the consequences of Christ's death are the same as those of the sacrificial atonement made by the priest for the transgressor of the Mosaic law-to wit, the forgiveness of sins.

Coleridge says, "The causative act (i. e., the act which procured man's redemption, to wit, Christ's death) is a spiritual and transcendent mystery, which passeth all understanding." It was not a real sacrifice or atonement, but a mystery. We confess our inability to comprehend just how much or how little Coleridge intends to express by the formula of words above quoted-but we do understand perfectly that he does not mean to say that Christ died in man's stead. Worcester has a parallel passage. "I am willing," he says, " to admit that the atoning sacrifice may have influence on salvation in ways which are not revealed, and which are of course unknown," and if this influence be not revealed, but unknown, it is, if it exist at all, a mysterious influence.

Again, Coleridge urges the old threadbare objection of Socinians against the justice of a vicarious sacrifice. Speaking of the words debt, satisfaction, etc., he says, "As your whole theory is founded on a notion of justice, I ask you, is this justice a moral attribute? I may with all right and reason put the case as between man and man. For if it be found irreconcilable with the justice which the light of reason, made law in the conscience, dictates to man, how much more must it be incongruous with the all-perfect justice of God!"

We shall doubtless be willingly spared by the reader the labor of transcribing a parallel passage from Worcester or any other Socinian writer.

Coleridge proceeds to illustrate the insufficiency of a substitute in moral cases by supposing one James to be the profligate son of a most worthy and affectionate mother-but a generous friend, named Matthew, interferes, and performs all the duties of the neglectful son. "Will this," asks Coleridge," satisfy the mother's claims on James ?" "If, indeed," he afterwards adds, "by the force of Matthew's example, by persuasion, or by additional and more mysterious influences, or by an inward coagency compatible with the existence of a personal will, James should be led to repent; if through admiration and love of this great goodness, gradually assimilating his mind to the mind of his benefactor, he should in his own person become a dutiful and grateful child, then doubtless the mother would be wholly satisfied."

This illustration is Socinian in all its parts. Coleridge seems to forget the dignity of the Redeemer, and makes Matthew, a mere man, stand in the place of Jesus Christ-a man no better than James he makes the substitute for James--the obedience of Matthew equivalent to the obedience of Christ. The illustration seems to show also that Coleridge's views of the require ments of God's law are such as Socinians maintain. The repentance of the sinner seems to be all that he considers necessary. James must become a dutiful son for the future, by Matthew's example, persuasion, or mysterious influence, and then the mother will be fully satisfied.

Throughout Coleridge's whole discussion, there is no consid eration of the necessity of maintaining the holiness and justice of God's moral governinent, by demanding reparation for past breaches of his law, or any intimation that in the sacrifice of Christ, God's attribute of justice was at all displayed. But we think we have shown that the Coleridgian and Socinian schemes sail along harmoniously together, like two ships under the same convoy and propelled by the same breeze.

2. Coleridge's view of Atonement is absurd.

He argues that all the different terms used in Scripture on the subject of redemption (such as atonement, sacrifice, sinoffering, ransom, redemption, etc.) are mere metaphors, used, not to express realities themselves, but the consequences of some reality unexpressed, for which, of course, we must look elsewhere. When the Bible speaks of sacrifice, atonement, etc., it does not mean sacrifice, etc., but something else. We must then give up nearly the whole of the epistle to the Hebrews as a metaphor, and many passages in almost every book of the Bible. When the Jews offered sacrifices for their sins they offered metaphors, for the purpose of foreshadowing that greater metaphor which was offered for the sins of the world. Or, if Coleridge allows that the Jewish sacrifices were real sacrifices, then they offered real sacrifices to foreshadow a metaphor yet to come. We have not yet come to the reality; we are floating on a sea of rhetorical figures, and cannot touch bottom. We have submitted ourselves to the pilotage of the philosopher, and must go where he guides. He offers us at last a resting-place in the third chapter of John. Here at length then is the long sought reality. He says that " John the beloved disciple enunciates the fact itself, to the full extent in which it is enunciable for the human mind, simply, and without

any metaphor, by identifying it in kind, with a fact of hourly occurrence. It is regeneration-a birth, a spiritual seed impregnated and evolved." Here then we have the meaning of all these metaphors, "sacrifice, atonement, propitiation," etc.and that meaning is regeneration! "Christ gave himself a regeneration for our sins." "This man, after he had offered one regeneration for sins, for ever sat down at the right hand of God." It follows, then, that when Christ gave himself for the world, the world was regenerated, and the atonement means, "simply and without any metaphor," the regeneration of all men. "John enunciates the fact simply, and without any metaphor!" Is not the word regeneration, born again, a metaphor? [We maintain that John uses the metaphor born again only to express the consequences of the redemptive act, just as Coleridge says all other Scripture writers use all other terms.] So after all we have not yet come to the reality. The ground we thought we had touched proves a quicksand, and we are again afloat on the rhetorical billows. We have only discovered that the Scripture writers use a great variety of metaphors to illustrate another metaphor, which needs illustration more than all the others. With notions like these on the subject of metaphors, we marvel not that Coleridge complained of confusion. If the word sacrifice be a metaphor, we see no reason why we should consider Jesus a reality-if one be a metaphor, so is the other.

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3. Coleridge's view of Atonement is inconsistent with itself. Respecting the redemptive act," says Coleridge," we know from revelation that it was necessary that the Eternal Word should be made flesh, and so suffer and so die for us, as in dying to conquer death for as many as should receive him."

Here Coleridge starts with a truly scriptural proposition. It was necessary, as he says, that God should take our nature and die for us. But we ask, and we have a right to ask, why this necessity? Revelation tells us so, says Coleridge. And wc admit the full force of the reason. When revelation tells us any thing, and gives us no reason, we will receive it with all humility, and believe and cherish it. But revelation always gives us a reason for every thing which is comprehensible by human reason. There are no mysteries in the Bible, except such as must be mysteries from the nature of the human mind. When reve

lation tells us that God and man became united in one person, it does not tell us how it was done, because we could not compre

hend it. When it tells us God worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, evil as well as good, it does not go on to tell us how he could do so consistently with our notions of "justice, as between man and man," because his reason is above our reason, and we cannot judge God by ourselves. But when, for instance, it tells us God will laugh at the calamity of the sinner and mock when his fear cometh, it gives us a reason, because we can comprehend it. And when it tells us God could be just, and the justifier of the believer in Jesus, it tells us also the simple, plain way; and reason instantly assents and responds to its grandeur and beauty. And surely there are mysteries enough in our holy religion, without zealously searching for more. It is an impeachment of God's goodness to say that he has given us the Bible to puzzle our brains with mysteries. Let us not shut the blinds, and drop the curtains, and resolutely close our eyes or draw over them the veil of mysticism, when God's bright sun is warming the whole world without, and striving to pour its cheering rays into the windows of our hearts.

We come back again, then, and demand why this "necessity that God should take our nature and die? Why would not Paul or an angel answer the same purpose? Coleridge gives us no reply, save that revelation says so. Then if revelation had told us that a condemned thief or a bullock must die for us, the answer would have been equally satisfactory. Tell us why revelation did not tell us that a lumb, and that too not without spot or blemish, but the miserable starveling of the flock, would suffice to take away the sins of the world. Is this a "mystery" also? The Socinian denies the existence of the Eternal Word, or that any such person ever came here and died, and common sense tells him that no man could compensate for the sins of a world-and therefore he denies, consistently, that any such compensation has been made. But Coleridge maintains the necessity that the Eternal Word should come and die, but can give us no reason, because he denies that Christ suffered as a substitute for the world, or offered any satisfaction for injury done to the law of God. Is not Socinianism much more self-consistent ?

But Coleridge says again, "Nevertheless the fact having been assured to us by revelation, (viz., that Christ's death procures our salvation,) it is not impossible, by steadfast meditation, for the mind to satisfy itself that the redemptive act supposes, and that our redemption is negatively conceivable only on the supposition of an agent who can at once act on the will as an exciting

cause "(i. e., in plain English, our redemption is conceivable only on the supposition of a Redeemer who is Divine.) Here is sound doctrine, but held, we think, most inconsistently. We are obliged again to ask the reason why the Redeemer must be divine. It may be from sheer, asinine stupidity on our part, but we must confess that after some 66 meditation on the subject,

we are just as much in the dark as ever.

We appeal to the reader. Suppose I were to tell you that in order to the forgiveness of your sins, and the sins of a world of sinners like you, it was necessary that some one should suffer in your stead. You ask my reason for the assertion, and I tell you revelation says so. You ask, who it is that must suffer in your place, and I reply that is " a mystery that passeth all understanding." You then try to imagine who there is of sufficient dignity and worth to enable him to take away the sins of a world by suffering in the world's stead. You can think of no one on earth, and in your distress you look to heaven. You can conceive, perhaps, that if Christ were to take our nature and die, he might be a sufficient sacrifice, but revelation gives you no intimation that he will come, or rather it tells you distinctly he will not come, to die in your stead. Yet some one must come, or you are eternally ruined. What sort of satisfaction would my information give you? How distressful your uncertainty! How low your opinion of the fulness and worth of that revelation! The dreadful sentence hangs over your head by a hair, but you know not how to avert it. But just so much satisfaction can I obtain from all that Coleridge tells me. I see the holiness and justice of God's law, in which I read that the soul that sinneth it shall die. I see no way in which I can escape the penalty due to me as a sinner, unless some being, able and willing," pay the rigid satisfaction, death for death." I see clearly that God could be just and justify me through the sacrifice of Jesus, but I can see no other plan by which he could maintain the holiness and justice of his law, and yet pardon my sins. But Coleridge tells me I can have no hope from that quarter-Jesus will not die in my stead, or suffer one pang of the suffering due to me. I imagine myself at Calvary, and the dreadful tragedy enacted there passes before my eyes. I ask the bystanders (Coleridge among the rest) the reason of all this. I ask if he is dying in my stead. No-he is not bearing my sins in his own body on that tree. All this inexplicable agony he endures, yet he has made no provision to satisfy the demands of that outstanding law against me. I de