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that we feel robbed of our treasure, we can scarcely tell how. We look upon our Author as thoroughly in earnest, but at the same time as a self-deceiver. He has deserted the healthy, open-air use of Scripture, for the confined and unwholesome laboratory of the Schoolmen. Let him beware lest he suffer the fate of the unhappy alchemist, who was found stifled in the fumes attending his final experiment for turning dust into gold.

"That peculiar connexion between God and man, which "is expressed by the term MEDIATION, looks to an actual "alteration in the condition of mankind, through the "admission of a member into its ranks, in whom and "through whom it attained an unprecedented elevation." (p. 54.)

"Christ is the one Mediator between God and man, "the Man Christ Jesus. To be man at all, would give "Him an interest in our race; but that He is The Man, "the Pattern of our race, the new type on which it is founded, the second Adam, this makes him the 'one "Mediator' for His Brethren." (p. 243.)

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"Our Lord's Incarnation sets forth Heaven and Earth as being the real counterpart of that which was dimly "shadowed out by the Jewish Ritual." (p. 253). (We should have said His death, rather than His incarnation).

"We see a Pattern Man, who comes in as the type of "restored, as our earthly father of fallen, Manhood. He "brings with Him from above a pure and perfect, as the "other transmitted a corrupt and debilitated nature." (p. 301.)

"It is only by a real union with this New Man, that we can eradicate those evils which attached themselves

"to our race through the transgression of the Old." (p. 302.)

*

"Christ's acts of Mediation are connected throughout "the Epistles with the Church which is His body, the "fulness of Him that filleth all in all.' For 'He loved “the Church and gave Himself for it,' and He is 'the "Saviour of the Body."" (Here the Archdeacon confounds the true Church with the outward and visible one). "These passages indicate that our share in the benefits "which Christ attained depends upon that union with "Himself which He has bestowed upon us. And this 66 union does not mean merely the union which He has with 66 our nature, but the union which we have with His." (p. 303.)

"When He speaks of Himself as the Vine, He speaks "of that Human Nature, into which all Christian men are engrafted." (p. 303.)

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"The assertion of our Lord's Presence according to His "Human Nature, and of our real union with the Man"hood of Christ, is no technical or unnecessary dogma, "but that pregnant fact on which is built our present regeneration, and our future hope." (p. 304.)

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"The necessity of Christ's Presence according to His Humanity rests upon His being that Pattern Man, in "whom renewed Manhood shone forth in its brightest colours." (p. 308.)

"The truth of His Mediation implies our actual union with "His Man's Nature." (p. 311,)

"When the Church System is opposed to that of Ra"tionalism, the actions of Christ's Manhood are in reality "C opposed to those of our own spirits. The channel of union

* There is here a furtive attempt to wrest the Apostle's words, "Put on the new man &c.," to a meaning quite different from the original one. 66 Instead of being the hidden man of the heart," "the new man "is supposed to be Jesus Himself, in His Human Nature; who is to be 66 put on" in the Sacraments!

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which has been provided through grace is opposed to "that which existed by nature. What is needed, there"fore, is some real agency on His part, whereby His mer"ciful intervention may be effected. He must actually "stretch forth the hand of His Humanity towards us 66 before we can effectually stretch forth the hand of Faith to"wards Him." (The Archdeacon forgets what St. Paul says of the power of the Written Truth.) "Adam is not "merely an object of men's thoughts, like the Angels of "God; he is bound to his descendants by the true but "unknown tie of paternity; if Christ, our Mediator, be "the second Adam, there must be as real an influence," (is not the Holy Spirit a reality?) "by which all His "members must hold to His Man's Nature." (p. 334.)

Lastly, in his Chapter on THE SACRAMENTS, the Archdeacon says:

"The essential principle of each of them has been shewn "to be, union with the perfect Manhood of Christ our Lord. "Let it be remembered in conclusion, that to deny their reality is to assail the great principle of the Mediation "of Christ." (p. 458.)

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§ 10. INJURY DONE TO THE DOCTRINE OF THE

ATONEMENT.

If there is one doctrine more dear to the heart of an humble, thankful Christian than another, it is that of the Atonement.

This doctrine is grievously injured by the Book before us.

"It has sometimes been asked, why our Lord's Atone"ment is not inserted in the Creed in such express words

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as His Incarnation. The reason is, that our Lord's "Atonement may be admitted in words, although those "who use them attach no Christian sense to the doctrine "they acknowledge. Whereas, if the doctrine of our "Lord's Incarnation is once truly accepted, His Media"tion follows as its necessary result. So that the Church was guided by Divine wisdom, to make this Article of 46 our Lord's real nature the criterion of her belief, the "Articulus stantis aut cadentis Ecclesiæ;' it holds a lead"ing place in the profession which in all ages has been 66 required at Baptism; and the early believers gave a "token of their reverence when, on declaring that He 66 6 was made man,' they were wont, with one consent, to "bow the knee and worship." (p. 218.)

Here there is a direct comparison instituted between the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Atonement, and the superiority in importance is attached to the former. Indeed, in more than one place of the book before us, it is called "the central fact" of Christianity. Such comparisons are better avoided: and, at all events, nothing should be set above the Atonement. St. Paul said, and the ministers of the Gospel should all say after him, "I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." The Incarnation was of infinite value, because it led to the crucifixion. Had not Christ taken our flesh, He could not have died ;-we should not have had the atonement. Hooker says: "The world's salvation was, without the in

"carnation of the Son of God, a thing impos"sible; not simply impossible, but impos"sible it being presupposed that the will of "God was no otherwise to have it saved "than by the death of his own Son," (E. P. v. 51.)—in other words, the death gave it its value. In connection with the Crucifixion, no language can be too glowing in which to speak of the Incarnation. But the Archdeacon detaches it from that connexion, in the minds of his readers, as we have seen.

The Archdeacon says, The Atonement is not mentioned in the Creed. No more is the Eucharist. But, not to say that the Creed has no direct and intrinsic authority (See our 8th Article), the Archdeacon's invidious observation is easily answered. The Creed contains a summary of the chief Facts on which. our religion is founded-that of Three Persons in One God, of the Creation, of Christ's Ministry, Crucifixion, &c., of the formation of a Catholic or Universal Church by the Holy Ghost, and the future facts of the Resurrection and Judgment. The object, or bearing, of each fact is not mentioned in such a summary.*

* We presume that the Archdeacon means by "the Creed," the Apostles' Creed. The Nicene Creed says, that Jesus Christ" came down from He aven for us men and

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