out the will of God, setting aside the promise in Christ to his (its) great destruction, 'For no man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.'-Matt. xi. 27." (p. 101.)

"Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father."-John xiv. 8, 9.

I add two more quotations to the same effect. "For in Christ we see that God is not a cruel exactor or a judge, but a most favourable, loving and merciful Father, who to the end He might bless us, that is to say, deliver us from the law, sin, death, and all other evils, and might endue us with grace, righteousness, and everlasting life, spared not His own Son, but gave Him for us all. This is a true knowledge of God and a divine persuasion which deceiveth us not, but painteth God unto us lively (living)." (p. 389.) "For the true God speaketh thus; No righteousness, wisdom, nor religion pleaseth me but that only whereby the Father is glorified through the Son. Whosoever apprehendeth this Son, and me, and my promise in Him by faith, to him I am a God, to him I am a Father, him do I accept, justify and save. All others abide under wrath because they worship that thing which by nature is no God." (p. 390.)

How does this language recall that of the Apostle John,-"And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen."-1 John v. 20, 21.

One other point remains to be noticed that we may have distinctly before us Luther's teaching on the

subject of the atonement,-I mean the weight which he lays on the personal appropriation of the atonement as of the very essence of faith.

Of course, teaching as the result of the victory of Christ over all our spiritual enemies, that Christ was made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, and setting forth this as a constitution of things established by God in His love to man, and revealed to be known and received by faith, he could not teach merely that men might appropriate Christ and His work,-that they were at liberty so to do, and invited so to do, and that Christ was freely offered to them, and would become theirs by such appropriation. He must needs teach that such appropriation was of the very essence of faith; being implied in the most simple reception of that which was revealed. But he has a further reason for insisting on this, viz. that in this personal appropriation he recognised at once the power and the difficulty of faith.

The teaching I refer to is in his comment on the words, "who gave Himself for our sins," in which, after insisting on the power of these words to destroy all false religions, "For if our sins be taken away by our own works, merits, and satisfactions, what needed the Son of God to be given for them? But seeing He was given for them, it followeth that we cannot put them away by our own works," (p. 104)-he adds-"But weigh diligently every word of Paul, and especially mark well this pronoun 'our;' for the effect altogether consisteth in the well applying of the pronouns, which we find very often in the Scriptures, wherein also there is ever some vehemency and power. Generally and without the pronoun it is an easy matter to magnify and amplify the benefit of Christ, viz. that Christ was given for sins, but for other men's sins which are worthy. But when

it cometh to the putting to of this pronoun our, there our weak nature and reason starteth back, and dare not come nigh unto God, nor promise to herself that so great a treasure shall be freely given unto her." (p. 105.)

This is said in reference to the difficulty in believing in forgiveness noticed above as what comes to be felt as soon as the need of forgiveness begins to be realised. Of this Luther was fully aware, as well as of the unmeaning, and, indeed, self-righteous nature of those general confessions of sin which unawakened sinners so easily make; combining with them as easily expressed a trust in Christ:-in reference to which he says"Men's reason would fain bring and present unto God a feigned and counterfeit sinner, which is nothing afraid, nor hath any feeling of sin. It would bring that is whole, and not him that hath need of a physician, and when it feeleth no sin, then would it believe that Christ was given for our sins.' "But," says he, “learn here of Paul, to believe that Christ was given, not for feigned or counterfeit sins, nor yet for small sins, but for great and large sins; not for one or two, but for all; not for vanquished sins (for no man, no, nor angel, is able to subdue the least sin that is), but for invincible sins. And except thou be found among those that say 'our sins,' that is which have this doctrine of faith, and both hear, love, and believe the same, there is no salvation for thee (p. 106.) ... I speak not this without cause, for I know what moveth me to be so earnest that we should learn to define Christ out of the words of Paul. For indeed Christ is no cruel exactor, but a forgiver of the sins of the whole world.... Learn this definition diligently, and especially so to exercise this pronoun our, that this one syllable being believed may swallow up all thy sins." (p. 108.)

I have reluctantly curtailed these quotations from

Luther's commentary on the apostle Paul's Epistle to the Galatians,-into the spirit of which the great Reformer has so truly entered. The deep insight into our redemption, as it has taken its character from our being "under the law" and "unjust," which he manifests; his vivid realisation of "the grace wherein we stand," being redeemed; his true appreciation of the glory which God has in our faith ;-his discernment of the relation in which the peace and confidence towards God, which are present in faith, stand to the perfection of the revelation of the Father in the Son; the personal interest in Christ, which he recognises as possessed by all men, and revealed to faith in the gospel; and the importance which he attaches to an appropriating response on our part:-these all are aspects of truth which I am thankful should now be present to the mind of my reader in Luther's strong and vivid form of speech. As to my immediate subject-the nature of the atonement-I have admitted that he does not offer much help towards a clear intellectual apprehension of it. Christ's identifying of Himself with us, "joining Himself to the company of the accursed, taking unto Him their flesh and blood," in order that in humanity He might encounter "our sin," and "our death," and "our curse" (p. 301); and the consequent conflict between these and Christ's own eternal righteousness, as meeting together in Him, and the triumph of that divine righteousness, issuing in our redemption; these are conceptions which he may have been content to hold as matters of revealed fact, but still mysteries which precluded clear intellectual apprehension. Yet the earnestness with which he insists upon the presence together of these opposites in Christ, and on the reality of their conflict as matter of consciousness to Christ,taken along with his true understanding of our parti

cipation in Christ and His righteousness, give me the conviction that Luther was indeed contemplating spiritual realities which had a place in the work of redemption, when using language as to the nearness of the relation to us, and to our sin, into which Christ came, which has, and not without cause, given so much offence. In Luther's apprehension, Christ's bearing of our sins was not a mere imputation in the mind of another; it was a deep and painful reality in His own mind; and the victory of righteousness in Him was not such in respect of the award to righteousness by another, but a victory obtained by righteousness itself as a living divine might in Him. A legal fiction would be no explanation. The assumption of a delusive consciousness Luther would reject. What the truth of the case has been, (and which, as having taken place in humanity, may be expected to be utterable to men,) Luther's words, as he has written, do not make us to know; whatever spiritual truth these words have had in his own mind:-for interpreted according to their plain grammatical meaning, the words by which he expresses Christ's relation to our sins cannot be true. His use of them is, therefore, not to be defended. shall we suffer loss if we allow ourselves to suppose that as used by a man of so much spiritual insight as Luther they had not a meaning at once true and important. Indeed, if there be not a true sense in which Christ did bear on His spirit the weight of our sins, and all our evils, and did deal with the law of God as so bearing them, seeking redemption for us,— and did triumph in so doing by the might of righteousness, Luther's marvellous teaching of justification by faith alone is left a superstructure without a foundation.

Yet