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THE
ATONEMENT
OF
CHRIST.
[SEEM.
XXXV.
the
Sun
of
Righteousness
is
risen
upon the earth,
and the
morning clouds are vanished
away.
I
hear Jesus,
my
great Prophet, preaching
this doc-
trine
of
propitiation
for
our
sins by his
death,
in
his
own
ministry
;
though
he
was
content
to
do
it
in
a more ob-
scure
and
imperfect manner
:
And
I
now see
the
reason
why he
taught
this
truth
chiefly
in
parables,
because
it
was
not proper
in
that
age
to
be
published to
the
multi-
tude
in
plain language,
till he
had actually died and
rose
again.
I
behold
his
terrible
agonies
in
the garden, before he
came
near
the
cross.
I
see
the
blessed
Son
of
God la-
bouring
under
the
burden
of our
guilt, wrestling,
and
sweating blood,
under
the
unknown impressions
of that
tribulation and
wrath,
that
indignation and anguish,
which
was
due to
my sins.
What
else
could
make
so
glorious
and
divine
a
person
discover such
dreadful
dis-
tress
of
soul
?
Again, he cries
out
on
the cross
with
an-
guish
of
spirit, he bleeds, he groans,
he dies.
I
acknow-
ledge the
truth
of
the doctrine
of
his
atonement.
I
read it
in all
his
agonies.
These are
such
sufferings,
and
such
sorrows as
are
beyond all
that
men could
inflict,
or
that
a mere
man could
bear, beyond
all
the common
ter-
rors
of
death and the grave. My
Saviour
sustained
a
heavier burden, and
was
engaged
in
harder
work
;
a la-
bour
more
dreadful and more glorious.
He
was
then
making
atonement
to divine
justice
for
my-
sins.
And
blessed be
his
name for
ever and
ever.
I
read the
same
doctrine
of
atonement for
sin,
by
the
death
of
Christ,
in
the writings
of
his holy
apostles.
This
was
the
gospel which
they
preached
to
the
Jew,
and
to the
rest
of
the
nations. This
they
delivered down
in
the
sacred records
of
the New Testament,
whence we
derive
our religion and our
hope.
The
language
in
which they expressed
our
reconciliation to God,
by
the
death
of
Christ, carries with
it
such evidence, and such
strength,
that if
I
believe
these books to
be divine, I
can-
not
but
receive this
doctrine
as
the
truth of
God;
and
I
would
learn
of
St.
Paul, Gal.
vi. 14.
"
to glory
in
the
cross
of
Christ," and
--
to
"
live
by
the faith
of
the
Spa
of
God,
who loved
me,
and
gave
himself for
me."
When
I
read
the astonishing gifts
of
the
blessed
Spirit,.
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