There, and there only, in the hearts of its subjects could Christ affect law and government by his blood. And there he did reach them, through the efforts wrought in the nature where they had been desecrated, and against which they set their penalties. For, by his sacrifice, he reinstates the law in the soul with an authority more venerable and awful than all penalties could give; and does this in the very fact or grant of forgiveness. His sufferings add somewhat to the law, which joining with it, re-establish and re-consecrate its violated majesty, so that in fact he has reached the law as well as the souls where it had suffered violence, and where it was reacting with equal violence to break the sinner's peace, and cut off every hope that went forth towards a world to come. And thus the sinner is absolved, and yet God's moral rule secured, and rescued from all the peril to its authority which such absolution might otherwise induce. Remission of sin does not come as license; rather coming through his precious, unspeakable sacrifice in grim Golgotha of the Anointed. Immanuel, it reconsecrates the law and protects it with all the sanctity of that divine life which went out in blood "that God might be just, and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus." We see Jesus coming out of the bosom of the Father, into the world of sense and history, coming under its burdens, opposi tions, malignities, that through that he might enter the world of souls, the inmost life and heart of man, to create there a

ology of the Fathers of the first two centuries-of the Schoolmen-of the Reformers and of Rome. It is the theology of the Scriptures; and has been the cherished belief of God's people in all ages. Atonement by sacrifice; the sacrifice of Christ, an offering to offended justice is the creed of all evangelical churches. And this has been the support and ground of hope to the burdened sinner as he has gauged the justice and the law of God and read the promise made to Faith. The design of the atonement is not governmental merely; nor does it find its purpose in the production simply of a subjective change in man. The action of the atonement was GODWARD first, MANWARD next, and GODWARD afterwards again. Like all grace beginning in heaven and then after its work on earth returning again to heaven."-EDS.

The work of Christ and the work of the Spirit must not be confounded. Christ has satisfied the justice of God and made honorable the law. But no effect would be wrought in the hardened heart of man were it not for the presence and influence of that blessed and ineffable agent, the third person of the Trinity. He regenerates and sanctifies souls. He writes anew the law upon the fleshly tablet of the heart." It is the error of the Romanist to confuse justification and sanctification. They are distinct. Justification comes first, by faith in Christ's merits, and is instantaneous and complete. Sanctification follows necessarily and inevitably a progressive work begun and continued by the Holy Ghost.-EDs.

feeling and a faith which shall see the law supplemented in his sacrifice, his blood healing its wounded honor.

So much at least we find of truth in this theory,* and more we might bring out; all of which, as far as we can see, our author has left out of his doctrine of Redemption-and, it seems to us, a vital loss. Law, government, justice-these must be reclaimed to have their power over our alienated wills, to go with the society and love, which, without the dread testimony of Christ's blood, would soften and quite melt away their authority over the soul too averse to God, too thirsty for wrong. If any one ask us to go with this scheme of a governmental atonement out beyond the stars, to see Christ through his cross reaching the angels to reassure them lest they should begin to find encouragement to sin by seeing it too readily forgiven; we can only let him go. But that to us does not seem to be the main purpose of the atonement. We believe that in it God was seeking to bring back an alienated and self seeking race to himself; that he saw that in this way, through his son and by his sacrifice, he could win to Himself by forgiveness what he could not hold by law; that so long as his love went forth into the human heart through such a vent of suffering in such a person as his Son, all that his just laws and established moral order suffered in the eyes of sinners would be more than made up in the reverence and obedient love which would come back to them, and to Him by means of the cross: that, therefore, and for reasons inscrutable to us, though never for absurd or contradictory ones, "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

We must leave Dr. Sheldon's doctrine and his book at many points untouched; points where perhaps some will grieve as at a grave, and some will find a speculative quarrel; interpre tations of Scripture and questions of Philosophy, and statements of doctrine.

We leave them, feeling that there is something which is not here; such as souls weary and sore and broken under sin

want.

The Governmental, not Dr. Sheldon's.

[It is with feelings of regret that we have felt obliged to introduce in our pages, an article uttering its loud and solemn and earnest protest against errors and such errors and at such a source. On the points of deepest interest to man, Dr. Sheldon is found to hold views radically unsound and unsafe. He denies original sin and imputed righteousness, and holds views to which all evangelical churches are opposed. His theology is far from being that of inspired men. “He has not retained in his doctrine of Redemption much which is expressed in the manifold symbols of the Scriptures, and which gives the Gospel its comforting and yet sanctifying power." The experience and belief of the people of God of all ages are virtually denied: and, in their stead, we have given us a rationalistic theory not new but an old one revived, which has been again and again met and exploded. His doctrine cannot satisfy the weary, heavy-laden sinner. "Professing to pare off the bark of human theory he has girdled the tree of the Lord's planting; and left-far as man's theory could kill it—the tree of Redeeming life blasted." Such doctrine cannot long find a response in human souls. It belies experience, is inadequate to our wants, and cannot stand the test of Scripture.

Since Dr. Sheldon holds such views, we are not sorry he has published them to the world. It will awaken thoughtlead us to flee to and prize the truth of God more highly, and by provoking replies be a means perhaps of arresting a tide of error. The day of such opinions cannot but be short. The old theology has been too long intrenched in human thought, too sacredly enshrined in Christian hearts, and too powerfully illustrated by shining lights of many ages, to be easily moved.-Eds.]

THE HISTORY AND DESTINY OF COAL.

Mineral coal is now rapidly finding its way into every part of our own country and of the world. Its importance as an agent of human progress is daily becoming more apparent. We deem it fitting therefore to draw attention to the past. history and the present influence of this fuel, and to the glimpses which the subject gives us of the future of our own country and of the world; of the future of our country in its connection with the future of the world.

At the present day it is impossible to determine the persons that first used mineral coal for fuel, or the age in which they lived. It is said, indeed, that the early Britons were accustomed to use it, probably long before the Roman conquest. In proof of this, reference is made to certain stone hammers and hatchets, found in some mines in Yorkshire. The proof, however, is by no means conclusive. It is probable that it was not used until nearly the commencement of the Christian era. Mr. Bruce, a clergyman of Newcastle upon Tyne, has traced the famous wall of Hadrian through its whole extent and thinks that he has discovered conclusive evidence of the use of coal by the Romans, possibly in the early part of the second century. We give his statement:

In nearly all of the stations of the line, the ashes of mineral coal have been found; and in some a store of unconsumed coal has been met with, which, though intended to give warmth to the primeval occupants of the isthmus, has been burnt in the grates of the modern English. In several places the sources of the coal can be pointed out; but the most extensive workings that I have heard of, are in the neighborhood of Grindon Lough, near Sewisigshields. Not long ago a shaft was sunk with the view of procuring the coal which was supposed to be beneath the surface. The projector soon found, that, though coal had been there, it was all removed. The ancient working stretched beneath the bed of the lake.

But the amount of coal consumed at that early day was probably not very large. And possibly the consumption ceased almost entirely when the Romans finally left the island, A. D. 411. Even as late as the thirteenth and four. teenth centuries we find indications that it had not yet come

to be generally considered as one of the necessaries of life. Newcastle-upon-Tyne at the close of the thirteenth century, was accustomed to use coal and to furnish it in small quanti ties to its immediate neighbors. About the year 1350, it was first introduced into London. It was mainly employed by manufacturers who were not at that time very numerous, nor possessed of great influence. The people of London, in general were sorely displeased with the fuel, and earnestly besought King Edward to banish it. The smoke was supposed to be prejudicial to health and was known to be by no means conducive to cleanliness. The King was fain to listen to their prayer, and the fuel was proscribed. Yet what could such proscriptions avail! The era of coal had begun and the opposition of kings and subjects could do no more than to stay for a brief season the day of its power. Notwithstanding the opposition, which from time to time arose, before the time of Charles I., (1625), the use of coal for fuel had become a necessity, and the worthy people of London were compelled to submit to all its accompanying smoke.

The cause of this necessity will be found in the growing manufactures of England; especially in the increasing manufacture of iron. Iron had been made in Britain for some centuries before the Christian era; some say for five or six hundred years previous. The manufacture was increased after the Roman conquest and continued until the departure of the conquerors, A.D. 411. From this time until the Norman conquest, A. D. 1066, it seems to have received very little attention; though some of the vast beds of cinder found in the forest of Dean, in Monmouthshire, are called Danes' Cinders, from the idea that they were made by the Danes during their residence on the island. But from the time of the Norman conquest, the production gradually increased. The increase, however, was very slow, for at the time when Edward III., at the request of the people of London, banished coal from the city, he also enacted a law forbidding the export of iron. The production at that date (1358), was not equal to the demand. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, large importations of implements of iron and steel, were made from Germany, Prussia and Spain. And it is a