THE EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT
IN ITS
RELATION TO GOD AND THE UNIVERSE.
By the
REV. THOMAS W. JENKYN, D.
D. Including Sections 1 Thru 4 ON THE ATONEMENT IN ITS RELATION TO
SIN. THE ATONEMENT A DEMONSTRATION OF THE
EVIL OF SIN. It was a cardinal article in the creed of the apostles
that Jesus Christ "died for sin," They exhibit the Lord
Jesus Christ as being a sin-offering--as bearing our sins in
his body on the tree--as condemning sin, and taking away the
sin of the world. Indeed, according to their doctrine,
Christ bears no office, wears no title, and sustains no
relation, but what presupposes sin. The atonement of the Son of God is the greatest proof
that can be given of the existence of moral evil in our
world. As the institution of a hospital in a neighborhood,
is a proof of the prevalence of disease and sickness there,
so the provision of salvation denotes the existence of a
moral disorder. And as the demanding, or the receiving of a
satisfaction by any man supposes a wrong committed or
sustained, so the astounding fact that Jesus Christ offered
himself up to God, as a "propitiation," is a public and
clear proof of the existence of moral evil and wrong. One of the designs of the institution of typical
sacrifices was to bear universal and uninterrupted testimony
to the actual existence of moral wrong in the world. They
brought sin into remembrance every year, and their vicarious
provision supplied the first clue to that scheme of
substitution, by which the evils of sin should be taken away
by the Lamb of God. The visible inflictions of awful
judgments on guilty heads were "far between;" and in the
interval, the rebels might think that their crimes had
ceased to be wrong, or that God had become tired of the
contest. Therefore sacrificial victims were instituted by
God, and their crimson tide flowed through all the hamlets,
of the human race, a stream of evidence that sin existed.
The blood of the atonement takes up this testimony and
demonstrates, that if One died for all, then were all dead
in trespasses and in sins. God sets forth, also, the atonement of his Son as a
demonstration of the tremendous evil and horrible
wickedness, malignity, and turpitude of sin. Perhaps there
is no greater proof of the stunning influence on an
intellectual being, than the dreadful fact, that there are
millions of intelligences who have no conception how sin can
be injurious to a Governor of such glory and benignity and
is represented to be. If God is not susceptible of physical
injury, they cannot understand how He is capable of moral
injury. This is, as if they could understand that a king
might be injured by corporal ill-usage, but do not know how
a king can be injured in his feelings, character, and honor.
God always speaks of sin as what he abominates; and he shows
that to condemn sin was one purpose of giving his Son to the
death of the cross. The withholding of his just rights from
a Being of infinite excellence; the refusal of the esteem,
homage and obedience which he deserves and demands; and the
contemptuous insults offered to him in the atheism,
idolatry, blasphemy, and perjury of mankind, must be wrongs
and injuries of infinite magnitude, and of unutterable
malignity. I. The atonement proves sin to be an enormous wrong, by
showing that God has appointed an illustrious Personage to
mediate about its punishment. When a good and wise ruler is
offended, he will not precipitately make the offenders feel
the immediate effects of a hasty wrath. The benignity of his
nature, will make him ready to forgive; but it would suit
neither his character, nor his honor, to forgive in such a
manner, as to leave an impression that the offence was petty
and trivial. To avoid this he would call in a third party,
of a rank and dignity corresponding with those of the
offended. If, for the purpose of mediating between the
parties, this umpire, undergoes great trouble, and cost, and
pain, the arrangement will be the more calculated to make,
on the offenders, vivid impressions of the heinousness of
the offence in the estimation of the offended. We discover
in every-day life, that an offender feels that his offence
is not lightly regarded, when a third party is called to
interpose, and that this feeling will be enhanced in
proportion to the dignity of the interposer, and to the
trouble which he takes in the affair. God has adopted this method to impress us duly with a
sense of the evil of sin. He has called in the mediation of
a third Party: that party is a person of great dignity and
worth, yet his mediation costs him unparalleled sorrows,
degradations, and sufferings, which he voluntarily and
cheerfully endures for the sake of the offenders. It is
further revealed that even this Daysman is selected to
mediate, on the ground of his well--known abhorrence of the
offence. "Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity,
therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee," Heb. i. 9.
Everything, therefore, in the provision of One to mediate
this affair tends to give enlarged views of the greatness of
the wrong. II. The atonement shows the evil of sin, by manifesting
the amiable character of the moral governor against whom men
have revolted. Sometimes the tyrannical character and the
oppressive laws of a king Justify an opposition to his
government. These excuses cannot be advanced to vindicate
the rebellion of the world against God. God is LOVE. Even
the law which he gave was the law of love and liberty. His
forbearance and long-suffering towards the offenders who
insult him, show him to be a Being of infinite benignity and
supreme excellence. The provision of an expedient, to offer
even deliverance and pardon to them with honor to his
character, is "a far more exceeding" evidence of the
transcendent Amiableness, and Goodness, and Worthiness of
Him, against whom man has rebelled. This is calculated to
awaken every offender to exclaim, "Herein is LOVE!-, not
that we loved God, but that HE loved us, and gave his Son to
be a propitiation for our sins. What could have maddened us
to rebel against a God of such boundless love and
clemency!" Sin was made to appear more exceeding sinful by the
contrast which the dignity of the Mediator suggested,
between the baseness of the offence and the Majesty of the
Great and Blessed God. The mediating Daysman was none other
than "God manifested in the flesh." The offence must be
heinous to require a mediator of such grandeur. Then, how
desolating and ruinous must a state of things be, that
requires such a Mediator to become a Man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief! In such a mediation the offenders can
see nothing to extenuate their blame-worthiness--but
everything to enhance it. The great sufferings of the
Mediator were intended to be an expression of the awful
effects of sin, and of its being so abhorrent to God, that
he proclaimed it "condemned," by the death of his own Son.
The whole arrangements of the atonement exhibit the act of
sinning against such infinite excellence, as a crime
unutterably vile, and the rebellion that challenges
omnipotent abhorrence as infinitely contemptible and
eternally ruinous. III. The life and character of the atoning Mediator
demonstrated the loveliness, the justice, and the goodness
of the law, which offenders had violated and trampled. It
was an honor to the moral law to have been obeyed by such a
Personage. In proportion as his obedience magnified the law
and made it honorable, it condemned the transgression and
the transgressors of it. The life of Jesus Christ teaches us
that the law is adapted to our circumstances and faculties,
that it is possible to observe and keep it, and that it
deserves the affection and obedience of all men. The
Mediator was "higher than the heavens," in supreme dominion,
omnipotent power, and exalted station, yet he regarded this
law as worthy of all the respect and honor with which he
could invest it by his obedience. If any might think
themselves above it, he more. Yet he yielded to it an
obedience which the whole divine government contemplates
with ineffable approbation and complacency. The life and the
character of the Mediator clearly showed to mankind that
this law was not unreasonable in its demands. It required no
impossibilities. Jesus Christ could not obey it, but with
the same faculties that we possess; and we are not destitute
of a single power or faculty with which Christ obeyed the
law. His were mental powers and intellectual faculties in
which he grew and made advances; and in every state of his
progress as a child, a youth, and a man, he honored and kept
the law. It was an honor to the law to be exhibited as
sufficiently good, and free, and broad, to be the rule even
for the mediatorial life of the Son of God. As God and Man
he was a Personage new to the universe. The life of such a
personage, in a course of transactions between God and man,
would be unexampled and eminently extraordinary. The law
which he recommended to the esteem of mankind, he himself
took for the rule of his own life. He was made of a woman,
and made under the law, the very law on which men had
trampled. He showed by his obedience to it what kind of life
the law required from man. He obeyed to the highest
perfection all its perfect commands. In the entire course of
his life, he kept his eye fixed on this rule. In him was
found no sin; he was completely perfect; yet He was not more
perfect than this law required him to be! O how amiable and
lovely must that law be, that was a sufficient pattern for
the transcendent loveliness of the mediatorial character of
the Son of God! When the highest being in the universe took
upon him the form of a servant, and entered upon a course of
obedience, and suffering, and glory, he observed this law,
both in all his stupendous transactions with the divine
government, and in all his merciful dispensations towards
rebellious man. In all his undertaking he established the
law. By his obedience he gave a demonstration to the
universe, that he did not wish to save sinners by breaking
through the laws and principles of moral government, but by
honoring and establishing them, as the immutable and
indestructible elements of the divine empire. IV. An impression of the evil of sin is calculated to be
made by the atonement, by its showing at what infinite
expense God has been to oppose its progress. The magnitude
and strength of an embankment are solid proofs of the power
of the tide which they are intended to cheek: and the length
and breadth, and the height and depth of the atonement,
bespeak the wide extent of the evil against which it was
raised. Sin is evil alone, unmixed with any good. It is
every way evil. Examine it on every side, and the more it is
explored, the more evil it appears. God has provided various
means to oppose and prevent its progress, but the atonement
of his Son is the greatest and the noblest of them all. and
the history of Christianity shows that nothing is so
calculated to cheek and destroy sin as a full and faithful
exhibition of the cross of Christ. Had it not been for the atonement, the ravages of sin
would have gone on, in an interminable progression of
widespread and cumulative evils. Sin would have become the
pilot of wrecks without a shore to strand on, the angel of
death among undying spirits,--the real Upas of the universe.
Through the atonement millions of the tossed and shattered
barks of Eden can now throw an anchor to a ground of strong
consolation; the Spirit of peace takes the place of the
devouring usurper, and breathes life, and health, and joy
over all the plain; and the tree of life stretches forth its
branches, bearing leaves for the healing of the nations. The human mind finds it almost impossible to follow out
the endless workings of an evil principle, or to take in a
Universe of horror. There is one fact that may assist our
conception of this terrible subject. It is the incursions
and the ravages of sin notwithstanding the provision of an
atonement. Sin, after all, awfully prevails. Few
transgressors come to hate sin and love the government. Of
those who do come, none come of their own accord; they are
all drawn by the exercise of gracious influences. Some of
the offenders presume that God is so exclusively merciful,
that he will never execute the penalty which he has
threatened. Others fancy that the atonement has made a kind
of commercial payment and satisfaction for their sins, and
that now they are no longer responsible for them. They are
warned, and exhorted, invited and urged to forsake sin;
nevertheless they sin with a high hand, laugh at every
remonstrance, ruin their own souls, desolate the creation,
and assail every perfection in the Godhead. Against all this God has reasoned with mankind, by the
public sufferings of his own Son. He asks them, "If these
things be done in the green tree, what will be done in the
dry?" "How shall you escape if you neglect so great
Salvation?" For such provisions and remonstrances to be
despised, and despised by such a creature as man, seems to
merit the most marked infliction of his displeasure. Had it
been possible for another god to invade and injure his
government, it would have been an aggression to be expected
from a peer in infinity; but to be openly insulted by a worm
of the earth--to have "the rod and the staff of his own
tender mercies converted into spears to assault himself--to
have the dreadful denunciations of his law, and the gracious
invitations of his gospel, treated as sounding brass, or
tinkling cymbal, must be the acme of wrong. It is the higher
of the highest towerings of wickedness, around which the
thickest and the heaviest clouds of vengeance would gather,
and "rain down snares and fire, and brimstone, and a
horrible tempest." THE ATONEMENT AN EXPEDIENT INSTITUTED
INSTEAD OF THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN. In the chapter on the atonement in its relation to the
divine moral government, I promised to take up the subject
of this section. We have already seen that threatenings are
indispensably necessary to the administration of moral
government--that distributive justice requires the literal
execution of these threatenings, but that public justice can
suspend their execution, if some expedient can be found that
will as fully answer the ends of government. We have also
seen that the Scriptures represent the atonement of Christ
to be such an expedient substituted instead of the
infliction of the threatened penalty. I will now Proceed to
illustrate, this. I. The Lord Jesus Christ suffered AS IF he had been a
sinner. The sufferings of Christ were perfectly novel to the
universe--a new phenomenon in the moral constitution. These
sufferings posed and amazed all angelic Intelligences. The
annals of moral government supplied no precedent of
suffering, but in connection with sin. Angels had witnessed
sufferings before, but never unconnected with sin. The
sufferings of the Holy One of God were, therefore, to them a
problem which they could not solve, and into which they
desired further to look. Jesus Christ suffered as one condemned of men. He was
numbered among the transgressors. He suffered from man as if
he had been an offender and a criminal. He was charged with
crimes of a high and offensive enormity. He was publicly
arraigned as a blasphemer of God, a subverter of religion, a
seducer of the people, a rebel against Caesar, a vile
impostor, a notorious malefactor. His merciless persecutors
said to Pilate, "If he were not a malefactor, we would not
have delivered him up unto thee," John xviii. 30. In this
character, and under this ignominy, be died by the hand of
legal authority, the death of a condemned criminal. The most amazing circumstance connected with his death
was, that he suffered as one disowned, reprobated, and
"forsaken of God." He was despised and rejected of men. At
the same time," it pleased the Lord to bruise him." God
"made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin." He delivered
him up for us all, to be treated as a sin-offering--as a
sin-expiator--a lustration for the world. He became a curse
for us; exposed to reviling and scorn, and malediction;
devoted and accursed, anathematized to reproach and shame,
as one infamous and execrable, deserted and rejected of God.
O! how great is the mystery of revealed godliness. Sufferings are incident to sinners only. How then did the
holy Son of God come into contact with suffering?--Did he
ever sin? No--he was holy, undefiled and separate from
sinners. On what principle, then, can the sufferings of
Christ be in harmony with God's eternal justice in moral
government, and with his ineffable love to his own beloved
Son? There is but one principle revealed that will reconcile
them, and that is the principle of substitution--the
substitution of vicarious sufferings. In this arrangement
the sufferings of "the Just," are substituted instead of the
sufferings due to "the unjust;"--"the Just" is treated as if
he had been "the unjust;"--the Son of God suffered as if he
had been a transgressor. Christ did not suffer as a
transgressor, but as if he were a transgressor. Cain
suffers, not as if he were a transgressor, but as a
transgressor. Christ suffered not as a transgressor, but as
if he were one. He was wounded for our transgressions, and
bruised for our iniquities. He is often said to have
suffered for sin, that is, as if he had been a sinner. The doctrine of the New Testament concerning the
vicariousness of the sufferings of Christ is summed up in 2
Cor. v. 21. "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in
him." The advocates of a limited substitution of Christ for
the persons of the elect, often represent Christ as bearing,
not the effects of sin, but actually the very guilt of sin.
This arises from a misunderstanding, and a consequent
misapplication of the term "guilt". The term guilt has
various meanings. It sometimes means consciousness of having
done wrong. It means also, desert of punishment, arising
from a consciousness of crime. Sometimes the term guilt, is
used for liableness to punishment, independent of
consciousness of crime. The Schoolmen had three different designations for these
various applications of the term guilt, The consciousness of
having done wrong, they called reatus culpae. The deserving
of punishment they called, dignitus poenae, or meritum
paenae. The liableness to punishment or sufferings,
independently of having done wrong, they called reatus
paenae. The person in any of these circumstances, they
called reus. When Joseph's brethren thought themselves
verily guilty about their brother, they considered
themselves as rei culpae, conscious of crime, and meriti
paenae, deserving of punishment. The children who suffered
in the destruction of Sodom, and in the gainsaying of Korah,
were rei paenae, liable to the punishment, though no one
could regard them as either rei culpae, conscious of crime,
or meriti paenae, deserving of punishment. This was
precisely the case of the scape-goat. He was neither reus
culpae, nor meritus poenae, but he was treated as "reatus
poenae." This I conceive to be the meaning of the above text. In
the language of the Schools, I would read it thus. "He hath
made him to be reatum poenae for us, who knew no reatum
culpae, that we might be non rei poenae through him." Or, in
plain English, let it be paraphrased thus: "He made him to
be liable to punishment for us, who was not conscious of
having done wrong, that we might be not liable to punishment
through him." The principles of commercial redemption, and of personal
commutation between Christ and the elect, would require the
text to be translated thus: "He hath made him to be 'meritum
poenae' for us, who was not 'retis culpae,' that we might be
'non meriti poenae' through him." Indeed, Dr. CRISP,
CHAUNCY, and the author of "GETHSEMANE," have argued, as if
the words were to be translated thus: "He hath made him to
be reatum culpae for us, who was not reatus culpae, that we
might be non rei culpae through him: that is, He made him to
be guilty of our crimes, who Was not guilty of crime, that
we might be made not guilty of crime through him. The translations of these ultra-Calvinists, take for
granted utter and perfect impossibilities. It is no dishonor
to God to say that he cannot unmake a transpired event, that
he cannot annihilate a fact, that he cannot transfer moral
identity. It is utterly impossible to unmake the facts that
we are "rei culpae" and "meriti poenae," guilty of wrong,
and deserving of punishment. It is, however, possible to
make us not "rei poenae," liable to punishment, by a measure
which will, in public justice, answer the same ends as our
punishment. On the other hand, it is perfectly impossible to
make the Lamb that was without blemish, to be reatus culpae,
or meritus poenae, guilty of wrong, or deserving of
punishment; when it is a transpired fact, that he was
"without sin." Yet his sufferings are altogether
inexplicable, except on the principle that he was by a
divine institution treated as if he were like the innocent
scape-goat, "reus poenae," liable to punishment for us. This
arrangement could never unmake the fact, that we were guilty
of wrong, and deserving of punishment. Nor can our being
treated as "non reati poenae," not liable to punishment, for
Christ's sake, unmake the fact, that "he knew no sin." Had he been a sinful man, or even of a peccable
constitution, there would have been nothing mysterious in
his sufferings. But being an innocent member of the divine
government, no principle in the moral administration, but
the principle of substitution, will account for his enduring
such sufferings. Unless the sufferings of Christ were vicarious and
expiatory, we cannot account for the demeanor of the blessed
Redeemer under them. If there be nothing peculiar in the
nature and design of Christ's sufferings, there is something
unaccountably peculiar in his spirit and temper under them.
Before "the hour" of atonement, his character was
established for an undaunted firmness, a firmness that never
shrunk from danger and suffering. But now, when "His hour is
come," he shrinks, with unutterable distress and anguish,
from the cup of sufferings. Many men of tender frames, and
many too of the more timid sex, have "endured the cross,"
not only with unflinching fortitude, but also with
triumphant bravery. These were sinners, and many of them
destitute of religious supports; yet they met their agonies
with well-sustained calmness. Here, however, is One
suffering, as some say, to give us an example how to bear
pain, and also to confirm the doctrines which he asserted to
be true. He is strong in his personal innocence, strong in
the love of his Father, and, strong in the hope set before
him, yet be shrinks from the cup of sorrows, and his bitter
cries and tears testify the tremendous tempest that agitated
his holy mind, and the inward horror and dismay that racked
his heart and soul. The delicate sensitiveness of his holy
frame, the pure innocence of his mind, and the high dignity
of his person, must have made contact with such sufferings
for sin, to be infinitely painful to him. Still, the only
principle that can account for his anguish is, that he was
set forth as a lustration, as a propitiation for the sins of
the world, as a scape-goat led to a wilderness of reproach
and suffering. God spared not his own Son, but delivered him
up for us all. He died numbered among transgressors. II. Jesus Christ endured his sufferings instead of the
sufferings due to the sinner. In the atonement there is not a substitution of persons
only, but also a substitution of sufferings. The Lord Jesus
made atonement, not by enduring the identical sufferings due
to us in the curse of the law, but by sustaining other
sufferings which had been laid on him by a separate
"commandment received from the Father." I mean to say, that
the penal sufferings due to man were suspended by this
measure, and that another class of sufferings was
substituted instead of them. Jesus Christ did not suffer the
infliction of the idem in the penalty threatened, but the
tantundem, the equivalent to that infliction, what would
answer the same ends as the literal infliction. I submit the
following reasons as proof that our penalty was not
inflicted upon Christ:-- 1. The sufferings of Christ were, both in nature and
kind, different from the sufferings due to sinners. The
sufferings due to a sinner consist of a painful
consciousness of having done wrong-a sense of having
offended God--bitter self-reproach for having broken the law
of love-and the stormy horrors of a guilty and condemning
conscience. In all the various and dreadful forms of
Christ's sufferings, there was nothing like this. His
conscience never had a sting. He never felt the hell of
self-remorse. He was encompassed with sufferings, as an
island in an ocean of anguish, but the waves which dashed
and foamed around him, found nothing in him to crumble and
destroy. 2. The quantity and the degree of the sufferings of
Christ were different from the sufferings due to the sinner.
The Scriptures never speculate on the intensity of the
sufferings of the Adorable Jesus--they merely reveal his
sufferings as being a sufficient atonement for sin. The
sufferings of Christ were, no doubt, of indescribable
intensity-, but they had not the same elements of intensity
with the torments of perished sinners. The sufferings of
lost souls are intense, from a keen perception of the
unreasonableness and unjustifiableness of their offence, and
from the utter and eternal hopelessness of any relief
extenuation, or diminution of their pain. And these awful
sufferings extend to a multitude which no man can number,
and, accordingly, would form a dreadful amount of misery.
The sufferings of Christ were, after all, the sufferings of
ONE human nature, of one of the seed of Abraham. And amid
these sufferings, "the glory that should follow" sparkled
through the dark tempest of Calvary, and "the joy that was
set before him" garnished the margin of his sepulchre. His
sufferings were not a punishment. His consciousness of
personal rectitude, and his confidence in his Father, never
forsook him. In the darkest hour of his anguish, his
assurance of God's approbation and acceptance was in the
highest exercise; "Father," he said, "into thy hands I
commend my spirit." Such elements as these are never found
in the curses executed on sinners--nothing can unsting the
worm that dieth not, or calm the surges of the lake that
burneth forever and ever. 3. If Christ endured the identical sufferings due to the
sinner, his sufferings would not be a satisfaction or an
atonement for sin, but a literal execution of the penalty of
the law. If a man gives a tooth for a tooth, or an eye for an eye,
he gives literally the penalty which the law demanded. If
such a payment be called an atonement it is called so
improperly, and in a lower sense. If he give something,
instead of an eye, say money, or land, or anything else, of
equal consideration in the estimation of the injured person,
or the injured government, he would make an atonement, a
satisfaction. An atonement is a measure or an expedient that
is a satisfaction for the suspension of the threatened
penalty. A suspension, or non-execution, of the literal
threatening is always implied in an atonement. If Christ
then endured the real suffering due to the sinner, his
sufferings are not of the nature of an atonement, but are a
literal infliction of the penalty threatened by the law. A passage in the Epistle to the Galatians is frequently
quoted to prove that the literal curse of the law was
inflicted on the person of Christ. I will transcribe the
whole passage, that it may be under the reader's eye. "For
as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse;
for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not
in all things which are written in the book of the law to do
them. * * * * Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the
law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is
every one that hangeth on a tree." Gal. iii. 10-13. * * *
* This language of the apostle has been supposed to settle
the question that Christ endured the idem, the identical
punishment due to the sinner. Before you come to the same
conclusion, steep these three thoughts in your mind. a. How were sinners accursed? By being denounced as
transgressors of the law. They are accursed, FOR not
continuing in all the things which are written in the law to
do them. No one will say that Christ was accursed in this
sense. b. How was Christ accursed? By being hanged on a tree. He
was made a curse by being exposed to reproach and shame on a
cross. The reason why Christ is called a curse is--not, FOR
cursed is every one that continueth not in the law, but--FOR
cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. No one will say
that the curse threatened on the sinner was hanging on a
tree. c. Did the moral law ever curse Christ? Let not this
question be thought too startling. The meaning is, Did the
law ever denounce Christ a transgressor? He kept the whole
law, in every point. He magnified the law, and made it
honorable. It is therefore impossible that Christ could have
been accursed by the law. To be made a curse, or to suffer a
curse, is to be made and exhibited an expression of
displeasure and scorn. The sinner suffers the curse of the
law, when he is made to be an expression of its opposition
and malediction against transgression. The Blessed Son of
God condescended to be made such an expression, when he was
"set forth" to declare the righteousness of God against sin.
This he became not by being denounced as an offender, but by
being delivered up to public scorn, malediction, and
ignominy, This passage, then, so far from proving that
Christ suffered the idem in the penalty, proves the
contrary. And when Christ is said to have suffered "the
chastisement of our peace," I believe the meaning to be,
that the sufferings of Christ were substituted instead of
inflicting the chastisement due to us; and that they are
called by this name, because they answered the same ends, as
if our chastisement had been literally inflicted upon
us. 4. Every sinner is liable to the penalty of the law until
he believe in Christ. If Christ endured the literal punishment, the identical
curse, due to any man, or to all men, such men are no longer
liable to it. Upon no principle of Justice, or of Truth, are
they liable to a punishment which has been literally
inflicted on another in their stead. If this punishment was
literally inflicted on Christ, it can never be executed
again, and it never can be threatened again. Look for a
moment on the bearings of such an hypothesis as this. On the
supposition that Christ died for all men, all men are
perfectly free-the curse of the law can never be indicted on
them, and on their substitute. Then it is a cunningly
devised fable that there is "wrath to come." On the supposition that Christ died only for the elect,
then, they are free from punishment ever since the hour
which Christ sustained their penalty,--they were never born
the children of wrath even as others, for it had been
exhausted on the cross,--they were never converted by the
terrors of the Lord, for these terrors could not have been
true concerning them. Yea, they have never passed from death
unto life, for they never were under death, as Christ had
long ago died the death that was supposed to have been due
unto them. This very hypothesis is the ground-work of the
Babel structure of "eternal justification." If the elect
were justified from eternity, will any supralapsarian
Calvinists be pleased to tell us at what period were the
elect in a state of condemnation, and if they were never in
a state of condemnation, from what could they be
justified. 5. Even believers in the atonement are not exempt from
sufferings in this world. If the Lord Jesus endured all the identical sufferings
due to his people, how come they to suffer such tribulations
and inflictions here? Though these sufferings may be
regarded as the chastisements of a Father, they are intended
to embitter sin; and they can embitter sin only by
expressing how repugnant and displeasing it is to a holy God
and Father. If the displeasure of God due to the sins of his
people was vicariously suffered by Jesus Christ, it is
difficult to account how other expressions of his
displeasure have been reserved for the elect themselves. The
agonies of self-condemnation and remorse, the anguish of
repentance, and the distress of contrition are, certainly,
elements of the curse of the law. Did Christ suffer, that
the elect might not suffer these things? Thousands of people
dear to God have, in their own persons, sustained the waves
and the billows of these painful emotions, which
demonstrates that they had not been vicariously sustained
before. 6. If Christ paid the identical penalty due in law, then,
by the atonement there has been no remission, no
forgiveness. This hypothesis supposes that God has remitted nothing.
He has forgiven nothing, for every jot and tittle of the
punishment due from us has been exacted of our Substitute,
and has been fully and perfectly discharged by him. Then,
what has God remitted? On this system, he does not forego a
single particle of suffering threatened in the penalty, but
inflicts every iota of it; be remits only when the utmost
farthing is paid. If a man be sentenced to the stocks, and
another suffer the stocks for him, it would be absurd to say
that the sentence was remitted. This absurdity proceeds from viewing the remission of
sin, as the forgiveness of a commercial debt. Such
commercial views of redemption are justified by some, from
scriptural declarations, such as the parable of the two
debtors, the prayer "forgive us our debts," etc. On this it
is enough to say, first, that these are only commercial
figures employed to express a moral transaction, and as such
cannot give the whole view of the case; secondly, that in
the cases supposed, the "debt" actually forgiven, is the
liableness to punishment for neglect of duty, and not the
duty itself. When we say, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors,"--we do not mean that we release all men from all
obligation to love us, but merely from liableness to our
displeasure for having wronged' us. So when we say to God,
"forgive us our debts," we do not mean to pray, that he
would release us from the obligation to obey him, but from
our liableness to punishment for having disobeyed him. Then, when God is said to forgive sin, sin is considered
a debt, not in the sense of obligation to duty, but in the
sense of liableness to punishment. On the supposition that
God has actually inflicted this identical punishment on the
substitute, it can never be said to have been remitted. To
say that through the death of Christ the punishment is
remitted as to us, is worse than saying nothing; for it
seems to imply that it is a matter of indifference with God,
who sustains the sufferings, provided he has them duly
inflicted. Of all absurdities, this is the most
revolting. Sin, when it is said to be forgiven, is considered as an
indictment against us, as a bond binding us to punishment.
We have seen, in a former chapter, that sin, in the sense of
a transgression of the law, can never be properly called a
"debt." This, from the nature of the case, would be sheer
absurdity. No one will say that we owe sin to God. It were
the same as to say that the transgression of his law is what
is due from us to him. Sin then as an indictment against
men, renders all men liable to punishment, to the curse of
the law to the displeasure of God. Think, then, of the
dreadful amount of misery due to the elect for sin. Is all
this misery really to be inflicted? It matters not to the
argument, whether the aggregate fall on one hundred, or on
one,--is the amount really to be inflicted? I think the
answer of the Gospel is this: 'The infliction of this
penalty is suspended as to all, during a state of Probation,
for the sake of the sufferings of Jesus Christ. To those who
accept the atonement of Christ as a sufficient demonstration
of the evil of sin, this penalty is entirely remitted and
forgiven; but on those who reject the sufferings of Christ
in the character of an atonement for sin, the suspended
penalty shall be inflicted, because they believed not in the
only begotten Son of God.' 7. If Christ suffered the identical penalty threatened,
the remission of the penalty is not an exercise of grace,
and mercy in God, but an act of mere equity. If a commercial creditor is paid the exact sum due to him
from a debtor, the debtor's release is not a matter of
grace, but of justice. If the volunteer death of a friend,
instead of a condemned malefactor, be allowed to take place,
the deliverance of the malefactor is not a matter of favor
and grace, but of debt and justice. And if Jesus Christ paid
our identical penalty, no one will ascribe his redemption
from punishment to mere favor and grace, when every jot of
the punishment has already been fully exacted and literally
paid. The pardon of this hypothesis is a pardon given after
every demand has been exacted to the utmost: Is this the
pardon of plenteous mercy, the forgiveness according to the
exceeding riches of grace? The mercy and grace of the
Redeemer, indeed, may appear glorious in this pardon, but
the mercy and grace of the Father and moral governor are
totally eclipsed. The advocates of this system say that, his
grace and mercy appear in providing and accepting a ransom,
Even this is only like the mercy of Dionysius the tyrant, in
the affair of Damon and Pythias, which allowed a
substitution of person, but not a substitution of
sufferings, a mercy which no one could admire, because it
was a mercy that remitted nothing. Besides, this view of the case supposes that the
atonement is some kind of inducement to God to be gracious
and merciful. The language of many theological writers of
the high school, seems to imply that the atonement was a
kind of reimbursement to God for his lost honor, and even a
premium for the exercise of his mercy. If the atonement were
the motive for mercy, then, what motive, first of all,
suggested the atonement itself? If God has been refunded for
pardoning, and paid for mercy the praise of the glory of his
GRACE is hushed in eternal silence. These seven arguments are the grounds of my persuasion,
that Christ did not suffer the identical penalty due to
sinners, and that the sufferings which he endured in making
atonement, were substituted instead of inflicting on him the
literal threatening. I allow that the death of Christ may be
alluded to in the New Testament as the act of one generous
friend dying instead of another. This, however, is but one
class of images employed to represent the unparalleled
wonders of this great subject, and could never be intended
to mark out the entire outlines of this infinite
transaction. III. Sinners are treated by the blessed God, on account
of the sufferings of Christ, as if they themselves had
suffered. If a person sentenced to imprisonment be admitted to pay
a fine, the result is to him as if he had suffered the
imprisonment. If a colony of slaves are ransomed by a
munificent friend, they are treated as if they had been at
the cost themselves. If a band of rebels are spared for the
sake of the worthiness of the king's son, they are treated
as if that worthiness were their own. On the same principle,
if a sinner be pardoned at the intercession of an Advocate
with God, the result to the sinner is as if he had
interceded himself. The Son of God was treated as if he were
unworthy and unjust, on our account, and we are treated as
if we were worthy and just, on his account. This moral transfer of the benefits of Christ's
mediatorial worthiness takes place according to a settled
arrangement in God's moral government. An inquiry into the
modus of this arrangement is idle and unprofitable. This
arrangement is observed and acted upon every day in the
providence of common life. I will suppose a case. An utter
stranger of mean exterior knocks at your door, and wishes a
share in the hospitalities of your house. You know nothing
of him, you are surprised at his request, and dismiss him,
perhaps, unceremoniously. He knocks again, makes use of the
name of your son, or brother, or some intimate friend,
declares that he calls at his request, proves that he is on
intimate terms with him, and that he had received assurances
from him that if he knocked at your door, and made use of
his name, you would show him every kindness and hospitality.
Your conduct towards the stranger is now very different. In
him there is no difference, except that he has made use of
another's name. But why should you act differently towards
him on that account? The reason is that you promptly and
spontaneously obey a certain arrangement of providence, and
you impute to the stranger a portion of the character, or
worthiness and respectability, of the person whose name he
has used; that is, you treat him better on account of that
name. In such a case you never think that there is an actual
transfer and commutation of personal worthiness; nor do you
stay to inquire how you come to treat the stranger better
for making use of your friend's name. Let the first
application of the stranger in his own name and character
stand for a sinner's approach to God on the ground of his
own righteousness. God says, "Depart, I know you not." He
knocks a second time, and makes use of the worthy name of
the Son of God, and begs to be admitted into God's favor for
the sake of Jesus Christ. He is then cordially "accepted in
the Beloved." He is found in Christ, and is well-received on
account of Christ. We perceive no incongruity, but due
propriety, in such a transaction in common providence; and
we would see no absurdity, but wise benevolence, in such an
arrangement in the mediation of Christ, if we were apt to
"discern spiritual things." On our part this communion of benefits with Christ takes
place by faith, trust, or confidence, in him; or, to use the
figure above, by using his name. If a sick man be restored
to health through his faith and confidence in the science
and skill of his physician, he enjoys the blessings of
health, as if he had had that science and skill himself. If
a passenger cross in safety a tempestuous sea, through his
firm confidence in the knowledge and ability of his pilot,
the result is to him, as if he had been at the helm himself.
In the same manner, if a sinful man is delivered from his
sin, through a firm belief and persuasion that the
sufferings of Christ are an awful expression of the evil of
sin, and supply an honorable ground for vindicating God's
righteousness in pardoning him, the result is to that
sinner, as if he had suffered to vindicate that
righteousness himself The doctrine of the Scriptures concerning substitution
appears entirely free from the objections which are brought
against the exhibitions of it in some theological systems.
When we consider that Jesus Christ suffered as if he had
been a sinner, that, nevertheless, his sufferings did not
partake of the elements of the literal curse of the law, and
that in consequence of them, sinners are treated as if they
had suffered themselves, the doctrine of substitution
appears in bold prominence, and appears to consist in a
substitution of sufferings, as well as in a substitution of
person. THE ATONEMENT THE APPOINTED MEDIUM OF
SALVATION FROM SIN. 1. The Scriptures represent the atonement of Christ as
supplying an honorable ground for offering and for
dispensing pardon to sinners. I have defined an atonement to be any provision, or
expedient, that, for the purposes of good government,
answers the same ends as the punishment of the sinner. An
atonement is provided, in order that the ends of government
being answered, the governor may be left at liberty to
pardon offenders in what way, or on what terms, he pleases.
An atonement only provides that the governor might be just
in pardoning, or that he might pardon, and his justice be
unsullied; but not at all that he must pardon or be unjust.
A pardon through an atonement is one honorably admitted by
justice, but, most assuredly, not one imperiously demanded,
as if it were the remission of a commercial debt. It is in this sense that Jesus Christ is said to have
given his life a ransom for all, 1 Tim. ii. 6. The death of
Christ is the ransom-price (the ______) of our deliverance.
The ransom-price is a sum of money, or any other equivalent
consideration that influences the holder of a captive to set
him at liberty. It is in reference to this sense that we are
said to be, justified through the "redemption" that is in
Christ Jesus--that is through the ransom-price, the valuable
consideration of his death, which exhibits God just in
justifying. The language is of course, analogical, and must
be so understood and explained. The meaning is this; that as
the ransom-price is the ground of the liberation of a
captive, so is the atonement of Christ the ground and reason
for delivering a sinner from liableness to punishment, and
from the thraldom of sinful habits and passions. 2. The atonement of Christ is, not only the ground on
account of which pardon is proclaimed and offered, but it is
the medium through which pardon is dispensed and
conferred. Christ is represented as "the way" to the Father.
Redemption is described as being "through Christ." God meets
the sinner for reconciliation "in Christ;" and the offender
draws near to God "in the name of Christ." The atonement is
not the salvation itself, but the medium of salvation; as
the ransom-price is not the redemption of the captive, but
the medium of his redemption. Therefore, the atonement, as
such, does not secure the salvation of any, but is the
medium of salvation to all. Just so is providence: it
infallibly secures health to none, but is the medium of
health to all. The atonement was not designed to deliver, at once and
summarily, offenders, simply as offenders. It never intended
to acquit them of their offence irrespectively of their own
disposition towards the government. In the atonement, God
consulted not alone the sinner's good, but, pre-eminently,
his own glory: but an indiscriminate pardon dispensed
without any regard to the disposition of the sinner, would
be inconsistent with the wisdom of the divine government,
and with the public justice which, in this provision, sought
the good of the whole commonwealth. To deliver captives, who
despise their Deliverer and their deliverance, cannot be
wise; and to ransom criminals, only to make them lawless,
cannot be good. The atonement is a medium of redemption, and must be
employed as such before redemption will ever be effected.
God employs it as the medium of declaring his righteousness,
and expressing his mercy in forgiving sin; and the sinner
must employ it as the medium of obtaining access to God. The
atonement will avail the sinner nothing for his salvation,
unless it be used by him. It is a "remedy," but it must be
taken; it is a "way," and it must be walked in; it is a
"satisfaction for sin," but it must be pleaded at the throne
of God; it is "the blood of the Lamb," but it must be
sprinkled, before it will avail for our safety from
destruction. Until this be done, "there is no salvation; but
the wrath of God abideth on every sinner. The atonement is
the amnesty of a government to an army of rebels; it may be
as comprehensive as the whole army, but it will actually
benefit only those who accept of it. The New Testament never represents the atonement as the
procuring cause of salvation, but the MEDIUM of dispensing
it. Eternal love is the sole procuring cause of salvation
through the atonement. Such a statement is supposed by some
to derogate from the dignity of the atonement. Accordingly,
MR. M'LEAN argues thus; "To represent Christ's death merely
as a medium through which spiritual blessings are conveyed,
and not the meritorious procuring cause of them, is to
ascribe no more to it than to the preaching of the gospel,
which is also a medium through which salvation is
conveyed." On the objection of this able and distinguished divine, I
submit the following notes. I. Here it is, supposed that a meritorious and a
procuring cause are the same. For an illustration of the
difference between these two causes, take the case of
Amyntas pleading for the relief of his brother AEschylus,
The Athenians had condemned AEschylus to death; but his
brother pleads for his pardon on account of the arm which he
had lost in fighting the battles, and defending the honor,
of his country. In this instance the procuring cause of
release was Amyntas' love and good-will towards his brother,
the meritorious cause was the loss of Amyntas' arm at the
battle of Salamis. It would not be correct to say that the
loss of Amyntas' arm procured his brother's release; for the
loss of the arm, as such, procured nothing for him; but when
viewed, as sustained in the cause of the government, and now
made to bear on the case of AEschylus, it became the
meritorious cause of his release. II. If the atonement be the procuring cause of salvation,
what is the procuring cause of the atonement itself? The
procuring cause of the atonement must be the procuring cause
of every other blessing. There can be no impropriety in
saying that sovereign grace is the procuring cause of
salvation, and the atonement the procuring medium of it. III. What MR. M'LEAN says about the death of Christ being
a medium, and the gospel being a medium, is only a play upon
words. For instance. In the case of AEschylus, Amyntas was
the medium through which the Athenian government granted the
pardon; the document authoritatively expressing the pardon
was the medium by which the government conveyed it. Thus the
love of God is the procuring cause of salvation, the
atonement is the meritorious cause; or, if you like, the
medium for procuring it, and the gospel is the medium of
conveying it, Even in commercial exchanges, money is not the
procuring cause of merchandise ; it is only a procuring
medium, and so is the atonement in moral government. 3. The death of Christ forms a ground of encouragement to
the sinner to hope and to plead for remission of sins. As a sinner, even on the ground of the atonement, he can
claim nothing. Christ did not die to make God just, nor did
he die to constrain him to exercise justice, but that he
might be just in justifying the ungodly. It does not become
the sinner to demand pardon as a claimant , but to crave it
as a penitent suppliant. There is no instance in Scripture
of the sobs of penitence assuming the tone of demand. "Sue out your right," is a phrase very common in
religious parlance, and has been frequently used by "the
olde Dyvines." If this phrase means that a sinner should
demand his salvation as a right due to him, it is an
egregious error; it shocks every christian grace, and
horrifies all common sense. But if "to sue out" means to
plead with all the earnestness of a humble suppliant, and
with the firm resolution "if I perish I perish," then the
phrase is good, and may be used, and used safely; but only
when the tears of penitence glisten in the sinner's eye. To sustain earnest entreaties and importunate pleadings
at the throne of grace for pardon, the atonement affords a
broad, firm, and free ground. To a sinner praying for free
mercy for the sake of the atonement we can say, "Ask what
thou wilt, thou canst not be too bold." 4. The death of Christ furnishes the believer in it with
a safe foundation for peace of conscience, for confidence
towards God, and for every other blessing. Hence, the death of the Son of God is represented as
sealing a testament, ratifying a compact. and confirming a
charter. This charter says, "There is no condemnation to
them who are in Christ Jesus!" With this in the hand of
faith, the Christian exclaims, "If God be for us, who can be
against us?" "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's
elect?" "Who is he that condemneth?" "Who shall separate us
from the love of God?" This gives him "the full assurance of
hope." The conscience, which none but the God who had been
offended could hush, finds joy and peace in believing. The
trembling sinner has his mind stayed upon a reconciled God,
and says, "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." He shows forth the Lord's death in all his duties, in all
his conflicts, in all his fears, and in all his privileges
and enjoyments. He shows it to God as the ground of his
hope; he shows it to the accuser of the brethren as the
ground of his justification; he shows it to the world as the
medium of all his blessings, and he shows it to his own
heart as the greatest motive to holiness and joy. PARTICULAR ATONEMENT INCONSISTENT WITH
THE SUBSTITUTIONARY SUFFERINGS OF
CHRIST. The hypothesis that Jesus Christ endured the identical
punishment due to the sinner, is one of the substrata of the
doctrine of particular or personal atonement. It has been, I
think, proved that this substratum is not of the formation
of apostolical times, but the recent alluvium of modem
systematic theology. Such a sandy deposit cannot, therefore,
be a safe foundation for such a weighty doctrine. I. The sufferings of Christ regard all the sins of
mankind. No passage of Scripture can be adduced which limits the
atonement to the sins of the elect. Whenever the death of
Christ is mentioned in connection with sin, it is always
with sin universally and as a whole. The Lord laid on him
the iniquity of us all. He is the Lamb of God that takes
away the sin of the world. John, indeed, seems. expressly to
guard against every shadow of a supposition that Christ made
atonement only for the sins of the elect. "He is the
propitiation for our sins", and not for ours ONLY, but, ALSO
is, in the sense, "for the sins of the whole world." When
Paul says that God condemned sin in the flesh, he does not
suppose that he condemned only the sins of the elect. He
condemned every sin. By the death of Christ he branded the
entire revolt of mankind with infamy and condemnation. "The
blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin." This passage, does
not mean that it cleanseth all who are actually cleansed,
but that it is the means to all of cleansing from all sin.
Blood is not in the class of agents, or means used for
cleansing in the sense of washing or cleaning the person, as
by the application of water. The "cleansing" therefore
ascribed to the blood of Christ, is the cleansing of
expiation, a cancelling of liableness to punishment. The
passage, therefore, means, "the blood of Christ expiates
from all sin." It will be immediately objected, "then why
are not all men saved?" You perceive that this very
objection goes. on the principle, that Christ could not
expiate from all sin, unless he endured the identical
penalty due to all sin; and that if this penalty had been
endured by him, it could not again be justly inflicted on
the sinner. It supposes that if Christ expiated all sins of
all sinners, then must all sinners go free, as if expiation
for sin were a commercial transaction. The objection "why
are all men not saved?" is not removed by reading "the blood
of Christ cleanseth, instead of expiates from all sin." The
scape-goat expiated all the sins of all the tribes,
nevertheless many who would not repent and afflict their
souls, were "cut off." Expiation is not the deliverance, it
is only a medium of deliverance, and must be used for
deliverance. Therefore, "all men are not saved," merely
because all men will not use it for their salvation. II. To expiate the crimes of a certain number of
offenders, by sustaining the identical punishment due to
them, is impracticable and absurd in a moral government. Such an expiation is not an atonement: it is a literal
infliction of the law, as far as the penalty is concerned.
It is true that where the punishment can be numerically
portioned out, the penalties of a certain number of persons
might be borne. If seven men be sentenced to receive
thirty-nine lashes each, a friend of strong frame might
sustain the whole amount for them. If seven men were
sentenced to the stocks for a day each, one might be found,
who would for seven days bear this for them. But this would
not be an atonement. It would be a literal infliction of the
law only on another person. The deliverance of the seven men
would not be of grace and favor, but of justice--for the
literal penalty due to them had been literally sustained by
their friend. The Scriptures nowhere give us any such views of
expiation and atonement. Did the lamb of the daily offering
expiate sin, by bearing the numerical amount of punishment
for the day? Is the displeasure of God against sin a thing
capable of being numbered and counted out? Is sin itself
capable of being calculated in weight and number? The wrong
which Ham did to Noah could not be numbered by items, nor
was Noah's displeasure doled out by weight. Such a thing
could not be made a matter of commercial measurement. There is a theological phrase in very frequent use, but I
think very few understand it. It is, that "the suffering of
a mere man cannot give satisfaction to the law." I suppose
it is meant, that he cannot give satisfaction to the law and
survive his sufferings. The law says "Do this--or dying thou
shalt die." If the man "do this," the law is satisfied. So,
if the disobedient dies, the law is satisfied, for it has
received what it required of the disobedient. The law is
perfectly satisfied as to its penal sanctions, in the case
of every sinner in the place of torments. A thousand times has the necessity of the Mediator's
being God, been founded on this proposition, that "no man
could endure the curse of the law." This phrase, and others
of the kind, always conveyed to my mind the idea, that the
curse of the law was something, like a dark cloud loaded
with a stormy tempest which if made to pelt on any one,
would require infinite physical and muscular strength to
sustain it. Then, Christ, according to this illustration,
was able to bear this storm,-which would have destroyed the
human race, merely because he was God. I appeal to all my
readers, whether they have not had such thoughts about the
death of Christ? My reader will find that he did not come by
these thoughts from reading the Scriptures: they can he
traced to some excellent divine, to some popular preacher,
or to some sweet singer of our Israel. All such imaginations
proceed on the opinion, that Christ suffered or sustained
every drop of the identical shower, that was to have fallen
on the elect. This argument can never be valid for the
divinity of Christ, for were there no greater reason for
Christ's being God, than that he might be able to bear the
storm, God, no doubt, could have imparted to an angel
sufficient strength to sustain any infliction. III. It is inconsistent with substitutionary atonement as
MORAL MEANS, to be peculiarly designed for particular
persons. In the arrangements of providence every one will
allow, that God designs the light of the sun, as means to
enable all men to do the duties of the day; and the man
would not be deemed sane, who, at sunset would argue, that
God had not that design towards those who had turned out to
be idle loungers and slothful servants, and that he had
really and truly, only designed it for those who had done
their work. In like manner will men consent that God had
designed the brazen serpent to cure all who were bitten in
the wilderness; nor will any one reason, that it was
specifically designed and purposed only for those who were
actually healed. Men will not argue so perversely in such
instances, because they have no theological system to
maintain. Yet, because sinners perish by rejecting the
atonement, men will persist in arguing, that it was actually
designed for those alone who accept it. IV. The bearing of this principle of substitutionary
sufferings on the principal controversies connected with the
atonement, shows how opposed it is to particular redemption.
If an ultra Calvinist can gain the point, that Christ
suffered the identical punishment threatened in the law, he
has entrenched the doctrine of particular redemption within
lines that are impregnable. For he will argue thus thousands
will suffer this punishment in their own persons, which
could never again be justly inflicted, if the substitute had
once borne it for them. They themselves bear it, ergo, He
did not bear it. If the Arminian concede that Jesus Christ
endured the identical curse of the law due to the sinner, he
must, with it, give up the general call of the gospel, and
the obligation of the sinner to accept salvation. If the
wrath due for sin to all mankind has been endured by Jesus
Christ, there is nothing in revealed theology that will
vindicate the justice of inflicting it again. On this
hypothesis it is undeniable, that if the wrath of God shall
actually be inflicted on the culprit, no one else could ever
have previously borne that wrath for him: for all on the
left hand of the Judge in the last day, will endure a wrath
that was never inflicted on another instead of them. We can
suppose that, an Arminian brother had been calling on some
of those very persons on the left hand to believe that
Christ bad already suffered the curse of the law for
them--and now, when sentenced according to truth, they
cannot fail to perceive, either that that doctrine was not
true, or that the second infliction is unjust. An atonement consisting of substitutionary sufferings
will be opposed both by the ultra Calvinist, and by the
Socinian. The Socinian will oppose it, because it silences
all his objections against redemption through the merits of
Christ. If he be not allowed for his weapons--the wrath of
the God of love,--the transfer of moral character, the
infliction of legal punishment on the innocent, his gauntlet
can grasp no other. The doctrine of a substitutionary
atonement, not only blunts, but breaks and shivers, these
favorite and long-used lances of Socinianism. The ultra
Calvinist will oppose this doctrine, because he thinks it
will spring a mine under particular redemption. Though this
principle will completely subvert the opinion of particular
redemption, I most confidently believe that it will not in
the least affect the doctrine of personal election.
Particular redemption and sovereign election are supposed to
be alter et idem, because they regard the same persons; but
the difference between them, as measures in a moral
government, is infinite. The doctrine of particular
redemption, like the doctrine of "divine right" of
despotism, is a figment; but sovereign election is like
"particular providence," a FACT in the divine government,
which no controversy can shake. Sovereign election of
believers is the exercise of the Governor's prerogative, but
particular redemption divides the empire of God into a
system of "caste."