But a more distinct and well-grounded reason for distrust and fear in reference to the Deity arises from the consciousness of guilt. In spite of ourselves, in spite of our false theology, we feel that God has a right to be offended with us, that he is offended with us, and not only so, but that we deserve his displeasure. This he shows is counteracted by the doctrine of the atonement: "Herein is love, not that we loved him, but that he loved us, and sent his Son into the world to be a propitiation for our sins." By the fact of the incarnation, a conquest is gained over the imagination haunted with the idea of an unknown God; so also by that of the atonement, a conquest is gained over the solid and well-grounded fear of guilt. This idea the Doctor illustrates with equal force and beauty, showing that by means of the Sacrifice of the Cross, justice and mercy are brought into harmony, in the full and free pardon of the believing penitent. By this means the great hindrance to free communion with God is taken away. Guilt is cancelled, for the sake of Him who died, and the poor trembling sinner is taken to the bosom of Infinite Love. "In the glorious spectacle of the Cross, we see the mystery revealed, and the compassion of the parent meeting in fullest harmony with the now asserted and now vindicated prerogative of the Lawgiver. The Gospel is a halo of all the attributes of God, and yet the pre-eminent manifestation there is of God as love, which will shed its lustre amid all the perfections of the Divine nature. And here it should be specially remarked, that the atonement was made for the sins of the whole world; God's direct and primary object being to vindicate the truth and justice of the Godhead. Instead of taking from his love, it only gave it more emphatic demonstration; for, instead of love, simple and bending itself without difficulty to the happiness of its objects, it was a love which, ere it could reach the guilty being it groaned after, had to force the barriers of a necessity which, to all human appearance, was insuperable." With this fine idea the Doctor concludes his discourse, presenting it with a mingled tenderness and vehemence of style and tone perfectly irresistible. "The love of God," he exclaims, "with such an obstacle and trying to get over it, is a higher exhibition than all the love which radiates from his throne on all the sinless angels. The affirmation that God is love, is strengthened by that other, to him who owns the authority of Scripture, that God _so_ loved the world--I call on you to mark the emphatic _so_--as to give his only-begotten Son. 'He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all;' or that expression, 'herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' There is a moral, a depth, an intensity of meaning, a richness of sentiment that Paul calls unsearchable, in the Cross of Christ, that