one of his subjects, will be reckoned by all a more meritorious piece of conduct than if such had been submitted to by one who held the place merely of a fellow subject. Yet here it might be said, it is humanity and not royalty which suffers, and why attach to it a value arising from the latter, rather than confine it to that which springs from the former circumstance? The case is parallel to that of which we are now speaking. The humanity of Christ alone could either suffer or die, but that humanity belonged to a person who is divine, and this gave to his sufferings and death the value of divinity.*

How it comes to pass, that the personal dignity of the sufferer conveys to the sufferings of his humanity a worth proportioned to him who suffers rather than to that which suffers, we pretend not fully to explain. The above observations, however, serve to show that the principle on which this is affirmed, is one on which we are not alto. gether unaccustomed to reason. It is not meant to be inferred that any analogies, such as that resorted to above, can give us a complete idea of the nature of a case which is transcendently and awfully peculiar. It is enough if they serve to neutralize the objections of such as are disposed to cavil at the truth. On a subject of this nature, it ill

'To suppose, because humanity only is capable of suffering, that therefore humanity only is necessary to atonement, is to render dignity of character of no account. When Zaleucus, one of the Grecian kings, had made a law against adultery, that whosoever was guilty of this crime should lose both his eyes, his own son is said to have been the first transgressor. To preserve the honour of the law, and at the same time to save his own son from total blindness, the father had recourse to an expedient of losing one of his own eyes, and his son one of his. This expedient, though it did not conform to the letter of the law, yet was well adapted to preserve the spirit of it, as it served to evince to the nation the determination of the king to punish adultery, as much, perhaps more than if the sentence had been put into execution against the offender. But if instead of this he had appointed that one eye of an animal should be put out in order to save that of his son, or if a common subject had offered to lose an eye, would either have answered the purpose? The animal, and the subject, were each possessed of an eye, as well as the sovereign. It might be added, too, that it was mere bodily pain; and seeing it was in the body only that this penalty could be endured, any being that possessed a body was equally capable of enduring it. True, they might endure it, but would their suffering have answered the same end? Would it have satisfied justice? Would it have had the same effect upon the nation, or tended equally to restore the tone of injured authority?'Works of And. Fuller, v. V. p. 565.

becomes us to speak either with carelessness or precipitation. It is to be approached only with cautious reverence. Here, if anywhere, we should be careful to be lowly wise.' Yet we may be permitted to show the reasonableness of a doctrine, and to expose the temerity and presumption of its adversaries, without laying ourselves open to the charge of being wise above what is written. The following state. ment may not altogether be without its use, in shedding a ray of light on this acknowledgedly great and profound mystery-A person only can perform moral acts: The human nature of Christ possessed no personal subsistence : Of course, although the human nature of Christ alone could either suffer or obey, the obedience and sufferings of his humanity, viewed in themselves could have no moral character: To give them a moral character they must be viewed in connexion with his person: Whence it follows that, the obedience and sufferings of Christ, physically considered, possessed only the worth of humanity, but morally considered possessed a worth proportioned to the dignity of his divine person. Now, the sufferings and death of Christ for the sins of his people were of a moral character, being endured with a view to meet the claims of the divine moral government, to satisfy the law and justice of God. It follows that there attached to them all the value which divine dignity could impart.*

* On this delicate point, I beg to confirm the view I have given, by referring the reader to the following paragraphs by Dr. Pye Smith.

'I. The assumption of human nature by the eternal word, who is God, was the act of an infinite mind, knowing, intending, and contemplating all the results of that act of assumption, through the period of the designed humiliation and for ever. To the divine mind, nearness and remoteness of time or space are equal. Consequently, as the actual assumption of human nature was the first result of the omnipotent will, so the same act, or volition, must equally have carried forwards and communicated its original divine value to all the subsequent moral and mediatorial acts of the incarnate Saviour.

'II. The union of the divine and human natures, in his person, was constant and invariable. The scriptures afford us no reason to think that the Messiah's human nature, though retaining always its essential properties, had ever a separate subsistence. To the mother of Jesus it was announced, 'The holy Being which is born of thee, shall be called the Son of God:' and according to the prophetic decla ration, as soon as men could say, 'Unto us a child is born,' so soon was it the fact that his name was called 'The wonderful, the counsellor, the mighty God.' It was the Mediator, in his whole person, that

The

But we are more concerned with the evidence of the fact, than with the explanation of the mode, of this great and important truth. Those who hold the doctrine of Christ's divinity, can never hesitate to admit that the sufficiency or efficacy of his atonement springs from the supreme dignity of his person as the Son of God. The vali. dity of his sacrifice takes its rise from his true and essential divinity. To this the testimony of scripture is distinctly borne. The epistle to the Hebrews, which treats profess. edly of the insufficiency of the legal sacrifices, and the intrinsic validity of that of Christ, commences with an elaborate demonstration of Christ's divinity, as the basis on which the subsequent reasoning is made to rest. High Priest of the Christian profession is explicitly shown to be the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person; to be much better than the angels ; to be God whose throne is for ever and ever; to be Jehovah who laid the foundations of the earth, who shall remain when all else has perished, who is the same and his years shall not fail. While, in another part of the book, the blood of Christ is represented as deriving its superiority over the ceremonial sacrifices, from its being offered THROUGH THE ETERNAL SPIRIT-a phrase understood by some of our most eminent critics and divines to refer to the divine dignity of his person. 'How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot of God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.** It is because Jesus

acted for the salvation of man; though it was impossible that the divine nature could be subject to suffering.

'From these two positions I infer a third, which I venture to propose, as an unexceptionable mode of stating this important, though profound and difficult subject:

'III. All the acts of our Lord Jesus Christ that were physical, or merely intellectual, were acts of his human nature alone, being necessary to the subsistence of a human nature: but all his moral acts, and all the moral qualities of his complex acts; or, in other terms, all that he did in and for the execution of his mediatorial office and work ;were impressed with the essential dignity and moral value of his divine perfection.

'These reasons appear to me sufficient to authorize our attributing to this holy sacrifice, a value properly INFINITE, on account of the divine nature of him who offered it. A most important, conclusion ! Rich in blessing to the contrite sinner: full of joy to the obedient believer.'-Disc. on Sac. pp. 69-71.

Heb. ix. 14.

Christ is God's Son that his blood possesses intrinsic vali. dity to cleanse from all sin. The value of the gift and the sufficiency of the propitiatory sacrifice arise from the same circumstance. God sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.'*

II. But this is not all. Relationship of nature to those for whom the atonement was made, is an essential element in its validity.

Christ required to be real and proper man, as much as the true God. To qualify him for making atonement he must possess opposite attributes, a frail and mortal nature combined with ineffable dignity of person. We allude not now to the necessity of the incarnation to fit the Messiah for suffering, to render him susceptible of pain and death, to make the offering of himself as a sacrifice a thing possi ble. We refer rather to the possession of human nature as imparting a character of worth or validity to what he did. This was requisite, not more to enable him to suffer, than to impart to his sufferings an essential value in the estima. tion of the divine law. Had the work of our redemption been a mere mercantile transaction, it mattered not by whom the price might have been paid. But being a moral satisfaction to the law of God for the sins of men, there existed a moral fitness or necessity that the satisfaction should be made by one in the nature of those who had sinned and were to be redeemed. The Redeemer behoved, as of old, to be a kinsman, a brother. Without this, neither could the moral government of God be vindicated, nor the glory of the divine Lawgiver maintained, nor the principles of the law upheld. The law in its precept was suited to man, and in its curse it had a claim upon man. Its requirements were such as man only could fulfil; its penalty such as one possessing the nature of man only could bear. The penalty was suffering even unto death; and no angel, no one who had not a body as well as a soul, could die. The death only of a man could possess a moral and legal congruity to the curse of a law given to man and broken by man. It was not, then, merely to qualify him for suffering that the Messiah took upon him the nature of man, but to qualify him for such suffering as should possess validity in the eye of the divine law. But he that sanctifieth

* 1 John iv. 10.

*

and they who are sanctified must be all of ONE. Therefore in all things it behoved him to be made LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN, that he might make reconciliation for the sins of the people. Since by MAN came death, by MAN came also the resurrection of the dead. The serpent's head could be bruised, only by the SEED OF THE WOMAN.

III. Freedom himself from all personal obligation to suffer, is another essential ingredient in the value of Christ's atonement.

He who makes atonement for others must himself be entirely free from that which renders the atonement necessa. ry. What renders atonement necessary is sin. But Jesus was altogether holy. It would seem to be a dictate of reason and common sense, that vicarious punishment cannot be borne by one who is himself a sharer in the guilt which calls for it. The law, in this case, has a previous claim upon him. His own state renders an atonement necessary. He cannot remove his own guilt by his sufferings, and how can it be possible that he should remove the guilt of others? A substitutionary victim must itself be perfectly spotless and pure.

This was plainly enough pointed out in the Levitical law. The high priest was required to possess a high degree of ceremonial purity. Perfect moral purity was impossible; but the necessity of this in the antitype, was sufficiently taught, by this legal functionary being required to be free from all bodily defect or deformity, to be the son of one who was a virgin and not a widow when married to his father, and by his being exempted from certain methods of contracting ceremonial defilement. The sacrificial victim, also, was to be a lamb without blemish and without spot. To the same purpose was it enacted that the red heifer should not only be one without spot wherein was no blemish, but one upon which never came yoke. All this, doubtless, was de. signed to shadow forth the immaculate purity of the great High Priest of our profession, who put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

In virtue of his spotless innocence, Jesus was completely free from all manner of legal obligation to suffer, arising

* i. e. all of one nature.

+ Heb. ii. 11, 17; 1 Cor. xv. 21; Gen. iii. 15.

Num. xix. 2; Deut. xxi. 3.