power to lay it down,' says he, and I have power to take it again.'-Nor was this wonderful act of voluntary condescension without the sanction of supreme authority. Although a private person, heroic and benevolent enough to offer himself as a substitute for the guilty, could be found, it is clear that, to the consequences of such surrender being perfectly just, the transaction must receive the sanction of the offended lawgiver. He alone has a right to say whether he will admit of the proposed commutation, as he only can judge whether such a procedure may be condu cive to all the ends of justice. While, therefore, Christ 'gave himself for our sins that he might redeem us from the present evil world,' he did so according to the will of God even our Father;' and, when about to enter on the last awful scene of woe, he was heard to say, 'As the Father gave me commandment, so I do; arise, let us go hence.' The innocent suffering for the guilty involuntarily and without the countenance of legal sanction, may be allowed to be inconsistent with reason and with the goodness and justice of God; but the same cannot surely be said of the innocent suffering for the guilty with the full approbation of supreme authority, and in a manner which is perfectly voluntary.

5. The futility of the objection will still farther appear, if it can be shown that, by the innocent suffering for the guilty, the ends to be subserved by punishment are more fully attained than by the suffering of the guilty for themselves, while at the same time, no injury is done either to the law or to the sufferer.

That no injury is done to the law or to the sufferer, in the present case, appears from what we have already adduced. It remains to be shown, that the ends to be accomplished by suffering the punishment of the law, are much more completely subserved by the substitutionary scheme than they could otherwise have been. The matter may be illustrated thus,-A rebel is taken, tried, and condemned. As he is led out to punishment, the king's son,-the heir of his crown, steps forward and proposes to purchase the life and liberty of the rebel, by having the sentence transferred to himself, and consenting to undergo its inflic. tion. His father consents, and his offer being accepted, the law has the same hold upon him that it had upon the rebel, while upon the latter it ceases to have any farther

claim. And though it be now his own son upon whom the sentence is to be inflicted, the king abates not one iota of its severity, but causes it to be carried into execution to its fullest extent. This shows on the part both of the father and the son, how highly they prize the safety of the rebel. It shows the unpardonable guilt of rebellion, that even the heir to the throne cannot deliver the rebel otherwise than by undergoing his sentence. It shows the majesty of the government, and the sanctity of the law in a much more striking manner than the death of the rebel himself could have done, when the king's son is spared nothing of what the rebel was doomed to bear."*

If such be the case,—if by the method of a vicarious interposition rather than by suffering righteous vengeance to fall where it was personally due, the ends of God's holy government are attained, not only equally well, but unspeakably better; if the rectoral honour of the Eternal Sovereign is more inviolably preserved and exhibited; if sin is held up to the moral universe as more deserving of abhorrence and execration; if the designs of wisdom, jus tice, and mercy are more amply and effectually accomplished, who will presume to say that the divine Being was not at liberty to adopt this method without subjecting his pro. cedure to the charge of inconsistency and injustice? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?

6. It ought, moreover, to be taken into consideration, that, in respect of the substitutionary sufferings of the Son of God, the case admits of such a compensative ar. rangement as to prevent all ultimate injury to the party concerned.

The idea here suggested deprives the objection before us of all force, and this idea is so happily stated and illustrated by one of the greatest ornaments of our age, that I can. not resist presenting it in his own nervous and felicitous language. However much we might be convinced,' says Mr. Hall, of the competence of vicarious suffering to ac. complish the ends of justice, and whatever the benefits we may derive from it, a benevolent mind could never be reconciled to the sight of virtue of the highest order finally oppressed and consumed by its own energies; and the more intense the admiration excited, the more eager would

* Dods on Incarnation, &c. pp. 236, 237.

be the desire of some compensatory arrangement, some expedient by which an ample retribution might be assigned to such heroic sacrifices. If the suffering of the substitute involved his destruction, what satisfaction could a generous and feeling mind derive from impunity procured at such a cost? When David, in an agony of thirst, longed for the water of Bethlehem, which some of his servants immediately procured for him with the extreme hazard of their lives, the monarch refused to taste it, exclaiming, It is the price of blood! but poured it out before the Lord. The felicity which flows from the irreparable misery of another, and more especially of one whose disinterested benevolence alone exposed him to it, will be faintly relished by him who is not immersed in selfishness. If there be any portions of history, whose perusal affords more pure and exquisite delight than others, they are those which present the spectacle of a conflicting and self-devoted virtue, after innumerable toils and dangers undergone in the cause, enjoying a dignified repose in the bosom of the country which its example has ennobled, and its valour saved. Such a spectacle gratifies the best propensities, satisfies the highest demands of our moral and social nature. It affords a delightful glimpse of the future and perfect economy of retri butive justice. In the plan of human redemption this requisition is fully satisfied. While we accompany the Saviour through the successive stages of his mortal sojourning, marked by a corresponding succession of trials, each of which was more severe than the former, till the scene darkened, and the clouds of wrath from heaven and from earth, pregnant with materials which nothing but a divine hand could have collected, discharged themselves on him in a deluge of agony and of blood, under which he expired, we perceive at once the sufficiency, I had almost said, the redundancy, of his atonement. But surely deliverance even from the wrath to come would afford an imperfect en. joyment, if it were imbittered with the recollection that we were indebted for it to the irreparable destruction of our compassionate Redeemer. The consolation arising from reconciliation with God is subject to no such deduction. While we rejoice in the cross of Christ as the source of par. don, our satisfaction is heightened by beholding it succeed. ed by the crown; by seeing him that was for a little while made lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crown,

ed with glory and honour, seated at the right hand of God, thence expecting till his enemies are made his footstool.'*

7. There is one circumstance more which deserves to be taken into the account in replying to this objection. The substitution of Christ is a case which is absolutely peculiar.

Such a case could never be justified as a matter of ordinary or frequent occurrence. It could only be when something extraordinary called for its introduction, when such a combination of requirements met as could but seldom come together, that it would be warrantable to admit of the innocent being substituted in room of the guilty. Its frequent occurrence could not fail to have a most injurious influence in weakening the sense of moral obligation. That the bad should be pardoned at the expense of the good, the virtuous sacrificed that the wicked might be spared, and those who are a blessing to society cut off that such as are a curse might be perpetuated, are what no wise government could tolerate. The punishment of crime would, in this case, be so dissevered from the perpetration of crime, as to impair the motives to obedience and take away all fear of offending against the law. The purposes of good government thus require that the principle of substitution shall be but rarely introduced. It cannot take place in the common course of justice; it must be an extraordinary interposition; not contrary to law, but above law; departing from the letter, but maintaining the spirit; and introduced by one who possesses the right of exerting a dispensing power, that is to say, by the law. giver himself. Now the substitution of Christ is exactly of the nature required. It is an event quite unique in the administration of God's moral government. It is strictly and literally an extraordinary proceeding. We have no reason to conclude that the like ever existed before, or shall ever exist again. It stands forth an insulated and prominent fact in the economy of divine providence-' a single and solitary monument amidst the lapse of ages and the waste of worlds.' Inspired history contains not a hint of any such transaction having ever before occurred on the theatre of the universe; nor does prophecy give us ground to expect that any thing similar is ever again to occur in

* Hall's Works, v. i., pp. 514–517.

the annals of eternity. It is the masterpiece of infinite wisdom-an unparalleled display of infinite goodness, calculated to engage the enraptured and eternal contempla. tion of every order of created intelligences.* Christ hath ONCE suffered for sins. Christ was ONCE offered to bear the sins of many. ONCE in the end of the world did he appear to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

V. We shall notice, only farther, the objection that the atonement of Christ was unnecessary.

It is supposed, that God could as honourably acquit sinners without as with a satisfaction. It will not be necessary to dwell long in replying to this position, as we intend to devote the next section wholly to the investigation of the necessity of Christ's atonement. A few brief remarks

may here suffice.

1. The objection is presumptuous.

It is not for us, on the ground of mere abstract reason. ing, to say absolutely what is necessary or not necessary in a case like the present. When we venture to say what God ought to do or ought not to do, what course it would be honourable and what not honourable for him to pursue, we step quite beyond our limits; we set up our weak, erring, finite understandings as judges over the infinite mind of Jehovah. The only safe ground on which we can determine whether a certain line of procedure be necessary or honourable in God, is judging from what he has already revealed or done. To pronounce it antecedently unnecessary is thus to beg the question,-it is just to affirm that an atonement has not been made, nor any data given from which it can be inferred. This, however, is the very point in dispute, and must be determined by quite a different process from that of arrogantly pronouncing an atonement unnecessary.

2. But supposing, for the sake of argument, that the necessity of an atonement could not be shown from any thing that appears, it would not follow, even then, that we are at liberty to pronounce it absolutely unnecessary.

There may be reasons for its existence which we have never discovered, or which we are not qualified to compre. hend. There may be purposes to be served by it which have never been made known to us, and which our unaided

* See Hall, v. i., p. 516.