“The Handwriting.
“When Adam sinned, there was issued against him the writ of death, written by the finger of God in the book of the moral law. Adam had heard it read before his fall, but in seeking to become a god, by eating of the fruit of the tree, had forgotten it. Now God read it in his conscience, and he was overwhelmed with fear. But the promise of a Redeemer having been given, Mercy arranged that sacrifices should be offered as a typical payment of the debt. When God appeared on Sinai, to enter into covenant with His people, He brought this writ in His hand, and the whole camp understood, from the requirements of the law, that they must perish; their lives had been forfeited. Mercy devised that a bullock’s blood should be shed, instead of the blood of man. The worshippers in the temple were bound to offer living sacrifices to God, that they might die in their stead, and be consumed. Manoah feared the flames of the sacrifice that was offered upon the rock; but his wife understood that, since the angel had ascended in the flame, in their stead, it was a favourable omen. Every worshipper, by offering other lives instead of their own on the altars of God, acknowledged that the ‘handwriting’ was in force against them, and their high priest had minutely to confess all their sins ‘over’ the victim. Yet, by all the blood that ever crimsoned Levi’s robe, and the altars of God, no real atonement was made for sin, nor forgiveness procured for the smallest crime. All the sacrifices made a remembrance of sin, but were no means of pardon. More than two thousand years the question had been entertained, how to reconcile man with God. The ‘handwriting’ was real on Mount Ebal every year; meanwhile the debt was fast accumulating, and new bills were being constantly filed. The books were opened from time to time; but to meet the claims there was nothing brought to the altar but the blood of sacrifices, as a sort of draft in the name of Christ upon the Bank of Gold. When Heaven, and earth had grown weary of this fictitious or seeming, pardon of sin, I hear a voice exclaim: ‘Away with sacrifices, and burnt-offerings: Heaven has no pleasure in them; a body has been prepared for me. Lo, I come to reconcile man with God by one sacrifice.’ He came, ‘leaping upon the mountains, and skipping upon the hills.’ Calling at the office where the ‘handwriting’ lay, when only eight days old, He signed with His own blood an acknowledgment of the debt, saying: ‘This is an earnest, and a pledge that my heart’s blood shall be freely given.’ The three-and-thirty years have expired; I see Him in Gethsemane, with the priceless purse of gold which He had borne with Him through the courts of Caiaphas and Pilate; but to them the image, and the superscription on the coin was a mystery. The Father, however, recognised them in the court of Sinai, where the ‘handwriting’ was that demanded the life of the whole world. The day following, ‘the Virgin’s Son’ presented Himself to pay the debt in liquid gold; and the treasure which He bore would have set free a myriad worlds. He passes along the streets of Jerusalem towards Sinai’s office; the mercy-seat is removed to ‘the place of skulls;’ as He proceeds, He exclaims: ‘I am come not to destroy, but to fulfil the law.’ Send in, before the hour of three, each curse, and threat ever pronounced against my people. Bring in the first old bill against Adam as their head. I will redeem a countless host of infants to-day; their names shall be taken out of old Eden’s accounts. Bring in the many transgressions which have been filed through the ages, from Adam until now; include Peter’s denial of me last night; but as to Judas, he is a son of perdition, he has no part in me, having sold me for thirty pieces of silver. We have here an exhaustless crimson treasure,—enough to meet the demand; enough to fill every promise, and every prophecy with mercy; enough to make my beloved, and myself happy, and blest for ever! By three in the afternoon of that day, there was not a bill in all Eden, or Sinai, that had not been brought to the cross. And when all was settled, Christ bowed down His head, but cried with a loud voice: ‘It is finished!’ The gates of death, and hell trembled, and shook. ‘The posts of the doors moved at the voice.’ The great gulf between God, and His people was closed up. Sinai appeared with the offering, and grew still; the lightnings no longer flashed, and the thunder ceased to roar.”