Page:A Defence of Revealed Religion.pdf/19

Rh we shall be saved by His life.""And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled.""All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation: to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." This we see is the very reverse of the popular doctrine of reconciliation.

So also in respect to the Atonement, which is mentioned but once in the New Testament, and in these terms: “We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." It is man, not God, who receives the atonement.

So further, the scriptural view of the deliverance wrought by the Saviour is nowhere described as a deliverance from the wrath or anger of God; on the contrary, "for this cause was the Son of God manifested in the flesh, that He might destroy the works of the devil.""Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His people: that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of them that hate us: that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life." God was never our enemy; He was always our best friend—"a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." From these, and similar testimonies and considerations, we are impelled to believe with Mr.