trespass offering, and presented it to the Lord, was exempted from the sentence which the law of Moses pronounced against the external offence that he had committed. The whole nation as such, were freed from the penalty annexed to certain offences, on the great day of atonement when the high priest entered the most holy place, and presented the blood of the national offering or victim to Jehovah." Here then is a case of "actual substitution by the appointment of God, the supreme legislator and judge of the Jewish nation and of all men.' The deduction from this important fact is so forcible and so clearly stated, that we shall give the whole in the author's words:

Considering now the facts in regard to this whole subject, as they stand disclosed in the Jewish Scriptures, who will venture to pronounce, that a similar arrangement under the general government of God in respect to men, is impossible? The moral purposes of God in respect to this government, we may cheerfully admit, are the highest purposes which are known to us. But had be no moral purposes to effect under the Jewish dispensation, and by the Mosaick institutes? Most certainly he had. Incipient and imperfect they were indeed, compared with the great moral ends accomplished by the gospel. But still they were real Yet God as the supreme lawgiver and judge of the Jews, did, in some cases, remit the penalty of his law as given by Moses, in consequence of a substitute for it. Now if the thing itself were absurd or impossible, he could not have done it. Nor can we conceive of any more impossibility that he should do the same thing under his general government of men, than that he should do it under the Jewish dispensation. Wrong is not more really done (if there be wrong at all) in the one case, than in the other; and one is therefore just as possible for God as the other. So far as we can see, there is no more hazard to the general interests of the universe, in the admission of vicarious sacrifice for sinners, than there was to the Jewish commonwealth, by the admission of expiatory offering into its system of government.

"In a word; God did admit vicarious sacrifices under his government of the Jews; and an inspired apostle has taught us that they were, and were designed to be, types of the great expiatory offering made by Christ. To express it in another manner; that was done in ancient times upon a smaller scale, which at a later period was done on a larger one. The penalty for certain offences against the Mosaick law, was removed by the sacrifice of goats and bullocks; and the penalty against the higher law of heaven (if you please so to name it), is removed by the death of Christ. If both are by the arrangement of heaven, the one presents no more impossibility than the other."Pp. 25, 26.

It must not be objected that because the remission under the law was only of a civil or ecclesiastical penalty, therefore we cannot thence argue for the remission on similar terms of a penalty due to moral turpitude. For this depends upon the fact whether an adequate expiatory offering is provided. Now on this point we have the express assurance of holy writ. "If," says the apostle, "the blood of

bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how MUCH MORE shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God." Heb. ix. 13, 14. "That is," says Mr. Stuart, "If the beast which perished for ever under the knife of the sacrificing priest, did still, by divine appointment, make atonement for certain offences against the Mosaick law, so that the penalty denounced against them was remitted, and the offender treated as though he were not guilty; how much more shall the holy Saviour, a victim possessed of a nobler nature of a never-dying spirit-make expiation for the moral turpitude of offences against God as the governour of the world.

"If this reasoning of the apostle be admitted, then we can never prove the impossibility of atonement for sin, by alleging that no victim can be adequate to the occasion. For the apostle plainly declares that the sacrifice of Christ was MORE adequate to the purpose for which it was made, than the death of the victim under the ancient dispensation, was to the occasion which demanded it." pp. 27, 28.

Nor can the justice of God be alleged as constituting a ground of impossibility; for if there be forgiveness at all with God, his justice is no more impugned by the forgiveness of sin through an atonement, than it would be without an atonement.

Having thus shown the possibility of an atonement, Mr. S. touches slightly upon its probability and rationality. That it cannot be shown to be improbable he infers from the general consent of mankind, all of whom whether civilized or barbarous agree in the practice of offering propitiatory sacrifices. That it is rational he also infers from the fact that although unassisted reason could never have discovered this method of pardoning mercy, yet when once revealed, reason can discover no other way in which the divine attributes of justice and mercy can be reconciled. With this he concludes his first discourse; and the whole passage is so eloquent that we cannot forbear giving it to our readers. "God is just; therefore he will punish sin; and if we read only the book of nature, must we not say too, with Seneca, therefore he cannot forgive it?' But revelation discloses his attribute of mercy; and mercy consists essentially in remitting the strict claims of justice, either in whole or in part. How then shall God possess these two attributes, and exercise them in respect to our guilty rebellious race? A question which ages and generations' could not answer; a mystery hidden from them. A question which philosophy may seek in vain satisfactorily to solve. But in the cross of Christ-in his expiatory sufferings and death-we may find an answer. Here' mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have embraced each other.' In the agonies of Christ, a personage of such transcendent dignity and glory, we see the terrours of divine justice displayed in the most affecting manner, and are impressively taught what evil is due to sin. In the pardon purchased by his death, we contemplate the riches of divine mercy. God might have displayed his justice, indeed, in the world of perdition, and called us to contemplate it as written in

characters that would make us shudder. His mercy also he might have displayed, by the absolute and unconditional pardon of sinners, provided no atonement had been made. But who could look on the radiance of his simple justice, as exhibited only in such a manner, without extinguishing his vision for ever? Or who could contemplate undiscriminating and unconditional mercy only, without being influenced to forget the awful displeasure of God against sin, or being emboldened to continue in it? But in the cross of Jesus, his justice and his mercy are united. Here is the bright spot where the effulgence of the Deity converges and centres. On this we may gaze with admiration, with safety, with delight; for here the rays of eternal glory meet and blend, so as to be sweetly attempered to our vision. The bow in the cloud, where the glories of the sun, the brightest image of its Maker in the natural world, meet and mingle, and present to our view the delightful token that the waters of a flood will drown the earth no more, is but a faint emblem of the attempered glory which beams from the cross of Jesus, the token of deliverance from a flood more awful than that of Noah." pp. 29, 30.

(TO BE CONTINUEd.)

FOR THE GOSPEL ADVOCATE.

BOOK II.

Franslated from the original German of Klopstock.
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 254.)

THUS mourn'd the spirit sad. And now he stood
At the world's entrance; but the splendour hurt -
hell-weaken'd; and the songs around
Of wandering angels broke into his soul,
Like winged thunders. Centuries had pass'd

His eyes

Since his wan looks had scanned thus the world.
He stood; and silently surveying spoke :
O hallowed entrance, dar'd I, but through thee
Press once again the orbs of heaven, and leave
For e'er this realm of gloomiest crime! O suns,
Children of Godhead, was I not more bright
Than ye, when first the Eternal call'd me forth
Beaming with light? And, now, I stand 'mid glooms
A wretched, horrour-striking being. Now,
'Tis now, O heaven, I tremble, whilst I look
On thy fair orbit! Thou hast seen me sin—
Rebel against thy Lord! O deathless peace,
My play-fellow amid the vales of God,
Where art thou flown? Instead of thee, what now
Has my stern Judge bequeath'd me? Stupor şad

And woes unutterable. O, might I

But name Him father; quickly should this tongue
Lisp forth those tender accents, which his own,
His true remaining angels love pronounce.
Judge of the world, and may a suppliant mourn
Before thee? Thou whose glance beholds him deep
Beneath the abyss of sin. O awful thought,
Thought full of pangs, and thou dismay go on
To butcher, tyrant-like, thy victim! Ŏ
How is that victim wretched! Yes, I curse,
I curse the day, when my creator said;
"Arise and be." I curse thee, as thou rose
Day from thine eastern bed; and by thy beams
New-rising the immortals hail'd me:
"Brother and art thou." Eternity,

Mother of agonies unending, why,

Why didst thou bear me? Wretch, and must thou live
Eternally? Why wert thou rather not

Alike thy kindred night, which gloomy, dark,
And loaded with the curse of Godhead, past
Empty of creatures, 'mid the voice of storms
Before its sick'ning Maker? Impious fool,
Whom, whom arraignest thou? Doth not the eye
Of heaven look upon thee? O ye suns,

Fall from your heights and crush me! Distant stars,
Ere the dread ire of him, who sits upon
Yon throne of vengeance, strike me! Is there not
(Vouchsafe to speak, Thou all inexorable)
Oh, is there not one hope to see Thee more?
Ah heavenly Judge! Creator! pitying Sire!
I fear again; for I have slander'd Thee,
Jehovah; and I dare to give Thee names
That but thy pardon'd sinners trust to emit!
O! let me fly. Already rushes forth
His ire invincible!-His thunders seize me!
Yet where to fly, O God, I know not! Speed!
The miserable spake; then look'd amid
Th' abyss and pray'd: O God destroyer, Thou
So awful in thy judgments, here create

A killing fire, that ev'n shall spirits kill!

Vain pray'd the wretch. There was no killing fire,
No solace to his agony. He turn'd,

Despairing, back towards the world again;
And stood by a vast sun, near which pour'd forth
Innumerable stars their kindling beams:
Not like our sun, or stars, but rather like
Oceans in ardent blaze. From thence his eye
Bent vacant on th' abyss. Anear him lay
A darkly wandering earth-orb: God had pass'd

His judgment o'er him. Abbadona mark'd;
And cast himself upon it; hoping still

To fall with it, and be annihilate.

The wretched hope was crush'd. It would not sink,
That dark'ning earth-ball. Horrour seiz'd afresh
Her victim; as a mountain, white with bones
Of men long murder'd, diu she press him down,
Again his last hope blasted, to the earth.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

OHIO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

THE Right Rev. Bishop Chase has recently returned from England, from the mission he had undertaken for the purpose of procuring funds for the Theological Seminary about to be established in the diocese of Ohio. Our readers are probably aware that there has been a difference of opinion among some of those who feel an interest in the proposed seminary, respecting the precise character it ought to assume. Some have wished that it might become a branch of the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, while Bishop Chase and others have preferred making it an independent diocesan institution. We are happy to learn that the jealousies arising from this difference of opinion are in a great measure removed. The trustees of the fund raised in England for the Ohio Seminary, (Lord Kenyon, Admiral Lord Gambier, Rev. Dr. Gaskin, and Henry Hoare, Esq.) say, in an address which they published in May last, that, "Aware that some objections have been made to this design, the trustees are happy to state that those objections have been withdrawn; as will appear from a circular lately issued under the sanction of the Right Rev. Bishop Hobart, of New York, in which a similar application is made in behalf of two other important and valuable establishments," the General Theological Seminary, and the Episcopal College in Connecticut.

We make the following extracts from the same address as showing some of the grounds upon which the application for aid was urged in England, and as exhibiting the security that is given that the proposed institution shall not interfere with the unity of the Church. After stating the great want of clergymen in Ohio, the address proceeds"The General Theological Seminary has been finally re-established in New York, and affords advantages of the most important kind to such students as can have access to it; but the mean distance of the state of Ohio from New York, is, by the most direct route, nearly 600 miles; and, by way of the lakes, in order to avoid the mountains, 800 miles; and those who have experienced the difficulties and dangers of a journey from the western to the eastern states