;"; ''.;.!ihh *': JOHNM?1.E,OD • liioujHlrr.'!, "h.ituuiiT .'tt.^.Tli'SlnH'l,) / //>^ Jfc^9^/au!i^, e { SC£ ttlol7 ON THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. GLASGOW: PUBLISHED BY JAiEES SLA.CLEHOSE. edinbcbgh: a. and c. black. " oLrrEE axd boxd. " JOHN JOHXSTONi:. LONDON: JACKSON AND WALFOED. " HAMILTON, ADAMS, ANT) CO. DUBLIN : JOHN ROBERTSON. DISCOURSES THE NATURE AND EXTENT ATONEMENT OE CHRIST. RALPH WARDLAW, D.D. GLASGOW: JAMES MACLEHOSE, BUCHANAN STREET, MDCCCXLIII. . GLASGOW: PRINTED BY D. RUSSELL, BUCHANAN COURT, ARGYLL STREET. PREFACE The circumstances which led to the dehvery of the following discourses are adverted to in the in- troduction to the first of them. In the Scottish Guardian Newspaper, of the 5th August, 1842, — in editorial remarks on the opinion given by Dr. John Brown and myself on the question of the propriety, in the then existing state of parties, of the English Dissenting ministers opening their pulpits to the Non-Intrusion clergy of the Scottish Establishment, for the purpose, not of preaching the gospel, but of pleading their own special cause, there appeared the following sentence : — " The only two of any distinction, who have come forward to dissuade their dissenting brethren in England from admitting us into their pulpits, are Dr. Brown of Edinburgh, and Dr. Wardlaw of Glasgow, — men Yl PREFACE. who, to a certain extent, are unsound on tlie cardinal doctrine of the atonement." — This drew forth a dis- claimer and remonstrance from each of the parties thus assailed. In the Editor's subsequent comments on the letter from myself, he says, he " did not re- gard himself so much to be making a discovery, as to be directing attention to a fact already known ;" and, in evidence of the rectitude of his impression, he makes reference to the then recent work of Dr. Marshall, and the " elaborate refutation" contained in it of my views of the atonement. And this reference to the work of Dr. Marshall leads me to the second of the considerations by which my determination to treat more at large the point at issue was influenced. — I do not feel myself to have the smallest reason for personal dissatisfaction with Dr. Marshall's treatment of me in the volume referred to. Quite the con- traiy. I sincerely thank him for his good opinion, and his friendly courtesy. But still, when, al- though without attaching blame to me for it, but PREFACE. vii rather reflecting on the unsteadiness of some of his own brethren, he represents me as, to a cer- tain extent, (to use the phrase of the Guardian) a kind of origo mail in the Secession Church; as having contributed to shake the orthodoxy of its ministers, to introduce, as a consequence, painful and schismatic controversies, and, in a word, (though that word is not Dr. Marshall's) to poison the springs of truth in that large, res- pectable, and eminently useful body of Christians, — it will not be denied that in this too I had a pretty loud and imperative call to self-defence. To a christian minister there can be no impu- tation more serious than that of unsoundness — even although couched in qualified terms — on a "cardinal" article of divine truth, — an article so essentially connected, as the atonement is, with the glory of God and the salvation of men. It then becomes his duty, — not for his own sake merely, but for the sake of his ministerial usefulness, which, so far as the imputation is either believed nil PREFACE. or suspected to be true, cannot fail to be affected by it, — and for the sake of tlie truth of God, of which, if he be honest, he must consider the views he holds to be those given in the inspired standard, — to take the field, and " contend earnestly for the faith delivered unto the saints." — The love of con- troversy, apart from the love of truth, is iiTational and unchristian. But the love of truth may, and at times must, overcome the aversion to controversy. And indeed, in almost all cases, the outcry against controversy is unwisely directed. It should not at all be against controversy, but against the evil spirit which, it must be confessed, has, to a lamentable extent, been infused into the conduct of it. If not in itself a good, it may be admitted to be a necessary evil ; and an evil out of which, if the spirit of the combatants be duly guarded, good may arise, — good in proportion to the vital import- ance of the subject under discussion. I humbly and fondly trust, that in the volume now offered to the pubhc, the spirit will not be found out of har- mony with evangelical love : — and with regard to PREFACE. IX the views of the great doctrine of atonement which are defended in it, I must leave the reasoning in vindication of them, to the impartial judgment of 'my fellow-christians and my fellow-servants in the ministry of the gospel. My conscience tells me, in the sight of God, that truth is my object, and truth alone. R. W. Baulanerk, 2Wi Aprils 1843. CONTENTS. DISCOURSE I. Page Atonement.— The Cheistian Atoneaient, .... 1 DISCOURSE II. Value of the Atonesient. — Import of Satisfaction to Divine Justice. — Extent of the Atonement, .... 38 DISCOURSE III. Divine Relations. — Coebesponding Designs of the Atone- ment.— Untvebsalitt OF THE Calls and Offees of the Gospel, 81 DISCOURSE lY. Obstacles to the Sinnee's Salvation, Existing in the Sin- nee himself: — Relation of the Atonejient to them the Sinner's Accountableness : — Natube of his Ability AND his Inability, 122 DISCOURSE V. FUBTHEB EEMABKS ON MOEAL INABILITY. — DiVINE DeCBEES. — BeaEING of THESE ON THE DOCTBINE OF THE ATONESIENT, AND ON Human Responsibility. — Sujdiaby of Agreement AND Difference, 160 Xll CONTENTS. DISCOURSE VI. Page Appakent Discrepancy, bdt Real Harmony, of Scripture Statements, 206 DISCOURSE VII. Practical Improvement Inferences froji the Atonement respecting the Final Condemnation of the Impenitent. — Application to Different Descriptions of Character, . 244 ON THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT OE CHRIST. DISCOURSE I. ATONEMENT.— THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. HEB. IX. 26. — " BCTT NOW ONCE, IN THE END OF THE WOBLD, HATH HE APPEABED, TO PUT AWAY SIN BY THE SACKIFICE OF HDISELF." When, on tlie first Lord's day of last month, I announced my intention to deliver a short series of discourses on the nature and extent of the atonement, I had not sufficiently thought of the somewhat embarrassing predicament in which I was, by this means, placing myself. In the volume, long since pubhshed, on the principal points of the Socinian Controversy, there are three discourses relative to this great christian doctrine, — one on its nature, one on its practical tendencies, and one on the connexion of our blessed Lord''s divinity with its sufficiency and availableness : — and in a more recent pubhcation I have entered, at some length, into the subject of its extent. I have thus, to a considerable degree, forestalled myself. But this essential article of divine truth has, for some time 2 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. past, in our own part of the Island especially, been engaging not a little the attention of the pubhc mind : — and some of the views respecting it, given in the pubhcations just referred to, have, "to a certain extent," been charged with "unsoundness." I have felt it, therefore, a duty to myself, and, what is of far higher consequence, a duty to truth, to recur to this subject, and to vindicate the views in question, to the full extent in which I still con- ceive them to be in harmony with the revealed mind of God. — I have also, I confess, felt a strong desire, to bring as near to an exact balance as possible the amount of difference between recently and still con- tending parties ; — ^who, on the present as on all occasions, are exceedingly apt, in the warmth of discussion, to hold up each other's sentiments as they appear through the magnifying lenses of con- troversy, and to condemn and proscribe them in terms of undue and undiscriminating severity. In what I may lay before you, on the various branches of this interesting subject, it will not, of course, be expected, that I should bind myself down to the entire avoidance of former statements, illus- trations, and modes of expression and argument. All that I can promise is, to avail myself of them as little as possible. I shall enter into no critical discussion of the phrase in the text respecting the time of our Lord's appearing, — " in the end of the world" The word THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 3 translated *' world'* is not the same with that which has the same rendering in the former part of the same verse, — " for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world." "^ The mere English reader would at once suppose it to he the same ; and would naturally set about puzzHng him- self with the inquiry, how the period of Christ's manifestation in the flesh came to be called "the end of the world." But the latter of the two original words signifies ages; and " the end, or close, of the ages" appears to mean the termina- tion of the Mosaic and previous dispensations of religion; the appearance of the Messiah being the event which was to supersede them all, by the in- troduction of that to which they were all prepara- tory, and which was to continue till the end of time. — By some, indeed, from the peculiarity of the Greek term that is here rendered "the ewe?," the proper meaning has been conceived to be the junction of the ages, or the period of the close of the one and the commencement of the other, — the point of meeting between them.f * The one phrase is—utto Kxru,/3oXy,g KocrfX,ov :— the other— s^r; t " Schoettgen supposes the term (rvVTiMiet to be here used, rather than rsXog, by way of marking the junction of the two t£A}J, or pe- riods. Accordingly, it is well observed by Bengel and Wesley, that "the sacrifice of Christ divides the whole age or duration of the world into two parts, and extends its virtue backward and forward, from this middle point wherein they meet, to abolish both the guilt and power of sin." — Bloojifieid. 4 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. I only remark fiirtlier, on that portion of the text that does not so immediately belong to my present object, that in the word " onc^^ there is emphatic- ally expressed a contrast between the one sacrifice of Christ and the oft-repeated sacrifices of the old economy: — " Nor yet," says the preceding verse, " that he should offer himself often, as the High Priest entereth into the holy place every year,'' (that is, on the high day of annual atone- ment) "with blood of others; — ^for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: — but now once, in the end of the former dispensations, hath he appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." And the contrast, thus pointedly introduced, is eridently intended to convey and impress the sentiment of the infinite superiority, in value and efficacy, of his sacrifice to those of the ancient priesthood; his being an offer- ing, of which the repetition could not, without im- piety, be so much as imagined; — which, from its very nature, was necessarily final; — the idea of any other succeeding it being not less, if not even more revolting than that of the repetition of itself. But it is to the latter words of the verse, con- veying the design of our Lord's appearing, or the nature of his work, that I am now desirous of fixing your attention. He appeared — " to put AWAY SIN BY THE SACRIFICE OF HIMSELF." The words clearly express three things: — that he appeared, to offer a sacrifice ; — that that sacrifice THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 5 was himself; — and that the end for which it was offered was to put away sin. — With regard to the latter phrase, it may be noticed, that the noun which is rendered, ui effect, ^'ih^ putting away'^ of sin" occurs only once elsewhere in the New Testament, — namely, in the 18th verse of the seventh chapter of this epistle: — "for there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before;" where the import of it is sufficiently mani- fest, — ^namely, the abrogation of previously existingl mstitutes. — Taking the word, as it occurs in our text, in the same acceptation, some have conceived the sense of the clause before us to be — " the abo- lition of sin-off ering ^"^ — a sense which the original word for sin is generally admitted to bear. This would doubtless yield a meaning at once just and suitable. But, supposing, as in our version, the ordinary use of the word retained, it is obvious, that the putting away of sin, when represented as effected by a sacrifice, must mean the expiation of ^/^^j its guilt, and the consequent prevention of its penal effects, — I think, therefore, I shall not be far from the true import of the words, if I consider them as expressing the sentiment, that Christ came for the purpose of making, by the sacrifice of him- self, AN ATONEMENT FOR SIN ^ \ . Without dwelling on the apparently simple etymology of the Enghsh term, adopted by some 5 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. grammarians, according to which it conveys the idea of two parties, preyionsly at variance, being set at one again, — and, by a sufficiently natural metonymy, that by which the reconcihation or at- one-ment is effected, — I satisfy myself with observ- ing, that in the very idea of atonement there are essentially involved two parties,- — the one to whom, and the one for whom, the atonement is made.- — I have said, it involves essentially two parties only, because it may be, that the party for whom the atonement is required may be able to make it himself. When this is not, or cannot be, the case, there then comes to be included a third party, — the mediator between the other two, by whom the atonement is made to the one, and for the other. I need not say, that such is the state of matters in the case before us. The atonement is made hy Christ, to God, for the sinner. Let us notice, then, for a few moments, the RELATIVE POSITION OF THE PARTIES. There is a God; and men are his creatures. To this divine Being men sustain the relation, not of dependant creatures alone, but of the subjects of his moral government. By the intimations of conscience, and by the testimony of revelation, they are under a law, and responsible to him for the observance or the breach of it. That law is pro- tected by what is essential to every law, and con- stitutes the distraction between law and mere advice or counsel, — a penal sanction. With the nature THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. / and amount of the penalty we have at present no- thing to do. — Placed originally under a representa- tive constitution, in which the first parent of the race was regarded as its federal head, man has fallen from his state of innocence ; and the simple affirmation of the word of God that, without dif- ference, " all have sinned,^ is no more than what is established by universal history, and universal con- sciousness, — in every age, and in every country. — The fall of man did not annull, nor in the slightest degree mitigate, his original responsibility. He remained accountable, and accountable on the terms of the same law; — a law, which, being at first "holy, just, and good," — a transcript of the moral perfection of the lawgiver, — could not, in any one of its essential principles or requirements, any more than could the nature of the God by whom it was dictated, admit of abrogation or of change. If, on man's becoming a sinner, the law had ceased to be obligatory, or its subject to be accountable, sin and guilt must have been confined to the first act of transgression ; no more of the former could have been committed, nor could any more of the latter, consequently, have been contracted. " Sin is the transgression of law;" and all unpardoned sin involves an accumulation of guilt and of liability to punishment. — Further: for the honour of the Lawgiver and his throne, the law provides in one way alone : — namely, by its annexed penalty. It makes no provision, nor, from the very nature of 8 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. law, was it possible it should, either for the for- giveness of its transgressors, or even for any mitigation of their sentence. Man, as the guilty subject of an irrepealable law, has no resource. He hes under his sentence of death, — ^bound over, by divine justice and truth, to the endurance of it, in all its fearful extent. The unalterable terms of the law are, — on the one hand, "The man that doeth these things shall hve by them :" — and, on the other, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." , ^^ The other party is God. — In all that relates to /'. the subject of our present discussion, he is to be 1 regarded solely in the character and relations of j the righteous Governor, Lawgiver, and Judge of jthe universe. He gave the law to man. As the only Being in existence who was either entitled or competent so to do, he fixed the penalty of its infraction. That infraction was a violation of his rightful authority, and a dishonour to his equitable and benignant administration. He retains his po- sition. The rebelhon of a subject left untouched, in all their ftQness and force, the rights of his throne; his demands remaining the same, on the fallen as on the unfallen, — on the guilty as on the innocent. — Having, in righteousness, threatened certain punitive results to disobedience, his veracity binds him to their infliction ; — and, these punitive results being neither more nor less than were THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 9 required by justice, of whicli it is the province and the characteristic to render to all their dues, — ^that very justice must stand to its claims, and insist on their fulfilment, unless provision can be made for their being consistently and honourably re- mitted. Justice, in itself, can neither condemn the righteous, nor acquit the wicked; but is, on the contrary, morally bound to condemn the wicked and acquit the righteous :• — and, the sentence of condemnation having been pronounced by Justice, there would be a departure from justice in its not being executed ; for, in that case, the sinner would not have his due. — Both the honour of the Go- vernor, the dignity and stabihty of his throne, and the subordination and happiness of his moral empire, imperatively demand that the authority of his law be maintained imdolate, and that the breach of it do not, therefore, pass with impunity. Justice must maintain the twofold obligation ; — the obliga- tion to obedience, and the obligation to suffer for disobedience. Man, the innocent, as the subject of an equitable government, hves ; life being due to him according to the constitution under which he has been placed : — man, the sinner, left in the hands of simple justice, dies ; death being due to him by the same constitution, — a constitution divinely framed, on the principles of eternal rec- titude. In these circumstances, what is to be done? — The unconditional absolution of the transgressor 10 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. would be a flagrant outrage on the claims of retri- butive justice; — his annihilation, would be a tacit evasion of these claims ; — while, if the law has its course, and the demands of justice are satisfied by the infliction of its penalty, he is lost for ever, — everlasting hfe forfeited, and eternal death endured. Here, then, is the place for atonement. — "What is it? What is the general idea which ought to be attached to the word ? We take this inquiry first, and shall then proceed to the precise nature of that atonement which is actually disclosed to us by the gospel. — "In its simplest form," it has been well said, "the problem of a rehgion may be expressed thus : — Given a supreme Deity, the Creator and Governor of aU things, and an intelligent 'creature in a state of alie nation and estran gemen t from his Creator; to determine the means whereby a reconciliation may be effected, and the creature restored to the favour and ser- :'. vice of his God."* — This assuredly is "the problem of a rehgion" for a sinful and guilty creature; for of a creature so circumstanced it is wdth such reconciliation the rehgion must neces- sarily begin. There can be nothing worthy of the name, till this is effected. And the great question to be answered, or problem to be solved, is. How may this be accomphshed, honourably to the char- * Connexion and Harmony of the Old and New Testaments, &c. By W. L. Alexander—page 7i. THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 11 acter and the government of the Supreme Ruler ? — The sense in which atonement is to he regarded as a satisfaction to justice, we shall consider by and by. Meantime, the definition given by another modern writer in high and well-earned reputation, of the theological term satisfaction, may be adopt- ed as expressing what, according to him, is the principle, or essence, of atonement : It is — " Such act or acts as shall accomplish all the moral pur- poses which to the infinite wisdom of God appear fit and necessary under a system of rectoral holi- ness, and which must otherwise have been accom- plished by the exercise of retributive justice upon transgressors in their own persons." * — More briefly, the same writer represents atonement as a " compensative resource, by which the salvation of the sinner may be obtained, in consistency with the honours of the divine government."f — ^Another modern author defines it thus: — "An atonement , is any provision introduced into the administration of a government, instead of .the infliction of the punishment of an oifender, — any expedient, that will justify a government in suspending the exe- ,j^^ i/(^^j^ cution of the threatened penalty, — any considera- ^^ ^^^ ( ' tion that fills the place of punishment, and answers ,, ,. ^ j a the purposes of government as effectually as the y V doit^a^^U ^'-'■' ••-■^ '■ i ■ w Co^^c^ * Four Discourses on the sacrifice and priesthood of Jesus Christ, and the atonement and redemption thence accruing, &c. By John Pye Smith, D.D., F.R.S. Note xvi., p. 301. Sec. Ed. t Ibid., p. 202. 12 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. infliction of the penalty on the offender himself would; and thus supplies to the government just, safe, and honourable grounds, for offering and dis- pensing pardon to the offender." — More concisely — "Atonement is an expedient substituted in the place of the Hteral infliction of the penalty, so as to supply to the government just and good grounds for dispensing favours to an offender."* — The acute and powerful mind of Andrew Fuller places the matter in the same general hght, when he says — " That a way was opened, by the media- tion of Christ, for the free and consistent exercise of mercy in all the methods which sovereign Wis- dom saw fit to adopt." f — I have myself formerly stated the matter thus : — " The great question, on this momentous subject, comes to be, — In what MANNER may forgiveness be extended to the guilty, so as to satisfy the claims of infinite justice, and thus to maintain in their full dignity, free from every charge of imperfection or of mutability, the character of the Governor, the rectitude of his ad- ministration, and the sanction of his law ?" % — To the terms of this question, or statement, I am dis- posed now to subjoin the following clause — "and * On the Extent of the Atonement, &c. By Thomas W. Jenkyn, D.D — page 2. t Fuller's Gospel its own Witness, &c.— Works, Vol. I., p. 114. Note. t Discourses on the Socinian Controversy— Disc. VII., p. 227. Fifth Edition. THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 13 to provide, in the pardoned sinner, for the in- terests of holiness '^ I make this addition, because it brings the statement into more complete accord- ance with the representation given by the Apostle Paul of the design of Christ's substitution — "Who gave himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."* If, in these words, we consider "redeeming us from all ini- quity" as relating to redemption from it in its guilt, condemnation, and punishment, according to the sense in which he uses the word redemption, when he says elsewhere — " In whom we have re- demption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins," ' — we shall then have in them the two grand ends, ever inseparably united, of our Lord's mediation and substitutionary atonement: — namely, on the one hand, to provide for the honourable extension, on God's part, of pardoning mercy to the sinner ; and, on the other, to furnish suitable moral means for engendering holy affections, on the sinner's part, towards God. These are two parts of one design. They are both included in salvation. And they are both aUke indispensable to the glory of the divine Ruler, and to the happiness of his apostate subject. — But I am anticipating. The more immediate relation of atonement is to *Tit. 14 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. the honourable exercise of mercy in the sinner's pardon and acceptance. — If it be asked, why may not mercy go directly to its object ? — why may it not follow out its dictates at once ? — why may it not confer forgiveness at its pleasure, irrespectively of any such encumbrance as has thus, under dif- ferent designations, been referred to ? — in one word, why may it not 'pardon without atonement ? — our reply to such questions is twofold. In the first place, they are presumptuous. There is a question which ought ever to take precedence of them, — the question oifact. What has God actually seen meet to do, and revealed his having done ? If He whose wisdom is infinite has, in point of fact, adopted the plan of atonement, who will have the self-sufiicient hardihood to teU him he might have done otherwise ? Who will presume to affirm that he has been expending his wisdom in a useless device, and executing a scheme of stupendous magnificence, which might all have been spared? Who will thus venture to test divine wisdom by his own ? Must not this inevitably be to " charge God foolishly?" Our first inquiry ought to be. What has God done ? And we should rest assured that what he has done was what alone he could do ; inasmuch as it must have appeared in his eyes the best to be done ; and with a Being whose know- ledge and wisdom are infinite, lest and only are the same thing. He cannot, from a moral necessity, do any thing else than what is best. — And then. THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 15 secondly, although we have not "the eyes of God," to take in, with all-comprehensive glance, the entire bearings of any of his plans, yet, in the present case, he has not left us without such ghmpses of the principles on which his plan has been framed, as enable us, in some measure, to discern and vin- dicate its excellence. — The very definitions which have been given of atonement show this. The principle on which they are all founded is a mani- festly reasonable one ; namely, that in every step of his procedm'e, the divine Ruler should provide for the glory of his character and government ; so that what is in apparent harmony with one of his perfections, may not be in manifest discordance with another, and that the authority of his law, and the dignity of his government, may not be sunk and weakened in the minds of his intelhgent creatures. — It is, I confess, matter of surprise to me, that any good and sound-thinking man should be found treating this view of the atonement with lightness and scom. The following sentences are from the pen of one who holds the doctrine of a hmited atonement. In as far as they relate to that subject, I make no comment upon them at present. I quote them now for one purpose only : — " The prevalent notion at present is, not that by his incar- nation, sufferings, and death, Christ made atone- ment for those whose sins he bare in his own body on the tree, — thus cancelling their guilt, and opening a channel through which mercy and love 16 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. flow to them in perfect consistency witli justice; but that the manifestation of the Son of God was designed as a pubhc display, in order to maintain the honour of the divine government. What a view does this give of Him, before whom the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust in the balance ! Was God mani- fest in the flesh? Did the Creator of the world, in our nature, suifer and die, merely to produce an impression upon the minds of rebels, and to prevent his government from sinking into con- tempt ? No : it was that he might be just, and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus ; that he might be faithful and just in forgiving the sins of those whose great Head and Surety, according to his covenant engagements, endured the penalty which they had incurred, and yielded to the law which they had broken the obedience which it demanded."* — The manner in which the two schemes, of limited and universal atonement, affect, respectively, the majesty of the Godhead, here so solemnly appealed to, we shall have occasion here- after to notice. What I now request you to ob- serve, is, the lightness with which this writer treats the idea of what he designates a ''public display.'^ Is it, then, of no importance, provided God be just, . whether, in the eyes of his intelhgent creation, he * Man's responsibility, the nature and extent of the atonement, and the work of the Holy Spirit, &c. By J. A. Haldane. Pages 110, 111. THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 1/ appear just ? Is it enough, that Jehovah be " glori- ous in holiness," whether the glory of his holiness be or be not manifest to the subjects of his moral administration ? Is this a matter of which He him- self, in his word, ever speaks in terms which in- dicate his not thinking it worth his minding? If it has been worth his while to institute and exer- cise a moral government at all, it must be worth his while, not only always to act (for how can he do otherTvdse ?) in consistency with its eternal prin- I ciples, but to make that consistency, in every step, ! apparent to the rational universe. Of what avail, indeed, can a moral government be, — what rever- ence can be felt for its dignity, what submission can be yielded to its authority, what complacency can be experienced in its supreme Conductor, — unless provision be made for this? Creatures, it is true, who have alienated themselves from their allegiance, and are "enemies in their minds and by wicked works," may be blind, morally blind, to the glory of such a display. But in that case, their own is the blame : the manifestation has been made ; and that is enough, for the vind ication __of '" ^^ '*'' the Governor, and the condemnation of the sub- ject. We shall see, moreover, on a future part of our discussion, that the ^'declaration,'' or mani- festation, of the divine righteousness in the for- giveness and acceptance of transgi'essors from the beginning, was, according to inspired testimony, the very purpose of the atonement.- — I may re- 18 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. mark here, besides, that it is a most mifair and miscriptural representation of the " puhhc display" in question, to identify it with "making an im- pression on the minds of rebels." Even this it is far from right to treat contemptuously ; but to con- sider the " display" as reaching no further than this, is inconsistent ahke with scripture and with reason. How far, in the universe, it may extend, it is not, of course, for us to say: but this we know, that " unto the principahties and powers in the heavenly places is made known, through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God ;" — that the angehc hosts — " ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands," celebrate the glories of "the Lamb that was slain," and, through the slain Lamb, of " Him that sitteth upon the throne !" The very terms which I have thus quoted lead me to our next point of inquir}", — which indeed, in the phraseology used, has been in part, and unavoidably, anticipated : — What is the atone- ment, WHICH, ACCORDING TO THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME, HAS ACTUALLY BEEN MADE ? And in answer to this inquiry, the whole bilDle bears us out in affirming it to have been atonement hy sacrifice^ 1 — ^in other words, by substitution and vicarious tp^ ^i\suffering .^ — Of this the Bible is full. To the mind that can contrive, to its own satisfaction, to strip the Bible of the doctrine of^ atonement b^ vicarious THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 19 suffering, it miglit, in my apprehension, be saMj\/x, uri1^ *;»// covery at all ; there being no terms conceivable that I >^^> ^>^ might not, by such a mind, be explained away. \ Salvation is the lesson of the Bible : — and it is salvation by ATONEMENT,_0r__SUBSTITUTION- I ARY SUFFERING, fo 1 h . When man fell, and became a sinner, the God whom he had offended, whose yoke he had guiltily thrown off, whose sentence of death he had in- curred, and at whose mercy he lay, — came forward in a new and appropriate character. He made promise of a deliverer from the deadly wrong of which *Hhe Old Serpent" had been the instiiiment. The terms of the promise were, pm'posely, general and obscure, designed to receive gi-adual explana- tion, till their true import came to be clearly dis- closed at the time of its fidfilment.^ — ^The mode in which "the Seed of the woman" was to "crush the head of the Serpent," — to obtain, that is, the victory, and effect the deliverance, — could hardly be said to be contained in the terms of the promise ; so obscure is the intimation of his sufferings in the predicted bruising of his heel, — ^his enemy obtain- ing a temporary advantage, and inflicting a tem- porary wound. — The institution of animal sacrifice (for its di\ane original I must here be peraiitted to assume, every attempt to account for it other^^^se having proved an utter failure, founded in no principle of nature or of reason) was, apparently. 20 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. the first additional light thrown upon this great truth. I keep at present hy the inspired record. Amongst the earliest of its brief annals, we find the divine acceptance of Abel's sacrifice, and rejection of Cain's. Why was this ? Why were the struggles and pains of a bleeding lamb (nature's very emblem from the beginning of harmlessness and innocency) and the consumption of its carcase by fire, pleasing to the God of infinite benevolence, while to the equally natural offering — ^in some respects, indeed, according to our apprehensions, even much more natural^ — of the " fruits of the ground " he " had not respect," — ^withholding, whatever it was, the sign of his satisfaction and acceptance? The difference is at once accounted for by the considera- tion (nor does it seem capable of being at all accounted for otherwise) that Abel's was the offering specially appointed for the sinner, — ^the t}^e of ihQ future propitiation, — in the presentation of which, at the altar, guilt was confessed, merited wrath deprecated, and mercy, through the atone- ment, implored. And this accords exactly with the inspired explanation of the matter in the epistle to the Hebrews — " By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." Cain was the first Deist, — ^bringing the offering by which he acknowledged Jehovah as the God of nature and providence, but withholding that by which the God of nature and pro^sidence required to be acknow- ledged as the God of grace .^ — And what presents THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 21 itself thus early in the history of the world before the flood, meets us still earlier after it. Instantly on his stepping from the ark, the second father of mankind rears his altar; — slays and burns his propitiatory ^detims : — and Jehovah smells the savour of rest, gives his promise of blessing, and bends on the cloud the beauteous bow of his covenant.' — ^The Mosaic dispensation, in which pre- vious types were embodied, and new ones perhaps introduced, was a system of prefiguration, in which the same great truth was signally prominent, its fundamental maxim being, that *' without shedding of blood there was no remission;" — a system, full of divine wisdom when thus understood, but a satire on that wisdom in every other view that can be taken of it.^ — The prophets confirm and illustrate the lesson of the Law. " The testimony of Jesus was the spirit of prophecy." "To him gave all the prophets witness, that, through his name, whosoever believeth on him should receive the remission of sins." And that remission, in har- mony with the figures of the law, was, according to these "holy men of God," to be through the sufferings of a substitutionary mediator. Remark- able to this effect is the language of Isaiah, (chap, liii.) more like that of history than of prediction : - — " All we, like sheep, have gone astray ; we have turned every one to his own way: and Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all :" — "he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for 22 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. our iniquities ; the cliastiseinent of our peace was upon Min ; and by liis stripes we are healed :"' — "he is cut off out of the land of the Hving ; for the transgression of my people was he stricken :" — " it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath put him to grief; when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied i — by his knowledge (by the knowledge of himself) shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities." No terms can be plainer than these. And they are in fall harmony with those of Daniel (chap, ix.) : — "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, and to make recon- ciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and the prophecy, and to anoint the most holy : — ^And after threescore and two weeks, shall Messiah be cut off; but not for himself" — that is, for no offence of his own : " And he shall confirm the covenant mth many for one week ; and in the midst of the week, he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease." — I have given our received translation of these remarkable passages. I am satisfied that in some parts of them the phraseology might with fairness be rendered still more appropriately to our present purpose. But they are sufficiently appro- THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 23 priate as they stand. The substance of the latter is thus given, I think most justly, by an eminent modern critic : " It declares that the sacrifices and offerings once instituted by God should be abolished; that the Messiah should be given up to an untimely and violent death, though no personal demerit could be charged upon him ; and that, by this great measure in the government and grace of God, a true propitiation and an everlasting righteousness should be established."* — According to the pro- phets, the promised dehverer was to be a priest, — *^ a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec ;" and a priest, as the Apostle reasons, imphes an offering. That offering, we have seen, was to be himself. — After the law and the prophets, as a kind of intermediate nuncio between Moses and Christ, came John the Baptist : and what is his testimony ? ** Looking upon Jesus as he vfalked," — ^while his bodily eye was fixed, in reverential love, upon the antitype, the eye of his mind glanced back to the sacrificial type, and he proclaimed — "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world !f — After his forerunner comes Jesus himself; and he says — " The Son of man is come, to give his life a ransom for many :" — " I lay down my Hfe for the sheep :" — " This is my body, which is given for you. This is my blood of the new covenant, which * Dr. Pye Smith's Four Discourses, &c., p. 25. f Joliii i. 29. 24 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. is shed, for you"' — '"wMch is slied for remission of sins unto many."* — Then follow the apostles, fully commissioned and fully enlightened, agree- able to their Master's assurance, "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now: howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth." f And with this fulness of promised hght, is there any change ? No : only the clearer and more complete development of the same blessed truth. Hear Peter : — " "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree:" — "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us unto God :" — " Ye are redeemed, not with corruptible things, as silver and gold, — but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot :" — Hear John : — " The blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin:"' — "And he is the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world :" — " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." — Hear Paul: — "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare * Matt. XX. 28. John x. 15. Luke xxii. 19, 20. Matt. xxvi. 28. f John xvi. 12, 13. THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 25 to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him :" ■ — " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us :" — " Who gave himself for our sins :" — " In whom we have re- demption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins:" — "Who gave himself a ransom for all:" — " He hath made him who knew no sin to be sin for us ; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." * And I need not say how full of the doctrine of atonement is the epistle in which our text lies, of which the evidence is sufficiently clear that Paul was the writer. Look at the text itself with its context: — "But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building ; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having ob- tained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifjdng of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered him- self without spot to God, purge your conscience * 1 Pet. ii. 24. iii. 18. i. 18, 19. 1 John i. 7. ii. 2. iv. 10. Rom. v. 6—9. Gal. iii. 13. Gal i. 4. Eph. i. 7. 1 Tim. ii. 6. 2 Coi. v. 21. 26 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. from dead works, to serve tlie living God ?" — " For Clirist is not entered into tlie holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true ; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us : nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others ; (for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world:) but now once, in the end of the world, hath he ap- peared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment ; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many : and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation."* I might go forward with a large portion of the following chapter. — ^And, accor- ding to the representations of scripture, the praises of heaven correspond with the faith of earth. The Lamb that was slain is the theme of its everlasting songs :■ — " Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us unto God by thy blood." f — Surely, with such tes- timonies before us, evincing such a harmony in the divine dispensations, and such a unity of principle and design between the earlier and the later por- tions of divine revelation, — ^it would be far more consistent to renounce the authority of the Bible at once, than to admit that authority, and deny that it teaches the doctrine of redemption by sub- stitutionary sufferings or sacrificial atonement. * Verses 11— H, and 24—28. f Rev. iv. and v. THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 27 In such an atonement, let me now remark, there are obviously presupposed certam attributes of the divine character. These are, especially, right- eousness and MERCY. —With regard to the former, it must to every mind be manifest, that righteousness is the very perfection in the nature of the supreme Ruler, and the very quahty hi his government, that renders atonement necessary ; the clearing of righteousness from every unfavour- able imputation, as if sin were winked at, or its criminal desert under-rated, and allowed to pass without its punitive recompense, being the very purpose which atonement is designed to answer, in the pardon and acceptance of the guilty. — It is of first-rate consequence, however, to bear in mind, that in the idea of atonement," mercy is as ne- cessarily presupposed as righteousness. If righte- ousness was what rendered atonement necessary, mercy was necessary to an atonement being pro- vided. The doctrine has, on this point, been most perversely and pertinaciously misrepresented; as if the idea of atonement imphed the existence of vindictiveness and implacability,' — and as if no mercy could be exercised, till this \-indictive- ness had been appeased. Whereas, nothing can be clearer, than that, had there not been mercy previously in the character of the divine Ruler, the idea of atonement could never have sug- gested itself. It is the dictate of mercy. A / vindictive being could never have thought of it; 28 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. or, if tlie thouglit suggested itself, it could only have been to meet with instant and indignant repudiation. A Yindictive being would have al- lowed stern unbending justice to take its course, to the utmost limit of the exaction of merited suifering. Mercy, in the divine mind, pleads for the sinner. But such is the harmonious unity of the divine character,- — the spirit of each of the attributes forming an element in all the rest, — the mercy being righteous mercy, and the righteous- ness merciful righteousness, — that mercy itself can advance no plea but with the concurrence and to the honour of righteousness. Still, had not God '^ delighted in mercy," the thought of providing means for securing the honour of righteousness in order to its consistent exercise, could never have presented itself to his mind. Such a thought would have been the furthest possible from a spirit that had pleasure in vengeance. Be it remembered, then, that atonement produces no change in the divine character. The very idea is blasphemy. God is, in every respect, the same since the atonement that he was before, and was the same before that he has been since. Mercy, infinite hke all his other attributes, belonged to his nature from eternity. He does not delight in mercy be- cause the atonement has been made ; but the atonement has been made, because he delighted in mercy. The atonement is the manifestation of ! righteousness and mercy in union. It is the sug- THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 29 gestion of love ; the invention of wisdom ; the vindication of justice; the way for the honour- able exercise of pardoning grace. This is the in- variable representation of the matter in the Bible. Nowhere is the divine Being represented there as loving men in consequence, or on account of, the atonement. Its language is — "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever beheveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life :^' — " God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us :" — "^ Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." — Let all, then, beware of confounding between the practical ex- ercise of mercy in the divine government, and the existence and operation of mercy in the divine character. To the fonner a provision is necessary for the honour of justice ; but of the latter this very pro^dsion is the gracious dictate. Atonement, then, is that in consideration of which sin is pardoned, and the sinner received into favour and made the participant of blessing. It is not the pardon itself, nor the favour itself, nor the blessing itself; but that on account of which the pardon, the favour, and the blessing are conferred. — There is one light in which the effect of the atonement is prominently and dehghtfully represented, in explanation of which a few words are necessary, inasmuch as here too there are mis- 30 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. apprehensions. It is — reconciliation. The gospel is called — and there is not in the inspired volume a more interesting designation of it — " the word of reconciliation," and the gospel ministry "the ministry of reconciliation:" — and of God it is said, that He "was in Christ reconcihng the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." — In what sense is this to he under- stood ? Extremes meet. Socinians, by whom the doc- trine of atonement is entirely denied, have, on this point, taken up the ground, that in the scriptures, God is no where represented as reconciled to man, but man as reconciled to God. For example, in the very passage, with its context, just referred to — 2 Cor. V. 18-20 ; where we have the phraseology — "reconciled us to himself," — " reconciling the world unto himself," — "be ye reconciled to God:" — and in Hom. v. 10, "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son." Without stopping to inquire, how far the views entertained by them of man's nature, when they speak of it as a nature of which the sinftdness, to the degree in which it may exist, is the effect of ignorance alone, and to which God only requires to be presented in his true character to become the object of love, — thus denying the description given of it as "enmity against God," — without stopping to inquire how far such lenient views of human corruption harmonize with the Bible view THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 31 of even man's reconciliation to God, — we have been accustomed to meet the objection by observing the pecuUar maimer in which the verb to reconcile, and its corresponding noun reconciliation are, in this book, used : namely, when the person said to be reconciled is not the offended party, but the offender. Instances of this occur in 1 Sam. xxix. 4, " And the princes of the Phihstines were wroth with him; and the princes of the Philistines said unto him. Make this fellow return, that he may go again to his place which thou hast appointed him, and let him not go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he be an adversary to us : for wherewith should he reconcile himself unto his master ? should it not be with the heads of these men?" And in Matt. v. 23, 24, "Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remem- berest that thy brother hath ought against thee ; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way ; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." — In the former mstance, Saul, David's master, was the offended party, — reasonably or unreasonably, justly or unjustly, is not the present question : — yet David is not spoken of as reconciling his master to him, but as reconcil- ing himself to his master. The obvious meaning, however, is, that by "the heads of these men," Da^id would appease or propitiate his master, avert his displeasure, and conciliate his favour. — In the other instance, the same remark applies. The meaning of 32 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. "be reconciled to tliy brother," wben tbe party- addressed is tbe offender, and tbe brotber tbe offended, evidently is — Make peace witb tby bro- tber : by all suitable means conciliate bim, and remove out of tbe way tbe grudge, or obstacle to intercourse, of wbicb tbou bast been tbe cause. — On tbe same principle, tben, wben sinners are re- presented as reconciled to God, tbe expression sbould be understood as comprebending, not only tbe relinquisbing of tbeir enmity, tbeir spirit of alienation and hostility, towards God, but also tbe tm-ning away of bis displeasure against tbem ; tbe bringing of tbe parties, in sbort, into a state of mutual friendship. And tbat tbis is really tbe case, appears from tbe terms of tbe very passage in wbicb tbe pbrase so repeatedly and pointedly oc- curs : — God's "reconciling tbe world unto bimself" being tbere explained of bis "not imputing tbeir trespasses unto tbem :" tbat is, by forgiveness be brings tbem into a state of favour and acceptance witb bimself. And tbe same tbing is equally mani- fest in tbe otber quotation, Rom. v. 10, if it be only taken in connexion witb tbe previous verse : ^'^ Mucb more, tben, being now justified by his blood, we sball be saved from T\Tatb tbrougb bim : — for if, wben we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, mucb more, being reconciled, we sball be saved by bis life." If be- ing ^^ reconciled to God by the death of his Son^* be not bere inclusive at least of being justified by THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 33 his blood, it vvill not be easy to make out the validity of the apostle's reasoning. — With this we have been accustomed to connect another consider- ation, namely, that though the precise phrase of God's heing reconciled to man may not be em- ployed, there are, in his word, not a few expres- sions which are in effect equivalent to it; and if the sentiment is expressed, the mere mode of ex- pressing it is of comparatively trivial moment. In the scriptures we find it affirmed, that "God is angry with the wicked every day ;" that he '^hateth all the workers of iniquity ;" that " the Lord is jealous, and revengeth ; that he revengeth and is furious ; that he will take vengeance on his ad- versaries, and resei'veth \\Tath for his enemies;" that he has " revealed from heaven his wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men :" and the " children of disobedience" are denominated " children of wrath." — On the other hand, when God forgives iniquity, he is, in perfect consistency with such expressions, represented as " turning from the fierceness of his anger, and taking away all his wrath ;" as " not retaining his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy;" as "pacified towards the objects of his forgiveness, notwithstanding all that they have done :" and they who before were " children of wrath," are described as then saying, with holy and humble joy, " O Lord, I will praise thee ; for c 34 THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. ' thougli thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away." * Do not such representations, then, which ahound in the scriptures, warrant us to say, that there is a sense in which God may with propriety be spoken of as reconciled to sinners? — But, as I have said, extremes meet. Some of those who advocate the universahty of the atonement, and the consequent universahty of the love manifested in it, have thought it necessaiy, in order to consistency with themselves, to take up the same ground with Uni- tarians as to the phraseology in question. The blessed God, they in substance allege, is not, and has never been, the enemy of man, but is, and has ever been, his friend ; and therefore it cannot be right to speak of him as reconciled: — man is the enemy, man alone ; and therefore the idea of re- concihation, and the terms expressing it, should be restricted to him.- — But the whole embarrassment /'''seems here to arise, I will not say from not I adverting, but from not giving due consideration i and weight, to the distinction between the God- \ head personally and the Godhead rectorally con- sidered, — or between Deity in his character, and Deity in his government. The distinction is one which everybody understands. The difference may often be very wide between the personal feelings of a h uman magistrate towards a criminal, * Discourses on the ''ocinian Controversy. Disc. vii. pp. 230, 231. THE CHRISTIAN ATONEMENT. 35 and those witli which he regards him officially. As the friend of the law, of the constitution, of the community, of social order, he may feel and manifest towards him all the severity of indignation, while there are, struggling in his bosom, feelings of personal interest, and pity, and aifection, which it is his duty to co erce into abeyance. — -To speak, • indeed, of the enmxty~Q>i God against the sinner,! *^/ It^C J*^ by whomsoever such phraseology is employed, Ii should conceive to be very unwarrantable ; because a . enmity is ever used as a term of personal feelingr: But where there is no personal enmity, there may be judicial displeasure. It is, on all hands,■ 50 IMPORT OF SATISFACTION when we say tliat by Christ's propitiatory sacrifice the justice of God was satisfied ? — ^The language, as you all are aware, is common with all who speak of the atonement : hut it is to be feared that, in the minds of many by whom the language is used, the ideas attached to it are exceedingly undefined and vague, — and even, in some cases, not a little aside from scriptural correctness. What is JUSTICE ? — ^^\^e formerly defined its pro- vince and its characteristic, to be that of rendering to all^ ^heir due : — and, according to the ground we assume on which to determine what is due, will our conceptions of the meaning of justice be the more strict or the more comprehensive. — By some it has been resolved into benevolence; being de- fined — "goodness du*ected by wisdom."* Now, it is true, that because of the injury which results from sin to the creatures of God, goodness, whose gratification is in the happiness of its objects, must necessarily set itself against it. But then, that which does produce the injury to the rational crea- tion, is not sin merely on this account. This would make utility to the creature the sole foundation of morahty or virtue. But there are principles of immutable rectitude, of which the origin is to be sought, — ^it being impossible to trace them further, — in the necessary nature of the eternal God. These principles are transferred from his nature to his * Stillingfleet. TO DIVINE JUSTICE. 51 law. Adherence to them is the creature's virtue, or moral excellence ; and disconformity to them is his sinfulness. The former must ever operate bene- ficially, and the latter injuriously. The rectitude of the principles is the cause of their beneficial re- sults ; not the results the cause of their rectitude. In the results goodness does delight; — but it is rather with the eternal rectitude of the principles thai justice has to do. The violation of the princi- ples, as embodied in law, is the cause of guilt ; and Justice, as the holy and jealous guardian of the principles, has bound itself, in the punitive sanc- tion attached to law, to visit the guilt with due retribution. On the other hand, benevolence has been re- solved into justice. — "Love is the fulfilling of the law." Love, therefore, according to this the- ory, is due to those towards whom its cultiva- tion and exercise are commanded; — and wher- ever there is the idea of dueness (if I may coin a term) there is the idea of justice. Supreme love, is, in the strictest justice, due from the creature to God, — a love that includes, amongst its other elements, delight in his infinite and independant blessedness. And on the ground of the claims which mankind have on one another being recipro- cal, the command to "love our neighbour as our- selves," of which the practical counterpart is — " whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," may also be resolved into 52 IMPORT OF SATISFACTION justice; the love, with its expressions, heing mutu- ally, and on the principles of rectitude, due, so that there is a violation of legal right when it is with- held. With all humility, and on a principle by which God is honoured, it may, I think, with truth be affirmed, that, although no creature can ever lay his creator under obhgation, or merit any thing at his hand, — ^yet, not on the ground of spontaneous 1 engagement alone, but in the moral nature of 1 things, there is something due from the Creator to the creature. It is the will of the former that gives existence to the latter. Now we cannot, without feehng that outrage is done to all our conceptions of rectitude, form the idea of a creature brought into existence in misery, — or, in other words, the idea of misery that is not, in some sense, penal. In this view, then, may we not, with propriety, consider freedom from misery as due, according to all the principles of rectitude, from the creator to his creature, considered simply as a creature, the involuntary product of his power ? But, waiving all further discussions of this ab- stract kind, and considering justice, according to the ordinary definition of it, as the attribute that gives every one his due, I have now to remark, that it has been divided into various kinds. They have been designated — vindictive, commutative, distribu- tive, andipitblic. , I set aside the first. It does not seem to me to TO DIVINE JUSTICE. 53 merit the name of justice. There may, it is true, be righteousness in the suffering inflicted. It may- be deserved by the sufferer. But the epithet vin- dictive properly apphes, not to the desert of the sufferer, or the righteousness of the infliction, but to the spirit and temper of the party by whom the punishment is awarded and executed. That spirit is personal revenge ^ — the spirit of gratifica- '^i^i^*'^^ tion from the sufferings of one who is regarded ^ ■r»"^'^ simply as a personal enemy. In this view, I dis- like the association of the epithet with the subject. The mean spirit of vindictiveness, and the lofty and dignified spirit of righteousness, have nothing in common. There is no principle of rectitude, — nothing that deserves the name of justice, in the infliction of suffering, and the consequent increase of misery, for no worthy end. To the spirit of vindictiveness it is no matter of concern, whether benefit arise from what it inflicts, either to the suf- ferer himself, or, through the exemplification of righteous retribution in his person, to others. It is ^^^^ ^'^ the spirit of selfishness, — and of selfishness of the /^ «^ worst description, — of malignant selfishness. It ''^■^ ^ ^ cannot, at all events, have any place in the govern- ment of God : — and pity it is, that in any minds there should ever, from the mere want of reflection, be the most distant approximation to such an idea of justice, as subsisting in the character, and exer- cised in the administration, of the universal Ruler. The three descriptions of justice which remain,\ ^j/- 54 IMPORT OF SATISFACTION I are, the commutative, the distributive, and the pubhe. — The first — the commutative^ is that which j subsists between a creditor and a debtor, and has (reference to pecuniary or commercial transactions. In such transactions, — if the debt be paid, no mat- ter whether by the debtor himself or by a surety, [the claim of justice is cancelled; the obhgation is discharged; and no room is left for the exercise of any thing _that bears the nature of grace or free fa- vour. Nothing has been remitted; and there is no- " thing to remit. This description of justice has been by some called the commercial, and defined, as " that which gives an equivalent for value received."* ,,, f^t-^t, . The second, the distributive " has regard not to j I pecuniary or commercial transactions, but to nioral | ; conduct and to the desert thence arising, either of j reward or of punishment. According to it, the . i transgressor must receive, in his qvm person, the ! due recompence of his deeds. "f — I have said, de- sert either of reward or of punishment. By some, in conformity with this distinction, this description of justice has been parted into two. Under the general appellation of retributive, they have classed remunerative and punitive. — Remunerative justice, in the terms of an eminent modem writer, " is th^ exercise of God's rectitude towards holy dispositions and actions, wherever existing, by all those manifes- * Dr Jenkyns, p. 166. t Discourses on the Socinian Controversy. TO DIVINE JUSTICE. 55 tations and effects of his approbation, whicli may seem fit to his infinite wisdom and benignity."* — Punitive justice is that which either attaches, ac- cording to the original constitution of things, or laws of moral nature, certain kinds and amounts of misery to sin, in its various degrees of enormity, as its natural concomitants and results, or visits it, ac- cording to its quantum of evil desert, with a corres- ponding proportion of directly inflicted suffering; the desert being ascertained by a competent judg- ment, and the suffering inflicted by a competent authority. ^"'1 The third, or ^w5/zc justice, includes those great ' essential principles of equity, according to which, in indissoluble union with benevolence, the sover- ' eign Ruler governs the intelligent universe : — j those principles which bear^ relatiqa to the great ' . [general end of all government,"— r^be pub hc ^ pd ; j and of which the firm and con^stent maintenance, in their full measure of recognition and respect, and in their full weight of influence, is indispensable to the well-being of every community. The question is one of no trivial importance, — not one of mere abstract metaphysical speculation, but one that enters deeply into the principles of our jgresent subject, — ^in which of these senses, or under I which of these aspects, di\iQe justice should be re- j garded, when we speak of it as having been satisfied^ * Dr. J. P. Smith. Four Discourses, &c, p. 195. o6 IMPORT OF SATISFACTION or of satisfaction having been given to it, by the atonement. In answering this question, I wpuld say — not in the first, — not in the second, — ^but in the third. A^ S^th'^- '' S*-^^' ^^^^^'* ycrr .^^<.s. ''^"'^ot in the first. — There is a great deal too much, it is to be feared, in the conceptions of \many regarding the atonement, of the principles of commutative or commercial iustice, — of the / ! literal notion oi debt and its pa^nnent. It is a grievous mistake. That sins are called debts, is true. But they are debts, rather in a figurative ^1?^. than in a hteral and proper sense. "^ We owe obedi- ^^&.\ ^^P^ ^^ God; and all our failure to render that due tlc^rtx. J obedience, may be regarded as an accumulation of |! unpaid debt. But it is debt of which, when once ' f[ I contracted, the pa}Tiient is impossible. . Even the) sirdess perfection of obedience for the future cannot cancel it ; any more than a man can discharge the bond for his past debts by punctual payments ^in- time to come. We can never pay up obedience which we have failed to render, as a debtor may pay up principal and interest of what he owes, and defy thereafter demand or prosecution. — ^And, as we owe obedience, we owe satisfaction for disobedi- ence. That satisfaction we_ can never render. It can, m om' case, consist in nothing else save the endurance of the punishment, which, in conse- quence of our failing in what was due from us to God, has become due from God to us. "The \ wages of sin" — that which we have earned, ^ — that \>j ^i 1 1 1 which is, in justice, our due, — "is death."— Let it be remembered, that there is a material difference between the canceUing of a debt on payment of it b j a surety, and the forgiveness of sin on account of a propitiation. The forgiveness of sin is simply the free remission of its punishment. ». The sinner i ^who is pardoned, does not cease to be guilty, and I to deserve the penalty. A debt of ^?*qperfy may» be paid by another ; a debt of obedience never can. It is, in its very nature, intransferable. The sinner, in himself considered, can never cease to be guilty. A sinful creature may become a sinless creature. There maybe an entire change in. his nature ,£^ But a guilty creature can never become an s.. - -^ '" ^J lA innocenf creature. That which has been done can fi**^^^ ^ ^*'*'*^iiever be undone: and that which has been deserved ^^A**-^*^ y^^/ by the doing of it, can never cease to be deserved, ti^ Lii,,: •-***i!: ^^ substitution, no atonement, can in this respect, • ^^^^^ [alter the nature of things. -H-In these and other cx>J^ respects, the parallel between debtor, creditor, and r surety in pecuniary transactions, and the sinner, *^'^*^H.'the Lawgiver, and the Mediatorial substitute in the ^- ''^scheme of redemption, has by many been pressed ] \ too closely, to the injury of truth.-f-The atonement "of Christ, then, ought not, we are satisfied, to be considered as at all proceeding on the principles of . commutative or commercial justice ; inasmuch as the paymxcnt of debt, according to this description of justice, strictly and properly cancels claim, and leaves no room for the exercise of grace. , d^-c^ fV. U-d^ ^-^^'^ 58 IMPORT OF SATISFACTION , Neither does the idea of satisfaction by substitu- tionary atonement, bear apphcation to Justice in the second acceptation of it. Distributive, or, as others designate it, retmhutive justice, according to its strict requirements, admits not of substitution. X It issues a righteous law, with a righteous sanction. It passes its sentence of condemnation against the transgressor of that law. It makes no mention of ^«.«-e .J^iC^fc^any possible satisfaction but the punishment of the guilty themselves, — the endurance by them of the penal sanction in their own persons. It is only by the death of the sinner himself that the proper demand of the law can be fulfilled ; that the prin- ciples of distributive justice can have their due apphcation ; and that, under this aspect of it, consequently. Justice can be satisfied. According! to the requisition of justice, in its distributive) sense, every man, personally, must have liis own \ I ' due. But in substitution it is otherwise. There is an inversion of the principles of strict retribution. Neither C hrist .nor the sinner has his own due. ^. 5^0. I <(^^i7we,The guilty, who, according to these principles, should suffer, escapes ; and the innocent, who s hould .escape, suffers. In no strict and proper I sense, then, can distributive justice be satisfied by ^ ^^^ ! substitution, when its demands, instead of being i:^ ri^J^ adhered to and fulfilled, are, for a special purpose, ^ iland by an act of divine sovereignty, suspended, » | ^>x -t^ J superseded, overruled. -{-It is well to remark, how- • '• i^ I ever, that, in another sense, it was satisfied : all its t W^ ' Xvt^ v^/ (Ih(yt&^ ; €^^\ -if- TO DIVINE JUSTICE. 59 ends being virtually, and to the full, effected by other means. A And this leads me to the true end of atonement. It is to public justice, as we have before defined it, that, in substitution and propitiation, the satisfac- tion is made. The grand design is, "to preserve unsullied the glory of the great principles of eternal rectitude ; to show the impossibihty of the claims of equity, founded in these principles and essential to the government of the universe, being dispensed with; to settle in the minds of God's intelhgent creatures, as the subjects of his moral administra- tion, the paramount obligation and immutable per- manence of their claims ; to give such a manifesta- tion of the divine regard to these elements of his immaculate administration, as to preclude the pos- sibility of any the remotest surmise that in the pardon of sin they have been at all overlooked or placed in abeyance ; and thus to render it consisr tent with divine propriety, or, in other words, honourable to the whole character, as well as to the law and the government of Jehovah, to extend pardoning mercy to the guilty, and to reinstate them in his favour, according to the provisions of the gospel. It is thus that, in so pardoning, his regard to righteousness is as conspicuous as his dehght in mercy; and, in the minds of the par- doned, the impression of the claims of the one as deep as that of their obligations to the other. — In this view of it, the scheme possesses a divine gran- 60 EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. deur. The glory of God, and the good of his universal empire, — the two great ends of public justice, — are with " all wisdom and prudence/' ad- mirably combined in it. It is as essential to the latter of these ends, as it is to the former — (they can never, indeed, be separated) — that the autho- rity of the divine government be maintained in its awful and inviolable sacredness ; that the demands of the law be upheld, without one jot or tittle of abatement ; that no sin appear as venial ; and that, if any sinner is pardoned, the mercy shown to the offender be shown in such a way, — on such a ground, — through such a medium, — as shall at once manifest the divine reprobation of his offences, and, at the same time, secure the restitution of the guilty perpetrator of them to the principles, affec- tions, and practice of holy allegiance. — Such are the purposes, and such the effects, of the Christian atonement. III. I proceed to our third inquiry — ^namely, on whose behalf the satisfaction to divine justice was made ; — ^in other words, for whom Christ died, — or, whether the atonement was limited or universal, I am well aware of the variety of points that are, more or less closely, connected with this discussion, and involved in the conclusions to which we may come. These must, for the present, be put in abey- ance ; my object, in what remains of this discourse, being to bring before you, as briefly, clearly, and impartially as I can, the different theories which EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. 61 have been held by theologians, with their respective classes of adherents, on the great question of the extent of the atonement. These theories, or schemes, are three in number. The first is the theory of exact equivalent ; — the second, the theory of infinite sufficiency, but DEFINITE INTENTION, Or LIMITED DESTIN- ATION ;' — and the third, that of indefinite or UNIVERSAL atonement, with gracious sover- eignty IN ITS EFFECTUAL APPLICATION. The last of the three is the one which I hold to be most in harmony with scriptural representations, and which, under this conviction, I mean to defend. I. With regard to i\i(d first of these — the scheme of EXACT EQUIVALENT, I shall uot spcud much of your time in its refutation; there being very few, of any repute, by whom it is now held. It is the scheme, as the designation I have given of it must at once have shown you, according to which the ex- piatory sufferings of the Redeemer possessed just as much of atoning virtue, or substitutionary worth, as was an equivalent — neither less nor more — for the merited punishment of all who shall ultimately be saved by it ; — whose precise proportion of deserved wrath he is conceived to have borne, measured out with minute exactness, even according to the guilt of every individual sin. This scheme, I have before said, and I repeat it, has ever appeared to me infinitely derogatory to the majesty of the Godhead, and to the divinity of the mediatorial substitute ; bringing 62 EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. down the transcendant magnificence of the plan of mere J to a matter of mercantile calculation, — of debtor and creditor account. It introduces the principles of commutative justice, where they have nothing to do ; or it overstrains those of retribu- tive justice in a case which is beyond their range, and, although throughout consistent with them, yet quite above their legitimate application. — I have elsewhere set forth the various grounds on which I regard it as inadmissible : — ^its inconsistency with the infinite worth of the Redeemer's sacrifice : — its ren- dering (in the principle on which it rests, namely, the measuring of the value of the atonement by the mere amount of suffering endured) the perdition of all mankind a greater manifestation of the divine righteousness and hatred of sin, than the sufi'erings of the Son of God :• — ^its rendering the salvation of any besides the elect a natural imjiossihility ^ so that, even were they willing to be saved, there- is no salvation for them, unless a further atonement were made, and they are excluded from salvation, not, as we are accustomed to tell them, by their own per- verseness alone, but by an inadequacy of means : — its placing beyond the possibility of satisfactory vin- dication the sincerity of those divine addresses, by which sinners universally are called upon to beheve '^ and be saved : — its taking into account, in its esti- mate of the atonement, one only, and that the least, of the ends it was meant to answer, calculating the amount of the sinner^ s desert^ but overlooking the EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. 63 higher design of securing and vindicating the glory of God, a design equally requiring to be effected, whether the number of sins to be expiated, and sin- ners to be saved, be great or small : — and its exclud- ing eveiy thing of the nature of grace from every part of the process of the sinner's salvation, except- ing the original appointment of the surety, whose payment, in each case, of the estimated debt, can- cels the bond, and renders the hberation of the debtor, not gracious, but obhgatory. After all, although each of these reasons still appears to my judgment as retaining aU its validity, yet the^r*^ of them might fairly be considered as superseding all the rest. On the gi'ound of the infinite worth of the Redeemer's sacrifice, arising from the divinity of his person, limitation in sufii- ciency becomes, in the nature of things, an i?nj)ossi- bility. If the atonement was in its nature divine, then was it in its nature unlimited ; and they who adopt the theory of exact equivalent, must under- take the contradictory task of limiting infinitude. I have said more than enough of this theoiy ; more than it deserves. But I have been induced to do so, by the apprehension that, few as they may be who can be said to hold it from examina- tion and conviction, yet in the conceptions of many, as indicated by the terms in which they are wont to express themselves, there is latent a great deal too much of its pitiful pounds-shilhngs-and-pence principle. — The more respectable modern writers, 64 EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. who, on other grounds, hold the doctrine of a hmited atonement, decidedly reject it as held on that of exact equivalent. — " The point in dispute," says one of them, " does not respect the intrinsic worth of Christ's death. This is admitted, on both hands, to be infinite. There is no room for contro- versy here We shall yield to none in our estimate of the intrinsic worth of Christ's atonement. That worth we hold to be, in the strictest sense of the term, infinite, — absolute, — all-sufficient."* — "Take this language hter- ally," says another, after quoting passages of Scrip- ture that speak of Christ as " buying," " purchas- ing," " redeeming," his people, — " and you are led to the idea of a commercial satisfaction, a quid pro quo, stripe being rendered for stripe, wound for wound, and the measure of suffering exactly corres- ponding to the measure of demerit. Such a view of the subject, however, is for many reasons quite untenable, and I am not aware that there is now any individual of any note by whom it is avowed. The objections to it, advanced by Mr Fuller, Dr. Wardlaw, and others, may, with all safety, be pronounced unanswerable."')* — Here, then, we are, happily one. II. The second of the three schemes is that of infinite sufficiency, but definite inten- tion, or LIMITED destination. — ^According to * Dr. Symington, p. 238. t Dr. Marshall, p. 72. EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. 65 this scheme, the infinite worth of the Mediator's sacrifice is, as we have seen, distinctly and strongly admitted : — ^but limitation is contended for, as lying in the divine destination of the atonement made by that sacrifice ; that is, Christ was appointed, and voluntarily undertook, to stand in the room of a certain number, and for them, and for them alone, the propitiation by his death, though in itself of boundless value, was made. It is my wish, for the sake of clearness and pre- cision, to take this and the third scheme of atone- ment under our review together ; and therefore, I here state again the latter : — III. The third scheme is that of indefinite or UNIVERSAL atonement, with gracious sov- ereignty IN its effectual application. According to this scheme, the atonement was de- signed as a vindication, manifestation, or display of the righteousness of God, such as to render forgiveness and salvation consistent with the honour of that perfection of the divine character ; leaving the supreme Ruler and Judge, in the free and sov- ereign exercise of the mercy in which he delights,' to dispense these blessings more or less extensively, " according to the good pleasure of his will." To the statement of the difference between these two theories, given by an excellent and able writer already referred to, who maintains the former of the two, I have httle or no objection to offer: — " On the extent of Christ's atonement, the two opinions that E 66 EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. have long divided the Church are expressed by the terms definite and indefinite. The former means, that Christ died, satisfied divine justice, and made atonement, only for such as are saved. The latter means, that Christ died, satisfied divine justice, or made atonement, ybr all mankind without exception^ as well those who are not saved as those who are. The one regards the death of Christ as a legal satisfaction to the law and justice of God, on behalf of elect sinners : — the other regards it as a general moral vindication of the divine government, without respect to those to whom it may be rendered effectual, and of course equally applicable to all."* — I shall not now trouble you with any exception to the wording of this statement. The extent of such exception may appear in the course of our discussion of the respective claims of the two schemes to our preference. f — I beg your attention, then, to the following statement of the second, or limited destination scheme, by the respected author just cited. The design of the passage I am about to quote, is to show, that the hmited destination scheme is required by the rectitude of the divine character : — " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right 1 A God of truth, and without iniquity ; just and right is He. Reason, conscience, revela- * Dr. Symington— page 237- t In entering on this discussion, it has occurred to me, that mjr fairest plan will be to give, in brief extracts, from their respective works, the sentiments of two modern writers, each of them in de- servedly high reputation, both as a minister, and as an author. EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. 67 tion, providence, all concur in attesting the per- fection of his nature. The Supreme Being gives to every one his due. This principle cannot be violated in a single instance. He cannot, accord- ing to this, either remit sin without satisfaction, or punish sin where satisfaction for it has been received. The one is as inconsistent with perfect equity as the other. If the punishment for sin has been borne, the remission of the offence follows of course. The principles of rectitude require this ; nay, peremptorily demand it : justice could not be satisfied without it. — Agreeably to this reasoning it follows, that, the death of Christ being a legal satisfaction for sin, all for whom he died must enjoy the remission of their offences. It is as much at variance with strict justice or equity, that any for whom Christ has given satisfaction should continue imder condemnation, as that they should have been delivered from guilt without a satisfaction at all. But it is admitted that all are not delivered from the punishment of sin,^ — that there are many who perish in final condemnation. We are, therefore, compelled to infer, that for them no satisfaction has been given to the claims of divine justice, — no atonement has been made. If this is denied, the monstrous impossibility must be maintained, that the infallible Judge refuses to remit the punishment of some, for whose offences he has received a full compensation ; that he finally condemns some, the price of whose dehverance has been paid to him ; 68 EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. that witli regard to the sms of some of mankind, he seeks satisfaction in their personal punishment, after having obtained satisfaction for them in the sufferings of Christ ; that is to say, that an infinite- ly righteous God takes double payment for the same debt, double satisfaction for the same offence, — ^first from the surety, and then from those for whom the surety stood bound."* To prevent undue repetition, (of which a httle cannot well be avoided,) I waive for the present any remarks on the precise amount of difference be- tween a divine purpose in the destination of the atonement, and a divine purpose in reference to its application. Of this by and by. And waiving, at the same time, the notice of any other and minor objections, — I would, with aU deference, ex- cept against this statement mainly on the two following grounds. — 1. In the principle of it, the ^ scheme, as here expounded, coincides in one im- / portant respect, with the personal compensation, or ^ ,^^^^^xact equivalent scheme, — namely, in the exclusion / ' , of all'^c'r^ce from the bestowment of pardon and the other blessings of salvation on those who receive them, and confining it entirely to the appointment of the atonement itself. There was gi-ace, on the part of God, in that appointment, when all were regarded as guilty, and deserving death : — ^but, the atonement having been made, — made, in hmited * Dr. Symington, pp. 244, 245. EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. 69 destination, for a certain number only, and made in the way of proper "legal satisfaction^'^ for/ the . offences of that number, — grace ceases: — thepe is ///-^L no grace in aught that follows the making of the atonement. The whole tenor of the passage, in the letter as well as the spirit of it, maintains this. It affirms that God is " bound in justice " to pardon those sinners, the price of whose deliverance has been paid to him ; — and it reprobates, as a mon- strous impossibihty, that the Just One should be guilty of the injustice of exacting twice the pay- ment of the same debt, of inflicting twice the pun- ishment of the same offences. It is surely, then, very clear, that there can be no grace in bestowing h^^. U ^ what it would be an act of injustice to withhold. — 2. The vindicator of the scheme under notice ad- mits, as a valid ground of objection to the theory of eaiact equivalent, which theory he repudiates, — that it leaves no consistent ground for the univer- sahty of gospel invitations, — ^no ground on which they can honestly be addressed to mankind at large. Now, it does appear to me, that the limited destination view of the atonement, as above ex- plained, is encumbered, and hardly to a less degree, with a similar difficulty. Observe how the case stands. According to the hj^pothesis, the divine Being, acting on the principles oi justice, " cannot either remit sin without satisfaction, or punish sin where satisfaction for it has been received." On the ground of satisfaction having been received for 70 EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. the sins of tlie elect, the writer, as we have seen, concludes that it would be a violation of justice to punish them in their own persons. And from the fact that "all are not delivered from the punish- ment of sin, that there are many who perish in final condemnation," he infers, on the principle stated, and quite consistently, that "for such no satisfaction has been given to the claims of divine justice, — ^no atonement has been made." — But if sOi — and if the Divine Being "cannot," consis- tently with his justice, " remit sin without a satis- faction ;" then it follows, that the pardon and salvation of a single individual, beyond the num- ber of the elect, was prevented, not merely by a sovereign limitation in the divine purpose, but by a barrier of quite a different kind, — that it is ren- dered impossible by the principles and claims of justice. On the principles of this hypothesis, God could not save a single soul amongst those who shall actually perish, on account of the atonement made by the blood of his Son, without an in- fraction of those principles and claims; no satis- faction having been given, no atonement having been made for them, But if so, — if the restriction of the atonement has been such (no matter under what aspect or designation) as to render the salva- tion of more than those for whom, in destination, it was made, impossible in justice, — as impossible, that is, as that the just One should act unrighteous- ly ; — do not we feel ourselves as completely fettered EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. /I in making the universal offer of pardon to our fel- low-sinners, as we did on tlie scheme of hmited sufficiency, or exact equivalent ? If the atonement made has not been made /or them, is not the ex- clusion from the possibihty of salvation as comxplete as on the supposition of an atonement of hmited sufficiency ? If in such a sense no atonement has been made for them, as that they could not be saved without a violation of justice, is not the natural impossibility as real and as great as on the principle of exact equivalent ? And do we not, on the one hypothesis, as much as on the other, invite? them to what for them has no existence, — and tantalize them with the offer of what is not provided for them ? On such grounds, as well as on others that have already been stated, or may be stated hereafter, I ^^/ hold by the third of the schemes of atonement , , uJU which have been mentioned. It still appears to ""*'+■ me, as it has ever done, much more consistent and ''^"" satisfactory, to regard it as a " great moral vindica- tion" of the divine character, and especially of the divine righteousness ; not binding God to pardon] ^^^ \\^ ^ any, but rendering it honourable to his perfections and government, should he so will it, to pardon all ; leaving no insuperable barrier in the way of the pardon of any, whether arising from Hmited suffi- ciency in the atonement itself, or from such restric- tion in its destination as leaves the claims of justice unsatisfied except within the hmit of that destina- '«^^ Cx cJi* '— ^ 72 EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. tion ; — both of which suppositions involve natural impossibility, from the existence of no atonement beyond a certain extent ; — to regard it, in a word, as an all-sufficient general remedy, of which the effectual application remains in the hands/of -^he.^y^ divine sovereignty. -^^^ ^^* ' ^^^"^^^ -^^^A^ ^ /^ But what says the other of the two writers to whom I have just made reference, to this represen- tation of the matter ? — ^" Our friends, with whom I am holding the present discussion, are accustomed to say, that the atonement is a general remedy, but hmited in its application. That is, if I understand them rightly, a universal atonement, coupled with a purpose to confer the benefit of that atonement, not on all, but on some. Now in this mode of speak- ing I cannot concur. Why not rather reverse the statement ? — Why not say, a purpose to save some, coupled with the providing of a general remedy, in order to carry that purpose into effect? I mean, why not conceive the great God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, first to have determined, in his eternal counsel, to save a portion of fallen men, and then, in fulfilment of that determination, the fruit of the good pleasure of his will, to have provided a common ransom, a universal atonement, if you choose to call it so, — an atonement which might be applicable to all, which might be sufficient for all, which, in one point of view, might be offered for all, and which, of course, might open to all the door of mercy, — ^laying a foundation, broad enough EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. 73 and sure enough, for urging and entreating all, in perfect sincerity, and in the bowels of mercies, to believe and be saved ? — This appears to me fully as conceivable as the scheme of our brethren, fully as agreeable to any idea I can form of the divine counsels, and, what is of greater moment, fuEy better supported by the language of scripture/' * Of the '' language of scripture" we shall take a review hereafter. And hereafter too we shall have occasion to notice more particularly the grounds on which this writer rests the universal invitations and unlimited offers of the gospel. I now advert only to his proposed inversion of our scheme of univers- aUty of atonement with a hmited purpose of apph- cation.' — ^And on this point, I must leave it very much to your own judgments to decide, which of the two is the more natural and reasonable ;■ — a great general atonement, for great general ends in the government of God, and accompanied with a secret and sovereign purpose as to the extent of its ultimate efficiency in personal salvation, — or a primary purpose to save a limited number, and then a great, extensive, universal remedy, to carry that limited purpose into effect. — The God of wisdom, I must repeat, does nothing in vain. . Why a universal remedy for a special purpose? ^"'^''''- — ^We can readily imagine to ourselves a benevolent^ 't^^ ^ physician, who has discovered a particular cure, of ^ f ^<^ / * Dr. Marshall, pp. 6S, 69. 74 EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. sovereign virtue, providing his medicine largely, widely advertising it, and urging it on general use, while, at the same time, on special grounds known and approved by himself, he uses peculiar persua- sion, and even kind constraint with some, to have it successfully applied in their cases : — ^but if his primary and sole purpose was the cure of these individuals, and the medicine was invented, com- pounded, and destined for them alone, how can we consistently fancy him preparing it on a scale ade- quate to the wants of a national community ? "We might well, in such a case, apply the question, " To what purpose this waste ?" .LJ > .." y - You will perceive that I assume the scriptural / f, ^^ authority of the doctrine of personal and uncondi- tional election. I am a decided beUever in that doctrine ; and I proceed now on the assumption of it, because, in my present discussion, I have to do, not with those who deny, but with those who, as well as myself, admit it, as a settled article . of Bible truth. — Now, the whole controversy be- tween the advocates of a hmited and the advocates of a universal atonement, has been summed up in yuie one question — Whether^ in the purpose of ^jf, jf^ 4jf God, according to the order of nature, election ^' precedes atonement, or atonement precedes election. That election stands first, has been argued on the plausible ground, — a ground which, I grant, very naturally suggests itself, — that the purpose of the end should reasonably be considered as preced- EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. 75 ing the purpose of the means, "We first determine our object, it is alleged, and then set about devising the means of effecting it. — -I might observe, in reply to this, that it assumes more than can be . granted, — ^namely, that God's sole purpose in the provision of the atonement, — or in the stupendous plan of salvation, — was the recovery from sin and its penal cdnsequences of the definite number of sinners of the human family comprised in "the election of grace." But without enlarging, as we might, in the illustration of this remark, I prefer taking other grounds. — ^The whole^ question appears to me to turn upon a distinction, which I conceive to be sufficiently simple, and which yet I have never seen introduced on the subject. It is the distinction between a purpose and a desire. You will at once be sensible, that we may desire the attainment of an object, without purposing it. Let me suppose that between us and the attainment of the object there are certain obstacles, — obstacles of a moral character, without the removal of which it cannot be legitimately and honourably accom- plished ; — ^we may desire, and desire earnestly that=^ /%v- /a^ accomphshment, but unless we can see a wayby^V'S^^ which these obstacles can be overcome, and the end '^^yj^^^t^ can be attained consistently with correct principle ^^^--p^fJU ^ • ^' I feel myself thus shut up to the third of the three schemes — the scheme of universal atone- ment — ^universal both in sufficiency and in destina- tion, — ^but of which the application is in the hands of a benevolent sovereignty.' — That in some points of the great subject under discussion there are difficulties, — and difficulties such as our limited faculties may never, in the present world at least, be competent fully to solve, I desire to be more and more deeply and humbly conscious. But there is a wide difference between giving our assent to * Dr. William Symingfon— page 239. IN THE OFFERS OF THE GOSPEL. 103 statements of divine revelation, without our being able clearly to discern the principle of their harmony, — and assenting to such human inter- pretations of these statements as we see to he irreconcileahle. That sinners are to be universally and freely invited to the acceptance of an offered pardon, whilst yet for a large proportion of those so invited there is no pardon possible, in conse- quence of there being no atonement, — are evidently, to my mind, statements of the latter description. They are incapable of reconciliation. With the fullest admission and impression of the humihty which, on such subjects, becomes us, on account of the incompetency of our powers to fathom the depths of God, we yet feel that there is no pre- sumption in saying that we see them to he so. The difficulties on the subject of sovereign election, I make no pretensions to being able fully to remove. But I trust, when we come to that part of our subject, it may at least be shown, that they are of a different kind ; — wrapt, it may be, in some of their bearings, in unrevealed mystery, — " hid in God," — but still involving no palpable contradiction. On the point now before us, of the free and uni- versal offer of pardon to sinners of mankind without exception, — the third scheme of atonement is un- embarrassed with any difficulty. We state the case thus. — According to the admitted constitution of the gospel, in conformity with the revealed prin- ciples of God's moral government, sin cannot he 104 GROUND OF UNIVERSALITY pardoned except as atoned for. In otlier words, atonement is necessary to pardon. I cannot see, then, on what other ground we can consistently offer pardon to all, and invite all to the acceptance of it, than the ground of the atonement made having included all, and the sins of all. i^According to every other system, there is an*mmense amoimt of sin that is unatoned for ; and if what has had no atonement made for it cannot he remitted, with what consistency can we, in the name of God, offer the remission of it ? There is a vast multitude of sinners for whom and for whose sins no propitiation has been made : — and if " without shedding of blood there is no remission," and no blood has been shed /or them, — with what consistency can we invite and urge them to accept the blessing ? But J on the principle of an indefinite atonement, — an atonement '^for the sins of the whole world," the ground of invitation is clear and consistent. On this ground, we can, at once and freely, without the shghtest feeling of hesitation or embarrassment, say to all whom we can ever be called to address — There is 'pardon for you:' — ^but we could not say so, unless we were able also to say. There is atonement for you. — The two declarations must be co-exten- sive ; the one e-sddently resting upon the other, and deriving from it its truth. We can tell them, that there is nothing either in the limited sufficiency or in the limited destination of the atonement, that constitutes the slightest hindrance to their forgive- IN THE OFFERS OF THE GOSPEL. 105 ness; that hindrance there is none, save in them- selves, — ^in their indifference, or their aversion, — • their " e-sdl heart of unbehef." The terms of our text I cannot hut consider as harmonizing with these views, and affording them support. — How does Paul here express the end or design for which Christ died, — for which he offered up the " sacrifice of himself ?" It is in the words — «'to put away sin." The expression is signi-| \ £). ficantly general. , And for my own part, I am un- ' * / *^ able to discover any valid objection to our stating the design of the atonement in this form : — that it was an atonement for sin, an atonement, whose value was so unlimited, so strictly and properly in- finite, — that, on the ground of its merits, had God so willed it, fallen angels might have been saved as-;^^; l^^ th well as fallen men ; nay, had there been a thousandtc^/^^e<^ rebel worlds, the inhabitants of them all. But we ^5^*2- //^ are not called to regard it as extending beyond our zy^ own world. — It was an atonement /or sin, mth a I special purpose of salvation by means of it, to the human race alone. Thus far we admit the idea of limited destination. But, with this obvious restric- tion, let us look at it as an atonement for sin. It is true, that sin is not properly an abstraction ; that all sin supposes a sinner, — and that an atonement for sin must, in some sense, be an atonement for sinners. But this depends greatly on the idea we attach to atonement, or satisfaction. According to the principles of commutative justice, satisfaction is 106 GROUND OF UNIVERSALITY a proper payment of debt ; by whicb he to whom the payment is made is laid mider an obligation of justice not to require it at the hands of the debtor. I In this view satisfaction /o?' sin would manifestly be 1 an absurdity.^ It must be for sinners, and for sin- j ners according to the precise amount of their debts. But if, according to what I conceive the accurate language of Dr. Payne — " to make satisfaction for > ^ffq\ sin, is to do that which shall preserve to the moral I government of God, that powerful control over its I subjects, which the entrance of sin endangered, and which its unconditional forgiveness would have entirely destroyed," — then is this end efPectually answered by an atonement, which, in itself con- sidered, is altogether independent of the numbers to be actually benefitted by it. It is the necessary >-^^t<^reparation, or clearing of the way, for the exercise of forgiveness at all on the part of the righteous Lawgiver, Governor, and Judge, — ^whether that for- giveness shall be extended to one individual only, or to ^' Si multitude which no man can number." " He that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much." In either case, principle is violated ; and with God, this of course is as impossible in the least as in the greatest. It is as impossible for God to pardon one on terms inconsistent with the principles of his government, as it is for him to pardon millions. The atonement is made, "that he might be just, and the justifier of him who be- lieveth in Jesus :" — not that he might be just in IN THE OFFERS OF THE GOSPEL. 107 justifying a certain number, but that he might be just in justifying any, — in justifying whom he will. On this principle it is clear, — and indeed it is gene- rally admitted, that the same atonement was neces- sary for the honourable forgiveness of one sinner, as for the honourable forgiveness of a world of sin- ners : — and that the atonement which was sufficient for the one was sufficient for the world. That atonement having been made, Jehovah, having pro- vided in it for the honour of his righteousness, is left to the free exercise of his sovereignty, — or of his grace as a sovereign benefactor ; and/ro»2 this source alone arises the limitation of its results. i.M ^^^ /^>'^% These observations, — which are in harmony, andi^];^?!^^ in spirit and substance identical, with all that was \}u_jj^ ^ ; formerly stated respecting the relation of the atone- 1^^ uy A>«^ ment to the principles oi public rather than to those ^s-^'^^YT' of commutative or distributive justice, — are suffi-,' cient to meet and set aside the objection so gene-i rally urged to the representation we have given of] the universality of the atonement; — namely, thatl a universal atonement must be followed by a uni- versal salvation. If all sin has been atoned for, all sin must be pardoned. The answer is, — that either on the principles of the exact equivalent or of the deffiiite destination scheme, the objection I would be irresistible : — that is, all sin must be par- i doned for which, and all sinners must be saved for whom, an atonement of such a nature has been made as these schemes, respectively, imply. Butj tJ-'^i 108 UNIVERSAL ATONEMENT when atonement is viewed as having reference to the principles of puhlic justice,- — that is, as being intended to vindicate from all possible reflection, in the extension of pardoning mercy to the guilty, j those great, eternal, immutable principles of equity, '^j of which the maintenance in their unsullied glory lis essential to the rectitude of the divine govern- j ment, and to the respect for its authority in the r /y^u'^jinteUigent universe, — it must be obvious, that the ^*r ^^ objection ceases to have either force or relevancy. , The atonement, in this view of it, does not bjnd the *^^'^ divine Being to the pardon of_an^ but secures an '**'**^<^ honourable ground, should his sovereign pleasure so will it, for the pardon of all. On this view of the subject, I had elsewhere used the expression, that the atonement " left the divine Being at liberty to pardon whom he would." The author of "The death of Christ the redemption of his people," with a jealousy for the reverence due to the blessed God, which is always commendable, but which in this instance, I cannot but think, is misplaced, exclaims, on quoting it, "" Away with the expression ^eft at liberty!' I do not like such an expression in connection with the name of the Divine Being. To me it savours somewhat of the presumptuous."* — The expression was used, how- ever, in any thing but the spirit of presumptuous irreverence. It means no more than that God is « Dr. Marshall, page 31. NOT UNIVERSAL SALVATION. 109 necessarily " rigliteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works/' It means no more, than that the! atonement is not to be regarded as involving such a1 " legal satisfaction" as to lay the supreme Ruler under an obligation of justice to pardon and save I all for whom it was made ;-)-that it was of such "aT nature as to leave him free from any such ohliga-j tion ; free, in the exercise of his sovereign grace, to " have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and compassion on whom he will have compassion/' God, assuredly, had the atonement proceeded on the principles of either exact equivalent or definite destination, would not have been thus free : — ^he could not, in consistency with the principles of his moral nature, have been at liberty to withhold pardon where justice required its bestowment. — The expression objected to conveys much the same sentiment with that of Mr Fuller, when he says "he doubts whether the moral Governor of the world" should be considered as by the atonement "laid under any such kind of obligation to show mercy to sinners, as a creditor is under to dis- charge a debtor, on having received full satisfac- tion at the hands of a Surety/' . In a very important sense, then, the atonement may, with the strictest and most reverential pro- priety, be said to have been for God. It was for the gloiy of God. This is the primary aspect, in- deed, under which we ought to regard it. It was, in the terms of one of the writers on whose sentiments 110 UNIVERSAL ATONEMENT I have been commentiiig, — " not to secure a mere commutative satisfaction to the justice of God, but to glorify all the divine perfections, and to make an illustrious manifestation of the principles of his government before the whole universe of moral creatures."* — His rectoral glory having thus, by the atonement, been provided for, — ^his glory, that is, in the administration of his government as the great moral Ruler of the universe, — he issues, on the ground of the atonement, to this our apostate world, the proclamation of mercy, and holds out to all who will accept it on the provided ground, the free offer of a full and permanent pardon. This is what he does in the first instance. He does it to the fallen race. To the whole he does it in righteousness ; , and to the whole he does it in love. Yes — in love; — in love to the world, — ^in love to mankind,' — in- dependently of all secret purposes of special grace.l "Was it not a boon to the world I — and was it not a boon, worthy of divine, that is of infinite, beneyo- lence ? — ^Yes ; as we may see more fully in our next discourse, — even if not one sinner on earth had ever become an actual partaker of the blessings offered, — the offer of them was itself a manifestation, and a manifestation transcendently great, of "the love of God our Saviour towards man " — of " the philanthropy'^ (for such is the word in the original language) " of God our Saviour," — and the offer of * Dr. W. Symington. NOT UNIVERSAL SALVATION. Ill them on a ground, or through a medium, surpass- ing, in its character of benevolence, the blessings themselves even in all their "unsearchable riches/' Suppose there had been no such thing as an " election of grace ;" — suppose the atonement made, and, on the ground of that atonement, the blessings freely offered to men for their acceptance ; and sup- pose them universally refused, — the whole of the race to whom the presentation of them was made rejecting the offer: — would that have been any^ proof that in the provision and in the offer there was no benevolence, no love? — Make the supposi- tion, that, in these circumstances, the whole, so far as actual salvation was concerned, had proved a failure; — with whom would the blame have lain? — ^with God, or with men? — ^Wlien the king, in the parable, " prepared his dinner, killed his oxen and his fatlings, and had all things ready," — ^was his benevolent and princely bounty the less gener- ous, that the guests, when invited and re-invited to partake of it, would not come ? — If a number of the subjects of an earthly monarch were to rebel, and, without the remotest semblance of aught to justify them, were to take arms against their sovereign ; and that sovereign were to devise a plan by which, in consistency with the honour and security of his government, he could offer them a conditional par- don, characterized in the terms of it by equal cle- mency and equity ; — -were they, in the proud spirit 112 UNIVERSAL ATONEMENT of resolute insubordination, to treat the oifer, one and all of them, with scornful rejection; would the mercy of the monarch, on that account, be either justly questioned, or less highly thought of? — And ought we, then, to think the less of the be- nevolence of God, in so wonderfully providing, and so freely offering, the blessings of pardon, re- concihation, and life, — because the blessings, when thus provided and thus offered, are refused ? "Would not the blame-worthiness of the universal rejection have lain with those to whom the offer was made, not with Him who made it ? They who, in this matter, confine the love of God to the number of the elect, or of the actually saved, must needs estimate the divine benevolence, not by the extent of the provision and the offer, but by the actual amount of good which, in his gracious sovereignty, he is pleased to bring out of it. But no estimate can be more unfair and fallacious. Set aside his gracious sovereignty altogether; — what he does to the world, — to mankind, — in his rectoral capacity, — ^in fhe provision made, and the invitation and offer founded upon it, — is done in love to the world, in love to mankind, — although not one of the entire race were to be saved ; the unreasonable, obstinate, and unprincipled standing-out of the rebels forming no just depreciation of the clemency of their sovereign. — There is, I apprehend, with some, a great deal more than enough of a disposi- NOT UNIVERSAL SALVATION. 113 tion thus to estimate the love of God by the actual amount of ultimate salvation, rather than by the extent of the provision and the offer of it. " This rectoral love/' it has been said, " saves no man; this rectoral love delivers no man from sin, and brings no man to glory; this rectoral love is utterly powerless, utterly inefficacious, and leaves its objects exactly where it finds them. Millions upon milhons of wretched men, upon whom this love has exhausted all its resources, have from age to age been ' Ij^ng in wickedness,' and through endless ages shall lie in misery."* — Awfully, lamentably true ! But was the love of God to blame for this? Can there be no love, unless there be actual salvation? Can there be no love in providing and offering deliverance, un- less that deliverance is accepted? Was there no love in Jehovah's pleadings by his prophets, be- cause these pleadings proved, in many instances, so unsuccessful? Was there no love in the compas- sionate Redeemer's tears and expostulations, be- cause the city over which he wept was razed to the gromid, and the unbelieving race, with whom he expostulated turned not from their evil ways, but brought " the wrath upon themselves to the utter- most?" — I am not forgetting the special love of God, — his sovereign distinguishing grace. Its na- ture, ^nd the relation which it bears to the atone- ment, and which the atonement bears to it, will * Dr. Marshall, p. 153. H 114 UNIVERSAL ATONEMENT come before us hereafter. But, with, the words of the Saviour, formerly quoted, in my ears, I dare not forget the extensive primary aspect of the divine benevolence in his own commission and work. "WTien I find him declaring that very love, of which the transcendent magnitude could be no otherwise expressed than by the statement of what it had done for its objects, — to have been love to " the world,'' — and to have shown itself in the grand general provision of salvation for the world, by the mission and death of his Son — "God so loved THE WORLD, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever beheveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life ; for God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved :"*^ — ^when, I say, I find my Master himself so representing the divine love to men, — I dare not either con- tradict or qualify his language. — And how is the plenitude of the divine benevolence held forth to our grateful admiration by the prophets? — "And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto aU people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees ; of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined."f If " thousands make a wretched choice, and rather starve than come," — still " the love that spread the feast" and made all welcome to the table, is not the less * John iii. IG, 17. t Isaiah xxv. 6. NOT UNIVERSAL SALVATION. 115 to be admired and adored. It seems to me, I repeat, unscriptural, to make so light of tliis rec- toral love, when in the word of God it is spoken of in terms so full of loftiness and energy. But even where the love of God is estimated by the extent of its electing grace, and by the amount of its finally saving effects, — and where the atone- ment is limited in its destination accordingly, we find the writers who so express themselves, happily, though not, as it appears to me, very consistently, contending with uncompromising earnestness for the unquaUfied universality of gospel in\itations. We have had one example of this. I quote another. A still more recent author, although denyuig expli- citly that there is atonement for all, and affirming that all for whom there is atonement must necessa- rily obtain the fruits of it in pardon and life, while •others, for whom there is none, must perish, — ^yet, whenever he comes upon the calls and offers of the gospel, is, " like a good minister of Jesus Christ," warmly jealous of his freedom. His mind expands and his heart glows upon the theme : — -and I could not, for my own part, wish my sentiments on the subject expressed in clearer or more appropriate language. I cite a passage or two, — for two rea- sons ; — ^the first, to show that the opponents of uni- versal atonement cannot help expressing themselves in terms such as harmonize with no other view than that of its universahty ; and the second, that the sentiment thus expressed wiU be of future service in 116 UNIVERSAL. ATONEMENT estimating the amount of real difference between the contending parties. — "In speaking of the Saviour dying for men, or dying for sinners," says this writer, " I have used the expressions in what I con- ceive to be their strict and proper meaning, namely, as signifying his dying with an intention to save them. This, however, I am well aware, is not the only meaning the expressions will bear ; nor is it the meaning in which they must be taken, when, instead of *men,' or * sinners,' we say *all men,' or 'sinners in general.' For all men, for sinners in general, the Saviour died, but not with the in- tention that they all should be saved. He died in their nature ; he died in their stead ; he died, do- ing honour to the law which they had violated, making reparation to the justice which they had provoked, bearing the curse to which they were subjected, suffering the death to which they were doomed." — ^This does seem rather singular lan- guage from one who holds that to all for whom Christ died,* — in whose stead he gave himself, there is the certainty of pardon and salvation. Of the secretly accompanying "intention to save/' as ex- tending to some only and not to the rest, we shall have occasion to speak in our next discourse. Meantime, I, for my part, am perfectly satisfied with the explanation immediately subjoined of the sense in which the atonement was universal, or the death of Christ for all: — "In other words, he died, removing every legal obstruction that lay in NOT UNIVERSAL SALVATION. 117 the way of their obtaining life, rendering it consis- tent with the holiness and justice of the Most High, with the security of his government, with the claims of his law, to justify and save them, provided they should believe. What is more, he died with a pur- pose to bring near his salvation to all, to publish the tidings of great joy to kindreds and nations, and peoples, and tongues, praying them, in the bowels of mercies, to be reconciled to God, setting before them life and death, the blessing and the curse, although not determining to vouchsafe them the grace, as he was not bound to vouchsafe it, which might induce them to choose life rather than death. In this way, I conceive, the blessed Jesus died for all." "^ — Again : — " The Saviour, although in his death, he had not the same love to all, nor the same purpose to save all, may yet be affirmed with truth to have made the same satisfaction for all. It was piiblic justice only that demanded his deathl^ and what satisfied pubhc justice in one case, necessarily satisfied it in every case. If satis- fied for one, it must have been satisfied for all ; if not satisfied for all, it could not be properly satis- I fied for any. It is satisfied, however, and amply satisfied, as the Scriptures everywhere declare ; and so far as this goes, — so far as the vindication of the divine character and of the divine government in showing mercy are concerned, there are no limits « Dr. Marshall, pages 70, 71. 118 UNIVERSAL ATONEMENT to mercy, no limits to salvation, except those which the Holy One has prescribed to himself in his eter- nal counsels." * The same sentiments are repeated, in equally decided terms, many times : — and as a specimen of the "godly jealousy" with which he regards his liberty to preach the gracious tidings and offers of the gospel indiscriminately to sinners of every des- cription, — I quote, with real delight and with hearty concurrence of feehng, a single sentence : — "With the views I entertain, I feel myself under no restraint. I can say with all freedom, and I do say, to eveiy sinner, 'Beheve in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' I can invite all who thirst to come to the waters ; assuring them that, coming, they shall not find the fountain dry. I can tell the maimed, the halt, the blind, the promiscuous multitude by the high ways and hedges, that they are bidden to the marriage- supper of the great king; and by way of sohci- tation, I can add, that the table is prepared, that the oxen and the fatlings are killed, and that all things are ready. If the doctrme I hold left me not at liberty to use such terms, — if it w^arranted me not to proclaim that the blessmgs of salvation are free to all, free as the hght or the air of heaven, and that every man, of every character may come and partake of them, if he only will ; * Dr. Marshall, pages 85, 86. NOT UNIVERSAL SALVATION. 119 if any doctrine I hold were found, on examination, to embarrass me, less or more, in making sucli an exhibition of the grace of God, — I hesitate not to say, I would relinquish that doctrine : . . . . I would say. This which I hold cannot be right, let me abandon it, and embrace the truth."* — These are noble and admirable sentiments. How far the unhmited invitations and assurances, the pressing of which is thus manfully contended for, as a part at once of ministerial freedom and ministerial fidelity, are consistent with the doctrine that there are any among the children of men for whom there is no atonement ; that is, no ground on which the very blessings urged upon their acceptance can pos- sibly be obtained and enjoyed, — I must leave it to yourselves, after what has already been said, to form your own judgment. — I seem to myself, as if I had a surer and more consistent ground on which to rest my appeal to my fellow- sinners, and to urge upon them their acceptance of pardon and their reconciliation to God, — when I can tell them of an atonement actually made for them all, — from the virtue of which they are neither excluded by any want of sufficiency for them all in its in- trinsic merits, nor by ^ny limiting^dsstination of those merits to the expiation of the sins of any definite number. If, in the sense which has been explained, the atonement was for all, — general, — * Ibid. pp. 89, 90. 120 UNIVERSAL ATONEMENT indefinite, — universal, — we can say with freedom, and unhesitatingly, to sinners without difference and without exception, that Christ died for them; — atoned, -^made propitiation, — -for them : — ^if for all, then for each; for yon, my hearers, — for everi/ one of you, I see not on what ground, with any consistency or truth, I could say to any of you, indiscriminately, that there is pardon for you, — — ^pardon for your sins, — ^unless I could say that atonement has been made for them ; seeing, una- toned, they could not be forgiven. But, if atone- ment has been made for all, — then to all may pardon be freely offered. For all, — there- fore FOR EACH, — is an obvious and immediate conclusion, which, for himself, and for herself, every hearer of the gospel may legitimately and confidently draw. There needs no new atonement, — no " other foundation," — " no more sacrifice for sin." By that which has already been offered, a full propitiation has beeu made for the sins of the world. The atonement is universal; but, remember, — not the pardon. The pardon depends on your availing yourselves of the atonement, — on your beheving the divine record concerning it, and placing your reliance, humbly and exclu- sively upon it. "All things," says our inspired apostle, "are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation ; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not im- NOT UNIVERSAL SALVATION. 121 puting their trespasses unto them ; and hath com- mitted unto us the word of reconcihation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us : we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. 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." DISCOURSE IV. OBSTACLES TO THE SIXNT^R'S SALYATIO^^, EXISTING IN THE SISXER HOISELF :— RELATION OF THE ATONEMENT TO THEM THE SINNER'S AC OOUNTABLENESS :— NATURE OF HIS ABILITY AND HIS INABHITY. John m. 17. — " Fob God sent not his Son into the woeld to OONDEJIN THE WOKLD, BUT THAT THE ■WOBLD THEOUGH Hiil SHGHT BE SAVED." After a variety of general views, of wMcli it is not any impression of their inferior importance, but solely tlie want of time, that induces me to waive the recapitulation, — I proceeded, you may remem- ber, in the latter part of last discourse, to consider the universahty of the invitations and offers of the gospel, and the relation which these bear to the iu- quiry respecting the extent of the atonement. — -The fact of their universahty, — a fact as fully admitted and contended for by those brethren who hold the doctrine of an atonement hmited to the elect as by ourselves,' — was proved by a few passages, as a spe- cimen of many, from the Holy Scriptures. And my principal object, thereafter, was to show, — first, that there must be a ground on which the invita- tion to pardon and hfe can consistently be ad- OBSTACLES TO SALVATION. 123 dressed to all, and the offer of these blessings, in accordance T\dth the truth of things, be freely and indiscriminately made to all: — secondly, that such ground did not exist either in the scheme of limited sufficiency, or in that of limited, destina- tion; inasmuch as, both according to the one and to the other of these schemes, there is a vast proportion of mankind for whose sins no atonement has been made ; and atonement (according to the constitution of the gospel, and to the principles of the divine administration as discovered in it) being necessary to pardon, pardon, in regard to the whole of this proportion of mankind, is, by the absence of such atonement, rendered a natural impossibility, — an impossibihty so palpable, that, the revealed atonement (even though admitted to have been in- finite in value and sufficiency,) not having been made /or them, their sins cannot be pardoned till another has been made for them ;-— and, where there is no ground on which pardon can, on the part of God, be bestowed, there is no ground on which sinners indiscriminately can, with any con- sistency, be invited to the acceptance and enjoy- ment of it : — and, thirdly, that the only consistent ground, therefore, for universal invitation, is uni- versal atonement. (iykkMX 4^^ ^^^^''i^^-^^^'-^ ny-a. €-C, • I adverted, in last discourse, to the twofold relation in which the blessed God stands to his in- telligent and accountable creation; — that of moral Governor, and that of sovereign Benefactor ; and en- 124 OBSTACLES TO SALVATION deavoured to show you, that the former stands first m natural order ; — that, coincidently with this, the first aspect in which the proyision of the atonement should be regarded is in its relation to the race, as all standing in the position of moral accountahle- ness, guilt, and condemnation, — and to the glory of God, in his character of moral Goyemor, in offering to these his apostate subjects a free pardon, and the gift of life, instead of the death they deserved to suf- fer; and that this, accordingly, is the hght in which the Sayiour himself presents it to our contemplation, in the passage of which I haye selected a part as the text, or motto, of our present discourse: — Verses 14 — 17. " And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, eyen so must the Son of man be lifted up ; that whosoever beheveth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever beheveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting hfe. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world ; but that the world through him might be saved." It is thus a scheme for the world, — for man. Taking, then, this enlarged and all-important view of the scheme of redemption, and placing, for the time, the subject of election out of sight, let us see again how the case stands. The whole scheme, as was shown at the very outset of our discussions, proceeds upon the as- sumption that " all have sinned ;" that sinner is IN THE SINNER HIMSELF. 123 the generic character of the race, sustained by all its members, in whatever quarter of the world, and under whatever variety of circumstances. — ■ For these sinful, guilty, and justly condemned subjects of the divine government, salvation is to be provided. In the way of the accomphshment i of this salvation there he two descriptions of oh- | stacles. Those of the one class exist in the character of God; — the perfections of that char- acter being virtually the same with the principles of his moral government: — those of the other are found in the character of man, — in the cor- rupt principles and passions of his fallen nature. These two classes of obstacles are very different in their kind, and may be considered as relating, respectively, to different departments of the same great transaction ; departments, of which the one may be characterized as the theoretical, and the other as the practical; — the one consisting in the lay- ing of the ground, or provision of the means, — the other, in the actual efficiency of the means provided, or the bestowment of salvation on the ground thus laid and revealed. The one kind of obstacles re- quires to be removed in order to the possibility of salvation at all ; the other, in order to the actual enjoyment of salvation by any. — It is the removal ' of the first class of obstacles, — those which arise from the character and government of God, that is the special province of atonement. This has already been largely shown ; and I cannot resume 126 OBSTACLES TO SALVATION the illustration of it. Atonement secures tlie honour of public justice in the pardon and salvation of the guilty. Every obstacle, then, of this kind being by the atonement removed out of the way, the next question comes to be — What else is there between the sinner and pardon,- — between the sinner and salvation ? And this, both in itself and in its moral bearings, is a question of no ordinary import- ance. The answer to it, however, is short and simple. The only obstacles, in these circumstances, are such as exist in the sinner himself. — There are none in God. His love to the world, — as we formerly showed you the verse preceding our text teaches us, — ^having provided full security for the glory of his righteousness in the exercise of his pardoning and savuig mercy, that mercy has full scope; — it flows forth, without the shghtest intervening impediment ; — its fountain-head, and its whole channel, are cleared of every obstruction. Jehovah is now "a just God, and a Saviour," — "just, and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus." — There are none in the atonement. It is a general, indefinite atonement, — ^neither hmited in its sufiiciency, like a quid iwo quo payment of debt, — nor hmited in its destination to a specific number^ so as to render the pardon of any beyond that number a natural impossibihty. It is an atonement "/or sin ;" Christ, according to the ^ terms of our former text, having so " jmt away sin rvtr^J by the sacrifice of himself," as that sin, by whom-^^ , IN THE SINNER HIMSELF. 127 soever committed^ and to whatever amount^ may be at once and freely pardoned, having been mcluded in the universal propitiation. — There are none in the invitations and offers of the gospel. In these all is universahty and freedom. There are no fetters, no restrictions. The voice of divine Mercy is "to the sons of men/' without a single excep- tion or condition. Wherever she finds a man, she finds a sinner; and wherever she finds a sin- ner, she presents to him, on the ground of the atonement, her offers of pardon, and plies him with the urgency of her entreaties, to accept her gracious proposals : — " Let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.'' — What, then, I repeat, are the ob- stacles that Ue between the sinner and pardon, — between the sinner and salvation? And again I . answer, that they are in himself — -in himself alone, ' — and that they are summed up, whatever may be their varieties of modification, in " enmity against God." "WTiat relation, then, it may be inquired, does the atonement bear to this description of obstacles? A very different relation, I reply, from that which it bears to the other. The other it actually/ removes. They lay in the necessary requisition of honour to the perfections of God and the principles of his government ; and, that requisition having been met and answered by the atonement, they have ceased to exist. — But the obstacles which have their place 128 OBSTACLES TO SALVATION in sinners themselves the atonement does not re- move, in any sense at aU analogous to this. When the atonement has been made, and its end has been fully effected in the clearing of the sinner's I way to acceptance with God, these still remain in all their inveteracy and force. God is propi- tiated ; he stands, with the out-stretched arms of his love, ready to receive all that will come, — the very chief of transgressors. But sinners themselves are not changed by the making of the atonement. The tidings of its having been made finds them in their sins, their guilt, their condemnation, their enmity: — and the relation it bears to the obstacles which exist in themselves is that of a MOTIVE or inducem^^i^ to their RENUNCIATION. Such is the light in which, invariably, the pro- pitiatory work of Christ is presented to sinners. Let me direct you to one example. You will find it in 2 Cor. v. 20, 21, "Now, then, we are am- bassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us : we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye re- conciled to God. 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." — I offer, on these verses, four remarks: — -1. Those whom the in- spired " ambassador of Christ" represents himself and his associates as "praying" in the words "Be ye reconciled to God," must be persons, of course, who are still in a state of alienation,- — ^who have not IN THE SINNER HIMSELF. 129 yet been thus reconciled.* — 2. That to which he prays them, — namely, to be "reconciled to God," — means to come into a state of friendship with him : — and this includes two things ; — first, their accepting his offered favour on the ground which had just before been stated, in what the apostle designates "the word of reconciliation," and so having his merited displeasure turned away from them, which is directly included in his "not im- puting their trespasses unto them ;" — and, second- ly, their lajang aside their own enmity,' — throw- ing down their weapons of rebellion, desisting from their hostility, and, in the spirit of lowly peni- tential affection, accepting his proffered love. — 3. The motive held out to compliance with the entreaty, is, the assurance of what God has done in the provision of a righteousness for the jus- tification of the ungodly, by the propitiatory sub- stitution of his own Son, — the divine and sinless Saviour : — "/or he hath made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." — 4. It seems to me further e\ddent, that when Paul says "He hath made him who knew no sin to be sin for us^ he cannot mean, with any exclusiveness, for us believers, or * The '■'■you,'''' in both of its occurrences, is supplementary. Tlie apostle is not addressing the Corinthian believers, who were already, like all other believers, in a state of reconciliation ; but stating to them the manner in which he discharged his trust,—" praying"— that is, praying men, praying sinners, praying aliens, to be " reconciled unto God." 130 THE sinner's responsibility. for us the elect ; inasmucli as, what motive or iu- ducement could it be to tlie unreconciled to accept the reconciliation, or the offered friendship of their God, to tell them that an atonement had been made, and a justifying righteousness provided, for others ? He must mean, if he means any thing to his pur- pose, that the provision was made for them, — for all whom, wherever he came, he "prayed" in the gracious terms of his commission, "to be recon- ciled to God," — for all and for each of them ; and that nothing else whatever was necessary to their immediate entrance on a state of favour and friend- ship with God, than their unconditional submission to his terms, — their willing acceptance of his freely offered mercy, " through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." All that I would further say, in regard to the class of obstacles of which I now speak, is — that, in their source and character, they are the very opposite of those which had their subsistence in God. These latter had their origin in the very perfection of the holiness and righteousness of the divine Being ; — whereas the former, those in man, arise from the contrariety of his depraved nature to these attributes of the character and government of the God with whom he has to do, — ^his aversion, in a word, to God himself, and to the salvation which by the atonement he has provided for him. It is of essential moment to be borne in mind, that God was under no obligation to remove out THE sinner's responsibility. 131 of the way either the one or the other of these two classes of obstacles; — ^that, men having be- come sinners, he might have left them to reap the due penalty of their deeds, — as he did with regard to the "angels which kept not their first estate/' Sinners on earth would have had no just cause for complaint, had he acted thus, any more than sinners in hell. — In making provision, then, for human salvation, he has acted in grace, — in the exercise of his eternal self-moving love : — and in making this provision by such means as those which the gospel discloses, he has "done exceeding abundantly above all that either we" ourselves, or any creatures in our behalf, " could have asked or thought." It transcended even an- gelic estimates of divine beneficence ; overwhelming with adoring wonder the " principalities and powers in heavenly places." He has done Ms part, then, for the salvation of men, in a manner infinitely worthy of himself; — "according to the riches of his glory." — -And then, let it be further observed, — in making, as he has done, the provision for sal- vation, by the removal of every obstacle on his own side, he has not only done what he was in no sense bound to do, but has also done, in regard to those for whom the provision was made, all that was ne- cessary to render them solely and entirely responsi- ble for the use they make of it, for the treatment it receives from them, — for their reception or rejec- tion of it, in every instance in which it is set be- 132 THE sinner's responsibility. fore them, — ^responsible, tliat is, for their own sal- vation or perdition. Let me be clearly understood. I wish to make no half-statements,- — far less state- ments that are, in any degree, equivocal. What I mean is this : — that, with regard to all men to whom the gospel comes, before whom its proposals are laid, and to whom its offers of pardoning mercy . are addressed, it is, on the part of God, put in their /^^fCo^y or, wh^h is th^same thing, ^i«^ in their power, to hes(fvecQ—\6 obtain pardon and life ; so that, if they fail of the blessing, the hlame rests exclusively with themselves; " their blood is upon their own heads." In the present controversy, as well as in itself, this is a point of vital interest ; — and, both from its own nature, and from certain preconceptions which exist in many minds, and which, having the sanction of a supposed orthodoxy, are held with a naturally jealous apprehensiveness, — (an apprehensiveness, which, if not excessive, so as to throw an obstructing film over the mental vision, may, on some grounds, be commendable and useful) — it is not unattended with difficulty. I shall endeavour to set it in as clear a hght as I can ; and if, in any point, that light can be shown to be other than the light of God, as it shines in " the word," I shall be sincerely glad to have my involuntary error scripturally rectified. Holding, as I formerly announced, the doctrine of personal election to life, I yet conceive it to be of importance to discuss the present question, in the THE sinner's responsibility. 133 first instance, on the supposition of there being no such thing. We sometimes, nay many times, hear persons so represent matters, as if, had there been no election, the scheme of salvation must have been altogether abortive, — an entire failure, — ^having no result. — Now, in one sufficiently obvious sense, this is true. It is election, and consequent divine influ- ence, that ensure actual salvation. But supposing there had been no such thing, ivould the failure have been complete? — would there have been no valuable end answered? I should think it a very great mistake to say so. Supposing all had perish- ed, — ^would no end worthy of God have been effected, if God himself was vindicated in their perdition, under every aspect of his character; — not only as the God of justice, (which he would have been independently of all atonement, and of all pro- vision for man's recovery) — ^but also, and that most gloriously, as the God of mercy, — of mercy infinite and everlasting? — Would it not have been to his eternal honour, that no sinner should have ground for the shghtest surmise against the Being at whose hand he suffered ; but should be made to feel, that, in every view, the cause of his perdition was in him- self ; inasmuch as, not only was the law which he had broken, and whose penal sentence he had incur- red, unexceptionable both in its requirements and in its sanction, — " holy, just, and good ;" — but the Lawgiver had, in his infinite wisdom, devised, and in his infinite grace carried into eifect, a scheme for 134 THE sinner's responsibility. the honourable remission of its penalty, and on this ground made him the offer of a free pardon, — not of the commutation merely of his sentence, but of its reversal, from death to life ? I ask again, as I did before, was it not a boon to the world, from the God of love, as our Lord clearly teaches us to regard it, when for the world salvation was provided by the mission and mediation of God's Son? — and was it not a worthy end, that in the eyes of the intelligent universe, his mercy should thus be magnified, and made to shine out with a lustre so transcendent,' — even although none of the sinning creatures to whom its all-gracious offers were made, saw fit to accept them ? — nay, would not the compassions of the sovereign be made to appear the more signally captivating in the sight of his other intelligent crea- tures, by their very contrast with the ungratefdl and base requital of them on the part of his rebel- lious human subjects ? — and would it not be glorify- ing to his name, that no victim of his punitive ven- geance should be able, on any ground, to impute his perdition either to any failure in justice or to any deficiency in mercy on the part of his Maker and Judge, or should enjoy, in the slightest measure, the consolatory consciousness, of its being, in any view whatever, not his own fault ? In all such discussions, it must be obvious to you, we have to do with those to whom the gospel, revealing the atonement, and proclaiming mercy through its sacrificial blood, actually comes. The THE sinner's responsibility. 135 mystery of the very partial cfiffusion of that gospel, after so many centuries, — the consequent continued ignorance of its provisions among so many genera- tions, with their passing millions, of our fellow-men, — and the questions relative to the salvahility of the Heathen on the ground of it, though without the knowledge of it, — are points which, how deep soever in interest, do not come within the legitimate limits of our present discussion. They have diffi- culties of their own; and difficulties which attach to whatever theory of atonement we can adopt. — ^What I have at present to do with is, not the extent of the knowledge of it, but the extent of its general design . I fear there are not a few, who, when they think of the atonement, have got so much into the habit of associating it with the " election of grace," and with the salvation of the elect as the one end for which it was made, — that they can see no glory to God in the plan of mercy, on the supposition of tliis election being set aside ; — no glory, that is, un- less he had not only removed the obstacles to salva- tion that lay in his own character and government, but removed those also which lay in the depravity and aversion of the creature ; — not only opened and cleared the way to his favour and his throne, but conquered the guilty unwillingness of the rebel to avail himself of the way thus cleared ; — that but for this, Christ would have "died in vain."- — It is wor- thy of remark, however, that when Paul speaks hy- pothetically of Christ having " died in vain," the 136 THE sinner's responsibility. ground on wMch he rests Ms conclusion is not at all a ground of this description. Mark what he says — Gal. ii. 21, "I do not frustrate the grace of God; for if righteousness come hy the law, then Christ is dead in yain." — This, you perceive, relates, not to any necessity for the actual apphcation of the atonement in its saving virtue in order to esta- bhsh the divine propriety of Christ's death, — ^but to the very principle and foundation of the scheme of atonement itself. Could men have been justified in any other way, — could they have made out for themselves a title of acceptance in terms of law, — ■ then would there have been no need for another ground of justification ; and the whole plan of sal- vation by grace through the incarnation and aton- ing death of a divine Mediator, would have been a useless expenditure of means, and means the most stupendous, for the attainment of an end which could be effected without them.- — But Christ has Qiot died in vain. The apostle's statement is a strong negation of the possibihty of "righteous- ness comuig by the law." " All have sinned." All are condemned. " As many as are of the works of the law" — ^that is, as many as are seeking justifica- tion by the doiag of them,' — " are under the curse; for it is written. Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." All, therefore, who are justified, must be " justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." And the gos- THE sinner's responsibility. 13/ pel sets before all an atonement wMch has been made for all, and a rigbteousness tbat is adequate for the justification of all, and is freely offered to all for tbat end : — and all to wbom tbe message comes, are invited and commanded to believe and live. " Tbe rigbteousness wbicb is of God by faitb'* is "unto all'' in tbe proclamation and offer of tbe gospel ; and it is ''upon all tbem tbat believe," for actual "justification of Hfe." Setting election, tben, for tbe time aside, and looking at tbe gospel as it invariably appears in all tbe records of apostolic preacbing, as a scbeme, not for tbe justification of the electa as elect, but for tbe justification of sinners, as sinners, and of all sinners alike, tbere being " no difference" eitber as to tbe need or as to tbe freeness of tbe pardon it proclaims ; let us see bow tbe case stands, — wbat tbe precise relation is, between tbe atonement and human accountableness. — The unfettered freeness of the apostolic proclamation of mercy was in fall harmony with the statement of their divine Master in our text; where he clearly intimates that the salvation which tbe Father, in his love to tbe world, had commissioned him to work, was for the world; — and with his express injunctions that they should " go into all tbe world, and preach the gospel to every creature ;" — " that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." I showed you, in last discourse, that " the world " must, in each 138 DOCTRINE OF MORAL of its occurrences in our text, be understood in the same extent of meaning, — ^that is, in its widest lati- tude. And tlie text, in this respect, does not stand alone : — there is the same description of antithesis, and the same evidence of identity in the extent of the term's comprehensiveness, in other passages; as when our Lord says — John xii. 47. "I came, not to judge the world, but to save the world." The world that is to be judged by him, must be the same world with that which he came to save. Be it so, that it means Jews and Gentiles ; it does not mean a certain number of each, but Jews and Gen- tiles universally, and without diiference. The gos- pel brings salvation near to all. It puts salvation, I repeat, in the power and at the option of every sin- ner that hears it. It tells that sinner, that there is \ atonement /o/* Mm, — ^pardon /or ^m, — salvation ybr him. — The question now before us, then, is — When the salvation is thus brought near,' — when the offer of pardon, on the ground of the Redeemer's atone- ment, is thus freely made, — what becomes that sin- ner's res'ponsihility ? — To what extent is every such sinner accountable for his own salvation, or his own perdition ? j j On this subject, we hearji great deal about hu- llman inability. No term is in more common use ; (but few terms, there is reason to fear, are used with a smaller amount of clearness and definiteness of meaning, — or rather, I should say, with a larger amomit of delusive and ruinous vagueness. By the ABILITY AND INABILITY. 139 reckless use of this term, men have, to a melancholy- extent, deceived themselves, and deceived one an- other ; and the impositions which the human heart has thus practised upon itself are among the most aifecting proofs of the truth of the divine descrip- tion of it, as " deceitful above all things," When, on the subject of moral sentiment and moral action, we use the term inability, and phrase- ology in accordance with it, we employ language sufficiently natural, but language which will not bear to be interpreted with hteral strictness. On all other subjects than those connected with reUgion, every one is aware of this ; nor is any person ever misled by it, or ever at a loss to understand it. For example : — ^we say, respectmg a man of high pro- bity and honour, the strength of whose moral prin- ciple has been tested and approved, that he cannot do a mean or dishonest thing. When we say so, what do we mean ? Certainly not that he is desti- tute of the physical power to put forth his hand to steal ; or that he has not the power to affix his sig- nature to a fictitious Bill; or that he has not the power to utter with his tongue the words of false- hood, of defamation, or of selfishness. What we mean, and what we express, is neither more nor less than the strength of his principle of rectitude. We mean, not that he is naturally or physically, but that he is morallij — that is, by the force of principle, — ^incapable of the theft, the forgery, the lie, or the slander. And do we think the less 140 DOCTRINE OF MORAL of him for this? Assuredly not. The greater the evidence we have had of this force of principle, and the greater, consequently, the confidence with which we can unhesitatingly affirm — "he cannot^^ — so much the more highly do we think of him; and the rise in our admiring estimate of his moral worth, is marked by the degree of emphasis with which we make the affirmation. — Rise, then, upward. Carry the principle of your estimate to the highest point in the scale ; — or rather, apply it to Him whom it would be dishonouring to bring into the scale at all, — holding, as he does, a place by himself, at an ele- vation iafinitely above any graduation of ours. We say of God, — ^his own word says it of Him, — that He " cannot lie,'^ — that he cannot do aught that is evil. — I again ask. What do we mean ? That He has not physical power, — power, properly so called? No, certainly. When we have risen to the eleva- tion of Deity, this description of power has aug- mented to infinitude. There is the power of Him with whom " nothing is impossible ? — and, were it but conceivable that it should be associated with a principle of mahgnity, or moral pravity, — the extent of the evil which it would be capable of effecting could be measured only by the extent of the existing universe, and by the possibilities of additional crea- tion. What we mean, then, with regard to God, when we use terms expressive of inabihty, is just what we meant before, only that the degree in which we now convey the meaning has become infinite : — ABILITY AND INABILITY. 141 we mean the infinite force, and the immutable 'per- manence, in Deity, of the principle of moral recti- tude. These are such as perfectly, absolutely, and for ever, to ensure the apphcation of the physical power to what is morally right, and to that alone, — what is in harmony mth the eternal and essential purity of the di^dne nature. — And when we haye ar- riyed at the conclusion that he is essentially and necessarily holy, — so that we cannot associate with his character, or with his administration, the idea of eyil, without, in the same moment, losing that of divinity, — do we thuik the less highly of God? I need not answer the question. It would be impiety so much as to suppose it to require an answer. Take, then, the other side of the case. We apply the same modes of expression in the descend- ing as well as in the ascending scale. We are wont to say of a habitual and inveterate bar, that he cannot speak truth ; — and of a habitual and invet- erate swearer, that he cannot speak without an oath. What do we mean? Not, in the one case, that the tongue of the liar is less capable of giving utterance to words of truth than to words of false- hood, — not, in the other, that the lips of the swearer are less capable of framing themselves to the terms of piety than to those of blasphemy. We only use a forcible form of expressing the strength of the disposition or propensity to evil,- — to Ipug, and to profanity. — It is on this principle that it is said of Joseph's brethren, when under the dominion of 142 DOCTRINE OF MORAL 1 hatred and malicious envy, that "they could not t^nJ-iJ sp^^^ peaceably to him/' — And it is on the same J»#*^ principle that our Lord frames the question to the (^j^ /«^^ Scribes and Pharisees — "How can je, being evil, f ^?^.^ speak good things?" — Here, then, also, go down- >^^^ ward to the lowest point in the scale. What do ^^ I we mean, when we say of Satan, that he cannot \ do a good or benevolent action? Do we mean, that he has no natural or physical ability? He has the powers of a fallen angel, — powers, mighty for mischief, — and wanting only a new principle or disposition, to make it apparent how mighty they would again be for good, — as they were before he fell. His fall did not deprive him of power, — whether physical or intellectual. It might diminish both ; but it destroyed not either. It only brought both under a wrong influence, — under the sway of an evil disposition. Do we, then, think the less ill of Satan, — do we regard him with the less of the sentiment of condemnation or the feeling of moral abhorrence, when we thus conceive of him as under the domination of an enmity to God and to goodness so deep, so settled, so inveterate, that, in the nervous terms of the poet of Paradise Lost, "evil" has become "his good," — and of a malignity so fearful that the joy of others is his misery, and the misery of others his joy ; and that, under the influence of such dispositions, he is incapable of any action either morally good or socially kind and beneficent? And here too the answer is — Certainly ABILITY AND INABILITY. 143 not. As it was in the former case, so is it in this. In the former, we arrived, in our ascent, at the highest possible excellence ; — ^in this, we arrive, in our descent, at the deepest possible depravity. Be it borne in mind, then, that when, in regard to what is morally and spiritually good, we ascribe inability to men, — we ought to mean, and to be understood as meaning, inability, in its origin and nature, entirely moral, — not physical, not intellec- tual, not natm'al, but solely moral. — In order to just accountableness, three things are evidently in- dispensable : — means of hiowledge and impression ; capacity of knowing and being impressed ; and power to act according to the hiowledge and- impression. — These things are clearly necessary to' all reasonable responsibility. Without ability to know, and ability to act, there can be no such-? thing. Where abihty ends, accountableness ends. -^^ We are immediately sensible of this, in the case of infants and of idiots. We are instantly alive to the conviction, that, according as there is less and less of natural capacity and power, there is less and less of responsibihty ; and where both cease, responsibility is at an end ; unless in so far as the loss of the power has been the consequence of the operation of moral causes. — Whatever have been the effects of the entrance of sin, and the fall of man, the loss of natural ability cannot have been one of them : — for in that case, the moment of the entrance of sin would have been the moment of the cessation of accountableness. If by sin man had lost the natural power either of knowing truth or of doing duty,' — then, although the subject of guilt for the one act by which the power was lost, — that one act having been done by him when in possession of the power, — ^he must have ceased to be capable of contracting guilt from that day forward ; for there can be no guilt where there is no moral accountableness, — and there can be no such ac- countableness where there is no power. I wish, then, to be clearly understood. I beheve and affirm, that, in regard to divine truth and spiritual things, there is no inability in man to dis- cern and believe the one, and to receive and enjoy the other, save that which consists in, or arises ' _^ from, the state of his moral disposition, — the aver- ' - '^^ sion of his will from that which is holy and good ; — in a word, that human inability is human unwill- flf^[^ ingness, — nothing else, — nothing less, — nothing ^h 7 '' ^ more ; — and that inability is just a strong word for expressing the degree of the miwiUingness and indisposition. " There is an essential difference," says Mr Fuller, "between an inabihty which is independent of the inchnation, and one that is owing to nothmg else." There is indeed ; and on all other subjects but rehgion, — in all cases con- nected with the conduct and the interests of ordinary life, — the distinction between the one and the other, — which is just the distinction between natural and moral inability, — is by all understood, by all ack- ABILITY AND INABILITY. 145 nowledged, and by all taken into account in their estimate of the character of actions, and their desert of praise or of blame. I make the supposition, then, that the gospel is proclaimed to men m its divine simplicity. What is there in it which they have not natural capacity to understand ? When they are told that God has given them a law, spiritual in its character, ^' holy, just and good" in its requirements ; — that that law pronounces a curse, and a sentence of death, on all who break it ; — that they themselves have broken it, and are under this curse and this sentence; — that from this state of condemnation and exposure to death, they are utterly incapable of delivering them- selves, and that, in this \dew of it, their case is hope- less; — that the God whose law they have violated has " in wrath remembered mercy," — ^has spontaneously, in infinite benevolence, interposed for their salvation, — has sent his Son to seek and to save that which was lost, — or, in the terms preceding our text, has "so loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting Hfe;" — that by his sufferings unto death upon the cross this di\dne Mediator has made a complete atonement for human guilt, an atonement which secures the glory of God in the forgiveness of men, and an atonement which leaves no sinner on earth who hears of it, vdthout a ground on which he may obtain the immediate and free pardon of all his sins, full K 146 DOCTRINE OF MORAL acceptance Tvitli God, and eternal life, — all of grace, to the exclusion of boasting, — and all for the sake of him who has offered the atonement, and of his satisfaction in whose finished work God has " given assurance unto all men by raising him from the dead." — These, and other collateral statements of gos- pel truth, are quite sufficiently intelligible. So far as their meaning is concerned, there is no difficulty in understanding them. — And we affirm, without qua- lification or exception, that the sole reason why men do not discern them in their diyine excellence, and accept them as divinely true and divinely adapted to their exigences,' — is the absence of a right disposition, — ^is the enmity of the carnal mind against God, — is "an evil heart of unbehef." — So far as natural incapacity is concerned, it is equally necessary to unbelief as to faith. If there were a want of natural capacity for beheving, there would be equally a want of natm-al capacity for disbehev- ing. If there were not this kind of abiUty to believe, there would be no guilt in unbelief. — O my fellow-sinners, deceive not yourselves, as multitudes have done before you, with this plea of inability. The plea is often advanced with a levity of spirit, that sufficiently indicates its origin. " We cannot, it seems, help ourselves," — many have thought and said, — "we have no ability to do any thing; we cannot change our own hearts ; we cannot atone for our sins ; we cannot come to God ; we cannot be- lieve : — it is divine power, divine grace, that must ABILITY AND INABILITY. 147 do the work : — it is not ours : — and if God is not pleased to put forth the necessary power, — what can we do ? — There is no help for us : — ^we must be damned!" — And with the last fearfid link of the chain there is secretly associated a self-flattering hope, — a hope founded in the unreasonableness and unrighteousness of such a doom, — that it shall not be so. This, I apprehend, is uniformly involved in the real or affected carelessness with which the conclusion, — a conclusion in itself so unspeakably fearful, — is usually uttered. The mind rests its hope secretly on the unfairness that inability should incur condemnation. The inward surmise is : — "if we really are unable, then every effort of ours must be unavailing ; perdition is entailed upon us, and by nothing that we can do is it avoidable : — and yet — and yet — is this justice? — and — if it be not justice, can it be true /" Now, my fellow-sinners, this is all delusion. I come to the point at once ; and, with all diffidence, yet with all confidence, I say to you, — if there were no ability, it would not be justice. But in the sense in which you urge the plea, and in which, perhaps, it has been put into your hps, there is no truth in it. In the sense in which you plead in- ability, — the only sense in which the plea could be| of any avail,' — ^you are not unable. So far from being unable in any sense that even palhates your unbelief and impenitence, — your inability, rightly interpreted, resolves itself into the strongest mode 148 DOCTRINE OF MORAL of expressing your culpability and guilt. For what does the word mean? — simply, the strength of your antipathy to God and to goodness. Your inability to believe is only another phrase for your aversion to the truth of God. Your inabiUty to " repent, and turn to God, and do works meet for repent- ance," what else is it, less or more, than your fond- ness for the service of sin and of the world, and your unwillingness to relinquish it? — what is it, but that you cannot give up the world ; — you can- not renounce your favourite sins y — you cannot abandon " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life ;" or you cannot bear the mor- tification of pride, the renunciation of your ownright- , eousness, the crucifixion of self? — What is there in your cannot J but the want of will? — If you tell me you are willing but not able, you tell me what never has been, and never can be ; what involves, indeed, a flat and palpable contradiction ; inasmuch as, the inabihty affirmed in Scripture being unwilHngness, and nothing else whatever, it amounts to neither more nor less than saying that you are willing and unwilhng at the same time. To say you would be- lieve if you couldy — ^is not only not true ; it is the precise opposite of truth. The plain truth is, that you coidd believe if you toould ; there being no one j thing whatever that prevents you from beheving, i but the want of will; nothing between you and pardon but the want of will to have it in God's way, — that is, freely, and in connexion with hoH- ABILITY AND INABILITY. 149 ness, witli newness of life. — "I would but can't believe" — "I would but can't repent," — are, both of them, as unsound philosophy as they are un- sound diyinity. K in any instance either were true, there would, in that instance, be no guilt in unbe- Hef and impenitence. It is the will that is wanting,) and the will only. The will to believe is, viiimally, ' faith; the mil to repent is, virtually, penitence. There never has been the will to either, where there have not actually been both. In making the atonement, and in offering you pardon on account of it, if you are willing to accept the pardon on that ground, God has put the bless- ing in your power. Who is to blame, if you have it not ? Not He assuredly ; but yourselves, and . yourselves alone. — What would you have? You \ *>'•■-' '-O Cjf< have all the natural faculties and powers, that [ y>u are necessary to constitute a, e'round;of account'/^ ~j^ ableness. You nave the natural powers reqmreja<;«^^;^^::2^:,^^ for considering, understanding, beheving, choosing, j^<'^^^ ^ loving and hating^ spea^ng, and ac^iig;-7^and ^^ « * moreover for askingt^ xhe"(juesfion, tnen, is. How / ^^ comes it that these powers are not occupied about '^^^^^ /T^*^ proper objects? — how comes it that they are not/*--"^'^' rightly directed ? — Take them in order. You have the power of considering : — why is it that you do not consider the things that belong to your ever- lasting peace," — 'the things which, of all others, you cannot but be sensible, ought, both in duty and in interest, to be considered by you? — You 150 DOCTRINE OF MORAL nave tne power of understanding : — ^how is it, that^^y^ you do not understand the divine testimony ; — that is, that you do not perceive and appreciate its excel- lence, and its adaptation both to God's character and to man's need? " Why, even of yourselves, judge ye not that which is right ?" — ^You have the power of if-^