cular redemption. "Whosoever will, let him come, and take of the water of life freely;" "and him that cometh I will in no wise cast out." The supposed farmer never suspected that he was not personally intended in the general promise of Providence. If his crop has not answered his expectations, he sees and feels that the failure was owing to the nature of the soil and not to a deficiency in the promise; for it was never promised, that if he ploughed the rock, or sowed the sea-shore, that he should have a harvest. And why should any sinner suspect that he is not personally interested in the atonement, and that the general atonement is not available to his particular and personal case? There is not in the scriptures, even the most remote allusion to any class of sinners, for whom Christ did not die. In the whole history of salvation and of man, there is not on record a single instance of a personal application of the general atonement failing of success. No personal applicant at the door of the atonement has ever perished. Christ has never said to any suppliant,"I never meant you individually." If any sinner who knows the atonement perishes, even in his destruction he sees, that his perdition is not through a deficiency in the atonement, for the atonement had never promised or provided, if he sowed to the flesh that from the flesh he should reap everlasting life. If you heard some of the family of the supposed farmer quibbling about the divine decrees, and saying that they were never designed to be farmers, and that they did not

think providence would ever bless them in such an undertaking, you would conclude that at heart they had no liking for the work. It is, I believe, universally true that no sinner quibbles about the secret designs of the atonement, but when he has no liking to the personal application of it, to condemn himself and to justify the divine government. When Paul's fellow-passengers laid hold on the "boards and broken pieces of the ship," they had no time to quibble about secret decrees, they made the provisions of general providence available to their particular cases, and they all succeeded. Let every sinner go, and do likewise.

IV. The Providence of God treats men as moral and free agents. Providence will do for a man nothing that he can do for himself. Providence will give seed to the sower, but it will not sow it nor reap the crop for him. Providence will fill the sails of the vessel with gales, but it will not steer at the helm. Providence makes no arrangement to encourage the idleness or inactivity of man, but all its provisions require and demand the full exercise of his agency. God promised to feed the Israelites in the wilderness with manna, but they were to gather and prepare it for food. Providence gives us our daily bread," but not in baked loaves falling from the sky. Providence supplies us with raiment, but not in garments ready made, descending upon us without any agency of our own. Providence has made bread to be the staff of life, but here it meets

us as free agents, for if we do not exercise our own agency to partake of it, it will avail us nothing. The administration of the atonement meets man in the same manner, as a free agent. It does nothing for him that he can do himself. It presents to his eyes, "Him whom he has pierced," but he himself must repent and weep. It shows to him "a new and a living way to the Father," but he himself must walk it. It supplies him with a sovereign and sufficient remedy," but he himself must "receive" it. If he refuse the balm of Gilead, it will not heal him. If he neglect this great salvation, it will not save him. If he will not have this man to rule over him, he will not be delivered from the kingdom of darkness. As providence deals with free agents, so does the atonement. Take these statements about the atonement simply and candidly as they are presented to you, and you will admit, you must admit, that they are the real facts of the case. Will you venture to wrest them because they run not parallel with the lines of your theological system? These arrangements about the atonement are no more dishonourable to the character of God, than are the similar measures about the providence of God. Whatever may be the failures of providence during the economy of probation, we know that the upshot of the whole will be to the everlasting glory of God, and that all his perfections and purposes will appear guiltless of those failures. So will the administration of the atonement of Christ be unto God a sweet savour, even in them that pe

rish. Though his death prove of none effect to those who were bent on being justified by the law, and to them who would not obey him, yet the illustrious Redeemer shall not fail of the travail of his soul. It should be remembered that the mere salvation of sinful men was not the only thing for which the soul of Christ travailed. He travailed for the glory of God, for the honour of the law, for the condemnation of sin, for the free overtures of the gospel, for the gracious acceptance of sinners, for the inexcusableness of wilful rejecters, and for the righteousness of their sorer punishment. Of all this travail he shall see. And while he is glorified in his saints and admired in them that believe, he will be justified and adored in the punishment of the refusers of his salvation, for the language of all intelligences will be "Amen, just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints."

These remarks show that the moral Governor who directs the administration of the atonement, is not a Ruler different from him who regulates the dispensations of providence. In proceeding from one to another, we make no transition into the works and principles of a different God. We have already considered that the whole system of the universe was of a mediatorial character, and that, had it not been for the substituted sufferings of the Seed of the woman, there would have been no providence exercised towards the human race, for they would never have come into being. The dispensations of providence,

therefore, must take their character from the medium through which they are administered; and this medium is the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Providence began with the atonement-it continued to be administered through the atonement-and it will for ever close with the closing dispensation of the atonement. The close of one is the close of the other. A season will come when there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, when the merits of the atonement will be no longer available to our world, when the time of probation for receiving the benefits of the atonement will close, and then will providence close for ever. Then, "Let him that is holy be holy still, and him that is filthy be filthy still."

From the whole of this train of observations, the inference is inevitable that God exercises no providence in this world with which the atonement has not a close and constant relation, and that they are both administered upon the same principles of moral government.

SECTION V.

A limited Atonement inconsistent with the adminis⚫tration of Providence.

I. An atonement designed for a limited number only, is inconsistent with the general claim which Jesus Christ makes to govern and regulate the duties, the affections, the homage, and the destinies of every man on the face of the earth