died for all men, all men are perfectly free-the curse of the law can never be inflicted 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 since the hour in 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; he 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," &c. 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.

So

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. 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 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. 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 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 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 favor and grace, when every jot of the punishment has already been fully 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 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 re-imbursement to God of his lost honor, and even, a premium for the exercise of mercy. If the atonement were the motive for mercy, 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 a 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.

On

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. 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 his 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 frienddeclares that he calls at his request, proves that he is on intimate terms with him, and received assurances from him that if he knocked at your door, and make use of

* On this subject, see 'Four Discourses on the Atonement,' by D. BEMAN, of America. This little work is a rich nursery of what Lord BACON calls, "The Seed of Things." It abounds in living theologcal principles, each of which, if duly cultivated and reared, would unfold great and ample truths, illustrative of this great doctrine,