The doctrine of the Atonement is evidently the central and principal element of the doctrine of Justification, which Luther truly affirmed to be the article of a standing or a falling Church. The truth of this aphorism is obvious, both because this truth concerns the foundation upon which our relations to God as our heavenly Father, and consequently all our present life and our future hopes, depend, and also because our conception of this central principle necessarily determines our conception of all the other elements of the entire system of revealed truth; such as the moral attributes of God, the nature of his Moral Government, of Law, Sin and Penalty, the Person of the God-man, the Person and Office of the Holy Spirit, the Office of Faith, and hence the entire character of our religious experience.

”