The original word, advocate, is applied also to God's holy spirit, though it is then rendered by our translators comforter; and in the technical language of theologists, Advocate and Comforter are said to represent separate offices in two distinct persons of the Godhead; yet it is one and the same word. So the Spirit, or rather the operation of the spirit on our minds, is described as interceding for us; though Christ, in the received theology, is styled our intercessor: Rom. viii. 26, "The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."

GOD, in fact, is HIMSELF our intercessor and comforter, our pleader and advocate. Lamentations iii. 58, "O LORD, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul, thou hast redeemed my life." God redeems us through the anointed redeemer; intercedes for us through his intercessor; pleads for us in his advocate; takes up our causes with himself; "pleads the causes of our souls.”

GALAT. iii. 13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law.

Acts

Redeem, ransom, purchase, are, in Scripturephraseology, synonymous with rescue or deliver. Exod. vi. 6, "Say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will REDEEM you with an outstretched arm." vii. 35, "This Moses whom they refused, the same did GOD send to be a ruler and deliverer [Aurpwrny, redeemer] by the hand of the Angel which appeared to him in the bush." Hosea xiii. 14, "I will RANSOM them from the power of the grave: I will REDEEM them from death." Exod. xv. 16, "Fear and dread shall fall upon them, till thy people pass over, O LORD, till thy people pass over whom THOU hast PURCHASED." Deut. xxxii.. 6, "Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish

people and unwise? is he not thy FATHER who hath BOUGHT thee?"

Redeemer is a title of the most high God; and though we are said to be "redeemed from our vain conversation, not with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ," the epithet redeemer is no where in Scripture given to Christ, though it is commonly appropriated to him in theological usage.

1 Cor. vi. 19, 20. Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify GoD in your body, and in your spirit, which are GoD's.

There cannot be any reason for supposing that the Apostles used this expression differently from the use of it in the Old Testament. It is not said, glorify Christ in your body," as if Christ were the purchaser, but "glorify GoD;" and, in fact, God is represented in the New Testament, no less than in the Old, as the redeemer, ransomer, or purchaser of men from the slavery of death and sin.

The blood of Christ is, indeed, figuratively described as the price of our ransom, and Christ is said to pay down this price: Rev. v. 9, "Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed [purchased] us To GOD by thy blood." But it appears evidently that the price was not paid to God, but that we were purchased To God FROM the power of sin; and, after all, God himself is the originator of this ransom or means of deliverance.

1 Cor. i. 30, "Christ Jesus, who oF GOD is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and REDEMPTION." Romans iii. 23, "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified FREELY by HIS grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus."

GOD is also expressly said to have bought us, in a passage where he is ignorantly confounded with CHRIST, whom he made our ransom. 2 Pet. ii. 1.

"There shall be false teachers, denying THE LORD that bought them:" deσTory, the "only Potentate,' or SOVEREIGN LORD GOD; a title NEVER applied to CHRIST, who is styled only xupios.

That the title is appropriate to GoD only, is proved, beyond cavil, from Acts iv. 24, 27, "And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to GOD with one accord, and said, LORD! [SECTOTA] THOU art GOD, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea. Against thy holy child JESUS, both Herod and the Gentiles were gathered together."

They who contend, from the Old and New Testament, for the rich unpurchased mercy of GOD, and receive the Scripture reconciliation which God himself wrought in Christ, as the true and only atonement, are accused by the Satisfactionists, on this very text, of " denying the Lord that bought them." But as the Lord, in this passage, is the Sovereign LORD GOD, the blessed and only POTENTATE, the Satisfactionists themselves, who deny that God is their redeemer, may be said to be those who "deny THE LORD that bought them." The original allusion is probably to those Gnostics, who denied that THE FATHER of Jesus Christ was either the maker of the world, or the author of the Jewish dispensation.

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Sometimes the figure of buying without price, and redeeming without ransom, is used to express deliverance or salvation. Isaiah lv. 1, Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price." This is emblematical of the FREE UNPURCHASED MERCY of God; and it is equally free and unpurchased in his Gospel-dispensation for HE HIMSELF sends the ransomer, and redeems us, "with the precious blood of Christ," from death and sin, "that our FAITH and HOPE might be IN GOD:" i Pet. i. 21.

As the deliverance of a people is expressed by purchasing them, the forsaking of a people is described by the figure of selling them. Deut. xxxii. 30, "How should one chase a thousand, except their Rock had SOLD them?" It will hence appear how little stress can be laid on these Scripture metaphors, as proving that a price or ransom was paid by Christ to God, in order to satisfy his justice and deliver us from his wrath.

God is spoken of throughout the Scriptures as the original Redeemer and Saviour, Isaiah xliii. 14, "Thus saith THE LORD, your REDEEMER, the Holy One of Israel." xliii. 3, "I am the LORD thy GoD, the Holy One of Israel, thy SAVIOUR: I gave Egypt for thy ransom." 11, " I, even I, am the LORD, and beside ME THERE IS NO SAVIOUR." 1 Tim. ii. 3, "This is good and acceptable in the sight of GoD our SAVIOUR, who will have all men to be saved." 1 Tim. iv. 10, "We trust in THE LIVING GOD, who is the SAVIOUR Of all men." Col. i. 12-14, "Giving thanks UNTO THE FATHER, who HATH DELIVERED us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son; IN whom we have redemption, through his blood [the means of the resurrection], even the forgiveness of sins," THE FATHER is here spoken of as the deliverer; his Son, the agent. Tit. iii. 4-6, "But after that the kindness and love of GOD OUR SAVIOUR toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to HIS mercy HE SAVED us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the holy Ghost; which HE shed on us abundantly through JESUS CHRIST our Saviour." 2 Cor. v. "All things are of GOD, who hath RECONCILED US TO HIMSELF by JESUS CHRIST, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. GOD was, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself."

The Atonement was, then, effected by GoD in and

by Christ Jesus. 1 John iv. 9, "In this was manifested THE LOVE of GOD toward us, because that GOD SENT his only begotten [beloved] Son into the world, that we might LIVE through him." What is there here of satisfied justice, or of intercession, or mediation, in the vulgar sense?

ACTS iv. 12. There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

This is quoted against those who deny that salvation is obtained by Christ, in the sense of procured for us through his interposition with God, and through a satisfaction offered to his justice. But they who consider the mediation or intercession of Christ in the light of intermediate agency alone, must equally believe, if they believe Christ to be the anointed messenger of God, that there is "salvation in no other name than that of Christ;" but this proves nothing as to salvation being the original work of Christ, or Christ the procuring cause. The words are used by Peter in reference to the Jewish Sanhedrim, who questioned him and John as to the impotent man whom they had miraculously restored. Peter declares that the miracle had been wrought by the name of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had crucified; but in whose name, and not in that of Abraham, or of Moses, or of a future Messiah, to whom they trusted, was salvation.

HEB. ix. 15. He is the Mediator of the new testament, that · by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

This is an allusion to the victim by whose blood covenants were ratified. They who interpret these allusions, which chiefly occur in the Epistle to the Hebrews, literally, lose sight of the drift and context of the Apostle's argument; which is directed to persuade the Jews, by ritual images familiar to their mental habits, of the necessity of the Messiah