FOR THE CHRISTIAN'S MAGAZINE.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT.

1040

Our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have not received the Atonement.-Rom v. 11.

No. I.

IN order to perceive the force of the powerful rea

soning which the apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Almighty, employs in this epistle, it is necessary to know something of the state of religion among the Jews at the time in which he wrote.

It is against the errours of that people, errours likely always to arise among those who, destitute of grace, make a profession of religion, that the argument is principally directed. Simple information was sufficient for the heathen who had recently embraced the Gospel. They were sensible that they had every thing to learn, and they readily submitted to the instruction which was tendered to them by the apostles. But much disputation was necessary with the Jews, who thought that they already knew the way of truth. Proud of their descent, and glorying in their priesthood, the natural offspring of Abraham did not hesitate in conceiving themselves, independently of faith and holiness, to be the peculiar favourites of heaven.

The two sects, which, at this period, were most conspicuous in contending for power in the Jewish church, are the Sadducees and Pharisees. The contentions of these formidable parties had for a centu

ry distracted the councils of the nation, and corrupted the religion established in Judea.

The former exerted their influence over the Sanhedrim, the Temple, and the Priesthood; and the latter had obtained the principal direction of the schools, the pulpits of the Synagogues, and the prejudices of the populace. The Sadducees were supported by the most opulent of the inhabitants. Since the days of Hircanus, who united in his own person, the supreme ecclesiastical power, with the civil and the military, and who was besides an intolerant Sadducee; the influence of the supreme council of Elders, and of the great body of the Priests, had been employed in favour of this sect*. During the reign of Jannæus, the Sanhedrim, with the exception of a solitary individual, consisted altogether of Sadducees. Annas and Caiaphas, well known in evangelical history, belonged also to the same sect. The Sadducees rejected the doctrines of a special providence, of the immortality of the soul, and of a future state. With such sentiments, the Jewish priesthood, supported by their tithes, and by the learning, the wealth, and the power of Judea, pre sented a formidable opposition to the progress of the gospel. They combined irreligion with a pros fession of the established system, which, on ac count of its emoluments, they did not hesitate to subscribe: a combination, which, however pernicious, is, alas! far from being uncommon in other nations. The Pharisees had, upon their side, by far the greater part of the common people. Assisted by the scribes, they engrossed, in a great measure, the ministry of the synagogues. Animated with a superstitious zeal, making pretensions to an extraordinary

*Joseph. Antiq. lib. 13. cap. 11, & de bel. Jud. lib, i. cap. 3, 4. Vol. III.-No. I.

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piety, they contrived to inflame the minds of their hearers with a spurious devotion, by their discourses from the pulpits, and their unwearied efforts to disseminate their sentiments by private conversation. They accommodated themselves to the ignorance of the lower classes; they adapted their doctrines to the gross conceptions, the prejudices and the passions of the multitude; they imposed upon the credulity, and succeeded in ensnaring the consciences of vast numbers in their own delusions. The Pharisees professed a strict adherence to the ceremonial law, an accurate observance of the traditions of the elders, and a patriotic attachment to the liberties and independence of their country; and while they urged the doctrine of a future state, they taught that salvation was secured to the Jews, upon the sole condition of, obedience to these external rites, which they uniformly represented as entitling them to covenanted mercy.

In the course of a few years after the ascension of our Saviour into glory, great numbers of the Jews embraced the Christian dispensation; and several of the new converts were affected with the "leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." Several carried along with them from the old to the new dispensation of grace, those false principles which are equally opposite to both. They who had no inward experience of the power of godliness, whatever may have been their profession, formed very inadequate conceptions of the deep depravity and misery of man, of the evil of sin, and of the method of salvation through a Redeemer. These expected justification on some one of the three following grounds.

1. Some supposed that the Jews should be justified on account of the piety of the patriarchs *.

* Kim. Com. Hos. iii. 2. Pococke. Miscel. 170, 171.

2. Others supposed that their knowledge of the. law would justify them *:

3. Several imagined that justification proceeded upon the ground of their punctual performance of those rites which had been enjoined upon them in the law given by Moses †.

Such was the degrading idea which they had formed of the divine holiness, and the proud opinion which they cherished of their own excellence, that they imagined the righteousness of his moral government would be amply supported by awarding to them exemption from punishment, and the felicity of heaven upon one or other of these terms. They also laboured to impress the Gentiles, who discovered an inclination to receive revealed religion, with a belief in the justness of those crude sentiments. Such pernicious doctrines required refutation. They called for a demonstration, from the scriptures of the Old Testament, for which the Jews professed the most perfect reverence, of those great principles, upon which the salvation offered in the gospel, and purchased by the Redeemer, necessarily depended.

The inspired apostle, accordingly, provides an antidote to the poison, in this epistle written from Corinth, to the church of Christ in Rome, and transinitted by Phebe, a sister remarkable for her piety, and her services to the church of Cenchrea, of which she was a member, in the year 58.

After an affectionate salutation, in which he magnifies his own holy and extraordinary office, the Apostolate, he exhibits the righteousness of God, requiring that wrath be revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. By

* Rom. ii. 13. 17—29.

† Rom. iii. 28. See also Mich. Int. vol. 4. page 94. Chap. i. 17, 18.

an ample induction of facts, and with arguments of conclusive power, he proves both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. By an inference necessary from these premises, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified, he prepares the way for a declaration of the righteousness of God manifested in justification by grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. It is thus, and thus only, that God is just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. In the fourth chapter he illustrates, by an explanation of the case of Abraham, the nature of faith, and justification by imputed righteousness; and in the fifth, he proceeds to a discussion of the benefits flowing from justification. After enumerating a variety of Gospel blessings, the apostle, in the 8th verse, directs the Romans to the spring from whence the system of grace, with all its invaluable blessings, flow-the love of God manifested in the death of Christ. "But God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." He then immediately states that the death of Christ procures our reconciliation with Godwe were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, and declares the infallible certainty of the salvation of all who are partakers of reconciliation-much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved. Upon this footing believers have indeed cause to rejoice in the Lord. The apostle accordingly adds in the 11th verso, We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the Atonement.

The doctrine of the Atonement affords joy to believers, and is worthy of their attention.

Rom. iii. 9. 19.

† iii. 20-26