which the 18th verse has seemed to have been lost sight of in fixing the meaning of the 17th, and in which, indeed, I may say the tone of the 17th itself as a whole has been misunderstood.

If the interpretation of the expressions, "propitiation" and "reconciliation," now adopted in harmony with the view taken of the nature of the atonement, commends itself to the reader, he will be prepared to receive a corresponding interpretation of the expression "peace,” as applied to Christ, when He is said, to be our peace," -making it equivalent to His claim to being the only "way to the Father." Eph. ii. 14.

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In the teaching by which the Saviour comforted the disciples in the near prospect of His being taken from them, we find Him, in words referred to already, encouraging them by the prospect of passing through the trials that awaited them in the fellowship of the inward consolation by which they had seen their Lord Himself sustained in all they had seen Him pass through. Peace," says He, "I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." That He could speak to them of His own peace has been already noticed as a part of the perfection of His witnessing for the Father. That He could promise to them the fellowship of that peace which He thus claims as His own has been also already noticed as one of the forms in which He made them to know that the life of sonship which they witnessed in Him was in Him the Father's gift to them. If they were to be sons of God in Spirit and in truth, the peace of the Son in following the Father as a dear child would be their portion also. Further, as they were to live the life of sonship, not as independent beings, following the example of the Son of God, but as abiding in the Son of God, as branches in the true vine, this peace which He bequeathed to them they were not to have apart from Himself. In abiding in Him were they to have it as a part of the fullness that was in Him for them—a part of the all things pertaining to life and to godliness. "In me ye shall have peace." Thus are we to understand the word "peace" in the promises of the

Lord to the disciples before His departure; thus are we to understand it when, on those occasions on which He appeared to them between His resurrection and ascension, still further to comfort their hearts and to strengthen them for what was before them, He stood in the midst of them and said, "Peace be unto you; as the Father hath sent me, even so send I you." Doubtless, thus also are we to understand the "peace" intended in the apostolic prayer and benediction, "Grace be unto you, and peace from God the Farther, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." Nor has the word any other meaning than this in the song of the heavenly host at the nativity, "Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace, and goodwill toward men." Now the reader is prepared to understand that in accordance with the nature of the atonement as now represented, it is the same peace, the peace of sonship, the peace that is "from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ;" being peace "in fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ,"—it is this same peace that I understand to be the peace spoken of when it is said that Christ" is our peace."

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The parallelism of the 2nd chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, with the portion of the 10th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, considered above, is obvious. The language of the temple service is not so closely adhered to, nor is salvation so exclusively contemplated as the condition of true and accepted worship; for with the idea of "a holy temple," is united that of "citizenship," and a household," verses 19, 20, 21, 22; but the summing up of the evil of the state in which the gospel had found the Ephesians, in the words "without God in the world," verse 12,-the setting forth, as the grace revealed to them, their being "made nigh by the blood of Christ," the purpose ascribed to Christ, to reconcile us to God, by slaying the enmity;—all express the same conception of the evil of man's state as a sinner as consisting in his spiritual distance from God, and of the salvation revealed in the gospel as consisting in spiritual nearness to God. In this connection the peace which

Christ is said to be, and which is said to be preached to men, can only be understood to be a spiritual peace with God-a spiritual destruction of the previous enmity,a spiritual reality present in the humanity of Christ, and proclaimed to men as the gift of God to them in Christ, -one with the way into the holiest, which He has opened up for us, the way to the Father, which He is to us. And this spiritual conception of the peace spoken of, suggested by the tone of the whole passage as what alone accords with the spiritual realities of distance from God and nearness to God, is sealed to us as the true conception by the explanatory words of the 18th verse. "For through Him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father." "For," that is to say, because of this condition of things, viz. our having, both Jew and Gentile, through Christ, access by one spirit unto the Father, therefore, is peace preached to us, for in this is peace for us.

Looking more closely into the passage, there is a complication foreign to our present purpose introduced by the mention of Jew and Gentile. This has arisen from its being an Epistle to Gentiles. But we see that the Apostle is taking us deeper than the distinction between Jew and Gentile. He is taking us down to our common humanity, and presenting to our faith the Son of God by one work doing away with the separation between Jew and Gentile, and reconciling both Jew and Gentile-all humanity— unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. Paul says to the Galatians, "We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." So here he takes the Ephesians to the contemplation of that dealing of the Son with the Father on behalf of all humanity, in which Jew and Gentile were alike interested, and in which they must alike see their interest if they would see the veil rent that separated them from each other, and separated them

from God; for indeed, the veil is one and the same that separates man from God, and that separates man from man.

I will not anticipate that tracing of the atonement in connexion with the actual history of our Lord's work to its close on the cross which I contemplate, and by which I hope the view I am presenting of the nature of the atonement will be felt to be illustrated and confirmed. In no view of the atonement can the crucifixion be separated from the previous life of which it was the close. Yet, it is only the view now taken that identifies the peace to which our Lord was conscious throughout His own life on earth, and which He promised to His disciples, with the peace which He fully accomplished and vindicated for humanity in that death on the cross, which was the perfecting of the Lord's work of redemption, the perfected fulfilling of the purpose, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God," the perfecting of His declaration of the Father's name. But the gospel does not proclaim two manners of peace with God: one legal, the result of Christ's bearing the penalty of our sins; the other spiritual, to be known in our participation in Christ's spirit. That oneness of mind with the Father in the aspect of the divine mind towards man, which was fully developed and perfected in humanity in the Son of God when His confession of the Father before men, and His dealing with the Father on behalf of men, were perfected on the cross, -this was that divine and spiritual peace for man in His relation to God, which is to be contemplated, first, as in its own nature and essence spiritual; and then, because spiritual, also legal,—a perfect answer to all the demands of the law of God, a perfect justification of God in regard to the grace in which we stand.

And thus was the atonement adequate to whatever victory of Christ on our behalf is implied in His "leading captivity captive," when "through death destroying him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and delivering them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Hebrews ii. 14, 15. The power of evil adverse to us to which this language refers

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we imperfectly understand. Definite conceptions of the manner of our bondage we have not beyond this, that “the strength of sin was the law." But, if the honour regarded as done to the law by the death of Christ conceived of as implying the enduring of penal infliction for our sins, have seemed a sufficient explanation of the power thus ascribed to Christ's cross, how infinitely more adequate to the results accomplished, because infinitely more honouring to the law of God, and a real living dealing with that in the heart of the Father of spirits to which the law refers, is the moral and spiritual atonement of which the cross was the perfecting! Christ said to Pilate, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above;" and this we know of all subordinate power, wherever present, for "power belongeth to God alone." Therefore has the power ascribed to the accuser of the brethren our adversary the devil-been always, and rightly regarded, as what could only rest upon the fixedness of that moral constitution of things of which the law is the formal expression, and our rebellion against which had given him advantage over us. But the root of that constitution of things is the fatherliness of the Father of our spirits nothing, therefore, could truly honour that constitution which did not do due honour to that fatherliness in which it has its root; while that fatherliness being duly honoured, the law must of necessity have been therein honoured, and with the highest honour,

While, therefore, that formal literal meeting of the demands of the law which men have seen in Christ has been to them the spoiling of the power of the devil, because it was a meeting of the law seen simply as the law: in the light in which we are now contemplating the work of redemption, it is the Son's dealing in humanity directly with the fatherliness that is in God-and so dealing with the violation of the law in relation to the ultimate desire of the heart of the Father, who gave the law-by which we see ourselves, who were under the law, redeemed, that we might receive the adoption of sons; this true doing of the Father's will by the Son, and not a mere literal ful