in vain, in reference to them that are lost: and besides, the "Judge of all the earth" would be chargeable with exercising distributive injustice, in exacting double payment, first from the Surety, and then from the sinner! "That be far from God." "He is just and having salvation,"--"a just God and a Saviour." (Zech. ix. 9; Isa. xlv. 21.) As there can be no liberty without law, so there can be no mercy without justice, though there may be "justice without mercy." (James i. 25; ii. 13.) This worshipping company, the representatives of the universal church, ascribe their redemption to the blood of Christ. It is their declared faith that pardon is grounded on atonement, that "without shedding of blood is no remission." (Heb. ix. 22; Lev. xvii. 11; ch. i. 5.) They believe, moreover, that as the obedience of Christ unto death, his doing and dying, is an adequate satisfaction to law and justice; so by compact between the Father and the Son, his penal sufferings avail the believing sinner for pardon. Thus it is, that "if we confess our sins, he (God the Father,) is faithful and _just_ to forgive us our sins." (1 John i. 9.) This doctrine the apostle, as the mouth of the whole church, had already avowed: (ch. i. 5, 6;) and now again we have it repeated and incorporated in the song of praise. Thus, while "Christ crucified is to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness;" to them who are saved this humbling doctrine is "the power of God and the wisdom of God." (1 Cor. i. 24, 25.) God's glory and the saints' honor and felicity equally spring from the slaying of the Lamb. These good things the blood of Abel's sacrifice spake in type soon after the fall: and here we have the same things proclaimed as the faith of all believers. (Heb. xi. 1.)