His kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them in a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." I am conscious of doing no dishonour to the spiritual dignity of the Christian faith when, with St. Paul, I give God thanks for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, who delivers us from the wrath to come. To proclaim the Remission of sins, as well as to make known the power and grace by which sinful men may recover the image of God, was one of the chief duties of the Apostles, and it is one of the chief duties of the Church in every age. To deny the possibility of Remission, to depreciate its value, is to "pervert the gospel of Christ." In the remaining Lectures I have to attempt to illustrate the relation between the Death of Christ and this great act of the Divine mercy. Whether the attempt fails or succeeds, I trust that the argument of the preceding Lectures may enable some to repeat with a more earnest faith the article of the ancient creed, "I believe in . . . the forgiveness of sins," and to look back with more devout wonder and more fervent gratitude upon that mysterious Sacrifice by which the forgiveness of sins was secured for us. LECTURE IX. THE THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT: ILLUSTRATED BY THE RELATION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST TO THE ETERNAL LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. LECTURE IX. THE THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT: ILLUSTRATED BY THE RELATION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST TO THE ETERNAL LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. WE are now free to the E are now free to resume the investigation which was arrested by the theory discussed in the last Lecture. The Remission of sins is possible. Can we discover why it is that the Remission of sins is granted to men on the ground of the Death of Christ? It may be thought that a simple and direct reply to this question is given by the representations of the Death of Christ contained in the New Testament. Christ gave His life as a "ransom for us; and therefore we are emancipated from all the evils which we had incurred by sin. Christ "bare our sins," "died for our sins," "died for us," as an innocent man, if this were possible, might take upon himself the guilt of a criminal, and die in his place; and, therefore, the penalties of our sin are remitted. Christ is the "Propitiation for our sins;" and, therefore, He has allayed the Divine anger, so that God, for His sake, is willing to forgive us. But these representations of the Death of Christ as a Ransom, as a Vicarious Death, as a Propitiation, though they illustrate the cause of His sufferings and |