This, however, is only the negative phase of question. Atonement in this view is passion, an ders it is passive, whilst divine justice cannot be s simple endurance of penalty; it demands res principle was, indeed, incorporated in the law theocracy (Ex. 22), and is at present recogniz jurisprudence, the world over. "He shall bruise the terms in which the Protevangel set forth the p the doctrine of the Atonement, and foretold, th throw of the serpent by the Offspring of the wom had betrayed. Moreover, deliverance from the se the nature of the case, the restoration of man t headship, which he lost in the fall.

The question arises here as to the precise ide serpent's successful Assailant. He is prospectivel] and is simply called the seed of the woman. The is figurative and is taken from the vegetable k reference being to natural generation for the propag race. Does the seed of the woman, in the ultimate single person, mean an ordinary member of the fam a faithful copy of his ancestry, nothing more, nothing to be truly represented by the well-known fact thro vegetable kingdom, that the plant, in the process of through its seed, is restricted to the reproduction of i Or, more simply, was the Vanquisher of the destroy be the merely natural offspring of the woman?

The question, as to whether the seed of the woman ordinary child or children, must be answered in the from the considerations both of man's sinfulness and o constitution. That man is such a criminal as could no mercy, even at a human tribunal, is easily inferred responsible position in the earthly system, and from t quences of his faithlessness to the trust involved. created viceroyal, with jurisdiction over organic, if over e'emental, nature. He lost his princely crown in dea, and the world failed, in consequence, to become pr

man.

realm of the great Kingdom of Heaven, for God could reign over the earthly sphere only in the person of man, His true and only representative in nature. The cosmical orders, as is well known, are a unit, their genesis having run along every rising stage from "The Beginning" to "The Garden," to become complete in their head, the brain and mouth of man. Therefore, is the mental and spiritual nature of man the only real point of earthly contact for God, and when this avenue closed against Him, He could not enter at all to govern and glorify the world. Or, in other words, when the fall deprived man of his viceroyal function, his Liege-Lord could no longer extend His sceptre truly into nature, for His reign on earth must be mediated by a viceroy, and that viceroy must be Then also, man was placed on sentry duty to guard the world against intrusion-the encroachment, really, of the realm of evil spirits, organized against the Kingdom of Heaven by the mighty prince, whom men call Satan. He was forbidden to seek nourishment on the tree that represented the knowledge of good and evil, with the admonitory disclosure of the deadly consequences of such act. He, nevertheless, plucked and ate of the fatal fruit and betrayed the world he was posted to guard, and which the enemy promptly made the fortified and garrisoned out-post of his empire of evil and darkness and death. And, finally, man was created in the image of God, and was made to bear the divine likeness in his person. Wherefore, he unavoidably involved his Maker in the deepest dishonor when he lost his moral integrity, for it was the divine semblance that the tempter debased into the unspeakable ignominy and unholiness of the fall, and which he, moreover, actually arrayed in arms against its Original.

From all this it appears that man made himself a measureless sinner, and his guilt must also be great beyond the power of mental conception, if it is to be measured by the magnitude of the fatal and endless results of this betrayal of the mightiest trust ever reposed in any one. There can be no doubt that man's great dignity, and the awful disaster that befell the world

through him, form the standard of the divine judg less than the doom of death, foretold in paradise out to the author of such a crime. Can, then, m for the crime that uncrowned and prostituted the to the fellowship of demons, and converted th paradise to pandemonium?

Mankind are sinners without exception, and, cle cannot render satisfaction for his sins by perso however great or protracted. The case is not a here of Commonwealth proceedings in the Cour Sessions against the prisoner in the criminal dock being found guilty, in form and manner as he sta receives sentence to such term of imprisonment as legal equivalent of the infraction of the law, the the penalty being the criminal's atonement for his c justice is satisfied by this sort of criminal proced the lawbreaker is condemned for an act, and can nature of the case, add anything to the crime for punished. Criminal procedure in the Court of Hea man is different and involves deeper principles. gressor is here arraigned for the crime of sin, which act at all, but a life, the pulse-beat of which cannot interrupted, except in its total destruction, and th effected only in the new creation. Clearly a sinner ca atonement, even for himself, by undergoing any punishment, since he unavoidably sins without interru nis crime would grow only the greater. There is a p reason still, if possible, why the seed of the woman ca taken as a mere man. The serpent slew the race, wh themselves "dead in trespasses and sins," and it wer not possible for the dead to assail and to overcome stroyer.

Then also the constitution of the race proves t Deliverer, referred to in the Protevangel, could not be nary child of the woman. If even, some one man could the impossibility of making atonement for his personal s

The Atonement Viewed from the Person of Christ. 521 certainly could not also render that service for others, and become the redeemer of his race. Such a miracle, at best, could amount only to personal extrication from the consequences of the fall, for the suffering would in no sense be vicarious, nor could the expiation inure to the general benefit, even if the means for applying it existed, which they do not. The only persons who ever represented the human family, were Adam and Eve themselves, for they were generic and fontal for the world's life, and they unavoidably entailed evil on their posterity, because they could not have atoned for the sin, still distinctly their own, so as to recover their lost innocence and purity, and transmit to the world the holy life, which they had received from the breath of God.

Whilst thus, clearly, the Destroyer of the serpent cannot be a mere man, He must, nevertheless, be a real man, for His humanity is distinctly affirmed in His designation as the Offspring of the ancestress of mankind.

Did the "woman" ever bear the "seed"? Eve certainly did not in person, except that she bore the first of a line of the merely human enemies of the serpent, which extended forward, in unbroken succession, from the Garden to the Manger. The singular constitution of the Bible, however-its external duality -unmistakably affirms the appearance of the Descendant of the woman, contemplated in the promise. The former division (O. T.) plainly precedes an event, a fact, which the latter division (N. T.) just as clearly succeeds. The attitude of the one is prospective, that of the other is retrospective. The two focalize, from opposite directions, in a common center. At the focus is a Person. The Old Testament has reference, throughout, to the future birth of this Person-latterly of the Royal House of David. The New Testament, having recorded His nativity, uniformly assumes His advent to have taken place in the ordinary generation of man, and, in reverse of the Old Testament, retraces His ancestral line from his reputed father to the great Hebrew king, and thence to Adam and God. This prospective and retrospective testimony of the Bible to a birth

T

the same birth inlexel a little later also on philosopher and the gentile is the result of the u tve revelation and the common inspiration of t was indeed, the falness of the time" (the bi as this was the am and purpose of all that prece freth the proclamation of the Protevangel, itself, line of altars that sked from Eien to Calv Faranth and Hebrew priest offered sacrifice t symbol accement for sis. The incarnation equ and natured me 0.4 Testament Scriptures and Srner a preparation, the latter in sequence. beng de expressica ani effect of the incarnation recher a me life and inspiration of this comm 115:obed into the Old Testament econ wered.ce, & pringer, pointing forward out of p the lie of the Ark. me Covenant, the Lamb of Ato Mercy-seat and Bethlehem The Gospel is the f its prophecy in the Garden, and is, therefore, the fi pointing backward on the line of the empty se vacated cross and Bethlehem. One need but foll from either direction, bere pointed out by the ind Guide-Board of the ages, and he will come to the the birth.

The Old and New Testaments bear also literal t the advent of this Person. At the Annunciation directed Mary to call the son, Jesus, whom she shou and bear, and the name itself indicates His successf with the serpent, and thus distinguished Him as th seed. In his announcement of the birth of a S angel brought the shepherds "good tidings of great shall be to all people," and so was fulfilled the Abraham, that in him should "all families of the blessed." "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear shall call his name Immanuel," is the Lord's sign by the prophet Isaiah to King Ahaz, and Matthew prophecy as about to be fulfilled in the birth of Jesu