of, anarchy. And can we conceive of better laws, than those which are presented to us in the word of God? If it should be said, "The precepts are good, but the penalties are dreadful," I would ask, Who ever heard or conceived of laws without penalties; or of what force are penalties in case they are not dreaded? The gift of a fiery law to Israel, is spoken of as an expression of God's love to that people. Deut. xxxiii,, 2, 3. "The law worketh wrath ;" and yet the same benevolent character in the Lawgiver, is displayed in the penalty which worketh wrath, as in the precepts which enjoin obedience. The wrath which is threatened, and which is actually executed on the breakers of the law, is not in the least degree malevolent. Who does not distinguish between a selfish revenge, which is gratified with inflicting evil on its enemy, in contrariety to wholesome laws, and the infliction of a merited punishment, in support of those laws?

The laws of God are every thing to the moral system. They must be supported, or his throne is overturned: they must be supported, or the intelligent creation becomes a scene of wild disorder and wretchedness. Without a penalty, laws can not exist; and if transgressions are connived at, the penalty is worse than useless.

The object of the supreme Lawgiver, in providing a propitiatory offering, was not to placate his feelings towards sin: His feelings towards this, can never be changed. Nor was it to originate feelings of benevolence towards sinners, for such feelings he had always possessed; as the very provision of an atonement, and one so exceedingly expensive, clearly shows: "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John iv. 10. But his object was to condemn sin as publicly, pointedly, and fully, as if sinners themselves had suffered that endless punishment which their rebellion had deserved.

Could sin have been pardoned without atonement, and yet the character of the divine Lawgiver remained unsullied, the law unimpaired, and the moral system uninjured, then might such a thing have been done. If there had been a law given, (any scheme of religion without atonement,) which could have given life, (i. e. to transgressors,) verily righteousness should have been by the law. Gal. iii. 21.

If the mere declarations of our holy Sovereign, asserting his abhorrence of man's apostacy, after it had taken place, would have answered all the ends of the infliction of punishment, in support of government, then might sin have been forgiven without an atonement. But who can believe that mere declarations would have answered the same purpose as punishment, in preserving the honor of the broken law? If they would, why might not the penalty have been dispensed with in the very formation of the law; and mere declarations have supplied its place? But no such law was ever enacted, or thought of, by any government, either human or divine.

Moral means, let it be remembered, are indispensably necessary for the proper management of moral agents. The power which God has to work directly on their hearts does not set aside this necessity. Among the means for regulating the concerns of the moral system, a good law is absolutely requisite; and a penalty subjoined, as we have already seen, is essential to the very existence of law: nor can the law con

tinue to be respected, or be of use in preserving order, as soon as it is seen that its violations are to be passed over unnoticed. The transgressors must be punished, unless something else can be done, which will exert as great and lasting an influence in securing respect for the law. Both these methods have been taken by the divine Lawgiver. He has punished many of the transgressors of his law, according to the threatenings he had denounced; he has also provided an atoning sacrifice, which is designed to manifest his approbation of obedience and disapprobation of transgression, as clearly and emphatically as it is done by the punishment of transgressors.

Heb.

Could men have been redeemed from punishment, by such corruptible things as silver and gold, the blood of Christ would not have been required. If an atonement, which cost no suffering, would have equally answered the purposes of moral government, the benevolence of the Supreme Ruler would have preferred it; for he has solemnly declared, he takes no pleasure in pain, even that which is endured by his ene. mies. Ezek. xviii. 23. Had the mere obedience of Christ been sufficient to condemn our transgression of the law, nothing more would have been required to prepare the way for our forgiveness. But we are assured that without shedding of blood there is no remission. ix. 22. In the sinner's substitute there must be suffering as well as obedience. The scripture makes it as necessary that we should have a suffering Savior, as that we should have any Savior at all. Those sacrifices which were designed to shadow forth him that was to come, did not make their typical atonement without the endurance of pain. They suffered a violent death; their blood was poured out at the bottom of the altar, and their flesh consumed by fire. The Redeemer, foretold by the prophets, was to be wounded for our transgression and bruised for our iniquities. Concerning the Messiah it was predicted that he should be cut off, but not for himself. Isa. liii. 5. Dan. ix. 26. In expounding the things concerning himself he said, "Ought not Christ to have suf fered these things?" "Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer." Luke xxiv. 26, 46.

Suffering is made essential to an atonement for sin; and yet mere suffering gives it no value. Innocence must be united with suffering. Obedience, though insufficient of itself, is nevertheless essential to atonement. The victims sacrificed under the law were all required to be without blemish: by which we are admonished, that no sufferings endured by a sinful being could make atonement for sin. The least moral defect in the Redeemer would have destroyed the efficacy of his expiatory sufferings, however great they might have been. But in him no such defect appeared. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. The apostle declares our redemption to be effected by "the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." 99 1 Pet. i. 19.

Nor are suffering and innocence, when combined, sufficient to consti. tute an atonement for sin. They were both found in the typical sacrifices; and yet these sacrifices were wholly inefficacious to accomplish this object. "For it is not possible," saith the Holy Ghost, "that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin." Heb. x. 4. impossibility of their taking away sin, arises from their entire inade

The

quacy to fix upon it a sufficient stigma, or afford a proper conviction to the subjects of moral government of God's determination, at all events, to sustain the honor of his violated law. Hence it was, that all which was endured by that immense number of victims, offered in sacrifice by divine appointment, during the four thousand years that preceded the coming of Christ, (though it constituted a great amount of suffering) could not make the least atonement for sin. They were the sufferings of irrational creatures, and therefore possessed no moral worth. Their use, even at the time of their being offered, was merely typical, pointing forward to the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.

The redemption system originated in the pure benevolence of God. It is designed, without doing any thing to lower down a respect for his laws or sully his glory, greatly to augment the happiness of the intelligent universe. This augmentation of happiness supposes not only, that the number of sufferers, but also the quantity of suffering, is diminished. The sufferings which, according to the threatenings of the law, were to have fallen on many, now fall on one. Had the guilty suffered in their own persons, their suffering must have continued forever; but the sufferings of our Redeemer were temporary, and were succeeded by joys immortal and full of glory.

That the display of God's indignation against sin, and determination to preserve from contempt the broken law, might be very emphatic, it became necessary that the humiliation of our Redeemer should be protracted through a course of years, and that, near its close, his sufferings should become exquisitely severe, and be accompanied with great ignominy. The grand purposes of an atonement would not have been answered by his death, had he died "the common death of all men.' His blood must be shed-his death must be that of the accursed-he must be numbered with the transgressors, and in the capacity of a malefactor be condemned to die by the hand of justice. Heb. ix. 22. Gal. iii. 13. Luke xxii. 37, and xxiii. 32. They, for whose redemption he had become sponsor, were transgressors of the law of God, and were condemned to suffer as malefactors; and that indeed justly, for it was the due reward of their deeds. The sufferings of Christ, in the character of a criminal, were calculated to make a true representation of our character and ill desert, as they were viewed in the court of heaven. Yet, while the honor of the divine government required, that the sufferings of the sinner's Substitute should be both intense and humiliating, and that they should be adjudged by them who sat in Moses' seat, and confirmed by the civil power which then ruled over the earth, it was by no means necessary they should constitute an amount of misery equal to that from which he saves his people. Such a view of the matter would render the sufferings of the Redeemer very undesirable; since it would imply, that the atonement had procured no diminution of misery in the universe, but had only transferred it from the guilty to the innocent. It would also seem to intimate, that misery, rather than the establishment of law, was that in which the Supreme Ruler delighted.

We obtain no proper conceptions of the greatness of the atonement, merely by looking at the bitterness of sufferings and the depth of ignominy

which the Savior underwent. Had these sufferings and this ignominy been endured by a mere man, or by an incarnate angel, they would have fallen infinitely short of fixing a proper stigma on the sin of men. Concerning all such sufferings, as well as of the blood of bulls and goats, it might have been said, it is not possible they should take away sin. The deficiency in this case, would not consist in the sufferings endured, but in the want of moral worth in the sufferer. An adequate atonement for the sin of men, must be of such a nature as to be calculated to exert as great, salutary, and lasting an influence in supporting divine authority, as would be done by the infliction of that endless punishment which is threatened in the law. But who can believe that this could be done by the sufferings of any finite being-any mere creature?

The Godhead of our Redeemer is the thing which gives worth and consequence to his vicarious sufferings. "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit" (or the Divinity that dwelt within him) "offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Heb. ix. 14. His blood is called the blood of God; and God is said to have laid down his life for us. Acts xx. 28. 1 John, iii. 16. The sufferings of a man, even when they are confined to his animal nature, are regarded as the sufferings of a rational being, and not of a mere animal. Were a human being to sacrifice his own life in promoting some great and good object, how altogether different and superior would such a sacrifice be considered, to his giving up the life of his beast, to promote the same object. That intimate union between our soul and body, by which they are both made to constitute one person, is the thing which gives such value to our corporeal sufferings. If the personal union of the divine nature with the manhood of Christ be not brought into the account, the greatness of the atonement can not be seen. He who died to redeem us, is, without any hyperbole, an infinite personage. It is said of him, "He shall be exalted, and extolled, and be very high," though "his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form than the sons of men." Isa. lii. 13, 14. "Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that is MY FELLOW, saith the Lord of hosts. Zech. xiii. 7. As "he thought it not robbery to be equal with God," so the Lord of hosts acknowledges him to be his fellow, his equal. The infiniteness of the sufferer, is the thing which gives value to his sufferings. They who strip the Savior of his divinity, will either have no atonement in their theology, or none which they will much regard.

Those who are much affected by looking at the cross, are such as recognize in the crucified Redeemer the God who made them. Zec. xii. 10. Such see a great sight. What could be more wonderful or affecting than this; that He who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, should make himself of no reputation, and take upon him the form of a servant, and become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; that by this means he might save those rebellious creatures whom he had a full right and power to punish. This was no pictured representation, nor visionary appearance; it was all reality. It was truly "God manifest in the flesh," who laid down his life for us.

His pains were not a pretence, but real sufferings. His body was bruised, his soul was troubled, yea, both were agonized. The display of condescension, of compassion for sinners, of regard to righteousness, and opposition to sin, was nothing less than infinite.

"Well might the sun in darkness hide,

And shut his glories in,

When God, the mighty Maker, died,

For man, the creature's sin."

The divinity of the Savior has already been asserted, and some of the texts by which it is proved have incidentally been referred to: but since it is manifest that the value of the atonement must chiefly depend on the greatness and dignity of the personage by whom it was made, it seems desirable that this topic should be more distinctly considered. And since there is no other place in this work where the Savior's divinity will so naturally be brought into view as under the present Article, I am unwilling to pass on till I have stated some of the heads of the arguments by which it is proved.

First. The proper deity of Christ is proved by the use of divine names. He is called "God"-"the mighty God"-" the great God" "the true God"-"God over all," &c. John i. 1. Isa. ix. 6. Tit. ii. 13. 1 John, v. 20. Rom. ix. 5. Christ is also called "Lord"-"Lord of lords "—" Lord of all "-Lord of glory," &c. Eph. iv. 5. Rev. xix. 16. Acts x. 36. 1 Cor. ii. 8. There is no name applied to the true God which is more peculiar than JEHOVAH. This occurs with great frequency in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament; and among these there are instances where it manifestly intends the Savior who was to die to redeem his people from their iniquities. Jer. xxiii. 6. Mal. iii. 1-3. Isa. vi. 5, compared with John xii. 41.

Secondly. The real divinity of the Savior is made known to us in the scriptures, by their ascribing to him infinite attributes. He is eternal, being "the First and the Last, without beginning of days or end of life." He is omnipresent, being in every part of the earth, yea, on earth and in heaven, at the same time; omniscient, "searching the reins and hearts" of men; omnipotent, having "all power in heaven and earth; " and immutable, being "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Micah v. 7. Matt. xviii. 20. John iii. 13, and xxi. 17. Rev. ii. 23. Matt. xxviii. 18. Heb. xiii. 8.

Thirdly. To the Savior are ascribed divine works, as well as names and attributes. Creation and providence are his works. "By him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible-and by him all things consist." Col. i. 16, 17. The renewal of the hearts of men is a work peculiar to God; and yet it is attributed to King Messiah. To him it is said, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Ps cx. 3. Judging the world is the appropriate work of the omniscient God. "God is judge himself." Ps. 1.6. He is distinguished from all others by being called the Judge of all the earth: and yet we are assured, that this infinitely arduous work is to be performed by him who died on the cross: "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. 2 Cor. v. 10.