Amen.'
Now these collects give us the keynote of Good Friday; they tell us
what the Church wishes us to think of on Good Friday.
We are to think of Christ's death and passion. Of that there is no
doubt.
But we need not on Good Friday, or perhaps at any other time, trouble
our minds with the unfathomable questions, How did Christ's sacrifice
take away our sins? How does Christ's blood purge our conscience?
Mere 'theories of the Atonement,' as they are called, have very
little teaching in them, and still less comfort. Wise and good men
have tried their minds upon them in all ages; they have done their
best to explain Christ's sacrifice, and the atonement which he worked
out on the cross on Good Friday: but it does not seem to me that
they have succeeded. I never read yet any explanation which I could
fully understand; which fully satisfied my conscience, or my reason
either; or which seemed to me fully to agree with and explain all the
texts of Scripture bearing on this great subject.
But is it possible to explain the matter? Is it not too deep for
mortal man? Is it not one of the deep things of God, and of God
alone, before which we must worship and believe? As for explaining
or understanding it, must not that be impossible, from its very
nature?
For, consider the first root and beginning of the whole question.
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