Let those who believe the doctrine think what they please respecting them, and I would earnestly ask them to consider two questions. (1) Did the Apostles give the same proportionate place to the doctrine of the real presence that they are doing? Did it occupy the same place in St. Paul’s teaching as in theirs? (2) Is the authority for the doctrine at all in proportion to the overwhelming weight of its interest and importance? Test the matter by the law of proportion, and I have no doubt as to the issue. But now turn to the other side,—the direct and personal reinstatement of the sinner before God: and here I am as much at a loss as I was before; but not as before to find a text, but because the whole Book of God is full of the subject. It fills the Scriptures as the air fills the room. It is not here or there, but everywhere. In the Old Testament it is predicted, in the New Testament fully manifested. In the teaching of our Lord, in the sermons of His missionaries, in the letters of His Apostles, in all alike you find it. Present and complete forgiveness, complete justification, finished atonement through the perfect sacrifice once for all, and the ever living, never changing advocacy of our blessed Redeemer now at the right hand of the throne of God,—these are subjects not dependent on forced interpretations of minute texts, but which form the substance of the whole teaching of God. They meet you everywhere and you cannot avoid them. I do not quote them, for there would be no end of it. If I wanted, _e.g._, to quote on the doctrine of justification by faith, I must begin by quoting the two Epistles to the Romans and Galatians; or if on the finished sacrifice and present Priesthood of our Lord and Redeemer, I must begin with the whole Epistle to the Hebrews. We do not rely on words only but on chapters, and not on chapters only, but on whole books,—books inspired for this very purpose; and not on separate books only, but on the whole united testimony of the whole collection of books which God has interwoven together as an abiding witness to the faith once delivered to the saints. We trust to the whole great, grand, aggregate of the Gospel, and from the whole we learn that there is nothing intermediate between us and our God, but that the atonement being complete, the veil of the temple has been rent from the top to the bottom, and that now there is nothing left but the deadness of our own hearts to prevent our passing in at once, alone, and just as we are, to cast ourselves, in the full assurance of complete reconciliation, for all we need, before the mercy-seat of God. * * * * * * * * * * London: William Hunt and Company, 23, Holles Street, Cavendish Square; and Aldine Chambers, Paternoster Row. * * * * * Advertisement. {2} _Arrangements for the following Serial Papers_