ferred to, "the death and resurrection of Christ." Still more expressly, Matt. xxvi. 28, our Lord declares that his blood is "the blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins;" where he plainly makes his blood the procuring cause of that remission, and a necessary libation in order to its being attainable. Our redemption is said, by St. Paul, Ephes. i. 7, to be "through his blood," and this redemption he explains to be "the remission of our sins;" and in writing to the Hebrews, he lays it down, as that very principle of the Old Testament dispensation which made it typical of the New, that "without shedding of blood there was no remission." This remission is, nevertheless, for the reasons given above, always represented as a free act of the Divine mercy; for the apostles saw no inconsistency in giving to it this free and gracious character on the one hand, and on the other proclaiming that that free and adorable mercy was called into exercise by the "chastisement of our sins being laid upon Christ;" and thus by uniting both, they broadly and infallibly distinguish "the act of a law. giver, who in forgiving sins has respect to the authority of the law, and the act of a creditor, who in remitting a debt disposes of his property at pleasure." in our behalf; and it is here used to denote the manner But although no criticism can be more fallacious than to interpret the forgiveness of sins, which is a plain and literal transaction, by a metaphor, or a parable, which may have either too few or too many circumstances interwoven with it for just illustration, when applied beyond, or contrary to, its intention, the reason of the metaphor is at once obvious and beauThe verb apinut, is the word commonly used for the remission of sins, and the remission of debts. It signifies to send away, dismiss; and is accommodated to both these acts. The ideas of absolute right in one party, and of binding obligation on the other, hold good equally as to the lawgiver and Equally unfounded is the argument built upon the the transgressor, the creditor and the debtor. The lawpassages in which the forgiveness of sin is repre- giver has a right to demand obedience, the creditor to sented under the notion of the free remission of a debt; demand his property; the transgressor of law is under in which act, it is said, there is no consideration of the bond of its penalty; the debtor is under the obliatonement and satisfaction. When sin is spoken of as gation of repayment or imprisonment. This is the a debt, a metaphor is plainly employed, and it would be basis of the comparison between debts of money, and a novel rule to interpret what is plainly literal by what obligations of obedience to a lawgiver; and the same is metaphorical. There is, undoubtedly, something in word is equally well applied to express the cancelling the act of forgiving sin which is common with the act of each, though, except in the respect just stated, they of remitting a debt by a creditor, or there would be no are transactions and relations very different to each foundation for the metaphor; but it can by no means other. Every sin involves an obligation to punishment; legitimately follow, that the remission of sins is, in all and when sin is dismissed, sent away, or, in other words, its circumstances, to be interpreted by all the circum- forgiven, the liability to punishment is removed, just as stances which accompany the free remission of a debt. when a debt is dismissed, sent away, or in other words We know, on the contrary, that remission of sins is not remitted, the obligation of repayment, and, in default unconditional; repentance and faith are required in order of that, the obligation of imprisonment, or, according to to it, which is acknowledged by the Socinians them- the ancient law, of being sold as a slave, is removed selves. But this acknowledgment is fatal to the argu- with it. So far the resemblance goes; but the Scripment they would draw from the instances in the Newtures themselves, by connecting pardon of sin with a Testament, in which Almighty God is represented as a previous atonement, prevent it from being carried farmerciful creditor, freely forgiving his insolvent debtors; ther. And, indeed, the reason of the case sufficiently for if the act of remitting sins be in all respects like shows the difference between the remitting of a debt, the act of forgiving debts, then indeed can neither re- which is the act of a private man, and the pardon of pentance, nor faith, nor condition of any kind, be in-transgressions against a public law, which is the act sisted upon in order to forgiveness; since, in the of a inagistrate; between an act which affects the priinstances referred to, the debtors were discharged with-vate interests of one, and an act, which, in its bearing out any expressed condition at all. But something, upon the authority of the public law and the protection also, previous to our repentance and faith, is constantly connected in the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament with the very offer of forgiveness. "It behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day," that "repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations." It was necessary, as we have already seen, that the one should take place before the other could be announced; and some degree of necessity is allowed in the case, even on the Socinian hypothesis, although a very subordinate But if by an act of prerogative alone, unfettered by any considerations of justice and right, as is a creditor when he freely forgives a debt, GoD forgives sins, then there could be no necessity of any conceivable kind for "Christ to suffer;" and the offer of remission of sins would, in that case, have been wholly independent of his sufferings, which is contrary to the text. In perfect accordance with the above passage is that in Acts xiii. 38, where it is said, "Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man (dia T8T8, through the means of this man), is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins." Here the same means as those before mentioned by St. Luke, are obviously re one. and welfare of society, affects the interests of many; in a word, between an act which is a matter of mere feeling, and in which rectoral justice can have no place, and one which must be harmonized with rectoral justice; for compassion to the guilty can never be the leading rule of government. 6. The nature of the death of Christ is still farther explained in the New Testament, by the manner ia which it connects our justification with "faith in the blood," the sufferings which Christ endured in our stead; and both our justification, and the death of Christ as its meritorious cause, with "THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD." According to the testimony of the whole of the evangelic writers, the justification of man is an act of the highest grace, a manifestation of the superlative and ineffable love of GoD, and is at the same time a strictly RIGHTEOUS proceeding. These views, scattered throughout the books of the New Testament, are summed up in the following explicit language of St. Paul, Rom. iii. 24-26. "Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." The argument of the apostle is exceedingly lucid. He treats of man's justification before God, of which he mentions two methods. The first is by our own obedience to the law of God, on the principle of all righteous law, that obedience secures exemption from punishment; or, as he expresses it, chap. x. 5, " For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth these things shall live by them." This method of justification he proves to be impossible to man in his present state of degeneracy, and from the actual transgressions of Jews and Gentiles, on account of which "the whole world" is guilty before God; and he therefore lays it down as an incontrovertible maxim, that "by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified," since "by the law is the knowledge of sin;" for which it provides no remedy. The other method is justification by the grace of God, as a "free gift ;" but coming to us through the intervention of the death of Christ, as our redemption price; and received instrumentally by our faith in him. "Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ." He then immediately adds, "whom God hath set forth," openly exhibited and publicly announced, "to be a propitiation;" to be the person through whose voluntary and vicarious sufferings he is reconciled to sinful man, and by whom he will justify all who "through faith" confide "in" the virtue of "his blood," shed for the remission of sins. But this public announcement and setting forth of Christ as a propitiation was not only for a declaration of the Divine mercy; but pardon was offered to men in this method, to declare the "righteousness" of GOD (εis evdεiziv dikaιoσvvηs avтs), for a demonstration of his righteousness or justice, in the remission of past sins; "that he might be just and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus"--that he might show himself to be strictly and inviolably righteous in the administration of his government, even while he justifies the offender that believes in Jesus. The Socinian version renders the clause, "to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins," to show his method of justification concerning the remission of past 'sins. Even then the strict rectoral justice of the act of justifying sinners through faith in the blood of Christ is expressed by the following clause, "that he might be JUST;" but the sense of the whole passage requires the literal rendering, "to declare his justice, that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. Some have indeed taken the word "just" (dikatos) in the sense of merciful; but this is wholly arbitrary. It occurs, says Whitby, above eighty times in the New Testament, and not once in that sense.(7) The sense just given is confirmed by all the ancient versions, and it is indeed put beyond the reach of verbal criticism by the clause, "for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God." For, whatever view we take of this clause, whether we refer it to the sins of men before the coming of Christ, or to the past sins of one who is at any time justified, the rapɛois, or "passing over" of sins, or, if the common rendering please better, "the remission of sins," and the" forbearance of God," are acts of obvious mercy; and to say that thus the mercy of GoD is manifested, is tautological and identical; whereas past sins not punished through the forbearance of GoD, without a public atonement, might have brought the justice of God into question, but certainly not his mercy. It was the justice of the proceeding, therefore, that needed a demonstration, and not the mercy of it. This, too, is the obvious reason for the repetition so emphatically used by the apostle, and which is no otherwise to be accounted for; "to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness;" "at this time," now that Christ has actually appeared to pay the ransom, and to become the publicly announced propitiation for sin; God cannot now (7) See NARE's Remarks on the New Version, MAGEE on the Atonement, WHITBY and DODDRIDGE in loc. Righteousness is indeed sometimes used for veracity; but only when some principle of equity, or some obligation arising from engagement, promise, or threat, is implied. appear otherwise than just, although he justifies him that believeth in Jesus. Similar language is also used by St. John, 1 Epistle, i. 9, "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins."-So that the grand doctrine of Christianity is unequivocally stated by both apostles to be, that, according to its constitution, the forgiveness of sin is at once an act of mercy and an act of justice, or of strictly righteous government. Neither the Socinian nor the Arian hypothesis at all harmonizes with this principle; on the contrary, they both directly contradict it, and cannot, therefore, be true. They make the forgiveness of sin, indeed, an act of mercy: but with them it is impossible that it should be an act of justice, because sin receives not its threatened punishment; the penalty of the law is not exacted; the offender meets with entire impunity; and the Divine administration so far from being a righteous one, has, according to their system, no respect to either truth or righteousness; and, so far as offences against the Divine law are concerned, that law is reduced to a dead letter. But in Scripture the doctrine of forgiveness of sins through the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ is not only asserted to be a demonstration of the righteousness of God in a case which might seem to bring it into question, but the particular steps and parts of this "demonstration" are, by its light, easy to be traced. For, 1. The law, the rule of the Divine government, is by this means established in its authority and perpetuity. The hypothesis which rejects the doctrine of the atonement, repeals the law by giving impunity to transgression; for, if punishment does not follow of fence, or no other term of pardon be required than one which the culprit has it always in his own power, at once, to offer (which we have seen is the case with the repentance stated by Socinians as the only condition of forgiveness), then is the law, as to its authority, virtually repealed, and the Divine government, over rebellious creatures, annihilated. The Christian doctrine of atonement, on the contrary, is, that sin cannot go unpunished in the Divine administration, and, therefore, the authority of the law is established by this absolute and everlasting exclusion of impunity from transgression. ! 2. Whether we take the righteousness or justice of God for that holiness and rectitude of his nature from which his punitive justice flows, or for the latter, which consists in exacting the penalty righteously and wisely attached to offences against the Divine law, or for both united as the stream and the fountain; it is demonstrated, by the refusal of impunity to sin, that God is this holy and righteous Being, this strict and exact Governor. On any other theory, there is no manifestation of God's hatred of sin, answering at all to that intense holiness of his nature which must lead him to abhor it; and no proof of his rectoral justice as Governor of the world. Mercy is, according to them all, adininistered on a mere principle of feeling, without any regard to holiness or justice whatever. 3. The doctrine which connects the pardon of the guilty with the meritorious death of Christ, illustrates the attribute of Divine justice, by the very act of connecting and blending it with the attribute of love, and the exercise of an effectual compassion. At the time that it guards, with so much care, the doctrine of nonimpunity to sin, it offers impunity to the sinner: but then the medium through which this offer is made serves to heighten the impression of God's hatred to sin, and the inflexible character of his justice. The person appointed to suffer the punishment of sin and the penalty of the law for us, was not a mere human being, not a creature of any kind, however exalted, but the Son of God; and in him Divinity and humanity were united in one person, so that he was "God manifested in the flesh," assuming our nature, in order that he might offer it in death a sacrifice to Gop. If this was necessary, and we have already proved it to have been so in the strictest sense, then is sin declared, by the strongest demonstration we can conceive, to be an evil of immeasurable extent and the justice of Gon is, by a demonstration of equal force, declared to be inflexible and inviolable. God "spared not his own Son." Here, indeed, it has been objected by Socinus and his followers, that the dignity of a person adds nothing to the estimation of his sufferings. The common opinion of mankind, in all ages, is, however, a sufficient refutation of this objection; for in proportion to the excellence of the creatures immolated in sacrifice have the value which, when this new creation has taken place, he vigorously aspires: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law night be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Not, indeed, that this obedience, which in the present life is, in some respects, imperfect, and in every degree the result of the operation of God within us, can, after this change, be the rule of our continued justification and acceptance; that will rest, from first to last, upon the atonement of Christ, pleaded in our behalf; so that if any man again sin, "he has an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;" but true faith leads, by an inseparable connexion, both to justification and to regeneration; and they who, as the apostle argues, Romans vi. 2, are thus "dead to sin, cannot continue any longer therein," but yield willing obedience to the law of GOD. The rule of God, the authority of his law, is thus re-established over his creatures, and the strictness of a righteous government is united with the exercise of a tender mercy. and efficacy of oblations been estimated by all people; | his constant rule, and the measure of that holiness to which notion, when perverted, made them resort, in some instances, to human sacrifices, in cases of great extremity; and, surely, if the principle of substitution existed in the penal law of any human government, it would be universally felt to make a great difference in the character of the law, whether an honourable or a mean substitute were exacted in place of the guilty; and that it would have greatly changed the character of the act of Zaleucus, the Locrian lawgiver, before mentioned, and placed the estimation in which he held his own laws, and the degree of strictness with which he was determined to uphold the, in a very different light, if, instead of parting with one of his own eyes, in place of the remaining eye of his son, he had ordered the eye of some base slave or of a malefactor to be plucked out. But without entering into this, the notion will be explicitly refuted, if we turn to the testimony of Holy Writ itself, in which the dignity and Divinity of our Lord are so often emphatically referred to as stamping that value upon his sacrifice, as giving that consideration to his voluntary sufferings on our account, which we usually express by the term of" his merits." Acts xx. 28, as GOD, he is said to have "purchased the church with HIS OWN BLOOD." In Colossians i. 14, 15, we are said to have "redemption through HIS BLOOD who is THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD." In 1 Corinthians ii. 8, "the LORD OF GLORY is said to have been CRUCIFIED." St. Peter emphatically calls the blood of Christ "PRECIOUS BLOOD;" and St. Paul dwells particularly upon this peculiarity, when he contrasts the sacrifice of Christ with those of the law, and when he ascribes that purifying efficacy, which he denies to the blood of bulls and of goats, to the blood of Christ. "HOW MUCH MORE shall the BLOOD OF CHRIST, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." By the argument of Socinus there could be no difference between the blood of animals, shed under the law, as to value and efficacy, and the blood of Christ, which is directly in the teeth of the declaration and argument of the apostle, who also asserts, that the patterns of things in the heavens were purified by animal sacrifices; "but the heavenly things themselves with BETTER SACRIFICES than these," namely, the oblation of Christ. To another objection of Socinus, that because the Divinity itself suffers not, therefore it does not enter into this consideration of punishment, Grotius well replies, this is as much as to say that it is an offence of the same kind whether you strike a private person or a king, a stranger or a father, because blows are directed against the body, not against dignity or relationship.(8) 4. In farther considering this subject, as illustrating the inherent and the rectoral righteousness of GOD, we are to recollect that, although by the atonement made for the sins of mankind by the death of Christ, all men, antecedently to their repentance and faith, are, to use the language of divines, put into "a salvable state," yet none of them are, by this act of Christ, brought from under the authority of the moral law. This remains in its full and original force, and as they all continue under the original obligation of obedience, so in case of those conditions not being complied with on which the actual communication of the benefit of redemption has been made to depend, those who neglect the great salvation offered to them by Christ fall under the full original penalty of the law, and are left to its malediction, without obstruction to the exercise and infliction of Divine justice. Nor, with respect to those who perform the conditions required of them, and who, by faith in Christ, are justified, and thus escape punishment, is there any repeal, or even relaxation, of the authority of the law of God. The end of justification is not to set men free from law, but from punishment; for, concomitant with justification, though distinct from it, is the communication of the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, by which the corrupt and invalid nature of man is restored to the love of holiness and the power to practise it, and thus the law of God becomes (8) "Quod autem Socinus argumentatur, quia divinitas ipsa non patiatur, ideo hanc in pænæ considerationem non venire; perinde est ac si dicas, nihil referre privatum an Regem, item ignotum, an patrem verberes, quia verbera in corpus dirigantur, non in dignitatum, aut cognationem."-De Satisfactione. Thus, then, in the doctrine of the atonement of Christ, we see how the righteousness, the essential and the rectoral justice of God is manifested. There is no impunity to sin; and yet the impunity to the sinner, through faith in the blood of Christ, does not lower, but establish the law of God. These views will also enable us to attach an explicit meaning to the theological phrase, "the satisfaction made to Divine justice," by which the nature of Christ's atonement is often expressed. This is not a phrase of Holy Writ; but it is not, on that account, to be disregarded, since, like many others, it has been found useful as a guard against subtle evasions of the doctrine of Scripture, and in giving explicitness, not, indeed, to the language of inspiration, but to the sense in which that language is interpreted. The two following views of satisfaction may be given as those which are most prevalent among those divines who hold the doctrine of the atonement of Christ. The first may be thus epitomised. The justice of God being concerned to vindicate his laws, and to inflict upon offenders the due reward of their evil deeds, it is agreed, that, without proper satisfaction, sin could not be forgiven. For, as sin is opposite to the purity and holiness of God, and consequently cannot but provoke his displeasure, and as justice is essential to the Divine nature, and exists there in a supreme degree, it must inflexibly require the punishment of those who are thus objects of his wrath. The satisfaction, therefore, made by the death of Christ consisted in his taking the place of the guilty, and in his sufferings and death being, from the dignity of his nature, regarded by the offended lawgiver as a full equivalent and adequate compensation for the punishment, by death, of the personally guilty. The second opinion does not assume the absolute necessity of a satisfaction to Divine justice, but chiefly insists upon the wisdom and fitness of the measure, arguing, that it became the Almighty Governor of the universe to consult the honour of his law, and not to suffer it to be violated with impunity, lest his subjects should call in question his justice. Accordingly, he sent his own Son into the world, who, by dying for our sins, obtained our release from punishment; and, at the same time, made an honourable display of the righteousness of God. In a word, Christ is supposed, in this opinion, to have made satisfaction for our sins, not because his death is to be accounted an adequate compensation, or a full equivalent for the remission of punishment; but because his suffering in our stead maintained the honour of the Divine law, and yet gave free scope to the mercy of the Lawgiver. Both these opinions have great names for their advocates; but the reader will feel, that there is too much indistinctness in the terms and phrases in which they are expressed for either of them to be received as a satisfactory enunciation of this important doctrine. The first opinion, though greatly to be preferred, and, with proper explanations, just, is defective in not explaining what is meant by the terms" a full equivalent" and "an adequate compensation." The second is objectionable, as appearing to refer the atonement more to wisdom and fitness as an expedient, than to wisdom and fitness in close and inseparable connexion with justice; and is defective in not pointing out what that connexion between the death of Christ and that honouring of the law of God is, which allows of the remission of punishment to offenders, of which they speak. Each imbodies much truth and yet both are capable of originating great and fatal errors, unless their terms be definitely and scripturally understood. To clear this subject some farther observations will, then, be necessary. of which that law is the visible and public expression." Nor is this to be regarded as a merely wise and fit expedient of government, a point to which even Grotius leans too much, as well as many other divines who have adopted the second opinion; for this may imply, that it was one of many other possible expedients, though the best; whereas we have seen, that it is every where in Scripture represented as necessary to human salvation; and that it is to be concluded, that no alternative existed but that of exchanging a righteous government for one careless and relaxed, to the dishonour of the Divine attributes, and the sanctioning of moral disorder; or the upholding of such a government by the personal and extreme punishment of every offender; or else the acceptance of the vicarious death of an infinitely dignified and glorious being, through whom pardon should be offered, and in whose hands a process for the moral restoration of the lapsed should be placed. The humiliation, sufferings, and death of such a being did most obviously demonstrate the righteous character and administration of God; and if the greatest means we can conceive was employed for this end, then we may safely conclude, that the righteousbeen demonstrated by inferior means; and as God cannot cease to be a righteous governor, man, in that case, could have had no hope. The term satisfaction is taken from the Roman law, and signifies to content a person aggrieved, by doing or by offering something which procures liberation from the obligation of debts or the penalties of offences; not ipso facto, but by the will of the aggrieved party admitting this substitution. "Ea dictio (satisfaciendi vocabulum) in jure et usu communi significat facti alicujus aut rei exhibitionem, ex quâ non quidem ipso facto, sed accedente voluntatis actu liberatio sequatur; soletque non tantum in pecuniaris debitis, sed et in delictis hoc sensu usurpari, quod linquæ ex Romanâ depravatæ appellant, aliquem contentare."(9) So the Roman lawyer Caius, "satisfacere dicimur ei cujus desiderium implemus," we are said to satisfy him whose desires we fulfil. Ulpian opposes satisfaction to pay-ness of God, in the forgiveness of sin, could not have ment, "satisfactio pro solutione;" and, in criminal cases, Asconius lays it down as a rule, "satisfacere, est tantum facere, quantum satis sit irato ad vindictam," to satisfy is to do as much as, to the party offended, may be enough in the way of vengeance.(1) It is from this use of the term that it has been adopted into theology, and however its meaning may have been heightened or lowered by the advocates of different systems, it is plain that, by the term itself, nothing is indicated, but the contentment of the injured party by any thing which he may choose to accept in the place of the enforcement of his obligation upon the party indebted or offending. The sense in which it must be applied to designate the nature and effect of the death of Christ in consistency with the views we have already taken is obvious. We call the death of Christ a satisfaction offered to Divine justice for the transgressions of men, with reference to its effect upon the mind of the supreme Lawgiver. As a just Governor, he is satisfied, contented with the atonement offered by the vicarious death of his Son, and the conditions on which it is to become available to the offenders; and their punishment, those conditions being accomplished, is no longer exacted. This effect upon the mind of the Lawgiver is not, as the Socinians would pervert the doctrine, the satisfaction of an angry vengeful affection, as we have before shown; but, according to the very phrase employed in all cases, and which is sufficient to show that their perversion of our meaning is wilful," a satisfaction," or "contentment" of his justice, which means, and can only rationally mean, the satisfaction of the mind of a just or righteous governor, disposed, from the goodness of his nature, to show mercy to the guilty, and who can now do it consistently with the rectitude of his character and the authority of his laws, which it is the office of punitive justice to proclaim and to uphold. The satisfaction of Divine justice by the death of Christ consists, therefore, in this, that this wise and gracious provision on the part of the Father having been voluntarily carried into effect by the Son, the just GOD has determined it to be as consistent with his own holy and righteous character, and the ends of law and government, to forgive all who have true" faith in the blood of Christ" the appointed propitiation for sin, as though they had all been personally punished for their transgressions. The death of Christ, then, is the satisfaction accepted; and this being a satisfaction to justice, that is, a consideration which satisfied God, as a being essentially righteous, and as having strict and inflexible respect to the justice of his government; pardon through, or for the sake of, that death, became, in consequence," a declaration of the righteousness of God," as the only appointed method of remitting the punishment of the guilty; and if so, satisfaction respects not, in the first instance, according to the second opinion we have stated above, the honour of the law of God, but its authority, and the upholding of that righteous and holy character of the Lawgiver, and of his administration, (9) GROTIUS De Satisfactione. 66 The advocates of the second opinion not only speak of the honour of the Divine law being concerned in this transaction; but of the maintainance of the justice of God, in which they come substantially to an agree ment with those who hold the first opinion; and if so, there appears no reason to except such phrases as a "full equivalent" and "an adequate compensation," when soberly interpreted. An equivalent is something of equal value, or of equal force and power to something else; but here the value spoken of is judicial value, that which is to weigh equally in the mind of a wise, benevolent, and yet strictly righteous Governor; and if the death of Christ for sinners was determined, in his infallible judgment, to be as equal a " demonstration" of his justice as the personal and extreme punishment of offenders themselves, it was, in this judicial consideration of the matter, of equal weight, and therefore of equal value, as a means of righteous government; for which reason, also, it was of equal force, or power, or cogency,-another leading sense of the term equivalent. So also, as to the term compensation," which signifies the weighing of one thing against another, the making amends. If this be interpreted, as the former, judicially, the death of Christ for sinners is an adequate compensation for their personal punishment, in the estimation of Divine justice; because it is, at least, an equally powerful demonstration of the righteousness of God, who only in consideration of that atonement forgives the sins of offending men. Just, however, and significant as these phrases are when thus interpreted, one reason why they have been objected to by some orthodox divines is, that they have been used in support of the Antinomian doctrine. On this account they have been by some wholly rejected, and a loose and dangerous phraseology introduced, when the reason of the case only required that they should be explained. The Antinomian perversion of them may here be briefly refuted, though that doctrine will afterward come under our more direct consideration. In the first place, the Antinomians connect the satisfaction of Christ with the doctrine of the imputation of his active righteousness to believers. With them, therefore, the satisfaction of Christ means his performing for us that obedience which we were bound to perform. They consider our Lord as a proxy for men; so that his perfect obedience to the law should be esteemed by God as done by them; as theirs in legal construction, and that his perfect righteousness being imputed to them, renders them legally righteous and sinless.The plain answer to this is, 1. That we have no such office ascribed in Scripture to the active righteousness of Christ, which is only spoken of there in connexion with his atonement, as rendering him a fit victim or sacrifice for sin-"he died the just for the unjust." 2. That this doctrine of the imputation of Christ's obedience makes his sufferings superfluous. For if he has done all that the law required of us, and if this is legally accounted our doing, then are we under no penalty of suffering, and his suffering in our stead was more than the law and the case required. 3. That this involves a fiction opposed to the ends of moral government, and shuts out the obligation of personal obedience to the law of GOD; so far, therefore, is it from being a demonstration of God's righteousness, his rectoral justice, that it transfers the obligation of obedience from the subjects of the Divine Government to Christ, and leaves man without law, and GoD without dominion, which is obviously contrary to the Scriptures, and favourable to license of every kind. 4. This is not satisfaction in any good sense; it is merely the performance of all that the law requires by one person substituted for another. Again, the terms full satisfaction and full equivalent are taken by the Antinomians in the sense of the payment of debts by a surety for him who has not the means of payment; as though sins were analogous to civil debts. This proceeds upon the mistake of confounding the cancelling of a debt of judicial obligation, with the payment of a debt of money. We have already seen the difference between the relation of a sinner to his offended Judge and Sovereign, and that of a pecuniary debtor to a creditor, and have pointed out the basis of the metaphor, when it occurs as a figurative representation in Scripture. Such payment would not be satisfaction in the proper sense, which stands opposed to payment, and means the acceptance of something in the place of what is due, with which the Lawgiver is content. Nor can any such sense be forced upon the term satisfaction, for we have no such representation in Scripture of the death of Christ, as that it is, in principle, like the payment of so many talents or pounds by one person, for so many talents or pounds owing by another, and which thereby cancels all future obligation. His atoning act consisted in suffering, "the just for the unjust ;" neither in doing just so many holy acts as we were bound to do, nor in suffering the precise quantum of pain which we deserved to suffer, neither of which appears in the nature of things to be even possible; but doing and suffering that which by reason of the peculiar glory and dignity of the person thus coming under the bond of the law, both as to obedience and suffering, was accounted by Gon to be a sufficient "demonstration of his righteousness," in showing mercy to all who truly believe in him. And as this notion of payment in full and kind by a surety is contrary to the import of satisfaction, so also is it inconsistent with the import of the phrase, a full equivalent. He who pays a civil debt in full for another, does not render an equivalent; but gives precisely what the original obligation required. So, if the obedience of Christ were equal in quantity and degree to all the acts of obedience due by men, and is to be accounted theirs, there is no equivalent offered; but the same thing is done, only it is done by another; and if the penal sufferings of Christ were in nature, quantity, and intenseness equal to the punishment of all sinners, in time and eternity, taken together, and are to be accounted their sufferings, no proper equivalent is offered in the case. The only true sense of the sufferings of Christ being a full equivalent for the remission of the punishment due to the guilty, is, that they equally availed to the satisfying of Divine justice, and vindicating the authority of his laws, that they were equivalent, in the estimation of a just Governor, in the administration of his laws, to the punishment of the guilty; equivalent, in effect, to a legal satisfaction, which would consist in the enforcement upon the persons of the offenders of the penalty of the violated commandment. Another consequence to which the Antinomian view leads is, that it makes the justification of men a matter of right, not of grace. We can easily, when the doctrine of satisfaction is properly stated, answer the infidel and Socinian objection, that it destroys the free and gracious nature of an act of forgiveness. For, not to urge again what has before been advanced, that the Father was the fountain of this mercy, and "gave" the Son; the satisfaction was quid recusabile, or such as God might have refused. For if the laws under which God had placed us were "holy, just, and good," which is their real character, and if the penalties attached to their violation were righteous, which must also be conceded, then it would have been righteous, every way consistent with the glory of God, and with every perfection of his nature, to have enforced the penalty. The satisfaction offered might not be unjust in him to accept, and yet he was clearly under no obligation to accept it could it have been offered independent of himself, much less could he be under any obligation to provide it, which he did. The offender could have no right to claim such a provi sion, and it depended, therefore, solely on the will of God, and as such was an act of the highest grace. Again, the forgiveness of sinners, through an atonement, is not de jure, that which can be claimed as a matter of right. It is made to consist with law, but it is not in any sense by the law. However valuble the atonement, yet, independent of the favour and grace of the Lawgiver, it could not have obtained our pardon. Both must concur in order to this, the kindmess and compassion of the Being offended inducing him to accept satisfaction, and such a satisfaction as would render it morally fit and honourable in him to offer forgiveness. "By grace," therefore, we "are saved;" and nothing that Christ has done renders us not deserving of punishment, or cancels our obligations as creatures and subjects, as a surety cancels the obligations of a debtor, whose debt he pays for him. Forgiveness in God can, therefore, be no other than an act of high and distinguished mercy. We are also to consider, even now that the atonement has been accepted, and the promise of forgive ness proclaimed, upon the conditions. of repentance and faith, that we claim forgiveness, not on the ground of justice, but on that of the faithfulness of God, who has been pleased to bind himself by promises; and also that the mercy and grace of GoD are farther illustrated by his not proceeding to extremities against us upon our first refusals of his overtures, of which all are in some degree guilty. He exercises towards us, in all cases, "all long-suffering," and calls us not hastily to account for our neglect of the Gospel, any more than for the infractions of his law, both which he might do, were his government severe and his mercy reluctant. But abundantly as the objection may thus be an swered, it is not to be satisfactorily refuted, on the Antinomian principle, that Christ paid our debt, in the sense of yielding to the law, in kind and in quantity, those acts of obedience, or that penalty of suffering, or both, which the law required. The matter in that case, on the part of the Father, loses its character of grace, and is reduced to a strictly equitable proceeding; or at least the mercy is of no higher a kind than is the mercy of a creditor who accepts the full amount of his debt from the surety instead of the debtor, which is assuredly much below that love of the Father to which allusions so admiring and so grateful are often made in the New Testament. The consequences, also, become absurd and wholly contradictory to the Scriptures; and such a view of the satisfaction of Christ is inconsistent with the conditions of pardon and acceptance; for if the debt is in this sense actually tendered and accepted, on what ground can conditions of release stand? It is, therefore, consistent, in the Antinomian scheme, to deny all conditions of pardon and acceptance, and to make repentance and faith merely the means through which men come to the knowledge of their previous and eternal election. By them, as fulfilled conditions, their relation to God is not changed, so that from guilty and condemned criminals they become sons of God.-. Such they were previous to faith, and previous even to birth; and thus the Scripture is contradicted, which represents believers, before repentance and faith, to be "the children of wrath, even as others." That passage also in Galatians loses its meaning," we have believed in Jesus Christ, THAT we might be justified by the faith of Christ." With such explanations of the terms of the first of the two opinions on the satisfaction of Christ above given, it may be taken as fully accordant with the doctrine of the New Testament on this important subject. Another remark may here be in its proper place. It has been sometimes said by theologians, sufficiently sound in their general views of the doctrine of the atonement, that we know not the vinculum, or bond of connexion between the sufferings of Christ and the pardon of sin, and this, therefore, they place among the mysteries of religion. To me this appears rather to arise from obscure views of the atonement, than from the absence of information on this point in the Scriptures themselves. Mysteries of love and incomprehensible facts are found, it is true, in the incarnation, humiliation, and sufferings of our Lord; but the vincu lum, or connexion of those sufferings, appears to be |