deliverance of man and his reconciliation with God; but it was the love and not the anger of God that deemed it necessary: it was a deliverance from our spiritual enemies, the power of darkness, and the great obstacle that stood in the way of perfect forgiveness was the stubbornness of man.
God never needed the offering of any sacrifice of innocent blood to induce Him to forgive. He ever said, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he should turn from his ways and live." Justice could not be satisfied; it would be further outraged by the punishment of the innocent instead of the guilty; but the just may voluntarily suffer for the unjust, not in their stead, but for their sakes.
He came to help us—to give us comforting and cheering words, a bright and peerless example, a new and mightier power, from whence we might receive new courage and emulation and strength to resist and subdue our internal foes. With this view of the Atonement before us, we may contemplate God with feelings of greater veneration and respect. We no longer behold Him as angry and refusing to forgive unless a price is paid (in which case He does not forgive at all)—we no longer behold a terrible God that the child-like mind cannot love—we no longer behold a divided Deity, one part demanding a sacrifice of suffering, another part consenting to suffer, and an other part apparently quite unconcerned in the matter. The world (of Christianity) has long felt a difficulty
