royal statute, and made a firm decree, and signed the writing, that whosoever should ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of the king himself, should be cast into the den of lions. Daniel, one of the children of the captivity of Judah, was found to be the first offender. 66 Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him: and he laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him. Then these men assembled unto the king, and said unto the king, 'Know, O king, that the law of the Medes and the Persians is, That no decree or statute which the king establisheth may be changed.' Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the lions' den."

Here is an instance of an absolute sovereign setting his heart on the deliverance of an offender, and labouring to obtain it; and yet prevented from exercising his clemency, by a due sense of the honour of his government. Could not Darius at once have pardoned Daniel? Yes; Darius could, as a private person, forgive any private injury; but he could not, as a public officer, privately forgive a public offence against the authority of his office.-Could not Darius have repealed the law which he himself had made? Yes; but not with honour to the laws of the Medes and Persians. Such a repeal would have shown egregious fickleness in him; and such a fickleness and uncertainty in the administration of his government might encourage any disaffection or

treason among the presidents, princes, and satraps of the provinces.-Could not Darius have banished or silenced all the abettors of the law, and enemies of Daniel? Yes; but such a deed would have told his folly, imbecility, and injustice, in every province of his empire: his folly, in enacting a law which he found it unreasonable to execute: imbecility, in want of due authority in his own council, and of due firmness to enforce his own edict; and his injustice, in protecting and favouring an offender at the expense of the loyal supporters of the throne.

What, then, is to be done? Cannot some means be found which will enable the king to keep the honour of his public character, and yet save Daniel ? No: the king laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him. He pondered, and thought, and devised about a way to deliver him honourably, but failed. Consequently, the very personage who had set his heart to deliver him, with his own lips "commanded" that Daniel be brought forth, and thrown into the den of lions.

Why was this done? Not because the king had no mercy in him, but simply and only, because no expedient could be found which would at once preserve the honour of the government, and allow the exercise of clemency towards the offender. Daniel was cast into the lions' den merely because no atonement was found to vindicate and to "show forth" the public justice of the governor in his deliverance.

Here, then, is an instance of mercy being withheld, merely from the want of an honourable ground or medium for expressing it.

The other instance to which I alluded, is from profane history. In this instance also there was a strong disposition to save the offender, and yet there was a difficulty, almost insurmountable, in the way of his honourable acquittal. His deliverance, however, was devised by a wise expedient introduced by the governor himself. I allude to the case of the son of Zaleucus.*

ZALEUCUS, the king of the Locrians, had established a law against adultery, the penalty of which was, that the offender should lose both eyes. The first person found guilty of this offence, was the king's own son. Zaleucus felt as a father towards his own son, but he felt likewise as a king towards his government. If he, from blind indulgence, forgive his son, with what reason can he expect the law to be respected by the rest of his subjects? and how will his public character appear in punishing any future offender? If he repeal the law, he will brand his character with dishonour-for selfishness, in sacrificing the public good of a whole community to his private feelings; for weakness, in publishing a law whose penalty he never could inflict; and for foolishness, in introducing a law, the bearings of which he had never contemplated. This

* See Elian, V. H. 2, 37. ; Val. Max, i, 2, 6.; Cic. ad Attic. 6, 1.

would make his authority for the future a mere

name.

The case was a difficult one. Though he was an offended governor, yet he had the compassion of a tender father. At the suggestion of his unbribed mercy, he employed his mind and wisdom to devise a measure, an expedient through the medium of which he would save his son, and yet magnify his law and make it honourable. The expedient was this, the king himself would lose one eye, and the offender should lose another. By this means, the honour of his law was preserved unsullied, and the clemency of his heart was extended to the offender. Every subject in the government when he heard of the king's conduct, would feel assured that the king esteemed his law very highly; and though the of fender did not suffer the entire penalty, yet the clemency shown him was exercised in such a way, that no adulterer would ever think of escaping with impunity. Every reporter or historian of the fact would say, that the king spared not his own eye, that he might spare his offending child with honour. He would assert that this sacrifice of the king's eye, completely demonstrated his abhorrence of adultery, and high regard for his law, as effectually, as if the penalty had been literally executed upon the sinner himself. The impression on the public mind would be that this expedient of the father was an atonement for the offence of the son, and was a just and honourable ground for pardoning him,

Such an expedient in the moral government of God, the apostles asserted the death of Christ to be. They preached that all men were "condemned already,"that God had "thoughts of peace, and not of evil towards men, that these thoughts were to be exercised in such a manner, as not to "destroy the law,” and that the medium or expedient for doing this, was the sacrifice of his ONLY SON as an atonement to public justice for the sin of men.

The sufferings of the Son of God were substituted in the room of the execution of the penalty threatened to the offender. The atonement in the death of Christ is not a literal enduring of the identical penalty due to the sinner, but it is a provision or an expedient introduced instead of the literal infliction of the penalty; it is the substitution of another course of suffering which will answer the same purposes in the divine administrations as the literal execution of the penalty on the offender himself would accomplish.

Had Darius found any person willing to be thrown into the lions' den instead of Daniel, and literally to bear the penalty threatened, this could never have been deemed an atonement to the laws of the Medes and the Persians. These laws had never contemplated that the offender should have the option of bearing the penalty, either in person or by his substitute. It would have been a much more likely atonement to the laws, if one of the presidents of the provinces, one high in the esteem of the