faculties are incapable of penetrating. Unless we can say that we are acquainted with every possible reason that can exist for such a course--unless we can affirm that we know every purpose which it is capable of serving, it must be obvious we have no right to pronounce it unnecessary; for, amongst those things which are not known to us, there may be reasons numerous and sufficient why an atonement should be made. As well may a child object to the necessity of some intricate scheme of national policy, because it cannot perceive such necessity, when the only reason of its not perceiving it is its want of capacity to understand the subject. Let it not be supposed, from these remarks, to be our opinion that the reasons for a vicarious satisfaction to the law and justice of God, are either not revealed or incapable of being understood. Far different is our conviction, as will appear in the sequel. But supposing it were so, we mean to say that the objection before us supposes an unwarrantable overleaping of the bounds of the human understanding.

3. The objection, too, supposes a most imperfect and restricted view of the nature of man's offence against God.

Inadequate views of sin are at the foundation of almost all the doctrinal and practical errors that exist in the world. Men are ready to regard it as something altoge ther different from what it is regarded by God. A thousand palliatives and excuses they can easily conceive for the commission of it, and, after it has been committed, they can talk of it in language which too plainly indicates the imperfection of their views. If sin were a mere insult offered to majesty, it might be overlooked, for dignity is often more consulted by passing by an offence, than by rigorously demanding satisfaction for every slight that is offered to it. If sin were a mere debt, it might have been remitted, as a creditor may, without any impropriety, suf. fer his debtor to go free. If sin were merely a thing to be abhorred, it might have been pardoned, simply on the person's showing, by his repentance, a disposition to abhor it. But it is something more than all this. It is the violation of a holy, just, and good law, an infraction of a moral constitution, in the maintenance of which the honour of God and the good of all his moral subjects are concerned. This alters the case materially, and renders it necessary, as we shall afterwards see, that steps be taken which would not otherwise have been required.

4. The objection, we shall only add, proceeds on a more imperfect view of the nature of human salvation.

6

Admitting that God might honourably pardon sin without a satisfaction, it should be remembered that the remission of sin is not the whole of salvation. The penal inflic. tions due to sin may be supposed to be remitted without the soul being saved. The salvation of the soul supposes deli. verance from other evils, and the possession of other quali ties, to which, after all, the virtue of an atoning sacrifice may be indispensable. Were we even to concede,' says Dr. Smith, with much acuteness and force, that the Deity could remit the positive punishment of sin, by a determina. tion of his gracious will; yet this would not effect the salvation of the sinner. This measure of gracious will (the supposition of which, however, I by no means think tenable) would be merely the forbearing from certain positive acts of righteous power, merely waiving a right, merely declining to effectuate that which, speaking analogically, as the scriptures so often do, would be an insulated act in the procedure of the blessed God, alien from the ordinary ten. dency and character of his government, and which he would not execute without the greatest reluctance, his strange work.' But under a very different respect, in moral consideration, would come the arbitrary taking away of the natural and necessary consequences of sin. These are not inflictions; but they are events and states of things which follow of themselves, according to the general constitutions of the universe, the laws of intellectual and moral na. ture; constitutions and laws which are essential to the harmony and well-being of God's entire world. To intercept this course of things, which infinite wisdom and goodness have established, to prevent these effects from ensuing, when their proper causes have already occurred, is not a case of forbearing to act; it is the exact reverse, it is a case of acting. It would be an interference of the Deity to sus. pend the operation of his own laws, to cut off the connexion between the cause and the effect, to change the course of nature; it would be to work a miracle.**

We have thus endeavoured to state with fairness, and to examine with candour, the principal objections to the doctrine under review. If they have been, as we hope, satis.

* Disc. on Sac., &c., pp. 196, 197.

50

OBJECTIONS TO ATONEMENT CONSIDERED.

factorily refuted, an additional and important step of advancement has been made. We now not only see what atonement means, but are convinced that there exists no antecedent improbability that such an expedient should be introduced into the moral economy of God. No such antecedent improbability can be urged, either on the ground of reason, or of the nature of salvation. We cannot,

therefore, but bewail that deep depravity of man's understanding and will, which is manifested in his failing to perceive, or, perceiving it, refusing to admit the doctrine before. us. Great indeed are the pride and presumption of human reason, which starts its little cavils against the great truths of revelation. We have need to be on our guard against the influence of objections which spring from a state of moral corruption common to all. Let us distrust ourselves, and, while we pity such as are led astray by gross and fatal errors, let us seek to enjoy the promised guidance of Him whose prerogative it is to lead into all truth. It belongs to God to bring good out of evil; and, although the exist ence of objections to divine truth is in itself to be deplored, the goodness and wisdom can never be too much admired which render this very evil a means of ultimate good. By leading to investigate the truth with greater care, by tending to quicken the understanding, by rousing to a more zealous defence of what is valuable, by producing stronger attachment to that for which we have had as it were to fight, and by inducing a firmer confidence in the truth itself as having stood the trial of the most searching scrutiny, the objections themselves may be turned to a profitable account. And how truly thankful ought those to be, who have been kept from error and established in the truth as it is in Jesus. If those who have escaped the temp. tations of the world through lust have reason to be grateful, those who have escaped the temptations of error through the prevalence of heretical opinion, have no less cause of grati tude. That mental error is safe and innocent, is much the same as saying that truth is a thing of no value; and neither the one sentiment nor the other can be held by those who have seriously pondered the import of those awful words-that they all might be damned who believed not the truth. And if error is in any case unsafe, and truth in any case valuable, it must be in a matter of such vital importance as that now under discussion,

SECTION III.

NECESSITY OF CHRIST'S ATONEMENT.

THE remarks at the conclusion of last section, on the objection that an atonement is unnecessary, are merely negative. They are designed to prove only that it cannot be shown to be unnecessary, without going the length of positively maintaining its necessity. We now advance a step higher, and shall endeavour to show that the atonement of Christ is necessary.

It

It cannot surely be requisite here to do more than remind the reader of the sense in which the term necessity is used. It is employed, not in an absolute, but relative sense. is not supposed that the Deity was obliged, either by the perfections of his nature, or by the claims of his creatures, to furnish an atonement in order to the pardon of sin.There was nothing in his own character that rendered it absolutely imperative to take any steps whatever toward the remission of iniquity; such a supposition goes to divest him entirely of grace or sovereignty in the exercise of forgiveness. Neither was it possible that the offenders against his moral government could, by any thing they were capable of performing, lay him under an obligation to furnish them with a legal ground of deliverance from sin; this goes to invest a guilty creature with the power of controlling the divine Lawgiver, as well as to deprive the glorious provision of infinite mercy for the salvation of man of all claims to the character of free unmerited favour. The necessity of which we speak is not of this nature. It is a relative necessity that is affirmed with respect to Christ's atonement, a necessity springing from God's antecedent purpose to save sinners from the wrath to come, arising solely out of his own free purpose, determination, or promise. Having resolved that sin shall be pardoned, it becomes necessary that an atonement shall be made. The necessity, in one word, is not natural, but moral.

The moral necessity of an atonement supposes three

things, all of which are understood as distinctly admitted in the subsequent reasoning. It supposes that man is a moral creature, the subject of a holy, just, and righteous law, which attaches eternal punishment to the violation of it: -It supposes that man has broken this law and become obnoxious to the punishment threatened :-It supposes, in fine, that God has determined to deliver some at least of such violators from the legal consequences of their transgression. These assumptions, it will not be expected, we should wait to prove. They are all understood as admitted by those with whom we are contending, and no advantage is taken of our opponents, when they are taken for granted. The first is involved in man's nature as a moral being: the second rests on the broad undeniable fact of the fall: the third is supposed in all reasoning about salvation. Let these admissions, then, be kept distinctly in view-let it be understood that God has determined to save guilty men from the punishment due to their sins; and we ask no more as a basis on which to construct our proof of the necessity of Christ's atonement.

I. The perfections of God rendered an atonement necessary to the remission of sin.

This might be argued even from the honour or majesty of God. His dignity as Creator of the ends of the earth, Preserver of man and beast, Lord of heaven and earth, and Lawgiver of the moral universe, is unspeakably great; it is infinite. Sin is a dishonour done to this great Lord God; a direct insult offered to the majesty of the skies; and, if pardoned without satisfaction, it is as much as to say that God may be insulted with impunity; that to offer the highest affront to the Great Supreme, to bid open de. fiance to infinite excellency, exposes to no hazard, involves no forfeiture of safety. What is this, but to unhinge the whole moral constitution of things, and to hold out a temp. tation to universal revolt? For if God may be insulted with impunity once, it may be oftener, it may be at all times; there can never be any infallible inducement to honour him; but license is proclaimed to all to treat him with sovereign and perpetual contempt. If such revolting consequences as these are to be reprobated and rejected with abhorrence, as they must be by all who have any remains of a moral sense, it follows, that, to the pardon of