that God might have consigned the entire race to the tor ments of an endless hell, without infringing upon one principle of his divine government by the breadth of a single hair-nay, more, the principles of eternal truth and justice demanded that this should be done. Upon what principle, then, is this awful and appalling result to be avoided? The answer is, upon no principle, but solely and alone by an expedient. And the best that can be done by that method is no more than a partial remedy for the evil. In the material world, there was no necessity for any departure from the principles of its orig inal organization and government. The sun continued to rise on the evil and the good, and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. But the government of the moral world was not thus established upon the basis of fixed rules of action. There principles must be abandoned, and expedients substituted.

The expedient was as follows: Christ would take the place of the sinner, and though innocent and pure in himself, he would suffer the punishment that was due to the guilty. It was done; and by this wretched expedi ent, badly conceived and worse executed, it is thought that a respectable minority of our race may be saved from the operation of the principles of eternal truth and justice. In vain do we look here for any thing that resembles a government of principle that is adhered to, and never abandoned. If it be said that this "plan of redemption developed a new principle, to wit, that of "substitution," it may be well to say that the existence of any such prin ciple, new or old, in the divine economy, is more than doubtful. When and where is it even claimed that God has substituted the innocent for the guilty, and accepted the sufferings of the one instead of the other, except in this single instance? If it be a principle of God's govern ment to "condemn the just and justify the wicked," then it ought to be practised in all cases; and if it is not so practised, it is no principle or settled rule of his government.

But the well settled and clearly announced principle is, that the punishment of the guilty shall be upon his own head, and not upon another; and in this light it is plain as the sun at noon-day, that the whole plan of salvation, as contemplated in every system which embraces the dogma

of vicarious atonement, is a mere expedient, not only devoid of principle, but diametrically opposed to the first and most inflexible principles of the reign of God.

Again, God is just; and if so, to do equal and exact justice to all men, and to all beings, is an inflexible rule of his government. Between this and the other rule of doing good at all times there is no antagonism, because the best good of all the universe requires that justice should be done; for injustice is not good. But the theological systems under review degrade justice from the dignity of a firm principle, to which there are no exceptions, and set the Deity himself about the work of devising expedients by which the guilty may escape, and go "unwhipt of justice." If the proof of this be demanded, it is at hand. In yonder heaven there are some saved ones, at least; but the doctrine is, that they were every one of them sin ners before God. Rigid and impartial justice, executed in full, would have sent them all to hell. Why, then, are they in heaven? The answer is, that God did not execute justice in their case. He had adopted an expedient of substitution, through which they are made exceptions, and have been enabled to escape the application of justice to their case. And so it is, that all hope there can be of salvation, for any of our race, must, according to these doctrines, rest upon the presumption that justice will not be done. All hope that any individual man can have for himself must be founded, not upon any fixed principle of government, but upon the expectation that God will make an exception in his favor, and, in his case, depart from the law of justice. Hence, again, it is evident that this is not a religion of principle.

As opposed to this, the idea of Universalism, and of those who reject the dogma of vicarious atonement, is, that God's government is a government of principle, and its movements are regulated by laws which know no change, and never give place to expedients. As in the material world nothing has ever occurred to render it necessary for him to change the arrangements of nature, or to disturb the plan on which the universe was constructed in the beginning, so in the moral world he began right. He laid the foundations of his reign on principles that can be carried out and applied and put in practice,

ever and always. He created man, at first, not as an experiment, to see what would come of him, nor as a probationer, to see what he would do; but he made him for a definite purpose, and to a definite end. The object of creation was, not that God might receive, but that he might communicate good; and hence to do good is, and must be, the settled law, the fixed and eternal principle, that runs unbroken through all that he does, and baptizes all his ways in the fountain of infinite love. To this rule there are no exceptions; there can be none, whatever present and outward appearances may indicate the contrary. In the natural world there may come a cloud over the face of the skies, and storm and tempest may be furious; but up in the high heavens the sun still shines, and in the midst of the present apparent confusion there are laws of order and principles of harmony which the wind and the storm must obey; and on these we may rely, and trust that the calm will come. God has not abandoned the throne, nor has he need to resort to a temporary expedient in order to end that storm; and this for the good reason that there are fixed laws, firm and undeviating principles, which he has established, and through these he will in due time utter the mandate, Be still! and the storm shall obey, and order shall come out of apparent chaos, and harmony out of confusion.

And so of the moral world; it is regulated by laws that never change, and is pervaded by principles that underlie and terminate all temporary phenomena, and overshadow all adventitious circumstances, and educe good from all that wears the form of evil. To do good, and to communicate good, and to overcome evil with good, is the one great principle by which God abides with a steadfastness of purpose rigorous as fate. The man who has been taught of Christ, plants his feet upon the firm basis of principle, and cannot doubt or be afraid. The day of calamity may come upon him. The waters around him may be troubled, and the waves may be boisterous; but he knows that it is the surface only that is agitated. The ocean-depths are not broken up, but there are calm and peaceful depths below, and a stream there is that flows on and flows ever. Though the tempest may be furious, he runs not, like the affrighted Pagan, to an

altar, with a sacrifice or oblation to appease the wrath or secure the favor of his God, to the end that he may interpose, for the time being, in his behalf; but, amid the war of the elements, he falls back upon the firm principles of the reign of God, and finds his hope and his safety there. He looks up and sees the Father bending over him with that benignity that dwells forever upon his face, and over which no cloud passes, and he hears his voice saying, "It is I, be not afraid." Behold I am good, and I do good. I walk by rules that never change; and though I lead thee through the deep and dark waters, and down through the lone valley of the shadow of death, yet my footsteps never deviate from the line of my love, nor depart from the principles by which I abide forever. To the man thus taught, salvation is not an escape from just punishment, by the expedient of substitution; but it is deliverance from sin, by the application of the principles of eternal truth and love. In all views, and in every aspect of the divine government, it is to him a government of principles.

II. We propose to illustrate the fact that the moral teachings of Christianity are founded upon principle.

Other systems appeal perpetually to expediency and policy, as the motive and the rule of human conduct. It is not necessary to note at length the various systems of Paganism, in order to vindicate the truth just uttered. Enough it is to say that the object they propose to obtain by the performance of what they call duty, is not inward purity and conformity to the fixed principles that enter into and regulate the reign of their gods; but it is to obtain some temporary advantage, to avert some calamity, or secure immunity against some threatened evil; and the reason is, not that the act is right, or good, in and of itself, but solely that it is expedient. Moreover, there is no necessary connection between the thing to be done and the end to be obtained. Thus, Caleb Wright, in his lectures on India, gives us the following, among many other similar instances which he witnessed: One man was standing upon one foot, and had stood there eight years his only rest being found in leaning upon a reed, suspended horizontally before him, about breast high. Another held up his left arm until it had become rigid

and immovable. Another was holding both arms in the same position. Some pierced their tongues with iron; and others suspended themselves upon hooks thrust through the flesh. These were the highest forms of religious services, and entitled the devotee to great and special rewards. We take them merely as specimens, for the sake of illustration. It is evident, at the first blush of thought, that the act of holding up the arm, or standing on one foot, or perforating the tongue, or swinging upon a hook, is not a thing which, by any principle or law of nature or their gods, results in any good. The whole proceedure is arbitrary, from the beginning to the end; and the only reason that can be given for the performance of these acts, is, that some God, in a freak of fancy, has offered an extra reward to those who would submit to these pains and privations, and it is therefore expedient to endure them. On this basis, and no other, all their precepts for the performance of duty rest.

But how widely different the teachings of Christianity! Its author gives us few rules for the outward conduct, and those are not arbitrary, but founded on principle. If at any time he says, do this, or do that, the thing required to be done is such that the good result flows out from the operation of a settled law, that never changes or fails; so that the man who does no more than give a cup of water, confers a blessing upon him that gives, and upon him that takes. He prescribes no forms or ceremonies, no sacrifices or oblations, no sufferings or privations, nor even a ritual of temple worship; no expedients whatever to procure a good arbitrarily offered, or avert an evil arbitrarily threatened. But the sum and substance of the matter is presented in saying, The eternal law of God is, that if we would be happy, we must be good; and, to be good, we must love one another, and be kind. And here is the principle upon which we are to act. When the lowly crave a blessing, and the poor spread out their empty hands and cry for bread, when the stranger pleads for aid, and the naked shiver in the winter's wind, and human want and human woe are around us, when enemies assail, and the stormy passions of men beat upon us, when persecution frowns, and we are called to pass through the hottest furnace of human wrath-then