Divine Mercy

AS MANIFESTED THROUGH THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST.

By mercy as it is manifested through the atonement of Christ, we understand that particular phase of the character of God which is made to appear when favour, in an appropriate form, is extended to one who is miserable through being criminal.

It has been the prevailing fashion, the propriety of which we do not question, to personify the justice and mercy of God when speaking of these qualities in connection with the salvation of sinners. But it has been also an almost equally prevailing fashion, the propriety of which we do very much question, to speak of justice and mercy as having dissimilar and conflicting interests. To our mind their interests are identical and harmonious. Salvation is the interest of both, and each has an equal interest therein. Each has, indeed, its own sphere of operation, and a particular interest in its own sphere, but both have the same end. One is helpful to the other, and each, moving in its own sphere of operation, subserves the manifestion of the other. Justice, to be just, must, as occasion is served, punish for disobedience, reward merit, and vindicate the justified. Justice punished for disobedience when Jesus was wounded and bruised for our transgressions and iniquities. Herein Mercy co-operated with justice. "It pleased the Lord to bruise him." Mercy had her pleasure in the bruising as well as Justice. It was the end of the bruising, not the formal act, which pleased both Justice and Mercy. Justice has yet to reward the merit of the Sufferer, and to vindicate those who are justified by his sufferings. Mercy's province is to relieve those who are wretched through their criminality. Furnished by Justice with the right to do so, Mercy employs her many and various methods to give the knowledge of salvation through the remission of sins. As Mercy, seeking for this right to relieve the wretched, co-operated with Justice in punishing the Surety, so Justice, discharging its obligations to reward merit, and to vindicate those who are made righteous, co-operates with Mercy in relieving the wretched. Both are manifested by the same means. Mercy is manifested in relieving the miserable, and Justice is manifested in rewarding merit and in vindicating those who are made righteous. When Justice wounded the Surety to secure its own particular interests, it subserved the particular interests of Mercy; and when, by relieving the guilty through the atonement, Mercy secures her own particular interests, she subserves the particular interests of Justice in its remunerative and vindicating character. Thus the common interests of both are promoted by the particular interests of each being served. They have ever been, and are, hand in hand in the salvation of sinners. Mercy owes her right of display and finds her channel of communication through the atonement. Only as the blood of the sacrificial victims was shed under the Levitical dispensation for an atonement for sin, was sin forgiven to the Israelites. Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin now. Remission without blood would be remission without right. No. 575.-NOVEMBER, 1880.

X

Remission without blood could extend no farther than the sentence and the punishment, and the remission of the sentence and the punishment without the remission of the sin itself would be every unsatisfactory. Remission, to be effectual, must reach and relieve the conscience, as well as exempt from punishment and open the prison doors. Sin is a moral wrong, and remission, to reach the case, must be a moral release. Mercy, without an atonement, would be utterly helpless to give such a release. If she liberated, she could not relieve. If she condoned, she could not comfort. If she blotted out the written accusation, the unwritten accusation would remain in unmitigated force. Whatever she does for a criminal convinced of his moral wrong, she does nothing for him to purpose until she removes his criminality from him in righteousness. But she does all this through the atonement. At the cross sinners lose their burden. At the cross they attain to a change of state. At the cross the many who are made righteous by imputation, receive the gift of righteousness from the hands of Mercy and Justice; and, being justified, they are made perfect as pertaining to the conscience, they have peace with God, and they joy in God."

Mercy, through the atonement, is empowered to relieve the miserable criminal with entire freeness. Wholly furnished with the right of remission through the atonement, she hangs none of her precious blessings on any moral conditions. She asks for no moral excellency as a reason for the dispensation of her favours. The one thing needful in order to forgiveness, conviction of sin and repentance for sin, she herself bestows. Some dream of mercy because they are so good, and some doubt of mercy because they are so bad. The dream arises from ignorance of sin and its desert, and the doubt arises from false notions of the atonement and freeness of mercy. Both the dream and the doubt are groundless. Many, from false notions, may be too good to receive mercy; none can, in truth be too bad for mercy to reach and relieve. Through the atonement Mercy is justified in her bestowments of repentance and remission on sinners comparable to Manasseh for the heinousness of their crimes, and on sinners comparable to the thief on the cross, for their persistence in their vicious courses to the very last moment of a most criminal existence. Many a justified transgressor, now walking with Christ in white, exemplifies the saying, "A brand plucked out of the fire," with a surprising veritableness. Precious as is this truth of the free-handedness of mercy in every view of it to those who know its value, nothing is more offensive in public estimation. High and low, cultivated and rude, moral and profane alike, find herein one of their most offensive offences. All naturally are indisposed to buy in God's market, so to speak, on other terms than those in vogue in human markets. They will not buy Mercy's wine, and milk, and honey, and bread, without money and without price. All will take their counters in their pockets, under the vain imagination that they are coins, and that they must buy for money. Even the wickedest take credit for some moral excellencies, and redeeming qualities, and if they accept mercy, they must take it in exchange for some of their imaginary valuable considerations. In fact, they ignore the atonement, and disown mercy. None of these ever really buy any of Mercy's commodities. The terms are beneath them. Neither can they buy. For

those who seek mercy must of necessity renounce merit, even as God in showing mercy, must of necessity deny merit. Mercy can only be displayed on principles essential to its display.

Mercy, while dispensing her appropriate favours freely, ever broadly marks, as is necessary, the moral majesty and excellency of the law violated, and the evil of sin forgiven. She does this by dispensing all her favours to her beneficiaries through the atonement. They receive everything through the cross. They find repentance through the cross. Remission is given to them through the cross. They are cleansed in the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. They are justified by blood. Their consciences are purged with blood. They enter into the holy place with blood. It is through the rent vail that they are conducted into the most holy place. It is through Jesus Christ they are led of the Spirit unto the Father. Thus, the majesty and excellency of the law are proclaimed, and the evil of sin is marked, that a moral awe may be inspired of the law, and a moral dread may be inspired of sin in the mind of every partaker of Mercy's favours. Mercy ever magnifies Justice in the manifestation of herself.

"Mercy shall be built up for ever." Mercy's right of manifestation will, through the atonement, last while the occasion lasts. Jesus suffered "that he might bring us to God." The atoning blood of the Lamb will retain its forgiving and sanctifying power until the last of the ransomed shall find no further occasion to exclaim, "Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ?" Human forgivenesses, extended on no atonement, are sometimes sought and granted on condition of the offence never being repeated. Were this a condition of divine forgiveness, who, then, could be saved? But it is not; and those who grieve that what they would they do not, and what they hate they do, may, as Paul did, thank God through Jesus Christ, that through the atonement, Mercy will extend her benefits until they 66 are saved to sin no more." Of David's Antitype and his seed it is written, "My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him.. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail." It is not to provoke an occasion, but to meet a continual necessity, lasting as the existence of the regenerate in the body that, through the atonement, it is written, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." From the very conditions of their existence in the world, the regenerate will be necessitated to petition for Mercy's favours in every prayer they offer. "God be merciful-propitious-to me a sinner!" will be an appropriate petition to all saints while here; and the holier they are the more appropriate will they themselves feel that petition to be to them. But the propitiation abides in power; the propitiatory is accessible; Mercy, empowered by the atonement, waits to be propitious, and the petition ever finds acceptance.-Atkinson on the Atonement.

["People will not read theology now," so said a minister of the Gospel the other day.

If so, so much the worse for the people, christian people were of course referred to by the remark: for of other people it would not be considered remarkable that they do not read theology. But how sad, if true! Not read theology! Then God's own book must be principally unread; for it abounds with theology from begining to end; and all the rich stores of thought which godly men, age after age, have drawn from its sacred pages, must remain as hidden treasure. It is hoped, however, that the readers of the Herald and Voice, do read theology, and that like their forefathers, they love it as well as read it. Let them carefully peruse the above weighty and instructive remarks on the mercy of our God as manifested through the precious atonement of our Lord. The work from which the extract is taken, has been much commended in these pages and elsewhere as a valuable dissertation on the all-important subject on which it treats. All who wish to have clear and definite ideas respecting the "one offering," should read it. The respected author we believe, still supplies copies post free, 8d. each, from his residence, 38, Rose Hill Terrace, Brighton. ED.]

"CONSIDER THE LILIES."

MATT. XI. 28.

THE Prince of Peace was the Prince of Preachers. "Grace was poured into his lips." We read His gracious words, and instinctively exclaim, "Never man spake like this man.' "The common people heard Him gladly;" they could understand Him. He did not mystify the things of the kingdom, but simplified them; He broke the gospel bread into small pieces, and they were fed. He was very sublime. Sublimity andsimplicity are beautifully blended in His sermon on the mount. He who is the most simple in his preaching, is the most sublime, and the most like the "Teacher sent from God." We should be careful not to confound the dark sayings of men with the deep things of God. Mysterious preaching is not necessarily the mystery of godliness. In the chapter before us Christ points to the fowls of the air, and to the flowers of the fields, in order to illustrate His Heavenly Father's power to defend His children, and to provide for their every want. not the sparrows protected by God? Not one falls to the ground without His notice; even the fallow fledglings are guarded by Him, for

Are

Howl, winds of night! your force combine;
Without His high behest,

Ye shall not, in the mountain pine,
Disturb the sparrows' nest."

Are they not provided for by Him? "He feedeth them;" and if he does this for the fowls of the air, will He not do this and much more too for the heirs of heaven, who are of more value than many sparrows? Let us then, according to the injunction of Christ, consider these things, that we may realize the joy such sweet assurance gives. We will now more especially consider the lilies. Consider them: not just look at them, admire their beauty, and go our way; but tarry with them, listening attentively to their silent voice. Who made them? God.

He made the world, and He made the lilies and clothed them with beauty, and they speak to us of Him. Creation speaks of her Creator. The great wide sea speaks of God.

What are the wild waves saying?" The sea is His. The firmament sheweth his handy-work. The stars are

were

"Ever singing as they shine, The hand that made us is divine." But what do the lilies say? We are told that Christ probably referred to the scarlet lilies which abundant in Palestine, and were in full bloom at the time: consider them, and do they not speak to us of One who left the shining streets of the celestial city, to tread the rough and rugged roads of earth," travelling in the greatness of his strength, red in His apparel," His garments dyed with blood. Whose blood? Not an enemy's, for he came not as a warrior prince to