, besides being a direct propitiation for human sin. It reveals the love of God to man in a most conclusive and peerless manner. It displays luminously and luridly the exceeding sinfulness of sin. As a ransomprice it buys men back to God, and tends to bind their hearts in holy gratitude to his throne. The self-sacrifice of Jesus, moreover, becomes a magnificent model for man-a perfect pattern for his imitation. But the great reason of reasons why the propitiation of Christ was indispensable seems to have been this, "That God might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth on Jesus."

When we have pen in hand, at any rate let us note how finely

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