And what we should thus expect theoretically has been amply confirmed by experience. No one will deny that Christians in all ages have been devotedly attached to the doctrine of the Atonement. They have asserted that it is the cause of all their joy in this world, and all their hope for the next. Yet, so far from having had a bad influence, it has led them to the most noble and self-sacrificing lives. It has saved them from _sin_, and not only the penalties of sin, and this is exactly what was required. The greatness of man's sin, and the misery it causes in the world, are but too evident, apart from Christianity. Man is indeed both the glory and the scandal of the universe--the _glory_ in what he was evidently intended to be, and the _scandal_ in what, through sin, he actually became. And the Atonement was a 'vast remedy for this vast evil.' And if we admit the _end_, that man had to be redeemed from sin, impressed with the guilt of sin, and helped to resist sin; we cannot deny the appropriateness of the _means_, which, as a matter of fact, has so often brought it about. This completes a brief examination of the moral difficulties connected with the Atonement; and it is clear that the _willingness_ of the Victim makes the whole difference, whether we regard them as referring to the Victim himself, the Judge, or the sinner. (_D._) THE RESURRECTION. The last great Christian doctrine is that of the Resurrection. According to Christianity, all men are to rise again, with their bodies partly changed and rendered incorruptible; and the Resurrection of Christ's Body was both a pledge of this, and also to some extent an example of what a risen body would be like. He was thus, as the Bible says, the _firstborn_ from the dead.[179] Now this word _firstborn_ implies, to begin with, that none had been so born before, the cases of Lazarus, etc., being those of _resuscitation_ and not _resurrection_; they lived again to die again, and their bodies were unchanged. And it implies, secondly, that others would be so born afterwards, so that our risen bodies will resemble His. The Resurrection of Christ is thus represented not as something altogether exceptional and unique, but rather as the first instance of what will one day be the universal rule. It shows us the last stage in man's long development, what he is intended to become when he is at length perfected. We will therefore consider first Christ's Resurrection, and then man's resurrection. [Footnote 179: Col. 1. 18; Rev. 1. 5; 1 Cor. 15. 20; Acts. 26. 23.] (1.) _Christ's Resurrection._