the idea that forgiveness of sins is the relinquishment of punishment. And it is hard for men to see that the removal of evil dispositions is the only remission of sins.

There is much said, in the Word, about the forgiveness of sins, but the penalty is another thing. Sins are the evils of the will. Their action brings forward the penalty; these evil loves or sins may be remitted, by the Lord, through faith and repentance, and the resisting of temptations, till we obtain good loves. And when these sins or evils are removed, the penalty is gone. The sin, or evil in the soul, is the cause of the penalty or unhappiness, and therefore the penalty must stand against a man till the cause is removed. God neither inflicts nor remits the penalties of transgression. They are the sure effects of man's sins. He remits the sins when men repent of them and forsake them.

Then, as God does not forgive the penalty of man's sins, but the transgressor bears it, the Lord could not suffer it. But, we should not, on this account, undervalue the great work of Redemption. We owe everything to the Lord for what He then did for us. We were sinners in a lost and most miserable and hopeless condition. And the Merciful Lord wanted to save us. The event, therefore, is just as important to us, as though He had actually suffered the penalty of our sins. It provides a rational and consistent way for our salvation: and all was done gratuitously and in pure mercy, for us. It is therefore recorded that He died for us. But, what died? Every propensity of His nature that could be tempted-every tendency toward self-love. He crucified them in His assumed nature, that He might be able to reach us and dispose us, in His Spirit, to crucify them in our nature.

It is also said that by His stripes we are healed. That is, by His stripes He was made perfect; and His Spirit was thereby brought to our aid, so that we might be healed of our sins, by following Him. We are taught that He was made perfect through suffering. And in Luke, it is written, "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory."

Again we are taught that He became sin for us; and that He bore our sins. That is, He assumed our sinful nature, and thus bore our sins, or the sins of the world, in their tendencies, but not in actuality. He never sinned. And He would now aid us to bear our sins as He did without sinning; and also to resist them in His spirit, and thus to follow Him in the regeneration.

Again, He was a Propitiation for our sins. Now, a propitiation is a reconciliation. He took our fallen and unreconciled nature, and propitiated, atoned, or reconciled it to the Divine nature. And He became that propitiation for our sins, or because we had sins, and He wanted us to become propitiated, or reconciled to God, through His spirit, by forsaking those sins.

Now, it has been supposed that the acts of the Lord, here mentioned, had reference to the penalty of man's sins; but that is a mistake. It does not say that He died for the penalty of our sins; or that He bore the penalty; or that the penalty is removed by His stripes; or that He was a propitiation for the penalty. Indeed the penalty is nowhere alluded to in the whole Scripture, but as something that the sinner himself must bear.

Much is said of what Christ has done for the sins of the world, and for the forgiveness and remission of these sins. But the forgiveness of the penalty is in no instance alluded to, but plainly denied. "The righteousness of

the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him."

It has been supposed, by some, that the Lord has changed this great law of receiving according to the measure we mete, because He says in Matthew, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you that ye resist not evil." But what rational mind cannot see that an Infinite Law cannot be changed? God's laws are the expressions of His own immutable Will and Wisdom.

By the words above, from the Sermon on the Mount, we may readily see that the punishment for sin never comes from God. God, and angels, and all good men are kind toward the good and the bad. Evil intentions bring upon the soul its own disordered state, and consequently its unhappiness; and when carried out they often bring the corporal punishments of the civil law upon man.

Now we repeat, that the law by which we receive back the measure we mete to others, is as essential to our spiritual being, as is the law of action and reaction to our natural being. Indeed, we see no other way that evil could be restrained, or the order of the spiritual universe preserved. It is therefore a great blessing that we suffer the penalty of the violated Law. Take away the penalty of the civil law, and how soon the world would go to destruction. Take away the pain we feel at the violation of the physical law, and children would cut off their fingers, and put out their eyes, and be crushed to pieces by carelessness. It is the great law for the preservation of physical life; and the spiritual law of receiving according to what we give, would be equally preservative, if it were as well understood and felt.

How promptly does the rope walker watch and obey

the mechanical law of action and reaction, that his whole weight may act against the rope; lest he suffer the consequences of the violated law by the reaction of the solid earth, by a concussion.

Now man is made rational and free that he may obey, or disobey, this great Law, either in its mental or physical operations. We know the consequences of breaking the law, physically. Would to God we were as sensible of what would follow the spiritual violation; that of love to God and the neighbor. Then would man turn from his evil way and live.

We brace ourselves against the wind, making our reaction just equal to the force, that we be not blown away. So, we may spiritually resist the current of temptation which besets us, that we be not swept away by a torrent of vice. "The Stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes: and whosoever shall fall on this Stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever It shall fall, It will grind him to powder." (Matt. xxi, 42, 44.)

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CHAPTER V.

THE DIVINE INFLUX.

In order to prepare the mind to receive the ideas expressed in the next chapter, upon GOD AND CREATION, or Cause and Effect, we here interpose a few thoughts on the Law of Influent Life, as a supplement to Chapter III, and an introduction to Chapter VI.

If the premises, as to the Divine qualities, laid down in the second chapter, be true, the conclusions to which we have arrived in the third and fourth chapters, as to the nature and character of man, and of evil and its origin, as well as the law of Action and Reaction, must also be true. For the premises being true, this sequence must follow. Any argument, therefore, that may be offered against the view we have taken of the fall, or against anything we may say in this book, will be made against the First and Eternal Principles laid down for our guidance in the first chapter. For on them we rest, and from them and what they teach, we shall draw all our conclusions as to what is right or wrong, good or evil.

Now, we are taught by those principles that the Lord is THE LIFE (John xi, 25); that He is THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE (Ps. xxxvi, 9); and that He giveth Life to the World