stfl Sill mm » H ||§§§| HHh ;£'&.<»?**«»» %, Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1888, by Rev. Samuel Davies Cochran, D. D., Normal, III., In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C kt.rctkotvl'l' foundry op" press and bindery of Pantagrath Statihnimxv Comtanv. Fantagraph Stationery Company, bloomington, ill. bloom in gton, ill. >edi©atioR. • 7 \ URfNG all my labors on this Work, there has been one who, in constant sympathy, has, in all practicable ways, favored me in them — one fully appreciative of its, transce?ident theme, and competent, by scholarship and knowledge concerning it, to perceive and weigh the validity and bearing of the successive positions and stages in treating the subject, and to express valuable judgments and sug gestions respecting them. • • • • A jFcuiljful MDtfc, .... she has shared with me in the grievous trials amidst which most of the Work was wrought out. To her, therefore, f dedicate it; and, if it shall find a useful place in the literature of the Church, I wish it to bear in its front, wherever it goes or abides, the name, • • ©rmtna Dcuj Cochran, • • as worthy of the honoring regards of all women and all men of the Church and the world. SAMUEL DAVIES COCHRAN. Normal, Illinois. EXPLANATORY PREFACE. Somewhat over twenty-one years ago, I received, through another, an invitation from Prof. E. A. Park, D. D., of Andover, to write one or more Articles on the Atonement for the Bibliotheca Sacra, with special reference to Dr. Bushnell's Work entitled "Vicarious Sacri fice," which I accepted. Writing on the subject increased in sight of its grounds and rootings in the nature of the moral sys tem, and unfolded comprehension of "what is the breadth and length and height and depth" both of the "love of Christ which passeth knowledge," and of the relations of His atonement to God and His universal society for the salvation of man. About two- thirds of Part I. and some of Part II. were written at Grinnell, Iowa, during some more than two years before April, 1869, when, in an evil hour, I resigned my Pastorship there to undertake the founding of a College at Kidder, Missouri. That enterprise so absorbed my time that this Work was almost wholly suspended, till in June, 1874, when, being wronged out of my College, I resumed and prosecuted it as persistently as possible, amidst numerous hindrances, until in the early part of 1878, when, about twelve years after it was begun, I wrote Finis. Before I left Grinnell, I decided to write a Book, instead of the Article or Articles at first designed; and if I had remained there, the Work would have been completed within three or four years from that time. From the time of its completion in 1878, till near the close of 1880, in the beginning of which year I moved to this place to be Pastor of a small Church here, the Work lay dormant. Meanwhile I decided to revise it thoroughly. The task thus assumed, which proved nearly equal to the first writing of the whole, I began in the latter part of that year, supposing it would require about a year, in which I was much mistaken. I remained Pastor over two years after resuming it; but could work at it only as Pastoral duties permitted, and mainly while others slept. I closed the Pastor- iv EXPLAXATORY PREFACE. ship in the Spring of 1883; and, from that time, except from Sep tember of 1885 to October of 1886, which time I spent in writing another Work, I devoted myself to it, when not prevented by neces sary interruptions, till, on the evening of April 15, 1887, at 9:27 o'clock, I again wrote Finis under its last sentence. I wrote Chap ters L and V. almost entirely new, and rewrote nearly all the rest, putting in, leaving out, and altering paragraphs, sections, sentences, clauses, and terms, and re-examined every position and point with utmost care. No one, I think, can suppose I have written the Work of so many solid years for money. Those years and labors have been spent on it for the sake of the truth, of God, of Christ, and of the souls of my fellow-men. I greatly need money, and if this book shall bring me any, it will be thankfully welcomed; but, if it essen tially aids in vindicating and confirming the truth among men. " according to the glorious Gospel of the blessed God," the supreme end and aspiration of my heart in the whole process of writing the Work will be realized with joy, connected with humble gratitude to God for having, as my constant persuasion has been, called or con strained me to undertake it, preserved my life and overruled its con ditions so long, that I might prosecute it, given me tenacity of purpose and patience in it, and guided me in executing it to its end. In writing it, I have in spirit and feeling been preaching on the fundamental facts and truths of Christianity, and on those involved in and conditioning these — thus on the foundations and essentials of the total Scriptural revelation and Christian System; and while there are some places in the Work perhaps too abstract and abstruse for common readers, not versed in such discussions, they do not probably exceed a tenth or twelfth of it, so that far the most of it can easily be understood by readers generally. By looking at the Contents and Index, they can readily find any particular Chapter, Section, topic, or point, which they may have an interest in or reason to read or examine; and they will be surprised to find how great a proportion there are of such, after passing all they may deem unsuited to them. It would be a great mistake to suppose the book only fitted for theologians. I have sometimes quoted Hebrew and Greek, and also Latin words and expressions; but I have so given their meanings, that no careful reader can fail to understand these, though unlearned in those languages, so that none need be deterred roni the book by seeing them in it. The main subject of this Work has been a chief study of mine from my youth; and all along I have read all the Works and Arti- EXPLANATORY PREFACE. v cles concerning it which have come in my way. In my writing upon it, I have taken nothing on trust, followed no leader, school, or sym bol, examined all points for myself, and striven only to ascertain the truth, as God has revealed it in moral natures and the inspired Scriptures. I have quoted and referred to only a limited number of the writers on this theme with whom I am familiar or that I have consulted. My Work was not designed to be a history of the doc trine of the atonement, but a presentation of the truth concerning it; and, whatever of controversial it contains, I have conscientiously aimed to deal fairly with the views opposed, desiring only to vindi cate and maintain the truth of the Gospel as given to men in the liv ing Oracles. The Work is large beyond my wish, chiefly on account of the expositions I have felt constrained to include in it of the Levit- ical Law of Sacrifices; of the related parts of the Epistle to the Hebrews; of Is. 53; and of the Epistle to the Romans, 5:12-19; 8: 18-23; and 9:7-18. As my object has been the presentation of the revealed truth concerning the atonement, I have connected with it an exhibition of the essential facts and truths of the whole redemp tive measure, because many objections to it are thus in advance forestalled and extinguished. Hence the attention I have devoted to the Scriptural teachings of the Trinity, of the Incarnation of Christ, of the peculiar relations of Adam and Christ to our race, of the plans of creation and redemption, and of God's foreknowledge, purpose, election, and predestination. In short, this Work is on the lofty range of the law and the universal moral society and system it constitutes, of retributions, of moral government, and of the whole scheme of redemption and grace, having the atonement as its highest peak, its most sublime and awful grandeur. That there are points in the Work on which sincere and able Christian thinkers and theologians will disagree I anticipate; and, if important errors shall be shown in it, I will do what I may to cor rect them. Our times are tumultuous with discussions, denials, and defenses of the essential doctrines I have canvassed; and, if this Work shall contribute important aid to defenders of the truth against its adversaries, my great object in writing it will be achieved. In giving the Work a larger scope than was at first designed, one aim has been to meet the objections and assumptions of infidels against the atonement and Christianity generally, as well as those of all deniers of it or of any essetial truth involved in it. If Part I. is valid, there is no salvation for sinners possible, except on its basis. If it is not valid, moral reason and conscience in all are false; law, vi EXPLANATORY PREFACE. justice, obligation, duty, responsibility, accountability, natural and moral rights and dues, good- and ill-deserts, righteousness, benevo lence, and, with all these, mercy and grace are mere inventions and impostures of men, having no basis in moral natures. Instead of all these, all so-called morality is only selfishness, and this with all its offspring of vices, crimes, antagonisms and anarchies, is truly natural, and mankind are only the highest grade of mere ferine natures. Praying the Great Head of the Church to accept and bless this fruit of my long labors, I now offer it to the public. SAMUEL DAVIES COCHRAN. Normal, III., December 20, 1888. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PART I. The Moral Law and System. CHAPTER I. The Law of God as given in consciousness by Moral Reason. A clear under standing of it necessary to that of the Atonement; and its characteristics. Section No. Page No. I. Origin of the Divine Law. ..... i 2. Relation of the Knowledge of it to that of the Atonement. . . 2 3. First Characteristic of the Law. 3 4. Second Characteristic of the Law. . . . .3 5. Third Characteristic of the Law. .... 4 6. Fourth Characteristic of the Law. . . . .5 7- Fifth Characteristic of the Law. ...» 5 8. Sixth Characteristic of the Law. . . 9. Seventh Characteristic of the Law. . . . 10. Eighth Characteristic of the Law. II. Ninth Characteristic of the Law. .... 8 CHAPTER II. Ethical justice an intrinsic quality of the law, and of the love it enjoins to all having rights to it. Ideas of this quality and of right. How this quality has always been estimated by mankind. Section No. Page No. 12. Nine Postulates respecting Justice as a Quality of both the Law and the Love it enjoins to all having Rights to it. . . . 12 13. What the Love must be to all having Rights to it. . . 18 [4. The Love enjoined on each to God and all having Rights to it is Just Love. . ..... 19 15. How the Intuition of this Quality of Justice in the Law and in Obedience has led Men to characterize them. . . . .20 16. The Functions of Reason, and "the Idea of Right." . . 21 17. Bushnell's Notion of, and Inferences from, the Idea of Right absurd. 25 18. The Law not an Idea of any kind, and Distinct from those Connected with it. . . ... 29 19. Confirmations that Justice is an essential Quality of the Law. . 29 20. The estimate placed by Mankind universally on Ethical Justice. . 31 viii TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. Distinction between the natural and the retributive consequences of obedience and of disobedience, and what the real retributive consequences are, with special proofs and several implications of all shown in Chapter I. and in this. Section No. Page No. 21. The Natural Consequences of Obedience and Disobedience. . 34 22. Why we call these Consequences Natural. . . . -37 23. The Retributive Consequences of Obedience and Sin. . . 38 24. Specially proved by the Sense of Guilt. ... 4° 25. Others cognizant of any one's Wrong-doing have a Correlative Sense of his Guilt. . .41 26. The Demand for positive punishment of Wrong-doers, and the Satis faction it gives, additional Proofs that it is the only Real Retribution. 43 27. What True accordingly of rendering or not the Ix>ve required by the Law. . . 44 2S. The End of Justice that of Moral Love, and Retributive Punishment equally as Reward demanded by Conscience. . . .46 29. Refusing to render to God and all others their Due of Moral Love creates a correlative Due to them of Retributive Suffering. . 47 30. God necessarily Ruler, and must rule according to the Law. . . 49 CHAPTER IV. Additional objections to the theory that the natural consequences of moral action, good or bad, are its retributions, or of them ; and why the notion, that God's government over men and all moral beings is only a natural one, is absurd. Section No. Page Xo. 31. Why these Consequences are defectively known by Men, unequal, not what they deserve, and not Retributions. . . 51 32. Why they are unadapted and incompetent to be the Law's Sanctions, . 53 33. As its Sanctions, would be in Conflict with its Intrinsic Nature. . 53 34. Five Brief Objections to the Theory that these Consequences are real Retributions. ¦ . . . . . -55 35. As far as they consist in the Action of Conscience, must be compara tively Slight, and, as Motives, weak. 57 36. This Theory has a ruinous bearing on the revealed Character of God. 58 37. Each and all these Objections fatal to this Theory, whether Christianity is true or false. .... .60 38. Positive retributory Punishments often Inflicted in this World. . 60 39. Conflict of this Theory with the Scriptural Doctrine of the Final Judg ment. ....... 62 40. Fearfully damages the Character of Grid as Ruler and as a Moral Being. 63 CHATTER V. Uullcr's position thai God has a natural government besides His moral, examined and rejected ; also positions of Bushnell. Section No. Page No. 41. Disagreement with Butler's position respecting a Natural Government of God. . . . . . . .67 TABLE OF CONTENTS. ix Section No. pagc n0- 42. No Retributive Causes set in Moral Natures, as Bushnell holds. . 68 43. A natural Government of God over Moral Beings a natural Impossi- sibility. . . . . . -70 44. What Necessary to construct such a Government ; and mere Prudence not Moral. .... 45. God has only one Government, and its General Retributions Follow this Life of Probation. .... 46. What this crude Naturalism makes God, if a Moral Government and Retributions are denied. 47. God infinitely bound to have a Moral Government, and what, if He has not. . . 71 7274 75 48. Three Citations relating to Poinis in this Chapter, from Butler, Martin- eau, and Matthew Arnold. . . . - 77 CHAPTER VI. What must be true of the retributory punishment to be inflicted on all incor rigible sinners by God as Ruler of the universal society according to the moral system.Section No. Page No. 49. It is not Disciplinary, but the retributive Penalty for Sin as Injustice to God's universal and eternal Society. . . .80 50. The Question, that it is inconsistent with God's Benevolence, Answered. 80 51. Duration of this Punishment, and Ill-Desert of Sinners its only Measure. 82 52. True Meaning of the Wrath of God against Sinners. . . 83 53. Additional Proof that God can have no Right of Counsel and no Liberty, against punishing incorrigible Sinners as they deserve. . 84 54. Absurdity of the Notion, that He can have this Right and Liberty. 86 55, What God's Design in inflicting this Punishment is not, and what it is. 87 56. Sin an Evil in itself, having intrinsic Ill-Desert. . . .88 57. No Plan or Measure of Redemption in God's Moral Government. . 91 58. Further Reasons why He must inflict exact Retributive Punishment on Sinners as they deserve, unless He can save them through a Sub stitution. . . . . . . -93 59. Justice the Social Bond, tying all to render reciprocal Moral Love illustrated. . ' . . . . .94 60. The principle of Ethical and Retributive Justice the same. . . 96 61. No Sinners ever would or could repent, if no Atonement, even if God would forgive them. ... .97 62. Even if they could, it would be no Reparation for their Sins. . 99 63. Position that God and all Good Being;; should enter into Sympathy with, and go to Cost for, Sinners, limited. . . 100 64. No Change of Will and Character by Omnipotence, no Annihilation, and the radical Fault of all these Notions. . . . 104 CHAPTER VII. Confirmation of the foregoing exposition of the law in moral natures, and oi retributions, by the teachings of both the Testaments of Scripture. God not merely a Father, but has and administers a universal moral government. No probation after death. x TABLE OF CONTENTS. Section No. Page No. 65. Scriptural doctrine of the Law in the Moral Nature of Man, what and what not. ..... . 106 66. No other Virtue than Moral Love; this the same in God, Angels, and Saints. . . . . . .109 67. God has a Positive Moral Government, and not a merely Paternal one. m 68. That God is the Father of Mankind as Creatures not taught in the Scriptures. . . . . . .112 69. God's Manifested Love and Character as a Moral Governor unap- proached by what they would be, were He merely a Father. . 113 70. That God is Father of Mankind literally is absurd, and that His Gov ernment is only Paternal is degrading to it and Him. . . 116 71. The Scriptural Doctrine of God's Fatherhood, and of His real Chil dren. ..... 117 72. Meaning of the word God, and what the Scriptures teach respecting Him as a Moral Governor. . . . .118 73. No Probation after Death for any of Mankind who die in Sin. - 122 PART II. The Mode of God^s Existence; the Incarnation of the Son; the Redemptive Plan and the Eternal Purpose of God; His Foreknowledge^ Election^ and Predes tination in it. CHAPTER VIII. What men may know of God, and what they cannot, without a special reve lation from Him, and what by that of the Scriptures. Why what they teach con cerning the mode of His existence should be accepted. Mysteries respecting Him of no weight against it; and predicament of deniers of the Scriptures and their teachings. The love of God for man is that of Him as three Persons. Section No. Page No. 74. All Things enveloped in insoluble Mystery — especially the Being and Mode of Existence of God. . . 12S 75. The Fact of Mystery or Incomprehensibility of a Being or Object no Reason for disbelieving or denying it. 129 76. What the Scriptures teach concerning God as one Being and Three Persons. . . . . . . 130 77. No Antecedent Probability or Presumption against this Scriptural Teaching. . . . 132 78. Incompetence of Man without a Revelation to know this, demonstrated by the History of the Heathen World. . . . 133 79. Functions of Reason respecting Religious and Moral Truths and Facts. 135 80. Application of all this to Deniers of the Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity. . . .... 136 81. No Rational Ground for rejecting the Doctrine of the Trinity from fear of contravening the Scriptuies. . . . 139 82. What the adoption of Trinitarianism by the Main Mass of the Church from its Beginning aigues. ..... 142 TABLE OF CONTENTS. xi Section No. page No. 83. Predicament of Theistic Deniers of the Scriptural Revelation concern ing God, the Trinity, and the Atonement. . . . 144 84. No Presumption against any Doctrine of Christianity, but a decisive one, a Moral Certainty that it is true. .... 148 85. Mankind could not anticipate what the contents of a Revelation or the manner of its Communication would be. . . . 149 86. The Infidel Notion of what the Love of God is, arrayed against the Scriptural Teachings, of no weight. .... 150 87. The only Evidence infidels can have of God's Love for Mankind as Sinners. . .... 151 88. Predicament of those who believe only excerpts or selected parts of the Bible, and discard all others. . . . 153 89. No Being Can really manifest the Love of Another, etc. . 154 90. How the Greatness and Strength of any Being's Love for Others is Shown. How God's for Mankind. 91. On what the Fact and Doctrine of the Love of God for Mankind entirely rest. . N . . . . 156 55 CHAPTER IX. The Scriptural doctrine of the incarnation of the second Person of the Trinity ; necessary in order to His mediatorial relations to God and man, including His whole mission on earth, and His relations to His redeemed Church and the intel ligent universe — all involved in God's eternal Plan of the material, animated, and rational creation. Section No. Page No. 92. The Notion that the Divine Nature of Christ was incarnated in a mere Human Body without a Soul, groundless. , 161 93. What Scripture teaches respecting the two Natures and the Person ality of Christ. ...... 164 94. Design to be accomplished by the Incarnation. . . . 166 95. No Ground to think the Incarnation would have been made, if Man had not Sinned. ..... 167 96. Necessity of the Incarnation in order to the Atonement. . . 168 97. Angels lacking a Race-Constitution, and differences between Adam's Action and theirs. ..... 169 98. Mankind the consummate order of Rational Creatures. . . 170 99. Chief Parts and Ends of God's Plan of Creation — A Brief Theodicy. 173 100. What, in Substance, the General Plan of the Universe, Material and Vital, manifestly is. . . . 175 101. How our Race is distinguished from the Angels, and thus the Key stone Order of Intelligent Beings. . . . 178 102. Why all since Adam begin Life in Great Peril, and are on a gracious, not legal Probation, as he was. .... 178 103. Was it Just, Benevolent, and Honorable in God to create our Race so constituted and related to Adam ? . . . . 180 104. The Entire Part of the Son of God Radically Included in the Eternal Plan. ..... .184 105. The Whole Destiny of the Church as related to Christ included in the Plan. . . . . . . .186 xii TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. God's foreknowledge, eternal purpose, election, and predestination. Divine sovereignty as related to man's freedom. Section No. Page No. 106. God's Omniscience, natural, eternal, and wholly Independent of His Will. . . . . 189 107. All Worlds and Creatures by and for the Son, and the Scope of the Redemptive Plan. ..... 190 108. Difficulty of bringing Men to repent, and Limitations of the Spirit's Agency. . ... 191 109. What must be true of the Divine Sovereignty as related to Man's Freedom. . . . 194 no. No other reasons for Election than the foreseen Effects of the Redem- tive Measure. ...... 195 III. In what God's Sovereignty consists. .... 197 112. Nothing in it Inconsistent with the Moral System or Man's Freedom. 200 113. God's Knowledge not identical with His Election and Predestination. 201 114. Meaning of His Foreknowing those He Elected and Predestinated. 20; 115. What Scripture teaches concerning God's Eternal Purpose,. Election. and Predestination. ..... 204 116. Examination of Rom. 8:27-30 and Eph. 1:4-14. . . . 203 117. The Purpose and Election in Rom. 9: 11 mean entirely different things from those we are considering. . 211 118. Such Elections as that of the Jacob-Nation and Rejections as that of ihe Esau-Nation common. . . . . .21; PART III. The Law a Unit; Divided toward Hitman Sinners into the two Demands for Retributive Justice and Mercy. Expiation and Propitiation. The Atone ment and its Purpose. CHAPTER XI. The unity of the law in all moral beings in respect to the ever-obedient. Divided towards human sinners into two opposite demands— one of justice as retributive, the other of mercy; and the relations of these demands to each other. Section No. Page Xo 119. The Law in all Minds a Unit towards the ever obedient, and also the Luve it enjoins. . . ... 21S 120. Both these Units divided in all towards Human Sinners. . 219 121. A kind of Schism in the Law in all towards those Guilty of mitigated Sin. . . . . . . .221 122. How God's Mercy differs from the Love due lo the ever-obedient, and relates to Justice both as Ethical and as Retributive. 222 123. Had Man never sinned, God could not have had either the Demand for Retributive Justice, nor the Diclate to Mercy. . . 224 124. The Relation in God's Mind of this Dictate to this Demand. . 226 TABLE OF CONTENTS. *{;£ Section No. Page No. 125. Points connected with the Subject of the Atonement respecting both God and Man. ...... 229 126. Device of the Incarnation and Mediatorship of our Lord, and Errors concerning them. . . . . . .231 127. No End of Importance attainable by these, if Man had not sinned. 233 128. Other Truths on the Side of God. .... 235 129. What True on the Side of Man. .... 236 CHAPTER XII. Expiation and Propitiation. Section No. „ Page No. 130. Meanings of these Terms ; relation of the Two ; Expiation demanded by Justice, both as Ethical and as Retributive. . . . 237 131. Expiatory Sacrifices not originated by Men, but evidently by direction of God to Adam, and so to Mankind. . . . _^9 132. From whom Objections to Expiation always come, and to what Denial of it always leads. ..... 241 133. Bushnell's Assaults on it misrepresent it, and are groundless and false. 242 134. How the Sufferings of Christ for Mankind meet and stay the Demands of Justice against them. .... 246 135. Bushnell's Notion of Propitiation a prodigious conceit, anti-moral, and derogatory to God. ..... 248 136. On His Grounds, God's anger at, and need of Propitiation towards, Sinners reasonless. ..... 249 137. The Mode of God's Self-Propitiation stated is self-contradictory and ridiculous. ...... 250 138. This Mode not According to Analogies in Human Experience. . 252 139. Correlated Conceits about the Trinity, the Tedium of an Untragic World, the Propitiation Eternal, etc. .... 253 140. Reconciliation of God to Man — of Him first in order — of Man as a consequence of His to Man, .... 254 CHAPTER XIII. The Atonement; its exclusive purpose; what not implied in it; in what alone it consisted ; how it met the demands of justice ; and love not in its nature essentially vicarious. Section No. Page No. 141. Atonement Defined, and its only direct End. . . . 258 142. Levitical Atonements and that of Christ, all made to God for human Sinners. ...... 259 143. Effect of that of Christ in God and on His rectoral relations. . 260 144.. The so-called Moral View of it against Scripture and absurd. . 262 145. Not implied in the Substitution of Christ, that He assumed the Ill- Desert of Sinners. ...... 263 [46. Nor that He experienced any personal, natural Consequences of Sin. 264 147. Not the direct Design of His Atonement to show God's Abhorrence of Sin, etc. . . 265 148. His sufferings different in Character and Design from those of Mothers, Friends, or Patriots. ..... 266 x,v TABLE OF CONTENTS. Section No. Page No. 149. His not equal in Quantity to the aggregate of those deserved by all Mankind, nor by the Elect. . . . . 266 150. Why His were equivalent to those deserved by all human Sinners. 268 151. In what the Atonement consisted ; why made ; and why it more than met the Demands of Justice. .... 269 152. Love not a Principle essentially vicarious in its Nature. . . 270 153. That it is not, shown by apostrophizing Prophets, Christ, etc. . 274 CHAPTER XIV. The designed relations of the Atonement to human sinners as such, to those brought to comply with the conditions of salvation and forgiveness during their probation, and connected points. Section No. . Page Xo. 154. The Atonement a Provision for all Mankind alike, but an actual one for those only who comply with its Terms. . . 279 155. The Condition of its Application to any, and how it is made, . 280 156. If not for all, would not accord with either Justice or Mercy. . 281 157. Nor with Christ's being the Representative of Mankind. . 282 158. What True if it were an actual Substitution for all Mankind as Sinners. 282 159. What True, if it were such for any Part of Mankind, and not for all. 283 160. If either of these Suppositions were true, a Probation in any sense impossible for Mankind. 2S4 161. Must be simply a Provision for all alike to be made actual for any, or to be offered to all or any. • . . 284 162. The Atonement being for all, all have a Gracious Probation. . 286 163. All Sacred Truth, Motives, etc., like the Atonement, only provisional for Mankind as Sinners. . 287 164. Both the Son and the Father had a perfect Right to act the Parts They did, and to agree to do so. . . . . 288 165. Hence, Both were absolutely Just in acting them. . . . 290 166. The Objection, that the orthodox God must have Blood, exposed. 291 167. The Question of the Atonement one of Morality —the MorJity of God. 293 168. Questions for Objectors to the Atonement to consider. . . 20s 169. A Statement by Bushnell respecting Love examined. . . 296 170. If Justice as Retributive is discarded, so must it be as Ethical; and the certain Result. . . 20" 171. Why Christ's Sufferings must be inflicted by the Father's Will, and would save Measureless Suffering. .... 299 172. God not Impassible. . . . 300 CHAPTER XV. Whether there was an obligation on God to provide an atonement for human sinners, such as we have shown. Section No. Page No. 173. The Position of the Reformers on this Point noticed. . . 303 174. No Obligation of Justice on God to Sinners to make an Atonement for, or to save them ; nor to other Beings. . , . 304 TABLE OF CONTENTS. xt Section No. p.,ge No_ 175. God's Creation by the best possible Plan, and why He spared the First Pair when they sinned. ..... 306 17G. Why an Infinite Obligation on Him to do all morally possible to save Human Sinners. . . . 309 177. An Obligation to rescue from all this Evil, and to secure Immeasur able Good,' as far as possible. . . . 311 178. The Real Question — Whether there is an Obligation to exercise Mercy, when consistent with Justice. .... 312 179. Such an Obligation detracts Nothing from Mercy and Grace, etc. . 313 180. Depreciates Nothing, but exalts, sublimes, and glorifies the whole System of Christian Truth. .... 315 181. No Moral Action Supererogatory. .... 316 182. Some Reasons for writing the Philosophical or Psychological Parts of this Work. ...... 316 183. Christianity and Skepticism Contrasted. The Latter only Destructive. 318 184. What Follows, if we have proved an Obligation on God to make an Atonement. . . , , . .319 185. The Bane of Theology. ..... 320 PART IV. Scriptural Teachings Respecting the Relations of Christ and His Atonement to Mankind. CHAPTER XVI. Relatir n of Adam and of his sin and of its personal effects to his race, and examination of Roin. 5:12-19 and of 8:18-23 in connection with Gen. 2:17 and 3:16-19-Section No. Page No. 186. Natural Consequences of Adam's Sin conveyed to his Posterity by propagation. ...... 322 187. What, according to Rom. 5:12-19, was the relation of Adam's Sin to his Posterity. . . . . 325 1S8. Adam as created, and the effects of his Sin on his Nature. . . 326 189. Three Deaths, Bodily, Spiritual, and Retributive, and other Evils. 329 190. Relation of Bodily Death to the sin, and to the Spiritual Death, of the First Pair. , . . . . 330 191. Consideration of Rom. 8:18-23, as Related to Gen. 3:16-19. . 331 192. What this whole passage shows. . . . 333 193. Inherited Effects of Adam's Sin ; Atonement and the Holy Spirit necessary to save even Infants. . . . 336 194. Direct examination of Rom. 5:12-19. Verse 12 Considered. . 338 195. Adam, the Type, and Christ the Antitype. . . . 342 196. The Wondrous literary skill, as well as profound Moral Insight shown in the construction of this whole passage. . . 346 197. Importance of the Teachings of this Wonderful Passage, Rom. 5:12-19. 350 xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVII. Atonements of the animal sacrifices of the Levitical Law ; the origin and gen eral use of such sacrifices among the nations; and the relation of those of the Levitical Law to the Atonement and all the relations of Christ to mankind, to God, and to the universal moral society. Section No. Page No. 198. Nothing in all God's Doings towards Mankind arbitrary or capricious. 352 199. When the Redemptive Plan was devised, and what it included. . 353 200. Meaning and Use of the word Atonement — Noun and Verb. . 355 201. Three Cases of the Use of the Word Atonement when it does not mean Animal Sacrifices. . . . 356 202. Scriptural Statement of what the Atonement of an Animal Sacrifice consisted in. ..... . 35" 203. Those Sacrifices and the Theocratic Government of God over Israel for them only in this World. .... 359 204. The Sin Offering. ...... 361 205. The Guilt- or Trespass-Offering. .... 364 206. The Burnt-Offering. Not originated by the Levitical Law, but by Adam, taught by God. ..... 366 207. That Sacrifice was originated by Adam, undirected by God, ground less and unreasonable. ... . 369 208. A Clue to when God taught Adam to offer Animals in Sacrifice— the Kinds and How. .... . 370 209. This Adamic Sacrifice was not merely Eucharistic, but Expiatory. 373 210. The Burnt- Offerings of Noah, Abraham, etc., noticed. . . 374 211. The Peace-Offerings — Also Expiatory. . . 376 212. Conclusion that all the animal sacrifices were Expiatory, and so Pro pitiatory. ... 377 213. The Priestly Office of the Levitical Law. . . 379 214. Relation of God's Theocratic Government over Israel, and of the Levitical Priests, Atonements, and Forgivenesses to His Moral Gov ernment over all Men and Moral Beings, and to Christ, His Atone ment, and His Forgiveness on its Ground. . . . 3S0 215. Why Future Rewards and Punishment were not included among the sanctions of the Theocratic Law. . . . 382 216. Conclusion of this Chapter — No Theory true which denies that the Levitical Sacrifices' were Expiatory. .... 3S3 CHAPTER XVIII. Teachings af the Epistle to the Hebrews concerning the priesthood of Christ and the purpose of. His offering Himself to God as a sacrifice. Section No Page No. 217. The first two Chapters the Foundation of all that follow; the Three Offices of Christ ; His High Priesthood. . . . 385 218. The Definite Purpose of the High Priest. . . . 387 219. Christ a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, and what it proves. . ..... 388 220. Christ the Antitype of the Levitical High Priest. Where and in What Covenant He ministers. ..... 389 TABLE OF CONTENTS. xvii Section No. Page No. 221. The Great Import of the reference to the Two Covenants. . . 391 222. Contrasted exhibition of the Means, Way, and Effect of the Fulfill ment of the two. ..... 393 223. Additional Contrasts. A nut infrangible by post-mortem Proba tionists. . . . . . . .395 224. Why Christ voluntarily came to do the Will of God. . . 1 396 225. What this Masterly Epistle, thus reviewed, demonstrates. . . 398 226. Supplement to the Foregoing Exposition. . . . 399 CHAPTER XIX. Examination of Is. 52:13-15; 53:1-12. Section No. Page No. 227. Marvelous Character of the Bible and of this Prophecy. . 405 228. Meaning of the Hebrew Verb Nasa of this Verse — and of Mat. 8:17. 407 229. Meaning of the Hebrew Verb Sabhal. .... 410 230. Matthew's Greek of Chap. 8:17 an Exact Translation of Is. 53:4. . 411 231. How only Christ took and bore the sicknesses and sorrows of Men. . 411 232. Interpretation of the second part of Is. 53:4. . 413 233. Relation of V. 4 to Vs. 5-12. . . . 415 234. Our Substitute in all He suffered — Meaning of Chastisement. . 416 235. His Substitution further declared — Iniquities of All thrown on Him. 417 236. His perfect patience and meekness in His sufferings. . . 417 237. How He was cut off by Men, yet would have a vast posterity. . 418 238. His Honorable Burial, despite the design' of His enemies, with the reason. ...... 419 239. Jehovah subjected Him to His sufferings — His Soul an offering for Sin, and the Results. . . . . 419 240. Jehovah speaks and declares the Results. . . . 421 241. Jehovah declares His Rewards. . . . 423 242. Christ not a Martyr, but a voluntary Substitute for Sinners in all He suffered, etc.. ...... 425 243. Passage from Magee respecting this Chapter and its Importance. . 427 244. Passages in the New Testament, in which Nasa and Sabhal are trans lated into corresponding Greek Verbs. . . . 428 245. Proper translation of John 1:29, excludes away from takes. . . 429 CHAPTER XX. Examination of the Greek prepositions fori and imip in passages concern ing the sufferings and death of Christ for the salvation of human sinners ; and the teaching of Scripture that these were necessary to their salvation. Section No. Page No. 246. The Preposition anti. .... 433 247. The Preposition huper. ..... 434 248. Huper always has a duplicate meaning when used in stating that one dies to save others from dying. .... 437 249. Necessity for the substitutional Sufferings and Death of Christ. » 439 250. Passages teaching a necessity for these for the Forgiveness of Sins. 442 251. No Martyr ever Divinely treated as He was. . , - . 443, xviii TABLE OF CONTENTS. Section No. Page No. 252. Other Passages implying necessity for the Substitution of Christ, . 445 253. 'Jlaaico/iai and Words from it in the New Testament from the Sep- tuagint Version of the Levitical Law, .... 447 254. Passages —That we have redemption and are bought by, through, or with the blood of Christ as our Ransom-Price. . . . 449 255. Passages declaring that He gave His Life for Us. . . 453 256. Christ, as High Priest, offered Himself to God, a Sacrifice for the Sins of Mankind, ...... 454 257. Passages Concerning the Sufferings and Death of Christ. . 455 258. Passages which Speak of Christ's Dying and Death for Mankind. . 457 CHAPTER XXI. Positions certified by the whole foregoing review of the Scriptural teachings concerning atonements, especially that of our Lord Jesus Christ for the sins of mankind.Section No. Page No. 259. Position First, that the Atonement of Christ was made exclusively to God. ....... 459 260. Position Second, that, in itself, it was not to produce any effect in Human Sinners. ...... 460 261. When God, under the constraints just stated, purposed this Measure- 461 262. Third Position, that the two preceding are Certainties respecting it against all Theories. ..... 463 263. Scriptural Teachings respecting the extent of the Atonement. . 465 264. A Citation from Trench's Sermons refuted. . . . 468 265. The True Solution of the Question concerning the Sufferings and Death of Christ. ...... 471 CHAPTER XXII. Examination of what is called the Governmental Theory of the Atonement. Section No. Page No. 266. Statement of this View. ..... 475 267. Statement of what we hold to be the True View. . . . 477 268. What we have in this Statement. .... 478 269. What must be true of Punishment. .... 4S0 270. What the Scriptures teach respecting God's Reason for and End in Punishment. ...... 482 271. Easy to see, then, what an Atonement must be. . . . 484 CHAPTER XXIII. Scriptural Doctrine 01 Forgiveness and Justification. Section No. Pago No. 272. Why God cannot forgive any Sinner independently of the Atonement. 488 273. Forgiveness of Sins not a personal matter to God. . . . 486 274. What Forgiveness is, as taught in Scripture. . . . 493 275. Forgiveness does nothing in the Forgiven, but is wholly an act for him, relieving him from Penalty. . . . . 494 TABLE OF CONTENTS. xix Section No. Section No. 276. Meaning of the Greek Verb, rendered to justify, and of its kindred nouns and other words. .... 495 277. Why Forgiveness can only be on the Ground of the Atonement. . 497 278. What Paul Used the Greek Verb, Rendered to Justify, and its Kindred nouns and other words to Express. . , . 498 279. The Adjective 6'maioq specially noticed, and the nouns and adverb kindred. ....... 498 280. Meanings of these Greek words. .... 500 281. Meaning of the Expression, Righteousness of God. . . 501 282. The Relation of this Righteousness or Obedience of Christ to Men. 503 283. The Merit of Christ for His Obedience without limit and for all who will believe. . . ... 504 284. All Christ's Rewards due Him by Moral Right and Justice ; all done for Men Grace. .... 506 285. Justification in the Light of the Preceding. . . 507 286. Sense in which what we have shown involves the Doctrine of Impu tation. ...... 508 CHAPTER XXIV. The dwarfing, derogatory effects of the so-called Moral View of the Atone ment.Section No. Page No. 287. No essentially New Theology can ever supplant the Evangelical. . 511 288. The Conception of God's Love, in the so-called Moral View, Essen tially Untrue. . . . . 513 289. Farther showing that th's View dwarfs and depreciates it towards Mankind. ....... 515 290. This Effect on the Conception of God's Love for Man more manifest from its like effects on that of other Truths. . . 517 291. The Effects of this View on the essential Truths and facts embraced in the Redemptive Measure. . . . . 519 20.2. How this View affects Motives against Sin, and to Obedience — to Repentance and Faith. ..... 522 293. This View limits the objects of Prayer and Thanksgiving. . . 524 294. The Preceding Showings against this View equally valid against all Views which deny Justice and the Atonement. . . 523 295. The Question of the Perpetuity of Future Punishment. . . 527 PART I. THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. CHAPTER I. The Law of God as given in consciousness by Moral Reason. A clear understanding of it necessary to that of the Atonement ; audits characteristics. % I. ORIGIN OF THE DIVINE LAW. The law of God declared in the Bible is in and from universal moral reason. It is-in every rational nature, as instinct is in every animal nature; and it issues from it as, in classic fable, Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, sprung armed, chaste, and beautiful from the cloven head of Jupiter. It is thus in and from the Mind of God from all eternity; and it is thus in and from all created rational minds ever onward from their first waking to consciousness. In other words, it is necessarily, not merely thought, but authoritatively affirmed or dictated by the rational nature of all moral beings in all worlds; and it is called law, because it is thus in and springs from them, not as an idea, like that of space or time, but as an authori tative rule for their social action, which by it is ethical or moral. It is thus the ground and source in them of all sense of duty, of justice and injustice, of right and wrong, of holiness and unholiness, of moral beauty and deformity, of moral good and evil, of merit and demerit, of responsibility and accountability, of rewards and punishments, of all proper human government, and of all ethics and religion; and it is necessarily recognized as "holy, just, and good". It is thus that, as the great Apostle of the Gentiles declares, mankind are "a law unto themselves; in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them." It is 2 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. of course as permanent and immutable as the nature of God and of all other moral beings. As it is not originated by will, Divine or created, it is irrepealable and unchangable by will; and all moral beings, simply by being such, are necessarily in an everlasting moral society and system, as all the material worlds, from greatest to least, are in a physical system. Such is the law of God, obedience to which alone constitutes all right character and secures all moral good and blessedness in any moral being in any world. § 2. RELATION OF KNOWLEDGE OF IT TO THAT OF THE ATONEMENT. The worst fact in the universe, the source of all others that are evil, is, that a vast proportion of created moral beings have violated this law by sin, and have thus incurred the natural, and made them selves liable to the penal, consequences of their apostacy. Among these are all responsible mankind; and it is to them that the atone ment, if there is one, relates as a measure of God to retrieve them from the necessity of suffering the penal part of these consequences, and to provide for arresting those which are merely natural. In order to understand the reasons for, and the nature of, that measure, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the law, and of the penal part of the consequences of its violation as distinguished from those which are merely natural. Thus only can any scientific knowl edge of this transcendent subject be attained, and all the objections and inventions of rejecters of it be exposed and expelled from intel ligent acceptance by any. The question of the atonement is intrins ically one of moral science, of moral philosophy, no less than of Scripture; for it is rooted in the question concerning moral nature itself and the law in and from it; and it directly relates to the law and its application to men as sinners, and to God as administrator of that law to them and all intelligent creatures, and so to all such creatures forevermore. Whether there is a universal and eternal moral system constituted by universal moral nature, having the law in and from it, as indicated, and, if one, what it necessarily involves respecting human sinners as related to God and all other moral beings in that system, and as He and they are related to them, are the questions upon the right answers to which those concerning the atonement, the necessity for and the design and nature of it, neces sarily depend. As the law in all moral natures is essentially the same, all the questions concerning it and a universal moral system and society, which, in the nature of the case, must be eternal, are identical; so that the fundamental question between the maintainers CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LAW. 3 and the rejecters of an atonement is simply — "what is the truth concerning the law?" Our first business, then, is to ascertain the true answer to this question as given by its only competent teachers, the consciousness of man and the inspired Revelation of God to man. Thus only can we find and show which of the two sides, that of belief in, or that of denial of, an atonement, stands on solid moral ground, and which on sandy non-moral assumptions and specu lations. As this method of procedure is unprecedented, and as all the questions involved in it are of such profound importance, the prosecution of it must be thorough, and cannot be brief. It will require several chapters, which will constitute the first part of this work. To this task we now proceed, designing to accomplish it with as much brevity as possible, consistent with making it through out clear and as level to all understanding as such a disquisition can be made. Most of it we are sure will be easily understood by ill intelligent readers, and should be well pondered by all. Accord ing to our method, we must begin by showing the essential charac teristics of the law attested by consciousness. § 3. FIRST CHARACTERISTIC OF THE LAW, THUS ATTESTED. 1. As already stated, it springs into consciousness, not as an idea of any kind, but as an authoritative ride of action. It comes as an imperative or mandate to each one's self to will, and act for, the real good of its objects, always involving and imposing a conscious obligation to obedience; and it thus constitutes all obedience to it moral action, and all disobedience to it, not merely non-moral, but immoral action. Because it comes with this imperative or man datory character, and imposes this obligation to obedience on e:ch one's self, whether we say, the imperative or the mandate of the law is wholly immaterial, as both these terms express precisely the same thing; but, for certain reasons, we shall probably use the former more than the latter of them to indicate the binding author ity with which the law is given in each one's consciousness. § 4. SECOND CHARACTERISTIC, THE MATTER OF THE LAW. 2. The action enjoined by the law is its matter. It consists in pure moral love or good will, which always carries with it naturally correlated emotions and harmonious intellectual action. Towards all purely good beings, it is without modification and perfect in meas ure according to their several natures and general or special rela tions. Towards God, it is consummately full and perfect, far sur- 4 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. passing its utmost measures to any creatures; towards angels, it is perfect according to knowledge of them and their relations; and towards "the spirits of just men made perfect," is unmodifiedly per fect according to the same knowledge of them. But, towards all other known moral beings, self included, if human, it is not full, but modified in quality to all who are objects of it at all, according to knowledge or belief respecting their several moral characters and relations to God and their fellow beings. In a qualified sense, it is towards some species of irrational animals. By the constitution of a moral nature, the emotions correlated to pure good-will are neces sarily evoked from the sensibility, and maintained and cherished in it by that good-will, and, though without moral quality in them selves, as all mere emotions are, are, by this will-action, incorpor ated into the consistence of true moral love to the morally lovable of all grades. Towards the good, even not free from faults, this love includes cherished complacency, gratitude when due, rewarding favor and fit honor, and to some reverence. Towards the evil of our race, yet hopefully redemptible, it includes only shadows of these in some civil, social, or domestic sense, connected with pity, sorrow, and an impulse to mercy, and often with indignation, anger, and other emotions of aversion against them for their evil deeds, crimes, or persistent wickedness. Towards self, it includes moral self-love, but excludes selfishness, or preference of self-gratification in any mode to the perceivable good of any of its objects. Both it and selfishness, its opposite, are voluntary, whatever emotions are correlated to them. § 5. THIRD CHARACTERISTIC OF THE LAW, WHICH IS ITS END. 3. The end of the law is the complete good of God and all holy beings, and the greatest practicable good of mankind as they stand related to Him and to each other by their nature, sinful character, and deserts. The opposed end is self-gratification in any conflicting form or degree. No other opposed end is possible, and moral beings never act morally, except in choosing one or the other of these ends, and in executive action to secure or attain them. When they consciously sin, they know the latter to be their end just as they do the former when they obey. These two funda mental ends draw after and divide between them the universe of moral beings, and are in irreconcilable, eternal conflict. The moral love which is the matter of the law is choosing the former; the self- fishness prohibited by it is choosing the latter; and these two rad ical moral choices, like their ends, are everlastingly antagonistic. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LAW. § 6. FOURTH CHARACTERISTIC OF THE LAW. 4. The law is concrete and social. By concrete is meant that it is never given as an abstraction, whether called the idea of right, or by any other name, but always as an imperative ride of action in its subject to render its matter of moral love to its objects, present or thought of, unmodified or modified according to the known or sup posed good or bad character and deserts of each. By social is meant, in addition, that its matter of moral love is enjoined by its imperative as owed by and due from its subject to its objects, as that to which they have a right by nature, unless they have forfeited it by sin, and, if righteous, also by character. It is thus a concrete and social bond, of which one end is, so to say, livingjy inwrought by creative art into the immortal nature of every created moral being, assimilating it to God's, and the other end is projected by the imperative in that nature to every like one, present or thought of, and fastened to it as having the right or rights mentioned to the love it enjoins, if not forfeited ; and, if forfeited, is even then fastened to it as an object of good-will, however modified, as far and as long a.; it is capable of good, or not utterly lost— that is, while its gracious probation lasts. The whole rational universe is thus interbound into one society, with God as its Center and Head, as all -the unnum bered worlds and parts of the material universe are interbound by the physical force of attraction with its law, as if it were concrete and social, in their relations to each other and their vast center. As the marriage law binds the pair united by it to render constant, pure, faithful love to each other, as that to which each has a sacred right in their relation, thus intertying them to perfect reciprocity of natural and moral debts and dues, so this law of laws in all moral beings, by its concrete and social character, spiritually intermarries them all, as it were, to each other and to God, and Him to them. Its bond is essentially the same between each one and himself object- ized to himself, tying him to render its matter of moral love to him self, as if owed by and due to himself, as if another. How unspeak ably grand and beautiful is this social, moral, immortal constitution of the natures of the ever-augmenting, intelligent universe! How it surpasses that of the whole material creation. § 7. FIFTH CHARACTERISTIC OF THE LAW. 5. The obligation to obey the law is imposed by its imperative, which never comes as a mere "It is right," or "It is not right," "It ought/' or "It ought not to be done," which is the verdict of con- 6 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. science concerning action done or contemplated according to or against it, but always as a "You must," or "You must not" — "Do," or "Do not" — "You shall," or "You shall not." The ground of the obligation in each is his moral nature, having moral reason to im pose it by its imperative, and related sensibility to feel it as a bond upon its will to comply with it ; and the condition of the imposing imperative is always the presence in fact or in thought of one or more of like nature, or of self objectized; such presence always occasioning an intuition that he or each of them has a natural right, unless for feited by sin, and, if obedient, a moral one also, to the love enjoined by it. Because they have the natural right to it, unless forfeited, the obligation is purely one of ethical justice. The additional obli gation imposed by the imperative to rendej to every one thus present who manifests the character of obedience, the love of cher ished complacency added to that due him by right of nature is also one of ethical justice, because by this manifestation he acquires a moral right, additional to the natural, to receive it from all cogni- eant of his character. There is another obligation, so imposed, to render the love of gratitude to a benefactor, because, by being such, he acquires a-moral right, additional to both the preceding, to this kind of love; and this also is one of ethical justice. There are many other specific obligations of ethical justice, including that to veracity to and concerning others, to which all have a natural right, unless forfeited by sin, and may also have a moral one — that to just and honorable dealings in business — that to obey and uphold rightful human government and authority — that on all administrators of law and government of every kind to be righteous, honest, and humane — and that to be true to all trusts. Whenever the object of an imperative has a right of nature, character, conduct, contract, or relations of any sort to the moral love or action it enjoins, the obligation it imposes is, by that right, one of ethical justice. But, in principle, the radical obligation first indicated is the founda tion of, and includes, all the others of this justice specified and existing. 3 8. SIXTH CHARACTERISTIC OF THE LAW. C. Besides all this kind of obligations, there is another species imposed by the law's imperative, which is to exercise benevolence to fellowmen, even when by criminality they have forfeited all right to it, and to some merely sentient creatures simply for the sake of their good; and the obligation, therefore, is not one of ethical justice to CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LAW. 7 them. As those intended have forfeited their natural right, and their moral, too, if they had any, the benevolence is not due to them, and on no ground of justice can they accuse any one of injustice, who does not exercise it to them. As this obligation respects such men, it is subordinate to and restricted by those of ethical justice to others, being limited by their rights, interests, and concerns, and by the demands of retributive, punitive justice against them. As it respects merely sentient creatures, it is restricted by their relations and subserviency to the surmounting good of human natures. Within these limits, benevolence both to them and to the men indicated is willing their good simply for what it is to them as far as they are concerned; and the basis of the obligation to it is the fellow-feeling or natural sympathy of moral beings with their kind, and with lower natures as far as they are seen to have homogeneous qualities. § 9. SEVENTH CHARACTERISTIC OF THE LAW. 7. While it is true that sin forfeits all rights, natural and moral, to the love of God, so that there is no obligation of justice on Him to any sinner to render love to him, and all the love He does exer cise to any must be pure mercy and grace alone, the case is different as it respects mankind in this world. They are all sinners, but on a gracious probation during life under a gracious dispensation, that they may return to obedience and be saved, if they will. During it, the administration of law and government is, to a great. degree, modified, and their condition and relations to each other, to God, and to all- the holy society under Him are correspondingly anom alous. Had they all been perfectly obedient, there could have been no such probation and no obligation to mercy to them on God, angels, or themselves mutually. Their condition and relations would have been like those of the holy society in heaven. But, as they are, they are not utterly subverted and lost, as the apostate angels are, and are still capable of partial conformity to God's moral system in this world. There is an obligation of justice on, and, in various degrees, commonly recognized among them in their ordinary relations, especially where they have received the teach ings of God's inspired revelation, to render moral love to each other according to the modified rights they have of nature and of char acter and conduct, as mutually owed and due. This is a direct obligation on each and all to each, who has not wholly forfeited his rights by criminality. But, there is an obligation of justice on all, even in relation to those who have thus forfeited them, to love them S THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. with merciful benevolence like God's to themselves — that is, to love their nature and its true good, despite their evil character and deeds, and their consequent relations to God and His universal, everlasting, holy society. This is not an obligation to them, because they have forfeited their rights to any love, but it is one to God respecting them, who imposes it by commanding this love, which He has an absolute natural and moral right to do, and which, therefore, all are naturally and morally bound to obey. Besides this, there is the obligation, not of justice, to will their good, as shown under No. 6. § IO. EIGHTH CHARACTERISTIC OF THE LAW. 8. It is manifest from what we have said under these numbers, that justice is an intrinsic quality of the law, and constitutes it the all-binding intertie of moral beings. If men had never sinned, they would have perfectly obeyed the law by fulfilling all its obligations of justice. But, because this quality of it is of such radical import ance in ethical science, and to a correct understanding of the atone ment, and because it is so much overlooked, misunderstood, and even denied in these times, it is especially necessary in such a work a-s this to devote a somewhat extended consideration to it. Hence, although in place here, we pass it till after we have given attention to the only other characteristic of the law which we will now notice, when we will make it the subject of a chapter. § II. NINTH CHARACTERISTIC OF THE LAW. 9. That characteristic is, that this law is given in the conscious ness of all moral agents as the law of God, and of His government over them; and besides it He has never had any other. The deca logue, declared to Israel at Sinai through Moses, is only ten special applications of it; and all the temporal ordinances and sanctions connected with these were made for them as sinners, were designed to bring them to Christ, and were all to pass away when their pur pose should be fulfilled.* The Theocratic government, constituted by that law, was confined to them, and was only for the time stated; but His moral law and government are over all mankind and all moral beings, and are endless. He did not give this law and insti tute this government at Sinai, but when He created moral beings with the law in and to be declared to them by their moral reason, and at tested and enforced by their conscience; and He thus instituted His government for them, not as sinnci s, but as such beings. Hence, from (*) Roin. 5:20; 7:6-13. Gal. 3:19, 23, 24. I. Tim. 1:9, 10. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LAW. 9 their first moral consciousness they are knowingly under His gov ernment, and can no more escape from it than from themselves. A more fantastic notion has never been invented than that of a law before government, impersonal, and having only the natural conse quences of obedience or disobedience to it for retributions.* Although in his subsequent work on Forgiveness and Law, Dr. Bushnell, in a qualified way, retracted this prodigious invention, never seen with the eyes nor heard of with the ears of psycology, yet I notice it here, because I design to show that the notion he assumed in it, that the idea of right is a law apart from and inde pendent of the social law, and the only form in which moral reason gives the law, is as totally visionary as the rest of the invention. He calls this imagined law impersonal ! As well talk of thought without a thinker, a creature without a creator, or an effect without a cause; for what conception of law remains, if it is not an author itative rule of moral action, declared and administered by an authoritative person? No such law is possible; there can be none but the one social moral law; and however faintly it may be recog nized in minds sunk in selfish perversion and its darkness from their first moral action, it has always stood in consciousness and been attested by conscience as the law of God, or whatever men have substi tuted for Him — that is, as His imperative legislation declared to the inner ear of the spiritual nature, as if He were enthroned in or speak ing through it. The Sinai, from which He gave the Theocratic law to Israel, was doubtless designed to symbolize this incomparably greater Sinai in every moral being, from which He declares to it His eternal law; and it was this inward legislation that rendered that people capable of receiving that outward legislation with a sense of moral obligation to obey it. All men, the most barbarous scarcely seemingly excepted, have recognized and manifiested this law in them, with such applications of it as they have made or received from their progenitors, as from God or their gods, and have believed that He or they will certainly uphold and vindicate it by positive rewards and punishments.")" Any view of the love of (*) See Bushnell's Vicarious Sacrifice, Part III., chaps. I and 2. (f) Note. See "Theology of the Greek Poets," by Prof. W. S. Tyler. Homer's views of laws, as all of Jupiter, p. 180. Those of ^Eschylus, p. 220, that law is from the goddess Themis, etc. Compares Hooker's oft-cited personification of law. Gives several instances of appeal by Sophocles to the fundamental laws of justice and morality as those of God or the gods; one on p. 298 from the Tragedy of Ajax (line 1343 sqq), which warns against "contemning Heaven's eternal laws"; and on p. 320 the very remarkable passage in Antigone (line 450 sqq) which he quotes, translated: — io THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. angels or of saints made perfect, which assumes it to be above or different from obedience to this law, and incompatible with being forever under this government, is as insubstantial as a dream. J It arises partly from confounding moral love with mere emotional affec tion, and partly from confounding God's universal, eternal law and government, founded in all rational natures by the imperative which must be forever in them, with His Theocratic law declared, and gov ernment instituted, at Sinai, through Moses, for Israel in this world. We close this chapter with the famous passage with which Hooker ended the first book of his Ecclesiastical Polity. " Where fore that here we may briefly end : Of Law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power: both angels and men and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy." No student of moral science should fail to read thoroughly this first book of the work of that great author, so eminent in scholar ship, vast learning, and intellectual insight and power. This book especially is replete with the combined products of these surpassing qualities in relation to the eternal, immutable Law of God, making it full of instruction and suggestion. This commendation does not mean that there are not some important deficiencies in his views of the Law, nor that all his inferences and applications as he pro ceeds are to be accepted, but is confined to his unfoldings of the great essentials of the subject which he sets forth. " Ne'er did eternal Jove such laws oulain, Or Justice, throned amid the Infernal Powers, Who on mankind these holier rites imposed. Nor can I deem thine edict armed with power To contravene the firm unwritten laws Of the just gods; thyself a weak, frail mortal 1 These are no laws of yesterday: they live Forevermore, and none can trace their birth." On p. 338, he gives a translated quotation from the Oedipus Tyrannus (lines 863-872), which is a vindication by the chorus of eternal truth and eternal law; — "Oh, be the lot forever mine Unsullied to maintain, In act and word, with awe divine, What potent laws ordain. Laws spring from purer realms above : Their father is the Olympian Jove. Ne'er shall oblivion veil their front sublime. The indwelling god is great, nor dreads the waste of time. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LAW. II The assurance of positive retributions from God or the gods is often and pow erfully expressed by all these ancient poets. To these quotations from this author, I add two, specially remarkable and important, from Cicero: Est quidem vera lex recta ratio, naturae congruens, diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna, quae vocet ad officium iubendo, vetando a fraude deterreat, quae tamen neque probos frustra iubet aut vetat, nee improbos iubendo aut vetando movet. Huic legi nee obrogari fas est neque derogari ex hac aliquid, licet neque tota abrogari potest, nee veto aut per senatum aut per populum solvi hac lege possumus, neque est quaerundus explanator aut interpres eius alius, nee erit alia lex Romae, alia Athenis, alia nunc, alia posthac, sed et omnes gentes et omni tempore una lex et sempiterna et immutabilis continebit, unusque erit communis quasi magester et imperator omnium deus: ille legis huius inventor, disceptator, lator", cui qui non parebit, ipse se fugiet ac naturam hominis aspernatus hoc ipso luet maximas poenas, etiam si caetera supplicia, quae putantur, effugerit. De Re- publica, Lib. III., Cap. xxii., § 33. M. Hanc igitur video sapientissimorum fuisse sententiam, legem neque hom- inum ingeniis excogitatam, nee scitum aliquod esse populorum, sed aeternum quid- dam, quod universum mundum regeret, imperandi prohibendique sapientia. Ita principem legem illam et ultimam mentem esse dicebant, omnia ratione aut cogentis aut vetantis dei: Ex qua ilia lex, quam di humano generi dederunt, recte est laudata. Est enim ratio mensque sapientis, ad iubendum et ad deterrendum idonea. Q. * * * M. A parvis enim, Quinte, didicimus si in ius vocat ito et eius modi leges alias nominare. Sed vero intelligi sic oportet, et hoc et alia iussa ac vetita populorum vim habere ad recte facta vocandi et a peccatis avocandi, quae vis non modo senior est quam aetas populorum et civitatum, sed aequalis illius caelum atque terras tuentis et regentis dei. Neque enim esse mens divina sine ratione potest nee ratio divina non hanc vim in rectis pravisque sanciendis habere, nee, quia nusquam erat scriptum, ut contra omnes hostium copias in ponte unus adsisteret a tergoque pontem interscindi iuberet, idcirco minus Coclitem ilium rem gessisse tantam fortitudinis lege atque imperio putabimus, nee, si reg- nante L. Tarquinio nulla erat Romae scripta lex de stupris, idcirco non contra illam legem sempiternam Sex. Tarquinius vim Lucretiae, Tricipitini filiae, attulit. Erat enim ratio profecta a rerum natura et ad recte faciendum impellens et a de licto avocans, quae non turn denique incipit lex esse, quum scripta est, sed turn, quum orta est: orta autem est simul cum mente divina. Quam ob rem lex vera atque princeps apta ad iubendum et ad vetandum ratio est recta summi Iovis. Q. * * * M. Ergo ut ilia divina mens summa lex est, item, quum in homine est perfecta, est in mente sapientis." De Legibus, Lib. II., Cap. 4, 5. This fundamental view of the source of the Divine law is frequently presented by Cicero, and his splendid mind realized and exulted in its sublime truth and im portance. It embodies the views and teachings of Plato and his followers in Greece, and of the ablest and best of the theistic and ethical philosophers gen erally before Cicero's time. Chrysippus, a Stoic, said : " For it is not possible to find any other principle or origin of Justice than Jupiter and universal nature; for there we must always begin when we design to treat of Good and Evil." 354. 359. 3°o> 361. See also, and reconcile with these places, who can, pp. 238, 252. The latter positions are certainly true; the preceding as certainly false in any proper sense of the terms, retributive, penal, retribution. See also Young's "Life and Light of Men," 1866, pp. 84, 85-9S, 111-120, 130-133, 140, 141, and often in other pages. The miscalled "Moral View of the Atonement " demands this theory, and excludes positive retributions. CONSEQUENCES OF OBEDIENCE AND SIN. 39 and, with judicial sentence, declares to the former that He also approves and will reward him according to his good desert, and to the latter that He also condemns and will punish him according to his ill-desert; and it is from this action of this faculty in approving or condemning, and in attesting that God does the same and will reward or punish, attending the moral action of mankind from its outset, that they have their ideas of good-desert and ill-desert, and of Divine retributions. So far are even those natural consequences of each kind of moral action, which consist in or are produced by this action of conscience, such as self-approval, peace and joy, or self- condemnation, guilty fear and remorse, from. being those presignified by it, or even among them, that they are merely effects produced by it in the spiritual nature. It would be no more absurd to mistake the effects produced in persons before a human court by the acquitting or condemning verdict of the jury and the decision of the judge for that verdict and decision, and the reward or punishment announced in the decision, than to mistake the effects produced in the spiritual nature by the approving or condemning verdict and decision of conscience for these and the positive retributions presignified in the decision to come from the hand of God. The mistake is a confusion of cause and effect, and of the effects of different causes — of the natural effects of each kind of action, which conscience never prcsignifies, and the retributive consequences of each from the hand of God or men, which alone it does presignify. // never presignifies any of its own effects. happy or unhappy, but always positive, social Divine rewards or punish ments. In the proper sense, therefore, retributions are positive rewards and punishments administered by God Himself, and different from all the mere natural consequences of obedience and of sin. Among these, doubtless, are confirmation of the obedient in holiness and its natural results, and abandonment of the wicked to sin and its natural results, both everlasting conditions of existence. So answers conscience in all ages to the question, what are real retributions; and this answer has always been recognized and attested alike by Pagans and Mahometans, Jews and Christians, by civilized and uncivilized, in all the world. So pronounced and clear has it always been, that we may well wonder that they should fail to receive it as final; and more, that, in defiance of it, any should assert the wild con ceit, that the law is automatic, and universally executes its retributions in natural consequences from the moment it is obeyed or disobeyed.* The law executes nothing. It is the nature which gives it that exe- (*) See references to Bushnell and Young in a previous note, p. 38. 4o THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. cutes, as well as experiences or unconsciously receives, all these consequences, which are in no proper sense retributions at all. Well, too, in view of what we have shown, may it excite astonishment, that, in order to clear the ground for these chimerical positions, their asserters should tell us, that the reason why the doctrine of positive retributions from God has been so commonly held, not only by the main body of the Church from its beginning with its shining suc cession of the foremost minds of the race, but by the race generally, is that they have been led to adopt it by the analogy of human govern ments! As well say, that men have been led to adopt the geometrical doctrines of squares, triangles, circles, and straight lines by the anal ogies of figures which they have made or seen! The exact reverse is the truth. When we read our own consciousness, and add to its teachings the common consent of mankind, which shows that theirs is the same as ours, and find both attesting that the verdicts and appointments to Divine retributions by conscience are as have been shown, we are forced to adhere to the tenet of the race, that God will administer both positive rewards and positive punishments. Without them, it is certain that there can be no real moral govern ment in heaven or on earth, no moral system, no harmony with the nature of moral beings, no moral order, nothing but eternal anarchy. In adopting them, therefore, in human governments, legislators, rulers, subjects, all mankind have only followed a fundamental demand of their moral nature, just as bees follow the impulse of their natural instinct in constituting their well-ordered commonwealths. § 24. SPECIALLY PROVED BY THE SENSE OF GUILT. This fundamental truth has impregnable fortifications in the action of every sinner's own conscience, in the action of the con sciences of others respecting him, and in the rights, dues, interests, and concerns of the universal society constituted by the common moral nature having the law in it, which no theory of automatic law or mere naturalism can ever demolish or enter to destroy it and to exclude God from immediate connection with and government over mankind. We have seen that the law is social, so that the love it requires is naturally due from each to God and his fellows, except to such as may have forfeited the right to it by sin; so that rendering it is simply paying, and doing the contrary is robbing both Him and them of, this radical due. But equally from reason and as certain is the corre lative truth, and every actor of this robbery or radical wrong thereby SPECIALLY PROVED BY THE SENSE OF GUILT. 41 creates another due from himself to God and them, the due of penal suffering, which he owes as really, though not as absolutely during pro bation, as he does that of moral love. One of these impregnable forti fications is his sense of owing this, commonly called the sense of guilt, which is a sense of desert of and liability to punishment for his wrong doing. It is wholly involuntary in its beginning and continuance, and inexpugnable by his will. It is an immediate natural consequence of conscious commission of wrong, always more or less disturbing the actor; but, if he has committed some enormity of sin or crime, and is not hardened and blinded to moral stupidity, it distresses and even torments him, often to agony. It springs, like a Divine arrest and judicial sentence, from his spiritual nature, in which conscience sits as the vice-gerent of God. It consists of two elements, corres ponding to the twofold nature of conscience — one, a positive intuitive attestation by moral reason in conscience, that he deserves and is liable to punishment from God, and perhaps also from man; the other a connected agitation of the sensibility of conscience by pecu liar feelings of unworthiness, condemnation, and fear of punishment. Unless this sensibility has been indurated by previous enormities of sin, these feelings are, as said above, always painful, and not seldom intolerably tormenting, constituting remorse, and often causing despair; and, because sinners are vastly more conscious of these feel ings than of the rational attestation with which they are inseparably connected, men have called them and it together the sense of guilt. § 25. OTHERS COGNIZANT OF ANY ONE'S WRONG-DOING HAVE A CORRE LATIVE SENSE OF HIS GUILT. Not only has he this sense of guilt, but all others cognizant of .his wrong-doing have a correlative sense that he is guilty — that is, that he deserves and is liable to punishment from God, from man, or from both, and that his suffering it is due to them for that doing. As in him, so in them, this sense, like the law, is social. And be it noted, that there is nothing in or connected with it in him, or in them respecting it or him, which implies or allows that the natural consequences of his, or of any sin, itself included, are the deserved punishment or any part of it. They are all constitutionally evolved in him, while the punishment signified by it as deserved from and owed to God and others by him is a positive retributory infliction upon him by God, or man, or both. Nor is this sense appeased or abated in him by any experience he may have of these consequences, itself included, how ever poignant they may be, although the more keen it is, the more 42 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. aggravated some of them become. Hence, from the days of Adam and Cain until now, it has been the common endeavor of mankind to justify or extenuate their transgressions or crimes in order to disprove or diminish their ill-desert for them, and to avert or mitigate the punishment for them from God, or man, or both. They have never put forth this endeavor with the design to remove or abate the natural consequences of their sins or crimes; and, if they have petitioned either God or man for pardon, it has never been for exemption from these consequences, but always for release from the positive punish ment deserved from Him or man. So strong is the social force of this sense of guilt, that very often in the course of the world persons have been impelled by it to divulge their hidden crimes, and to solicit, and even to rejoice in receiving from their fellow men, the punish ment assigned for them. Its power in them overcomes all opposing considerations. On the other hand, mankind have always expressed what their sense of the guilt of criminals teaches them, when con templating their endurance of positive punishment, by saying — "They have got their desert, or reward, or pay, or wages; or they have paid the penalty, or debt, which they owed, or which was due." Thus this sense of guilt, or of desert of punishment, both in the wrong-doer and in others, corresponds perfectly with the justice, end, and whole social nature of the law, and with the presignifications of conscience that Divine, penal retributions will be inflicted on sinners in addition to all the natural consequences of sin, unless God shall rescue them from them by some redemptive measure, adequate to meet the demands of the law against them. If this attestation of conscience is truth, what can be more cer tain than that God will inflict such retributions upon all the incor rigibly wicked for their sins in this life? There is not a truth more firmly set in nature, nor one to which its theoretic deniers give more frequent and positive undesigned consent. For who of them is there, who, if he receives, or observes, or learns that others receive, some decided wrong, especially a great one, does not have this sense of the guilt of the perpetrator, this inward verdict and feeling that he deserves and ought to be correspondingly punished? and who, if he sees him escape, or likely to escape, punishment from man, does not say with emphasis—" Well, God is just, and He will punish him? " And all who hear respond, "Amen." Nor do they ever mean by this, that God will simply leave him to the natural consequences of his criminality. Are not this demand of the common conscience for retributive justice, and this solacing hope that it will be met, as gen- THE DEMAND FOR PUNISHMENT. 43 uine products of moral nature as sympathetic feeling? Are they as likely to be from perversion of nature as it is? Shall we, by calling this common demand of the conscience of mankind the spirit of revenge, envelop our minds with a nimbus of indiscriminate sympathy with the guilty, which hides the radical moral difference between them and the upright, between sin and obedience, between good- desert and ill-desert, and, in treatment, puts them all on par? The notion that God's love is merely sympathetic, sentimental, or affec- tional is the bane alike of theology and morality — the great Comus of our time, who " hurls His dazzling spells into the spongy air, Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion. And give it false presentments ; " and with " well-placed words — Baited with reasons not unplausible, Winds him into the easy-hearted man, And hugs him into snares." § 26. THE DEMAND FOR POSITIVE PUNISHMENT OF WRONG-DOERS, AND THE SATISFACTION IT GIVES, ADDITIONAL PROOFS THAT IT IS THE ONLY REAL RETRIBUTION. Although we pointed to this demand and this satisfaction of mankind in the preceding paragraph, we did not show that the demand is essentially different from their sense of the guilt of wrong doers, as it certainly is; for, in these, the sense of their guilt is that of their deserving and being liable to punishment from God, man, or both. It causes and is constantly attended by fear of the punishment; and this effect, like its cause, comes from conscience. But, in the sufferers of wrong and all others cognizant of it, while their sense of the guilt of its doer is, like his, that he deserves and is liable to pun ishment from God, man, or both, it causes and is attended in them by a persistent demand for his subjection to it; and they have satis faction in knowing that it is, or in expecting that it will be, met. This demand is wholly involuntary, and purely one of moral reason in conscience; and this satisfaction is of this reason and the sensibility connected with it in conscience. In the disordered condition of man's moral nature, this demand is often attended by the passion of anger, which may, and not seldom does, impel to cruelty and at times to frightful enormities; but, in itself, it is as real and righteous as that for ethical justice, and one of the chief demands of archetypal moral nature, or of holy reason in conscience. This demand, and the sat isfaction ot having it met, are therefore two additional proofs that all wrong-doing, all sin, deserves and willbringupon its actors retrib- 44 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. utive punishment from God, unless He rescues them from it by a redemptive measure adequate to satisfy the demand and restore them to obedient harmony with Himself and with all other holy beings. § 27. WHAT TRUE, ACCORDINGLY, OF RENDERING OR NOT THE LOVE REQUIRED BY THE LAW. From all preceding, it is perfectly manifest that rendering this moral love to God and all others is simply paying Him and them this due, while doing the contrary is robbing Him and them of it. Hence, whether any one renders or withholds it is their supreme concern and interest, as rendering it has the pleasure and glory of God and the full real good of all others for its end, its tendencies being to promote these to the utmost forever; and as withhold ing it has mere self-gratification for its end, its tendencies being to hinder and destroy the true end wherever it spreads its bane- fulcontagion and influence in the worlds. The tendencies of both these kinds of moral action spring from the social nature of moral beings — from their amazing susceptibility to be affected by each other's example and influence by all they know of each other's character, conduct, experiences, and whole history — from the law of habit and the natural consequences of each kind of action — from their desires and impulsions urging to each kind — from their different degrees of knowledge or ignorance of God and His treatment of the actors of each kind — and from all their relations to Him and each other. How stupendous, then, and surpassing the compre hension of finite minds must the bearings of each kind of action be upon the character and destinies of moral beings forever throughout the universe! How must each draw after it through the ages a measureless comet-like train, the one of good and glory, the other of evil and ruin! What a direct relation, too, must each of them and of their actors have to the honor and government of God! He and all His rational creatures being the objects, and His pleasure and glory and their good the end of the kind of action enjoined by the law, its matter and end, and obedience to it all pertain immedi ately to Him and them, and disobedience to it is direct wrong and injury to Him and tl.cm; so that whether the law is or is not obeyed bv even ONE moral agent is the supreme, universal, and endless concern and interest of God and all tike natures, existing and lo e.xist in the ever lasting future. How much more is it so, whether it is or is not obeyed by many, by a race, by ever-augmenting myriads! How then can the mere natural consequences of each kind of action LOVE REQUIRED BY THE LAW. 45 which are necessarily purely personal in origin and relation, be any expression of the concern, interest, rights, dues, and good of God and all others, as affected by each one's action? How, for instance, do those of obedience express the complacency towards its actor, the estimation in which he is held, and the sense of his good-desert, which are in the minds of God and all good beings? and how do those of disobedience express the displeasure towards its actor, the sense of his ill-desert for the wrong and injury he has done against God and all moral beings, and the proper regard for the law and the good obedience to it secures, which He and they must have? They do not express any of these, because neither are the former class conferred, nor the latter inflicted by God for Himself and all others, but both classes of them are produced wholly by the nature of the actors, so that they merely show the effects of each kind of action in the nature of each actor, and are purely personal. If, therefore, God, as Ruler of the whole moral society, does not administer real retributions of reward and punishment beyond these, there are none consistent with the matter and end of the law and expressive of His and their interest and concern respecting either these or obedience to it as due to, and disobedience to it as wrong and injury against Him and them. As the social nature of moral beings and of the law in and from it has thus no recognition by God in His dealings with them, He has no moral government nor moral system, and universal conscience is palpably a false wit ness concerning Him. This nature of them and of the law, equally with the presignifications of conscience, demands social retributions from God — that is, positive rewards for obedience and positive punishments tor disobedience. These the natural consequences of each cannot be, because they are not social, but merely personal; and because they are not administered by God, as demanded by the interest, concern, claims, and rights of Himself and all in the moral society and system by reason of their nature, the law in and from it, and all their inter-relationship, but are products of their own constitutions, and are substantially what they would be if there were no God, or if, like the lazy god of Epicurus, He neither dis turbs nor is disburbed by them, provided only that they could continue to exist ! Thus this notion of retributions, like that of the materialists, that the laws of nature are a self-operating reticulation of all-controlling physical forces so fateful that even God, if there is one, cannot inter fere with them for any purpose, virtually "untenants creation of its 46 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. God " by excluding Him from administering all real governmental functions over His intelligent creatures— even those of a Father! § 28. THE END OF JUSTICE THAT OF MORAL LOVE, AND RETRIBUTIVE PUNISHMENT EQUALLY AS REWARD DEMANDED BY CONSCIENCE. The end of the law, of its justice equally as of its matter of moral love, is the complete, everlasting good of moral beings in their Divinely constituted society. The good of each created one in it is balanced by that of every other one, and that of them all is infinitely exceeded by that of God, its Head. As this transcendent good of God and this balanced good of all others is the one aggre gate end of the love enjoined by the law upon each as owed by him to, and due to him from, every other one by its justice, they are all interwoven by the sacred reciprocity of rendering the love into an absolutely perfect and blessed ethical and religious society or soli darity. I say and religious, because all true ethics or morality must be essentially religious, as the whole moral system is. If all had continued in this reciprocity, each would have received from God, beyond the mere natural consequences of his obedience, a positive reward according to his good-desert; and by this reward justice, as retributive to the obedient, would have been fully met and satisfied. NDi-.e would ever have objected to this retri bution, because universal conscience would have pronounced it deserved and just, and would have condemned withholding it as treating them contrary to their desert, and purely unjust. But the entrance of sin into the universal society changed the relations of all its actors to God and all the persistently obedient, just as, in a nation, rebellion and crime change those of their actors to its ruler and loyal people. All guilty of it have forfeited their natural right, and their moral too, if they had one, to the love of God and all others in the holy society; and, by their sin, they deserve retributive pun ishment, and justice demands its infliction upon them to the measure of their desert, unless its end, which is that of the law in relation to the loyal society, can be equally secured in some other way. It demands this, just as it does, that God shall favor the innocent and reward the perfectly obedient. Precisely as the conscience of man kind affirms that the perfectly obedient deserve a positive retribu tive reward, and would condemn withholding it and treating them as if they did not deserve it as injustice, it affirms that sinners deserve positive retributive punishment, and would condemn with holding it and treating them as if deserving the reward of obedience DUE OF LOVE AND DUE OF SUFFERING. 47 as injustice, unless the end of that punishment can be at least equally secured in their behalf in some other just way. Any objection, there fore, to the positive retributive punishment of sinners is equally to the positive retributive rewarding of the sinlessly obedient — is equally nugatory. Retributive justice, whether in rewarding or in punish ing, is, in principle, the same as ethical, which consists in rendering to all who have rights according to them, and to all who have deserts according to them — to the perfectly obedient according to both — to sinners who have forfeited all their rights, natural and moral, if they ever had such, according to their desert of punishment. Punish ing by God or any rightful human ruler is as much ethical justice to all the loyal and Himself over them, as rewarding, or any other just action towards the obedient is to them. As there is but one law, hav ing but one matter and one end, and, as justice is an essential quality of that law, there can be but one justice, however it may be varied in its applications to moral beings, according to their rights, when they have any, and according to their characters and deserts, good or evil, and their consequent relations to God and each other. § 29. REFUSING TO RENDER TO GOD AND ALL OTHERS THEIR DUE OF MORAL LOVE CREATES A CORRELATIVE DUE TO THEM OF RETRI BUTIVE SUFFERING. We have already said* that it is just as certain as the facts con cerning what the law requires, that whoever does not render to God the love which it enjoins as due to Him by all His rights, and to men the balanced love which it enjoins as due to them by whatever rights they may have, and which it is due to God to render to them, because He commands it as He has an absolute right to do, thereby creates another due from him to God and them, which he owes them as really, though not as absolutely till probation ends, as he does the love — that is, the due of suffering the retributive punishment he deserves. The proofs of this, already indicated, are the sense of guilt or ill- desert — the dooming by conscience to retributive punishment from God — the common endeavor of mankind to justify or extenuate their sins or crimes so as to nullify or palliate them — their prayers for mercy or pardon from God — the frequent cases of voluntary confession of hidden crimes and even solicitation of punishment for them — men's spontaneous ideas of the justice and benevolence of legitimate human laws and governments with their sanctions — the language they have ever used respecting the suffering of penal retri- (*) § 24. p- 34- 48 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. butions by evil-doers, expressing the intuitive affirmations of their consciences, that they have paid or are paying a debt, what they owed and is due from them, and that they have received or are get ting their reward, their wages, and their deserts — and the hope so often expressed by wronged ones and others respecting those who have perpetrated the wrongs or crimes, and escaped just punish ment from men, that they will not escape, but will suffer it from God. Proofs superabundant. This due to God and other moral beings, this debt to them of penal suffering is solely by justice in the law, and as independent of mere imposition by Divine will or institution as the law and the mutual due and debt of moral love by it are; and it can no more be disregarded by God than these can without dis regarding the law in His own and all other moral natures. This penal suffering is the naturally demanded substitute, in case of sin, for the love required by the law, refused and violated, besides which the sinner can pay back no other. Consequently, unless it can be paid for him by another according to Divine arrangement, it must be infallibly exacted from him. If it be not so paid for him, and yet is not exacted from him, the law, and with it the nature of moral beings in and from which it is, is violated and outraged; their right and claim to mutual moral love, which make it ethical justice, are practically disregarded and nullified, and with them and this justice constituted by them, this love is no longer social, but a mere per sonal matter, which, if not exercised by any one, no others have any right or reason to blame him; good-desert or ill-desert there can be none recognized, because these are social and grounds of justice; man's conscience is made an enormous liar in all its affir mations of ill-desert and presignification of retributive punishment from God; its lie is His, since He so constituted mankind that it speaks as for Him ; His character is thus darkened as void of veracity; His justice, benevolence, and holiness are fictions, or metamorphosed to their opposites; all ground of confidence in and love for Him is swept away; and selfishness with all its Titanic progeny of special outbreaks ot wrong, villainy, vice, and crime is licensed to raid and ravage the world and the universe at will, except as the knowledge of its comparatively puny natural conse quences may, for a time, slightly retard its ruinous sweep and devas tation. All this, and worse, is the certain alternative, if this debt of penal suffering is not paid either by sinners themselves, or by a Divinely appointed and accepted substitute. We have abundantly shown that the natural consequences of sin cannot possibly be this GOD NECESSARILY RULER. 49 retributive suffering, since they are not social, as the law is, but merely constitutional and personal, and would be essentially the same, provided created moral natures could continue to exist if there were no God or He should leave them entirely alone; so that they, are not properly retributions at all. They are not what con science threatens, and express nothing concerning the interests, concerns, claims, and rights of God and His loyal society by the law and their natures. As the rewarding, so the punishing must be social, because the due it secures to God and His loyal society, like that of the love enjoined by the law, the law itself and its justice, and the moral nature which contains and issues it are all social. In other words, it must be a real paying back to the guilty, which will, as far as possible, vindicate the interests, concerns, and rights of God and His loyal society. § 30. GOD NECESSARILY RULER, AND MUST RULE ACCORDING TO THE LAW. As was said in Chapter I., the law is given by each one's moral reason, not as His, but as God's; and conscience, in its sense of good-desert and ill-desert and in its presignifications of reward and punishment, ever announces Him as the Ruler of all and the admin istrator of these. Hence, as obedience and disobedience to the law are to Him, it is His prerogative to administer retributions for them; and the authority of men to administer them for overt acts in certain relations and circumstances is delegated by Him. As He represents both Himself and His rational creatures, both His own right and that of each of them to the moral love of all others, both His own and their interests and concerns through all ages in having these rights met, and as He alone has adequate qualifications of knowledge, power, benevolence, and all righteousness to administer a perfect government over all the moral beings He has made, it is absolutely certain that He must recognize Himself as under the highest obligation His own infinite nature can impose, either to execute perfect justice in administering rewards and punishments according to the exact deserts of each as he knows them, or to adopt for sinners some measure of substitution which will as per fectly secure what is due to Himself and all the loyal from them as the infliction of punitive retribution on themselves would, so that as many of them as will return to loyalty and rely on that measure for forgiveness will be saved. He cannot deal with any of them as if dissociated and isolated from the whole society; for, by their nature So THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. and the law, they all stand interlinked in everlasting social connec tion and responsibility, and he must deal with each according as this organic union and the greatest good of all require. Hence, He cannot exempt any sinner from the punishment he deserves, even if he should repent, which none ever would do, unless the due from him to Himself and the whole society is secured by some com plete substitution for that punishment. And here we must note that, while the law is the same in God's mind as in created minds, there are appendages to it in theirs which are not to it in His. In His, it does not stand as the law of another, binding to obedience and accountability to him, while in theirs it is given as His, binding them to obedience and accountability to Him. Nothing, therefore, can be argued from its standing in His in favor of its being imper sonal and without sanctions of real retributions in theirs. We might suppose, a priori, that He would thus difference it in them. CHAPTER IV. Additional objections to the theory that the natural consequences of moral action, good or bad, are its retributions, or of them; and why the notion, that God's government over men and all moral beings is only a natural one, is absurd. §31. WHY THESE CONSEQUENCES ARE DEFECTIVELY KNOWN BY MEN, UNEQUAL, NOT WHAT THEY DESERVE, AND NOT RETRIBUTIONS. 1. The first of these objections is the very defective knowledge of them possessed by mankind. They can be known by them in only three ways — (1), by each one's own experience — (2), by his observation of the manifestations of them in and by others — (3), by such information concerning them as he may in all ways acquire from others. They are not all developed and apparent at once in any case, especially not the most important and continuous of them. A large proportion of those of obedience, on the one hand, which are like bodily growth from childhood onwards, and of those of sin, on the other, which are like stealthy disease begun in a body, can only be recognized in their advances after somewhat protracted intervals of time. Some, doubtless, of both the best and the worst of them remain unrecognized by their subjects through life; others of them are but slightly, perhaps only occasionally, felt or realized; and none of them are consciously experienced in extreme degrees, or beyond even meager measures, except by comparatively a few, and by them ordinarily very seldom. Then, they are not experienced by all equally according to the real desert of each — certainly not in this life, and, for the same reasons, quite surely not in the next. The reasons in the case of mankind are: (1), the natural differences of each from every other one in faculties, temperament, and suscepti bilities of mind; (2), in conditions of life and relations to others in the family, community, nation, or tribe; (3), in education, training, and all cultivation or want of it; (4), in true or false, pure or cor rupt, Christian or any different, views or practices of morality and 52 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. religion; and, (5), in right or wrong, good or bad courses of conduct or action. On account of these and other differencing facts, the degrees to which a large proportion at least of these consequences are experienced by different ones are just as many and various as they. Observation and testimony make it sure that no two persons, even though children of the same parents and in essentially the same environment of good or evil conditions and influences, have them in the same degrees, especially those of wrong action of what ever criminality. The scale of the degrees of natural susceptibility to them in different persons is one of countless grades from lowest to highest. Another fact respecting this susceptibility to them, as far at least as those of sin, vice, and crime are concerned, is, that, whatever its comparative degree in anyone may be, his conscious experience of them, among which are all the workings of conscience and the unhappiness and misery they involve and create, is far the keenest and most distressing in the beginnings and special steps of advance in willful wickedness and enormity. He whose conscience condemned him, and filled him with an appalling sense of guilt, with forebodings of deserved retribution from God, and with deep distress, and even anguish, for his first lie, oath, theft, or any other such breach of obligation to God or man, becomes before long at farthest, by repeating that first offence or committing and practicing others, so hardened and insusceptible of such experiences of the workings of exasperated or irritated conscience, that it is as if wholly or nearly paralyzed to imperturbable apathy. Veterans in vice and crime, especially in flagitious enormities, are commonly as uncon scious of such experiences as the lower animals, and often as statues of stone, while novices in them are as commonly distressed, and, in numberless cases, even racked and tortured by the workings of their consciences. Merely to indicate these facts is to expose the pre posterous folly of even imagining the natural consequences of moral action capable of being, in any sense, the sanctions, or among them, of the everlasting law of the universal and endless society of moral beings under God. Its sanctions are the predeclared retributions according to real desert for obedience and sin, and are thus the motives to the one and against the other. Such all the facts stated demonstrate these consequences wholly inadequate to be, both by their imbecility as motives, and by their lack of every other neces sary qualification. It we look at the case in the light of other involved and related facts and principles, the conclusion stated will be made invincibly certain. UNADAPTED AND INCOMPETENT. S3 § 32. WHY THEY ARE UNADAPTED AND INCOMPETENT TO BE THE LAW'S SANCTIONS. 2. Not only are these consequences wholly inadequate by their imbecility as motives, for the reasons shown, to be the sanctions of the law, but they are also intrinsically unadapted and incompetent in every respect to be such. What expression are they of the abso lute importance of the law as, by its justice, the great social-moral bond of the rational universe, of the holy love which fulfills it, and of the everlasting blessedness of moral beings dependent on its exer cise? What expression are they of all the social evil and injury of sin, of its fearfully contagious influence and terrible tendencies, and of all the destruction of happiness and well-being, and existence of misery and ill-being, which it creates and propagates? What expres sion are they of God's interest in and concern for the true happi ness of His intelligent creatures? — of His estimation of the law in His own nature and in theirs, and so of all moral nature itself, as masterful over it universally? — of His corresponding hostility to sin and its effects and tendencies? — of His responsibility to His rational creatures, as their Creator and natural Guardian? — of His benevolent regard for the interests, concerns, rights, and dues of the obedient, invaded and trampled upon by the disobedient? — of His ethical justice and righteousness towards them as in His eternal moral system? — -of His veracity in the averments and prophecies of conscience, and in the representations of Scriptures which we have referred to? — and of His whole character ? To say that these consequences, as they are or can be known by mankind, constitute any adequate expression of these supreme realities of God and His universe is "pure, heroical defect of thought." How then can they be the sanctions, or among them, of His eternal moral law and government? As we said in a preceding place,* they are simply indications and heraldings in created moral natures of a direct, positive moral government over them; and to make them the sanc tions, or sanctions at all, of the law is not only mere naturalism, but is to assign to them a function for which they are utterly unadapted by lacking every qualifying characteristic to be such. § 33. AS ITS SANCTIONS, WOULD BE IN CONFLICT WITH ITS INTRINSIC NATURE. 3. To make them the sanctions of the law is to conflict with its intrinsic nature, which, by its quality of justice, is, as we have seen, (*) § 22, p. 37. 54 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. the one eternal social bond which ties all moral beings, not revolters against it, into a social-moral society or solidarity. Because it is its quality of justice which makes it this bond, its sanctions are as purely just and social in end and aim as its precept is. It is the proper business of each created moral agent to obey the precept by exercising pure moral love or good-will to God and his fellows, as is due to each by natural or moral right, or as enjoined by God; and if he does, he deserves a corresponding reward; if he does not, a corresponding punishment. It is the business of God, as Ruler, to make His law known, and that He will, after the close of each one's probation, administer these retributions exactly according to his actual desert as infallibly known to Him, except in the cases of all who, having sinned, have been restored and forgiven. In administering rewards, God executes exact ethical justice to their recipients as due from both Himself and the entire society under and represented by Him; but, in administering punishments, He executes exact retrib utive justice upon their recipients as ethical justice to Himself and the universal society wronged and injured by them demands. That is, retributive justice to sinners is ethical justice to God and the entire and eternal holy society. Thus only can He maintain and carry on the moral system founded in and demanded by His own and all created moral natures; and it is thus manifest that the end of His administration of the sanctions of the law is precisely the same as that of the obedience of moral beings to its precept, to Him self, and to all others than sinners. As, therefore, the precept of the law is perfectly just and thus perfectly morally-social, so necessarily must its sanctions be. They must correspond in every respect, while the natural consequences of moral action do not and cannot in any. Neither are those of right action conferred nor conferrable, nor are those of wrong action inflicted nor indictable, by God, nor is either class of them preventable by Him. They are the neces sary products of each one's own moral nature as affected by his moral action, and would be essentially what they are, provided moral actors could continue to exist and act, if God did not, or took absolutely no notice of or concern about them. Being such, they have no governmental characteristic or quality, no social aim or effect, no adjustment to real desert, good Or ill, and therefore no quality of justice in them, either as ethical to all or any of the uni versal society with God in and over it, or as retributive to sinners against them and Him. Just because there is no quality of justice in them, with them for sanctions there could be no possible admin- FIVE BRIEF OBJECTIONS. 55 istration of justice in the intelligent universe, and consequently no moral system, no moral government, no real moral law, but mere advice only, and neither justice, benevolence, nor moral concern or care in Him for them — nothing but numbers numberless of moral beings as unrelated in any governmental sense as sand-grains in a sand heap, each having a conscience attesting that he will receive retribution from God " according to the deeds done in his body, good or bad," or just as he deserves, but lying, as not one of them will receive any from Him. The only rewarder and punisher of each is his own nature; and, since it is a chief and essential part of the function of government to administer the sanctions of the law, and since, according to this naturalistic notion, these consequential products of each one's own nature as affected by sin are the only sanctions, the plain conclusion is, that no one has or can have any moral ruler — that God is not one at all, not even in the sense in which a Father is. Of course, no one can be responsible or accountable to Him in any sense, nor even to himself in a real moral sense, because he has no intelligent, voluntary agency or part in executing these consequences, but his nature executes them all as involuntarily, undesigningly, unknowingly, and necessarily as material nature executes any of its operations. Not only, therefore, is there no correspondence between these consequences, if they are the sanctions of the law, and its social-moral precept, but it is an absurdity to think, and a misnomer to call, them its sanctions in any real, normal sense, or their production by the nature of each actor as affected by his moral action, good or bad, government in any sense of the word, when there is not one single characteristic of government in the case. If God has no positive moral government with positive sanctions which make it such, He must be chargeable with withholding from His intelligent creatures the concern and care which His creative and moral relations to them demand— with indifference to their characters, mutual treatment, rights, dues, deserts, interests, concerns, and destinies — and so with being neither just nor benevolent, but the direct contrary, towards them. § 34. FIVE BRIEF OBJECTIONS TO THE THEORY THAT THESE CONSE QUENCES ARE REAL RETRIBUTIONS. 4. This theory, that the natural consequences of moral action are real retributions, and that God will administer no positive ones, is anti-psycological. It contradicts essential phenomena of con sciousness and their characteristics concerning the law and retri- 56 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. butions. This is manifest from what we have shown respecting the action of conscience in its intuitive affirmation that righteous action deserves reward from God and men, and unrighteous action deserves punishment from Him and them; in its sense of guilt; and in its demand for and presignifications of punitive retributions from God in wrong-doers themselves and in others cognizant of their wrong action. It sets aside the quality of justice in the law as it relates to all wrong-doers; and implies that sin, however great, forfeits nothing. 5. It is a theory of pure individualism, entirely at war with the social nature and end of the law, and thus with the social nature of moral beings and the possibility of a moral system. As these con sequences ot moral action are all personal, what kind of a moral system is possible with them alone? Such individualism is incom patible with the social character of the law; with any right of God and other holy beings to the love of each other or of any one, and so with all justice; with the fact that it is justly their interest and concern whether any do or do not render moral love to them and to all; with all the action of conscience respecting retributions from God; and with all moral accountability and responsibility. The theory makes it solely each one's own concern and interest whether he will love God and his fellow beings, or will be purely selfish, even to the most criminal degree, since in either case these personal con sequences are the only retributions he will receive. 6. By thus stripping God of any administration of real retri butions, this theory thrusts Him away to the remove from, and indifference to His rational- creatures ascribed to Him by Epicurus — seats Him, as it were, in an easy chair in the far off heavens, utterly relieved of all interference with the constitutional machine of every one's nature, and only looking on, if He concerns Him self to do even that, to see how it works out all retributions. It thus eliminates from Him all justice, benevolence, and positive goodness, and leaves Him with only their opposites, or, at best, free from the law and without any moral character. 7. It makes Him speak falsely through conscience in its decis ions on ill-desert, in its sense of guilt, and in its presignifications of rewards and punishments from Him, thus implying that both He and conscience lack veracity. 8. It makes all exercise of mercy and grace towards sinners impossible for Him as far as releasing them from any positive or proper punishment is concerned. If the law does not demand, and CONSEQUENCES FROM CONSCIENCE, HOW AFFECTED. 57 He will never inflict punitive retributions on them, how can He exercise mercy and grace in doing anything to rescue them from it, or in forgiving them? Forgiveness, pardon, remission of sins are words without meaning, and prayer, for it absurd, if this theory is true; and a real atonement is impossible. Natural consequences cannot be forgiven, pardoned, nor remitted. § 35. AS FAR AS THEY CONSIST IN THE ACTION OF CONSCIENCE, MUST BE COMPARATIVELY SLIGHT, AND, AS MOTIVES, WEAK. 9. As far as these consequences, whether of obedience or of sin, consist in the action of conscience and its effects, they must be exceedingly slight, if there are no positive retributions, compared with what they must be, if there are. Through the wondrous social nature of moral beings, the approval and smile of conscience and the sense of good-desert in the well-doer, and its condemnation and remorse and the sense of ill-desert in the ill-doer, are greatly quick ened and energized, and the happiness or unhappiness they consti tute are correspondingly augmented, by the expectation or reception of rewards or punishment administered by legitimate authority or government. If this is so, when these are administered by human authority and express the approving or condemning verdict and sense of the conscience of men represented by that authority, how much more must it be so, when they are administered by God and express the approving or condemning verdict and sense of His infi nite conscience, and, with it, of all true conscience in the universe? What augmented currents of happiness or unhappiness must the reception, if any shall be, of positive rewards or punishments from God cause the consciences of both the holy and the unholy to pour through their immortal natures forever! On the contrary, we know that, in this world, if the fear of punishment by man in time, or by God in eternity, is removed, the natural consequences of wrong doing, even of crimes, produced by conscience, are removed or greatly mitigated. Assurance of endless exemption from punish ment would infallibly reduce them to comparative trifles; and equal assurance of its permanent infliction would correspondingly aggra vate them. And, for obvious reasons, they must always be vastly more aggravated by connection with positive punishment than without it. 10. If these consequences of moral action are its only retribu tions, the motives to obedience and against sin are incalculably less than if, beyond these, there are positive ones to be administered by 58 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. God. They are less both by the absence of those which are sup plied by the knowledge of future positive ones, and by the com parative want of weight in them, just shown, if that knowledge is rejected. § 36. THIS THEORY HAS A RUINOUS BEARING ON THE REVEALED CHAR ACTER OF GOD. 11. This theory has a most damaging bearing on the character of God. When we consider how great the liability of created moral natures must be during their novitiate, especially at its outset, while their intelligence is so weak and their sensibility so susceptible to and urgent for gratification, and before they have any experience of the natural consequences of either kind of moral action, to fall into sin and a current ot ruin; — when we consider how sin, begun by one, tends, like an appalling contagion or epidemic, to infect others with ever-extending propagation, as the cases of the fallen angels and of our race demonstrate; — and when we consider what the natural consequences of sin, however defectively realized or lessened by lack of positive punishment, must be and involve wher ever it spreads — what can be more certain than that God, the Cre ator and Continuer of all such natures, must be bound by an infinite obligation, imposed by an imperative of His own nature, to make the motives to obedience and against sin just as weighty as He can according to the law, its justice, and its end, which is the real good of such natures secured by obedience? By sparing the first sinning pair and continuing our race, He certainly has assumed this obliga tion towards it; and He can righteously augment the motives before mankind and all moral beings in their novitiate immensely by revealing to them that He will administer positive retributions. He can augment them in no other way than by such a revelation; and, if He does not make it, as, according to this theory, he does not, how is it possible to vindicate His character? How is He good, how love, if He does not do what love demands, all He righteously can to conserve His rational creatures, especially our race, by con tinuing which He has assumed towards it the obligation stated, from ruining themselves by sin and its natural consequences ? — how, if He does not augment the motives to right and against wrong moral action to the utmost degree consistent with and demanded by justice? As, during their novitiate, they are unconfirmed in char acter, good or bad, and must, by their own wills, arbitrate, under the motives before and the influences upon them, what it shall be; AUGMENTATION OF MOTIVES, WHY NECESSARY. 59 and as obedience to the law must consist in their free choice of the end or ends it prescribes, made under these motives and influences, it is necessary that these should be augmented to the utmost mor ally possible degree to secure this choice. It is as impossible for God to secure it from them by force, as it is to secure it from stones by motives and influences. The want of adaptation is as total in the one case as in the other. Since, therefore, the motives and influ ences inciting to sin create such fearful hazard to all created moral natures during their novitiate, especially to the disordered ones of our race, what can be more manifest than that, in order to conserve the unfallen and restore the fallen as far as possible, or to do all possible for those ends, it is necessary that God should make the motives and influences inciting to obedience and against sin just as potential and moving as He can according to the justice and end of the law, and all that is true of them and their relations. He can do this only by revealing to them that He will administer positive retri butions; and He has in fact revealed this in the attestations of con science in the sense of guilt and all its presignifications of Divine punishment, not now to say in His inspired revelation, so effectually that, despite all their conscious fear of this punishment, they have in all ages and nations commonly believed in it as well as in future rewards, have been greatly influenced by it, and have inculcated its vast importance.* Nor can any one prove, or warrantably assume, that God could have set positive retributions before mankind, con sistently with the social relations by which they are universally interlinked, any more distinctly, and so as to produce any greater motives, than He has done. The belief in them has always been among the moral and religious principia of the race; and men pro gress away from this belief into this theory of natural consequences, or into any other negation of it, only as they do from belief in the natural freedom of the will into a denial of it, or from any essential truth of consciousness into its contrary, by overlooking, or, under some bias of will against it, denying that it is given in consciousness. But all such progress is destined to a culprit's fate, as is all in con flict with God, with conscience, with moral nature, and with all essential truth. (*) See "Theology of the Greek Foets, by Prof. W. S. Tyler," referred to in note on p. 8, S 11. Homer, pp. 197-198. ^Eschylus, pp. 237-238. Plato, Republic B. X. 6, 13. The philosophers, not atheistic, generally believed in the immor tality ol souls and future retributions. See numerous places in Warburton's Divine Legation. 60 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. To these eleven objections, after some remarks on them, two others, with examinations of Butler's theory of a natural govern ment of God will be added. § 37. EACH AND ALL THESE OBJECTIONS FATAL TO THIS THEORY, WHETHER CHRISTIANITY IS TRUE OR FALSE. Let it be noted, then, that no holder of this theory escapes any of these objections to it by denying Christianity. Every holder of it, believer or infidel, is under a necessity either to discard it as a baneful error, or validly to show that each of them is baseless. But, even if he could apparently show this, he would not prove, nor be warranted to assume, that there will not be positive retributions; for still the consentio omnium gentium is in their favor, even if we could find no other basis for them. This agreement of all nations in believing in them is attested by all ancient literature relative to them, and this goes to show the belief of them coeval with man. There is no record, except that in Gen. 2:17, that it originated in a direct revelation from God, and no evidence that it has been diffused and maintained among all nations merely as a transmitted tradition. The only warranted conclusion is, that, from the first man down, it has been taught to the whole race by conscience, and that, in addi tion to this inward tuition of it, it has been inculcated upon each successive generation by the preceding. In what sinning soul, not yet in moral stupor, does not conscience, at times at least, stand up and, pointing to God, as recognized, denounce to it — " He will punish you as you deserve?" Besides, God's inspired revelation is thronged with inculcations, which will be adduced farther on, that He will administer retributive punishment to all men who end their present lives in sin according to their deeds done in the body, or their full ill-desert; and all negation of such retribution is thus debarred from acceptance by both the teachings of universal conscience and of Scripture. There never, therefore, can be any other basis for deny ing positive penal retributions and holding this naturalistic theory. than a voluntas pro ratione, a sheer assumption. The old doctrine of retributions is invincible against all assaults, on whatever ground its opponents may choose to make them. § 38. POSITIVE RKTRIBUTORV rUNISHMENTS OFTEN INFLICTED IN THIS WORLD. To prevent misapprehension, we here add, that positive retrib- utory punishments are not entirely reserved for the future state. POSITIVE RE TRIE UTORY PUNISHMENTS. 61 That they are often inflicted in this life is attested by all history, sacred and profane, and by the common observation of mankind. Often have they fallen on men by direct visitations of God, like bolts from His hand, and often through the instrumentality of human or superhuman agents, good and bad, of irrational creatures, and of inanimate nature — sometimes even through their own agency; and they have been inflicted, not on individuals only, but on commu nities, states, and nations, and often by these on one another. Of course, atheists, irrational rationalists, deniers of Providence, mir acles, and the Scriptural revelation shut their eyes against the evi dences, proofs, and authentic facts, demonstrative of the truth of this statement; but neither " the owlet Atheism," nor its mated scepticism, nor all credulous incredulity can abolish the time-long series of authentic facts of such punitive retributions in this world. In the great court of mankind, ever in session, and embracing incomparably the largest proportion of men of highest scholarship, critical capability, fairness of mind, and all qualifications, the decis ion will be, as it ever has been, that God often administers such retributions in this world. They are distinguished from discipli nary chastisements by the fact that they manifestly have no aim to benefit or work the good of their objects.* The sacred histories ot the Bible are replete with examples of these retributions. Among them are the destruction of the race, eight excepted, by the Noachic Deluge — of the cities of the Jordan plain by the tempest of fire and brimstone — of Pharaoh and his hosts by being drowned in the Red Sea — of all, except two, of the Israelites who came out of Egypt, during their wanderings in the desert, when they rebelled and mur mured against the Lord, at various times, in various numbers, and by various means — of great numbers of them, by various and numerous inflictions, from their entrance into Canaan down to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and from that time to this — and of all the nations around and connected with them, according to the predictions of God's prophets. Numerous examples of such retributions on individuals are given in these histories, among which are those of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, of Achan, of Eli and his two sons, of Saul, and of many others in the Old Testament, and of Ananias and Sapphira, of Herod Agrippa I., and of others in the New Testament. Secular history abounds with instances of the same kind. Why have assassins so generally lost their own lives? Mttller (*) Note. — On the difference between punishment and chastisement, see ler "On the Christian Doctrine of Sin," Vol. I., pp. 244-251. 62 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. What is the basis of the adage-*— " Murder will out?" Of course, such temporal, punitive retributions must, in the nature of the case, be imperfect. They are neither univerally inflicted on great crim inals, nor evenly on those subjected to their strokes; but they are plainly specimens and assurances of the perfect ones to be inflicted in the future state.* § 39. CONFLICT OF THIS THEORY WITH THE SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF THE FINAL JUDGMENT. 9. Another objection to this theory of natural consequences is its antagonism to the Scriptural doctrine of the final judgment of mankind. The time of this judgment is called a day, the appointed day, the last day, the day of the Lord, of Christ, of Jesus Christ, and of the Lord Jesus Christ, the day of God, the day of judgment, the great day of judgment, the day of judgment and perdition Of ungodly men, the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, the day when God shall judge the world in righteous ness by the man whom He hath ordained, the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his works, the day when all accepted of Him in time will find His niercy consummated. It is a definite time at the end of the world and of the race. It matters not what judgments, so-called, God may pass and execute in this life upon persons or any number of mankind, however related, they differ essentially in design, mode of execution, and effects from this final one of our whole race together; and to ascribe the same specific char acter to them as to it is to confuse things essentially different. It belongs to the fashion of many in these times, to make judgment mean the same as crisis does in English, assuming that, because this term is transferred from the Greek to our language, it had the same meaning in that which it has in ours; which it did not have. The primary meaning of the Greek word is separation, division; and thence it means an opinion formed or expressed, a decision, a sen tence; then a judicial judgment, including a sentence of acquital or condemnation, which is its specific meaning in all passages relating (*) None. — For a forcible presentation of the importance of recognizing the administration of such retributions in this life, see Hengstenberg's Genuineness of the Pentateuch (Ryland's translation), Vol. II., pp. 473-4S7. He fails, however, to distinguish them from the mere natural consequences of sin and crime. They are produced by God's own agency either directly, or indirectly, and, but for it, would not occur. See also Carlyle's "Frederick the Great," Book III., Chap. VIII. DAMAGES THE CHARACTER OF GOD. 63 to the final, general judgment. This is wholly the act of the Judge; and any crisis it causes in the judged is no part of it, but merely one of its effects. But what are its design and end ? Not that Christ, the Judge, may acquire any knowledge of the character or deeds of any before Him, for His previous knowledge of them is perfect; nor to increase the self-knowledge of any of them, although in con nection with their perfectly revived memory it may have this effect. But the design is to make a perfect " revelation of the right eous judgment of God " in the case of each of all the myriads of mankind and of angels gathered before Him. By this revelation, all the " numbers without number " will perfectly know all " the secrets" of each of them, as well as his works and whole character, and thus precisely why he is judged as he is, whether with merciful and gracious acquital through Christ, or with sentence to just, retrib utive, positive punishment according to his deeds done in the body. Thus the absolute righteousness of the judgment in every one's case will be universally known and vindicated. It will not make the condemned any more certain of their destiny than they were before, but it will openly declare it and the reasons for it before the universal public; and not only will all holy beings forever per fectly approve it, but every wicked being will certainly do the same in the case of all others than himself at least, and doubtless in his own. After this eternal, unalterable judgment, not a mouth can ever accuse the justice of God. But now, if the natural conse quences of sin, which are purely personal and independent of any such judicial judgment and its execution by our Lord, are its only so-called punishment, nothing of all this can be true. It is all excluded by this individually constitutional, naturalistic, self-operat ing process, which leaves neither place, use, nor reason for any judgment, much less a universal one, such as the Scriptural, social, administrative one demanded by the justice of the law, the whole constitution of the moral system, the Divine character of righteous ness, and the rights, interests, and concerns of God and all good beings, and, in a sense, even of bad ones. How could a judgment for such a revelation consist with this theory? § 40. FEARFULLY DAMAGES THE CHARACTER OF GOD AS RULER AND AS A MORAL BEING. 10. The last objection I now urge against this theory is that it works fearful damage to the conception of the love of God. Its adopters, instead of recognizing that the love required by the law is 64 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. moral and just, and must fundamentally consist in intelligent action of the will, in its radical choice of the end of the law, in pure good will to God and fellow natures, assume it to be essentially emotional, a merely sympathetic, sentimental affection, feeling, or state of the sensibility, and they never attempt to define or discriminate it. But such love may or may not be connected with a will in harmony with the law. All merely emotional, natural love is as blind as the mythical Cupid, and, in itself, is as void of moral quality and dis crimination. It matters not whether it flows towards its objects in steady streams or paroxysmal gushes, it does not flow to them according to their moral character and deserts, good or bad, nor according to their consequent relations to God and the universal society, which demand positive social retributions of reward and punishment, but to them only as creatures susceptible of pleasure and pain, happiness and misery, as sentient rather than moral and accountable natures. With slight or no recognition of the sin, crime, or wickedness its objects are guilty of, or of what they deserve from and owe to God and the universal society of retributive suffering, it expends itself upon these objects simply as suffering or liable to suffer the retributive punishment they deserve. Such is the love ascribed to God by the advocates of this theory of only natural, consequential retributions. They assume that it would be, not only inconsistent with His love to inflict positive ones, but wrong and even cruel, doing what he has really no right to do, and what He would deserve the' condemnation of his intelligent creatures for doing! They thus found morality and theology, not on practical reason, conscience, will, and Scripture, but on the sensibility. But, if God cannot justly inflict positive punishment upon sinners, by the same principle the natural consequences of obedience must be its only deserved and proper reward, so that he cannot confer a positive one on the obedient. It is arbitrary to maintain that God is required by the law to be a positive rewarder of the obedient, but forbidden by it to be a positive punisher of the disobedient. If the law, or properly moral nature, is automatic in the case of transgressors, why not in that of obeyers as well? Conscience attests the one as posi tively as the other. If men deny positive punishment, they must equally positive reward; and as God can have no moral govern ment, nor moral system, pure naturalism alone remains, and He is a mere cipher! But the fact is, that, if this theory were true, there could be no desert at all of either reward or punishment by either obedience or sin. DAMAGES THE CHARACTER OF GOD. 65 But there is more inconsistency in this notion. Its advocates reject the doctrine that God will inflict positive punishment on incorrigible sinners, because He is love, and inflicting it would be inconsistent with love. When met with the objection, that, accord ing to this, His love excludes Him from having any moral govern ment, any justice, any real regard for His law in and from His own and every other moral nature, and so for that nature and its good in any being, even if obedient, so that He must be utterly indifferent between obedience and its natural consequences and sin and its natural consequences, and therefore the contrary- of just and benev olent, they turn round and say — "Oh no; He does really inflict these consequences of sin on sinners as punishments, because, when He made them, He set retributive causes in their nature which pro duce these, and thus constituted them so, that, if they should sin, these would infallibly follow. He therefore as really causes them as if He should directly inflict them." A sufficient reply is, that, if this is true, and these consequences are, by God's creative design and arrangement, as really punishment by Him as direct infliction would be, and will in countless cases go on forever, how are they any more consistent with His love in any sense than such infliction? or how is it any more inconsistent with His love in any sense than they? If these are two modes of designed punishment, the one indirect or mediate, the other direct or immediate, how is the one in the least either more or less consistent or inconsistent with God's love than the other? But we deny the position. We deny that God could have constituted moral natures so that they could act morally without essentially just such consequences of each kind of action, and of course that He set any retributive causes whatever in them for the purpose of producing these. As if such natures could be constituted so that they could act morally without this progeny of consequences, and God must therefore add to them automatic retrib utive causes to produce it! But the truth is, that a being who could act morally without it is inconceivable. He would lack conscience and the sensibility connected with it, the law of habit as operating with moral action, and who can tell what besides? But what a strange love this is, which is generally imputed to God by the advocates of this notion. According to it, whether moral beings obey the law or not, render to God and each other the love due by it or not, wrong and injure Him and each other or not — ¦ whether the influences and tendencies they have started to go on forever have been good or bad — whether they and others through 66 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. them have experienced the happy natural consequences of obedience or the unhappy ones of disobedience — whether they have rendered the existence of themselves and others an immortal blessing and glory or an immortal curse and shame — whether they have regarded and promoted God's pleasure and glory or scorned and outraged them — whether they are angels or devils — yet such is His love, that, although moral reason and conscience, fundamental in the nature he gave them, attest that they deserve and will receive retributive treatment from Him according to their works and character, He will not inflict that treatment on the evil, but will leave the natural consequences of sin and crime, however enormous, and these abated by Him as much as possible, to be their only punishment! More still; to give this love full scope towards human sinners, including the very worst, though a vast proportion of them may have lived under the Gospel and persistently rejected its offers of mercy and grace, many adherents of this notion maintain that they will have a new probation indefinitely prolonged after death! God will not, must not inflict retributive punishment upon even the worst, because love not only forbids, but demands that He shall enter Himself into their evil condition and woes, the natural consequences of their persistent wickedness, with infinite sympathy and ceaseless endeavor to relieve, help, and restore them! Love! It would be utterly immoral, an outrage on the universal, loyal society forever by trampling down all justice, all real moral love, all conscience and moral nature, the law and government of God, and the order and welfare of His everlasting empire. It would debar Him from all activity against the evil in favor of the good, and reduce Him to a moral neuter, neither administering, nor concerning Himself about a moral system; and it would license and invite universal sin and all vice and crime to revel and rage at will forevermore. The natural consequences of sin its only retributions, and an indefinite future probation for sinners — these dogmas are the legiti mate logical offspring of this spurious notion of God's love, and among the chief articles of the creed of many in our times. The former of them has been considered in the preceding pages, and will subsequently be considered further. The latter will be somewhat examined in Chapter VII. CHAPTER V. Butler's position, that God has a natural government besides His moral examined and rejected; also positions of Bushnell. § 41. DISAGREEMENT WITH BUTLER'S POSITION RESPECTING A NATURAL GOVERNMENT OF GOD. We are aware that what we have maintained in the two Chapters preceding is in collision with the position of Butler in his great masterpiece,* that the natural consequences of men's actions in this life are natural rewards and punishments by God, so that He has a natural government over " His creatures endued with sense and reason," and is a "Natural Governor." He says — "We are at present actually under His government in the strictest and most proper sense" — that "we are under it in the same sense as we are under the government of civil magistrates" — that "the particular final causes of pleasure and pain distributed amongst His creatures prove that they are under His government, what may be called His natural government of creatures endued with sense and reason," which, he says, "implies government of the very same kind with that which a master exercises over his servants, or a civil magistrate over his subjects." The government he means in each of these places is a natural, as opposed to a positive, moral one, as his whole argument, carried on in Chapter III., makes certain. Chalmers, in his Lectures on Butler, endorsed this position, as many others have done; but, for all the reasons we have shown in the two previous chapters, and will show in this, we are compelled to reject it. Our main reasons for canvassing it here are two— one, to forestall objectors to ours from adducing it and the weight of his great authority in opposition; and the other to evince the validity of ours, even though inhar monious with his. (*) Analogy, Part I., Chap. II., and other places. 68 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. In no proper sense can God have two governments over men or moral beings— one natural, or non-moral, the other moral. Since He has but one moral law, which enjoins all action that is or can be moral, the sanctions of which, as we have shown, are not natural, but moral, as this great author correctly holds; and, since God's gov ernment entirely consists in declaring and administering this eternal law, His natural government, if He had one, could in no sense be moral or have a moral quality. Of course, there could be no essen tial likeness, and so no analogy, between the moral and it. It cer tainly could be no part of His function as a Ruler of moral beings to create them, nor, as their Creator to rule them; for ruling differs totally from creating, and can only begin when that is ended. As therefore the so-called natural government of God consists entirely in their natures, in their natural affirmations of the law and obliga tion, and in the natural effects to each of them of his moral action, it is really no government at all. The case of God Himself is an illustration. He is absolutely perfect in goodness, and has all the natural consequences of being so. If He should become unright eous, instead of these, He would have those of that character. Does the one, or would the other, of these classes of consequences furnish a shadow of proof or evidence that, in any normal sense, He has a natural government in Him of any other being who constituted Him or of any kind? No; the one does, and the other would, only prove His eternal essence or being such, that, without any agency of any other being, it necessarily produces each class ot them as it is affected by each kind of moral action. § 42. NO RETRIBUTIVE CAUSES SET IN MORAL NATURES, AS BUSHNELL HOLDS. Precisely the same is the case with all moral natures. "God created them in His own image and after His own likeness," rational miniatures of Himself, and therefore susceptible of the very same kind of natural consequences of moral action which He is. Those of their action are just as entirely from their nature, and uncaused by any government of His, as those of His action are from His nature without any other cause. What Dr. Bushnell says of "retrib utive causes set in moral natures " — that is, by God in creating them — has no valid basis; for no such causes are set or exist in created moral natures more than in God's; and the natural conse quences of moral action are not retributive, just because, as we are showing, they are not social and are not administered by God gov- NO RETRIBUTIVE CAUSES SET IN MORAL NATURES. 69 ernmentally or at all. The qualities of moral natures, which he calls such causes, are merely such as essentially belong to them, and without which they, whether creatures or Creator, could not be such natures; for they are in them and Him alike. Who can know or conceive of moral beings created and existing without moral reason and sensibility, which, separate, or in the wondrous combination of conscience, that very center of the moral nature, are so affected by their moral action as to produce nearly all, and the worst of these consequences? Lacking these, they could have no self-approvals nor self-condemnations; no intuitional affirmations of desert of praise or blame, and of reward or punishment from God or fellow- beings; no experienced peace with God, nor sense of guilt; no guilty fear, remorse, shame, self-loathing, despair, callousness of the sensi bility of Conscience, blinding of reason's moral eye, loss of moral taste, or other kindred effects. What semblace of a moral nature would that be, which lacked all such consequences of its action, and, of course, all the intrinsic qualities or attributes which produce them? Then, how could such a being exist without that other won drous attribute, which constitutes the law of habit, and is the basis of all education, skill, or increasing tendency to any kind of action, whether of the will or of any other faculty of the mind? It is by it that moral beings grow more and more bent to repeat or continue moral action, right or wrong, generic or special, and increasingly receptive of these consequences of one kind or the other. Without this law, there could be no such tendency in them more than in a ball which has been shot, struck, or thrown, and has come to rest, to rise and fly again, or, not having stopped, to go on forever with increasing speed. To form moral character would be impossible, as there would be no connecting link between any action and others before or after it. One might strike or thrum the keys or chords of a musical instrument for a lifetime, and acquire no more skill by the practice than by the first stroke or trial — that is, no musical char acter; and no more could one acquire a moral character by a suc cession of actions or choices, right or wrong, however extended. Then, memory and the faculty of association are so involved in the habit-action of the mind and necessary to the knowledge of all past action of the will, the reason, the sensibility, the conscience, and to the consciousness of even personal identity, that, without them, as well as all these, moral beings would be impossible. In short, who can tell how they could be such, if a single attribute, quality, faculty, or susceptibility which we know belongs to them, as such, were left 70 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. out of them ? — how any of these could be essentially changed, or others essentially different could be added to them, and they still remain such? The plain conclusion is, that God created moral natures in His own image, neither setting any causes or qualities in them which are not necessary to their being as complete in intrinsic likeness to Him as possible consistently with their finiteness and designed subjection to His government; nor leaving out of them any which are essential to their being as like Him as possible con sistently with the conditions stated; and consequently there is no government of God or of any other being in their nature more than there is in His, or possible in either Him or them. An automatic law, and an automatic government are preposterous conceits. § 43. A NATURAL GOVERNMENT OF GOD OVER MORAL BEINGS A NAT URAL IMPOSSIBILITY. In view of all presented, and of the whole nature of the case, we hold it among the certainties, that, in any true sense of the term, such a government is a natural impossibility. No nature could be created so as to be or to contain one; for there is and can be no real one which has not been voluntarily designed and originated, which is not administered by one or more persons over others subject to it, and which, therefore, is not a purely social institution, consisting of two parties — the one the governing, the other the governed. A moral nature is no more voluntary, designing, intelligent, possessed of authority, or administrative of government or its sanctions, in expe riencing the natural consequences of the moral action of its will, right or wrong, than material nature is in its various changes of the seasons and of all its phenomena, from the most genial and agreeable to the most opposite, of tempests and cyclones, volcanoes and earthquakes. In the Chapter we are noticing, Butler shows no recognition of the radical difference between the natural or personal, and the social, consequences of moral action, but lumps them together indiscrimi nately, and affirms that they are all alike " appointed by God," and are "by His appointment." But the social are not, as the natural are, in and from the natures of the actors, but are from their fellow- beings to or upon them as returns for, or social results of, their manifested character and their conduct. We hold that they are not retributions from God any more than natural experiences of any kind are, and that they are not " appointed " or '• by appointment of God " in any other sense than simply that He created and constituted all of them social-moral natures in His own image, as we have already MERE PRUDENCE NOT MORAL. 71 shown. They existing and acting morally in their relations, all these consequences follow, of course, without any other appointment of God than His creating them such beings, and the terms " appointed " and " appointment" have no proper application to them. Not only do we reject the notion of a natural government of God as intrin sically impossible, a thing of construction only, but we hold that, if there were one, there could be no essential analogy between it and His moral government on account of both the radical and the specific dissimilarities between them, which have been more than sufficiently shown in Chapters III. and IV., and in this one. There is, to be sure, an analogy between every created moral nature and God's; between its normal moral action and His; and between the natural consequences of such action to it and to Him; but neither its nature, per se, nor His is, in any sense, moral government or its administration over any actor or others; and therefore no natural consequences of either its or His moral action can be governmental. If a nature is not a government, how can the necessary natural con sequences of moral action be governmental? If told that God, in creating moral natures, set retributive causes in them, as Bushnell says, or annexed and appointed them to them, as Butler says, we have abundantly shown the groundlessness and intrinsic absurdity of this say of the latter in showing them of that of the former, as they mean the same. Only our allegiance, like Butler's, to "the rights of truth" and loyalty to God and the interests of man could impel us thus to express disagreement with this masterful author on this point, that God has two governments, one natural, the other moral, over mankind, and, by implication, over all moral beings. The same allegiance and loyalty impel us to notice his positions some further. § 44. WHAT NECESSARY TO CONSTRUCT SUCH A GOVERNMENT; AND MERE PRUDENCE NOT MORAL. In order to construct a natural government of God over man kind, he found it necessary to do three things — 1. To confine it, or attention to it, to them in this life — 2. To find or invent for it a kind of quasi law, different from the law of God's everlasting moral gov ernment, yet somehow obligatory — 3. To make the natural conse quences of obeying it or not its sanctions, or only retributions. His construction was a misconstruction, because it was built, not on psycological facts respecting "the constitution and course of nature," but on assumptions concerning these and other supposed 72 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. ones, not real. We think we have abundantly shown that these consequences cannot be the sanctions or retributions of the law, nor any part of them; and they surely cannot of any other supposed law, when no other is possible. He speaks of "prudence" as if another; but is it? It is far from always having moral quality, being often used about courses or ways of acting to secure ends which have no relish in them of either moral or immoral, and yet have or may have consequences of even great pleasure or pain coupled to them. But, when it ie moral, it is moral wisdom, and, like all other specific virtues, is required by an application of the law, and is executive of its radical requirement of supreme love to God and equal love to man in a special relation. It consists in choosing and using ways or means which we judge best to achieve or secure the best attainable ends; and its opposite is moral folly, which consists in disregarding such ends and such ways and means, and in choosing and using their contraries. Moral prudence, then, is simply obedience to a specific application of the one only law, and moral folly is violating one; and while they have, of course, both natural and social consequences to their actors, which are not governmental, they deserve and must receive, to the measure of the desert, from God, as administrator of His own social-moral law, just reward or punishment, as conscience and Scripture assert and the universal moral system constituted by the law in moral natures absolutely demands. §45. GOD HAS ONLY ONE GOVERNMENT, AND ITS GENERAL RETRIBU TIONS FOLLOW THIS LIFE OF PROBATION. For all the reasons preceding, and some others, we are com pelled to reject the notion of a natural government of God over mankind as a thing of mere construction, intrinsically impossible, and neither of, nor according to, " the constitution and course of nature." God can have but one government over moral beings, and that necessarily a moral one, as there is but one law in and from the moral reason in Himself and in them, the sanctions of which, as both conscience and Scripture declare, are positive retributions to be administered by Him; and besides these, there can be no others. As far as mankind are concerned, all moral agents of them are on a gracious probation or trial during their responsible life, as to whether they will or will not yield themselves to His will as made known to them, in order that He may. save all who will so yield from the punitive retribution they deserve; and, of course, He can in ONLY ONE GOVERNMENT. 73 no case consistently execute this retribution before death, or till the pro bation is ended. But the natural consequences of sin are occurring all through it, and therefore are not this retribution, nor of it, neither in this life nor in that which is to come. Accordingly, conscience, like Scripture, always points to retributions as to be awarded by God after death, but never to the natural consequences of moral action as either constituting or of them in this world or the next. But, in this probational life, God, as moral Governor, providentially mingles with "the riches of His goodness and forbearance and long- suffering to lead men to repentance" disciplinary dispensations of all kinds and severities in the cups of persons, families, commun ities, states, nations, races, and generations; and all normally acting conscience ever attests Him in all His interventions of mercy or judgment as manifesting His sovereign sway over the human world. Yes, "we are at present actually under His government in the strictest and most proper sense " — "in the same [positive] sense in which we are under the government of civil magistrates" — not a fictitious natural one, which is impossible, but a real moral one, which is the only one possible for Him on earth, in heaven, or in any world of rational beings. "The constitution and course of nature" are identical with moral nature and its operations and experiences from its moral action, apart from any Divinely administered governmental retri butions; and the whole preceding part of this work is mainly an exposition of this nature and these operations and experiences. It would not be pertinent to our present purpose to trace out and exhibit the analogy between this nature and the natural and social consequences to it in this life of its moral action, and God's universal moral government with its sanctions of reward and punishment to be administered by Him after this life, according to the Scriptural revelation. Although it would vary in no essential respect from that of this inestimable author, it would, we think, have a decided advantage over it for sweeping away all assumed grounds of objec tion to a universal moral system and the necessary requisite of a universal moral government for its maintenance, and to the redemp tive measure and system. Every competent one, so disposed, can trace it out for himself and others; and we thus arrest consideration of this great author's Chapter referred to in his imperishable Analogy. We only add that those, in our times, who hold that God has only a natural government over mankind, are no more accordant with Butler than with psycology and Scripture, and must logically reject 74 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. not only his Analogy, but the possibility of a universal moral system. They must deny the existence of the law itself in all moral natures, which, putting them all alike under its clamping reciprocal obligations, responsibilities, accountabilities, influences, and actions, necessarily constitutes them into a universal moral society and system; or they must deny its real character as social-moral, and therefore intrinsically just, both ethically and retributively; and, with these denials, they must deny the whole social-moral nature and character of God, making Him in no sense just or wishing to maintain a universal society and system. § 46. WHAT THIS CRUDE NATURALISM MAKES GOD, IF A MORAL GOV ERNMENT AND RETRIBUTIONS ARE DENIED. Thus this crude naturalism makes God a care-nothing, do-noth ing spectator of the universe of moral beings, palpably created by Him to be a universal moral society or system, He being, by the nature and the moral necessity and obligation of the case, both in it and its Ruler, yet left by Him without the government absolutely demanded by the social-moral nature of the system; without the momentous motives of its sanctions while on probation, and the justice, both ethical and retributive, of their administration at its close; thus not only without any evidence that He is either just or benevolent towards them, but with demonstration that He is neither in this supreme relation to them; hence, not only without any reason why they should love, regard, or care for Him any more than He does for them, but with supreme reasons why they should not; and thus without any real ground of religion, or for concern about it, as God is indifferent and they all unaccountable to Him. However men may veneer or sugar over this desecrating conception of the char acter of God with the fancied or figured notion of His natural fatherhood to mankind, versus His governorship, is it one to enamor or to revolt, to delight or to appall us? There is no conflict between the fact that sin has noxious natural consequences, and the fact that it has also governmental consequences; and to deny the latter, despite all the Scriptural teachings referred to in the preceding Chapter, all the attestations of conscience, and all the facts and invincible reasons we have shown why God must have a moral government, as the moral system founded in all moral natures demands, and to assert the former as the only ones, if God is love, is not only mere naturalism of the grossest grade, obnoxious to all the objections we have advanced a;,ainst it, but is impliedly to A MORAL GOVERNMENT. 75 assume that He cannot be trusted to administer a real moral gov ernment over moral beings for fear He will abuse His power and act the- tyrant in inflicting upon incorrigible sinners the positive retributions they deserve! § 47. GOD INFINITELY BOUND TO HAVE A MORAL GOVERNMENT, AND WHAT, IF HE HAS NOT. Such is this mock-moral, mechanical, naturalistic, anti-psyco- logical, as well as anti-scriptural notion; and, in opposition to it and all its implications, we maintain that, as the Author and natural Guardian of mankind and all created moral beings, God must be infinitely bound by the mandate of His own moral reason and the decisions of His own conscience, echoed by theirs universally, to have and to administer a social-moral government with its positive sanctions over them all, and in it to make the motives against sin and to obedience just as great and influential as possible. That is, He must make the punitive retributions of sin exactly equal in every case to the actual measure of ill-desert; and, while He may gra ciously go indefinitely beyond the good-desert of any in rewarding and blessing the obedient, He must, in every case, equal it. Moral beings cannot act morally, except under motives; and the declared sanctions of the law are its only motives, besides the intrinsic impulsion of its precept, to secure obedience and to restrain from disobedience to it. Of course, there are other motives in all God's manifestations of beneficence and all goodness, made to all His creatures, and of mercy and grace in the Gospel, made to all of man kind to whom it comes, along with its fuller and clearer annouce- ments of the law's sanctions. But these announcements are all sanctions of the law as it applies to mankind under the Gospel. Now, if God had not connected and would not administer all its sanctions, as both conscience and the Bible announce them, He would not even approach doing all He could and ought to do to prevent sin with all its dire progeny of natural and social conse quences to its actor, and all its terrible tendencies and power of propagation, and to secure obedience with all its benign natural and other consequences to its actor, and its tendencies and power of propagation, and to benefit and bless others forever — that is, to conserve His rational creatures from ruining themselves and each other, and to conduct them to endless perfection, blessedness, and glory. How, then, can He, according to this mechanical notion, be* a just, benevolent, good Being? How, not indifferent to the moral 76 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. action and character and the welfare of the moral beings He has created? If, to escape these logical results, the reply is given— "Oh, He is a Father!" the matter is neither evaded nor improved by it; for we ask what kind of a Father He is, or can be, if He leaves His children, during their whole probation, unescapably subject to all the temptations in and around them, with motives utterly inade quate to counterpoise these and to avail to conserve them from personal and mutual ruin by yielding to these? and, if He does not, as He certainly can and ought to do, add and declare others just as weighty as He wisely can? — if He does not declare, and, when the time comes, execute, in positively rewarding the obedient and pun ishing the disobedient, all that the social-moral justice of the law requires? Is He a good Father, or the contrary, if He does not maintain a real moral government over the universal and eternal society of His children with sanctions as weighty as the justice of the law and the holy love it guards demand, that is, as they can be? A wonderfully good Father, indeed, would He be! No; if good, He must treat each of the universe of His so-called children precisely as his social-moral relations, responsibilities, character, and deserts, and as the natural and moral rights, interests, and concerns of all others and of Himself in the whole eternal moral system absolutely demand. Ethical justice to that whole, including Himself, does demand positive rewards from Him to every obedient one accord ing to his actual good desert at the end of his probation, as He sees it, and positive retributive punishment to every sinner according to his actual ill-desert at that time, as He sees it. To deny this is to deny that it is an intrinsic quality of the law, and thus that it prop erly exists; hence, that the law is social-moral; hence, that all moral beings are necessarily in an eternal moral system with God, who is its Ruler; hence, to be consistent, that there is such a thing as mor ality, other than merely conventional; hence, that moral beings have natural, and, if well-deserving, also moral rights, which they are mutually bound by obligations of justice to respect by a reci procity of love and its special activities; and hence, that there is any real obligation on God or any other being to exercise this love to others of any kind. Then, if there is no demand of justice in the law for the retributive punishment of sinners by God according to their real deserts, and they are not exposed to it, an atonement is, of course, impossible, and, as we have before said, there can be no such thing as pardon, forgiveness, remission of sins, or justification, nor as mercy and grace in God in not inflicting that punishment BUTLER, MAR TINEA U, AND ARNOLD. 77 upon them, and no reason whatever why they should seek, pray, or concern themselves about escaping it or securing forgiveness. Christ could not have come in the flesh, that men " might be saved from wrath through Him," as they were never in danger of wrath. Thus this notion is a dire eclipse on God's entire moral system, on the law itself, on the object of Christ's mission to earth, on His character, on the whole measure of salvation, on the love of God in it, and on the full-orbed glory of His moral perfections and character as displayed in it towards guilty man on the one side, and the universal and eter nal society of holy beings on the other. It is indeed " another Gos pel, which is not another," but a very poor travesty of the real one. We add no more in proof that God is a Moral Governor; for what we have shown demonstrates it, if anything in Theism and ethical science can be demonstrated. It is only to express an analogy between a human father and God as Creator, to call Him the Father of man kind, but it is to express an absolute fact, as real as His omnipotence or any other attribute, to call Him the Moral Governor or Ruler of mankind and all other rational creatures; for He is "the only Poten tate," "the Lord of lords, and the King of kings," "who doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabi tants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest thou?" Human rulers are such by right only as they derive authority and power from Him.* The monarchic idea is absolutely realized in Him, and in Him alone. The rational universe is not a democracy, with universal or any suffrage by an infinite difference, but a kingdom, a dominion, a monarchy, of which God is, and eternally will be the one never changed nor changeable, all-per fect Ruler, according to His all-perfect, all-binding social-moral law. Nor can the Gospel be truly preached, as it is, by any one who denies that He is thus universal Ruler. § 48. three citations relating to points in this chapter, from Butler, martineau, and matthew arnold. We ask readers to observe, that, in this and the preceding Chap ters, we have shown the identity of our positions in the first five of this work with the teachings of Scripture on the same points. This Chapter will close with a few citations, relating to its matter in dif ferent ways, without extended remarks upon them, as intelligent readers will readily see their bearing. (*) Prov. 8:15, 16; Dan. 2:21; 4:25, 32, 35; John 19:11; Rom. 13:1-7; I. Pet. 2:13, 14. 78 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. i. Noticing the questions, why God does not make His rational creatures happy without the instrumentality of their own actions, and prevent their bringing any sufferings upon themselves, Butler sayS — "Perhaps there may be some impossibilities in the nature of things, which we are unacquainted with. Or less happiness, it may be, would, upon the whole, be produced by such a method of conduct, than is by the present. Or perhaps divine goodness, with which, if I mistake not, we make very free in our speculations, may not be a bare single disposition to produce happiness; but a disposition to make the good, the faithful, the honest, happy. Perhaps an infinitely perfect mind may be pleased With seeing His creatures behave suit ably to the nature which He has given them; to the relations which He has placed them in to each other; and to that which they stand in to Himself: that relation to Himself, which, during their existence, is even necessary, and which is the most important one of all: per haps, I say, an infinitely perfect mind may be pleased with this moral piety of moral agents, in and for itself; as well as upon account of its being essentially conducive to the happiness of His creation.* We cite this passage for the deep thought of those who hold that benevolence in either God or man consists in a "bare single dispo sition to produce happiness," or in willing it to every one alike irre spective in his character and deserts. 2. The second one is from a private letter of Rev. James Mar tineau to a ministerial friend of mine who had written him for his view of retributive sanctions of rewards and punishments. This he declined to enter upon the discussion of, and then added — "I will only say that, so far as my observation goes, 'the powers of the world to come' over the conscience and affections of mankind have very little to do with the direct anticipation of 'reward or punishment;' but depend rather on the vast enlargement of moral relations and intensified sacredness imparted to the whole contents of life by the belief in its transcendent scale and perpetuity. Yours faithfully, James Martineau." He doubtless intended to say something definite in the last half of the sentence, but who can tell what? His apparent meaning in its first half is, that the facts and truths of, and radically involved in, the matter of the Gospel are so apart from, and inde pendent of, retributive sanctions of future rewards and punishments, specially declared in the Gospel, that their power over the conscience and affections of mankind has very little to do with the direct antici pation of these sanctions. As far as our observation goes, the direct i*\ AnnWv. Part I., Chap. II., near beginning. BUTLER, MARTINEAU, AND ARNOLD. 79 opposite of this is the truth; and these sanctions denied or disbe lieved leave the Gospel an imbecility, for the existence of which there is no adequate reason, and the characteristics of which are mostly abortive. Discarding them is discarding the moral system. 3. The third is from Matthew Arnold's work, entitled "Liter ature and Dogma," the fit title of a preposterous book, in which it repeatedly occurs as the fundamental thing of its contents. The expression is — "There is an enduring power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness." Sometimes, instead of "enduring power," he says, "an Eternal." This sentence has been much quoted as if it were a golden dictum. To us, it is spurious coin from lack of both the ore and the mintage of golden truth. It is pantheistic, if any thing. Every rational mind is, ipso facto, a person, and a person only can be a power, an Eternal, not no-person, but actor, to secure righteousness. The expression, " makes for," is designed to corres pond with its impersonal subject, and for evasion not only of the least recognition of a moral government and Governor, but of moral law and a moral system. He ought to know that "conduct" is not synonymous with "righteousness," nor good "literature" with infidel. CHAPTER VI. IVhai must be true of the relributory punishment to be inflicted on all incorrigible sinners by God as Ruler of the universal society accord ing to the moral system. § 49. it is not disciplinary, but the retributixf penalty for sin as injustice to god's universal and eternal society. It is easy to see, from what has been shown, that punitive retri bution is never disciplinary, never inflicted by God with any reference to the amendment or benefit of its recipient, but is always and solely punishment for sin. Its end is to secure from sinners the debt of suffering which they owe to God and His loyal society,. and thus to meet the demand of moral nature for the punishment of evil-doers, and to protect, uphold, and promote the proper good of God and all in that society, which they have assailed and injured. God does dis cipline mankind in this world, both impenitent and Christian, by manifold chastisements aimed at the amendment and benefit of their recipients and of others through them; but His strokes are alwavs lighter than their guilt, fall, as a rule, less severelv on the ungodly (Ps. 73:3-14) than on those He loves, and are not distributed bv any scale of deserts or justice. But retributive punishment proper must be strictly just, strictly disti ibutire, strictly according to ill- desert in each case as God knows it, so that, when executed, distribu tive justice must be its measure, while public justice, or the greatest good of the universal loyal society and of God. its Head, must be its end. §50. the question, that it is inconsistent with god's Benevo lence, axswerkd. Nor is there any validity in the objection to this exact retribu tive justice, that it is inconsistent with the benevolence or goodness of God. In Him, as in all moral beings, benevolence is willing and doing precisely what the law requires; and I have shown that this is just what it requires respecting all sinners, unless the same ends can INCONSISTENT WITH GOD'S BENEVOLENCE. 81 be at least equally secured by some Divinely provided substitution. The objection, therefore, is really against the law itself, against the nature of moral beings, God's included, which contains and issues the law, and against the benevolence which fulfills it. Besides, it is equally against the natural consequences of sin; for God created the constitution of moral beings, and, if they sin, there is a necessity in it for these, just as there is for the suffering of this social retribution. He is no more chargeable with causing the necessity for the one than for the other. Neither He, nor the constitution made by Him causes either of them. Sin, the supreme monstrosity of the universe, causes both, ever brings them forth as twins — that for the natural conse quences as personal, that for retributive punishment as social. God could not create moral beings without natural freedom of will and a necessity, if they would will rightly, of experiencing happy natural consequences, and, if they would will wrongly, of experiencing unhappy ones; nor without a necessity, from the social quality of their nature, if they will rightly, of deserving positive rewards, and, if wrongly, of deserving positive retributions; nor without a moral necessity on Himself of regarding and treating them correspondingly by conferring such rewards and inflicting such retributions. God's design in constituting them was not that they should sin and suffer either the natural or the retributory consequences of so doing, but it was that they should obey his law and experience the blessed conse quences, both natural and remuneratory, of so doing; and He has done all He could, consistently with their nature and relations to keep them from doing and suffering the former, and to induce them to do and experience the latter. It is therefore by their own arbitra ment, despite all He has done to prevent it, that all who have sinned have done so, and have experienced the natural consequences of so doing and made it necessary that they should suffer the punitive also, unless retrieved by a Divinely provided substitution and its fulfilled conditions. The whole evil of their condition is their own work; and the great moral poet, Young, admirably presents the case in the following lines — " Man shall be blest, as far as man permits. Not man alone, all rationals heaven arms With an illustrious, but tremendous power To counteract its own most gracious ends; And this of strict necessity, not choice; That power denied, men, angels were no more But passive engines, void of praise or blame. A nature rational implies the power Of being blest or wretched as we please; Else idle reason would have naught to do; 82 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. And he that would be barr'd capacity Of pain, courts incapacity of bliss. Heaven wills our happiness, allows our doom; Invites us ardently, but not compels; Heaven but persuades; almighty man decrees; Man is the maker of immortal fates; Man falls by man, if finally he falls; And fall he must, who learns from death alone The dreadful secret that he lives forever." — Night, VII. , near its close. Milton, also, has grandly presented it in Paradise Lost, Book III., near the beginning, but at too great length to quote. The question, then, concerning God's benevolence, as related to either the natural or the retributive consequences of sin, is simply whether He was benevolent in creating moral beings at all, or would have been so, if He had never created any such beings. For, having created them, He is just as benevolent in inflicting deserved punishment upon the guilty, when the rights and infinite interests and concerns of Himself and all the loyal require it, as in rewarding the obedient, or in creating such beings at all. Not to inflict it would be consummate injustice and the direct opposite of benevolence, unless a substitution for it is pro vided by Him and accepted by sinners in fulfilling its conditions before their gracious probation closes at death. §51. duration of this punishment, and ill-desert of sinners its only measure. There is no termination to the ill-desert of sin, nor to the due of retributive suffering created by it to God and His whole loyal society. The good-desert of obedience lasts while it does, but ends with it, if it does. But the due of moral love to God and His loyal society from every one is as lasting as his being. Sin is repudiation of this due and of the law which creates it, and is thus in conflict with the nature which gives the law. It is wrong and injury to the universal society, breaking its order and harmony and creating unhappiness and misery in it wherever its contagion extends — assailing its rights and securities — diffusing pernicious influences in it — causing jarrings, schisms, wars, and havocs in it — imperiling the rectitude and ever lasting well-being of its probationary members — destroying the possi bility of self-recovery in all who commit it, and of the eradication of it and its plague from the universe — causing the whole dire progeny of its natural consequences in all guilty of it — and wronging God supremely by disregarding and trampling upon His rights, claims, interests, authority, and heart. There is no evil in the universe not from it. It is the accursed mother of all curses, including everlasting TRUE MEANING OF THE WRATH OF GOD. 83 death and punitive retribution. The only retribution possible is Divinely inflicted suffering, whatever it may be or include. This, we have seen, is due from the sinner to God and His universal society. It is his everlasting debt to them, because his ill-desert, created by his sin, is everlasting. Whatever punishment he deserves for his sin, as he commits it, he deserves the same for it as long as he exists; so that, if, at any time during his probation, he repents and is forgiven and restored by God to the treatment of the holy, it must be by pure grace, and not on the ground of justice at all — not as, in any sense, deserved by him. Ill-desert is a soul-color that never fades. This is true of even the ill-desert of wrong done by one man to another in their private relations. Its doer can never maintain that he deserves no retribution for it from the wronged one, and demand as his right, that the latter, or any one, shall regard and treat him as if he had not done it. He can no more do so in a week than in a day, in a month than in a week, in a year than in a month, in any number of years than in one, in myriads of ages than in a lifetime. No duration can have the slightest effect in obliterating or diminishing his ill-desert, or in restoring his forfeited right to the wronged one's favor; and, if that one ever restores him to it and treats him as if innocent towards him, even if he may have repented, it must be by exercising grace in forgiving him contrary to his abiding, unimpaired ill-desert. How can it be otherwise in respect to the ill-desert of all sinners against God? In its very nature, sin involves an everlasting forfeiture of all right to His favor and desert of punishment from Him, the same as when acted. Like the blood-spot on the hand of Lady Macbeth, the dooming color of ill-desert on the sinner's soul will not out, nor fade. But, besides this fadeless fact of ill-desert, the everlasting rights, interests, and concerns of God and His whole loyal, eternal society absolutely demand the perpetual punishment of irreclaimable sinners according to their ill-deserts, as we have already shown and will yet show more fully; and God, therefore, can be neither just nor benevo lent, if He does not inflict it upon all such sinners or provide some adequate substitution for its endurance by them, on the ground of which He can justly exercise grace towards them during their pro bation, and forgive all who fulfill the ethical conditions of reliance upon it and return to obedience, on which it is offered to all. §52. true meaning of the wrath of god against sinners. The necessity on God to inflict this punishment upon all sinners, unless rescued in the way stated, proceeds, as already shown, from 84 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. justice in the law as it is in, and emanates from, His own and all other moral natures; and the perfect conformity of His will to this quality of the law and of His nature, with His corresponding emotions, is His wrath (orge) against them. This is the only wrath-principle which can be ascribed to Him or any other good being. Far enough is His wrath from mere flaming emotions of indignation, or combus tion of anger against sinners. It is no such ebulliency of emotion or passion, but His holy will with accordant emotions — His moral dis position, perfect as His nature, to treat sinners deserving the penalty of the law precisely as it requires — that is, exactly according to their ill-deserts for its social ends, as already set forth. There is no other rule of retribution possible, conceivable, just, or adequate to these ends, and therefore benevolent, to treat them by; and it is the only one taught in Scripture.* If therefore sinners of our race are not saved by grace through a substitution, God can have no room for counsel about subjecting them to the penal suffering they deserve, and no liberty to do better by them, or at all otherwise, than just as they deserve. The measure of inflicted suffering must be in every case neither less nor more than exactly just — that is, exactly according to the measure of ill-desert as God sees it, since deficiency of it would be unjust to God and His loyal society, and excess of it would be cruelty to the sufferer — that is, while perfect ethical public justice must be its end, perfect distributive justice must be its measure. § 53. additional proof that god can have no right of counsel and no liberty, against punishing incorrigible sinners as they deserve. Bushnell says — " There is no principle which any human being can state, or even think, that obliges Him [God], on pain of losing character, to do by the disobedient exactly as they deserve. The rule, taken as a measure, has no moral significance. God, therefore, need not give Himself up to wrath [justice], in order to be just; He can have the right of counsel still. Perfect liberty is left to Him to do by the wrong-doer better than he deserves, and yet without any fault of justice — better, that is, considering His own condemning judgment of him, and the man's condemning judgment of himself, than He might well do, or even ought to do, if the sublime interests of His government should require." f We make this quotation now to show (*) Job 34:11; Ps. 62:12; rrov. 24:12; Jer. 17:10; 32:19; Ez. 7:27; 33:20; Mat. 16:27; Horn. 2:6; II. Cor. 5:10; 11:15; I. l'et. 1:17; Rev. 2:23; 20:12; 22:12. (f) Vicarious Sacrifice, pp. 170, 171. ADDITIONAL PROOF. S5 the importance of the position we are maintaining. If we have done anything, we have both thought and stated, and, as we believe, demon strated precisely such a principle; and it is fair to retort that no human being can state, or even think, any principle which permits God to treat the disobedient otherwise than exactly as they deserve, unless on the ground of a substitution. This author certainly has not stated one, and, we infer, because he could not think one; and no attempt to jumble law and redemption together can attain such a one. Justice either does, or does not, demand social retributions. If it does, how can God have a right of counsel and a liberty about meet ing that .demand, which involves all "the sublime interests of His government," the rights, dues, interests, and concerns of His loyal society forever, and of Himself as necessarily connected with it? If it does not demand them, what is it, at best, but a name? If not social, there can be none, because every one stands and must be dealt with as an isolated unit. Deserts, good or bad, and a social-moral system are then impossible. That last clause — "if the sublime interests of His government require," is the insurmountable barrier in the way of any counsel and liberty in the case, unless on the basis of a substi tution. Besides this rule, no other can even be thought; and to say that God can have a right of counsel about conforming to it, and a liberty to do better, or at all otherwise, by the sinner than he deserves, unless in providing and executing a substitution, is to say that He has such a right about conforming to the law, and a liberty to treat sinners without regard to its demands, than which, if His nature con tains and gives the law, what can be more absurd? It is to say further that He has this right as to whether He will regard, and do all He wisely can to secure the rights, interests, and concerns forever of Himself and all the loyal society, and a liberty to do better for sinners than to regard these and to do what He can to secure them! It is to say still further, that the law with its justice, is not in and from His nature and no less immutable, and that He is not bound to act by it! It implies a denial that either He or His intelligent creatures have any rights and claims to be mutually and sacredly regarded, or any moral dues from or debts to each other by their nature, and of course that sinners owe God and His loyal society any debt whatever of punitive suffering for all the wrong and injury they have done them! In short, it implies a denial that God has any social-moral sys tem, and so that either He or any other being has any real rights whatever! For this so-called right of counsel is one simply to disre gard all rights and to act by mere caprice; and this so-called liberty 86 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. is that of mere arbitrary will, which recognizes no law; and both would be against the law as it is in all moral natures. § 54. ABSURDITY OF THE NOTION, THAT HE CAN HAVE THIS RIGHT AND LIBERTY. Let us consider it some further. If God, by counsel, may inflict on sinners less punishment than they deserve, the question is, how much less ? A quarter ? A half ? Three-quarters ? Nine-tenths ? Ninety-nine hundredths? Why may He not dispense with it entirely, and abandon all show of government and justice? — all care whether obedience is or is not rendered to His arbitrary so-called law? All basis for punishment is destroyed by the supposition, as it leaves no principle to proportion it by, or to demand it at all; and the whole intel ligent universe is afloat on a sea of mere arbitrary will and caprice. But we deny that any such right of counsel and such liberty are con sistent with the benevolence of God. As the ends of justice, both as ethical and as retributive, are social, being those for which He created moral natures, and consisting in His own and their proper good, the retributive punishment of sinners which it demands is as truly benev olence to the universal holy society as the reward to the obedient which it requires is to them. How then can God's benevolence be perfect, if His infliction of retributive punishment on sinners is not perfectly just according to their ill-desert? If it is less than they deserve, it must be less by so much than would be perfectly benevolent to the holy society; and, since He must always act from design, it must be designedly less. But, if He designs not to act in perfect benevolence to the universal holy society, can there be any real benevolence in His acting? Designedly defective, imperfect benevolence, what else could that be in any being, especially in God, than designed selfish ness? In Him, it could only be a selfish sympathy, in the case we are considering, with the guilty against the supreme rights, dues, interests, and concerns of the loyal and Himself; and what benev olence could consist with that? But, if benevolence designedly less than perfect were possible for God, how much less may it be, and still be genuine? One quarter? One-half? Three-quarters? Nine-tenths? Ninety-nine hundredths? The supposition is absurd. He plainly cannot be benevolent at all, if not perfectly so; and, for the same reasons, He cannot be just at all, if not perfectly so. As the Siamese twins were so vitally connected, that they must live or die together, so Cod's benevolence and justice are vitally and etern ally united, and they have the same consummate end, which is that ABSURDITY OF THE NOTION. 87 of the law, the highest possible well-being of all who do not forfeit it by sin. No retributive punishment, therefore, or any less than exactly according to the ill-desert of sinners, as God sees it, would be injustice to the universal holy society and Himself; and, for this very reason, would be equally the opposite of benevolence to it and Himself. By refusing to inflict it, He would act against His own law and His own and all other moral natures which give it, and would bring blight and destruction on the holiness and well-being of Himself and all those natures. So totally false and fatal is this notion that God has a right of counsel as to whether He will or will not execute the exact punishment deserved by sinners without any substitution for it, and a liberty to do better by them than to execute it; and that justice is not in and of the law- and the nature which gives it, but is a mere invention, incorporated by arbitrary will into a positive institution of government. What errors it would prevent, what truths establish, if men, when reasoning about what God can or cannot do, would remember that, although He is omnipotent and independent of His creatures, His will and actions are nevertheless never arbitrary or capricious, but are always and absolutely ruled by His eternal and immutable nature, having the law in it for Him self and them! § 55. WHAT GOD'S DESIGN IN INFLICTING THIS PUNISHMENT IS NOT, AND WHAT IT IS. The design of the infliction of this retributive punishment is not, as some hold, to maintain the authority of God as Moral Gov ernor, but to secure from sinners, as we have shown, the debt of penal suffering which they owe God and His universal holy society as the naturally demanded substitute for the moral love of which they have robbed them. The end of the punishment is the same as of that love, which is the greatest possible real good of that society and of God as related to it; and it is demanded by the law and the nature which gives it for that end and no other. As to God's authority, it is His moral right to govern for that end, and is no more an arbi trary assumption or arrogation than His conformity to His law and nature in any other respect. He cannot, therefore, inflict retributive punishment to maintain His authority or His right to govern, which would be making this its own end. But, when the real end demands punishment, He is bound by an infinite obligation of His own nature to inflict it, unless He can and does, from mercy to the guilty, pro vide a substitution for it at least as effective, as a means to secure 88 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. that end, as the punishment would be. Beyond choosing between these two courses He has no other option, not capricious and unjust; and, even if He provides a substitute, He must nevertheless inflict the punishment on all who do not accept and rely upon it for salva tion, not to maintain His authority, nor as mere governmental policy, but to discharge His absolute duty by the law and His nature to secure the end stated. When He does this, He must grade the infliction exactly according to the measure of each one's ill-desert, as He sees it, and according to no other, less or greater, because there is no other, and the infliction would be arbitrary and capri cious, and not justice at all. It is the verdict of universal reason and conscience, that the degree of each one's ill-desert is the only just measure of his punishment. If God deals with sinners as the law requires, He must punish them according to this degree, the necessity for Him to do this, like that for a moral government, being one of moral nature, Divine and created. He can neither disregard nor vary from this rule of retribution in His administration of the law, the whole function of His will and omnipotence, as Ruler, being to comply with and execute its demands. In no sense does He make justice. What we have thus said involves as a postulate, that the nature, not the relations, of moral beings is the ground and source of all their mutual obligations, rights, and dues. Reason and conscience affirm that these pertain entirely to the person, while relations are simply the conditions or occasions of this affirmation. For, how could that nature, which is the ground and source of all relations, not be also the ground and source of all its own obligations, rights, and dues respecting others in those relations? How could its relations, which wholly result from and depend upon itself as their ground and source, and most of which are transient, be the ground and source of its obligations, rights, and dues, or other than simply con ditions or occasions of its causing and affirming these in itself respecting the related beings ? § 56. SIN AN EVIL IN ITSELF, HAVING INTRINSIC ILL-DESERT. What we have thus said also involves as a postulate, that sin is an evil in itself, having intrinsic demerit or ill-desert. It is no objec tion to this, that the ideas of merit and demerit are relative; for the law itself and both obedience and sin are relative in the same sense, that is, are social. But how does the relative or social nature of sin prevent it from being an evil in itself, and from having intrinsic ill-. SIN AN EVIL IN ITSELF. 89 desert? Is it not such an evil for one to will and act intrinsic injustice and antagonism to God and man, intrinsic violation of the mandate of his moral reason to render them love as their intrinsic natural due? Says one — "Plainly, sin is an evil only as in its nature it is related to evil consequences." * Our questions just put apply equally to this affirmation; yet, as it relates directly to the matter of our discussion, we deem it important to notice it some farther although it scarcely has currency. Its necessary counterpart must be, that obedience is a good only as in its nature it is related to good consequences; and, in both cases, the consequences must be simply natural. We ask, then, first, what that is "in the nature" of obedi ence or sin which is related to these consequences of each ? Plainly, the peculiar quality of each; and is not this quality or peculiar nature of each intrinsic? How can it be extrinsic? And, as the consequences of each mainly consist in and result from the action of conscience respecting it in itself, and not respecting anything extrinsic to it, what else can that in itself possibly be than its intrinsic right or wrong, good or evil quality or nature? The fact, that each kind of action invaribly produces the same peculiar class of consequences, never that of the other, proves that each has its own peculiar intrinsic quality, which renders it such a fixed, invari able cause. But, secondly, has conscience ever taught or hinted that obedience is not a good in itself and does not create good-desert, or that sin is not an evil in itself and does not create ill-desert, or that these two kinds of desert are created by the consequences of the two kinds of action? Does it impute no desert to either kind of action, and produce no sentence of reward or punishment upon its actor, till after its consequences appear to him, or except as he may have acquired some experience of them from previous action and may thus have anticipated them? How, then, could he ever begin to act morally, and to have desert imputed to him by his conscience? A first moral act would be utterly impossible, and so no following one would be possible, according to this theory. But the theory is out lawed by the single fact, that the imputation of desert by conscience and its corresponding sentence of reward or punishment are never based on the consequences, but always on the intrinsic character of the action, or of the actor in it. The only relation the conse quences of either kind of action can sustain to its desert is, that, so far as the actor is able to foresee them as sure, or in any degree (*) See Prof. N. W. Taylor's Lectures on the Moral Government of God, Vol. II., p. 279. 90 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. likely, to result, if he does the action, and as he does it to secure them, or in disregard or defiance of them, he increases the good or bad character and desert of the action, or of himself in it. But thirdly, if obedience is not a good in itself and sin not an evil in itself, but each is such only as it is related to its natural conse quences, then neither of them is, in itself, moral action at all, and intrinsically they are both alike perfectly indifferent, neither good nor bad. Their names, obedience, and sin, indicate no moral quality in or difference between them, but simply their respective relations to their consequences; and to these, not as God sees them, but as the actor of either does or can anticipate them. But what conceiv able reason is there why, of two intrinsically non-moral, indifferent actions, one should invariably produce good consequences, the other bad — why they should not both produce the same — or why either of them should produce such as it does, and not the opposite, or any at all? If there is no intrinsic moral and deserving difference between the actions, there can be none otherwise; and how can they produce different consequences, and that invariably? But further, as consequences have no moral quality, and both kinds of action are in themselves non-moral there is no conceivable reason why this quality should be in, or belong to, the nature of these actions as related to their consequences; and it is plainly impossible that it should; for how can the relation of a non-moral cause to its non- moral effects be itself moral, or make either it or these moral? There can, therefore, according to this theory, be no ethical system, no morality, no merit or demerit, in any sense. By no effort can the truth be escaped, that the sole reason why obedience and sin pro duce the natural consequences they do in their actors exists entirely in the intrinsic moral quality of each; and that, prime among these consequences is the fact, that, as the moral quality of actions does not inhere in them apart from the actors, but in them in their actions, the merit or demerit of the actions pertains entirely to the actors. It is the actor that deserves reward or punishment for his acting; and therefore it is not in any of his executive acts, but in his heart, spirit, or radical moral will, from which these proceed, that merit and demerit, desert of reward or of punishment has its birth, home, and greater or less measure. There are myriads of murderers, adulterers, thieves, liars, and criminals of all kinds in heart, who never committed the executive acts of such, who are really more criminal and deserve greater punishment than many who have com mitted them. So there are myriads of truly holy ones in heart, who NO PLAN OF REDEMPTION. 91 have done very few and only inconspicuous executive acts, who are intrinsically more well-deserving of, and will receive from God greater, some of them perhaps vastly greater, rewards than multi tudes who have abounded in such acts. The soul itself, the immortal spirit is the only real home of all true morality towards God or man, and of good or ill-desert, and God is the only perfect spectator, critic, and exact recompenser of all done in it according to its intrinsic desert. § 57. NO PLAN OR MEASURE OF REDEMPTION IN GOD'S MORAL GOV ERNMENT. From what has been shown, it follows that God's moral govern ment, instituted as we have seen, involves no plan or measure of redemption, has no reference to the recovery of sinners, and no pro vision in it for mercy or grace towards them.* His moral govern ment consists in holding and treating all created moral beings as responsible and accountable to Him, as their absolutely rightful Moral Governor, for their moral action, and in administering the sanctions of His law to them by favoring and rewarding the obedient and frowning upon and punishing the disobedient according to their deserts, as its justice demands for its end. It was instituted in and for moral beings as such, and not as sinners; and its institution did not imply that any of them would ever become sinners, but merely that in their freedom they might. How, then, could it contain a redemptive arrangement or provision of any kind, or have one involved in it? Conscience certainly never gives an intimation of it. It never whispers of redemption or mercy, but inexorably dooms all guilty souls; and, in doing so, it but echoes the sentence of God, as Moral Governor. The question is not whether God, foreseeing the sin of mankind, had or had not an eternal purpose or plan of redemption in His mind for them, for this He certainly had; but whether it was part of, or embraced in, His moral government insti tuted in and for His rational creatures, or was devised by Him to rescue human sinners from the penalty and power of their sin, which it certainly was. They violate the law of His government; He devises and executes a plan to save them from the punitive retribution they deserve for the violation; and, while the plan and its execution relate directly to His government, they do so, just as a remedy for a dis ease relates to the bodily constitution. In the nature of the case, they can no more be a part of it, or involved in it, than a remedy (*) Bushnell's Vicarious Sacrifice, Part III., Chap. II. 92 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. can be a part of or involved in that constitution. They must be independent of it in origin, subsequent to it in the order of things, and necessarily a matter of distinct counsel and adoption, of mere mercy and grace, and not of government at all. To suppose a redemptive provision in God's moral government is intrinsically absurd. It is to suppose that, from its beginning, His government has carried its own nullification in its vitals, has been self-abrogated, or only an empty show. It would be an invitation and incitement to moral beings, if aware of it, to begin and continue to sin. It would be like the Temperance Society I once aided in organizing with a pledge of future total abstinence from all intoxicating beverages. After the constitution was adopted, the names of nearly all present, about fifty, were subscribed, and the officers were elected, one mem ber moved that an article should be added to the constitution, that, if any member should at any time wish to be released from the pledge, he could be by applying to the President or Secretary! I opposed its adoption, but a minister who had joined favored it, say ing that he did not believe in binding people by covenants and pledges longer than they willed; and it was adopted! That society died therewith by this, its own act; and so would God's moral gov ernment, or any other, which, by its institution, contained a pro vision or method of redemption for its own transgressions. This notion arises from the vitiating mistake, already noticed, of con founding God's moral government with His temporary provisional government, positively instituted for the Israehtish people through Moses. But this was only a modified application of His moral gov ernment to sinners of that people in their temporal life and relations to each other and to God, which was "ordained by angels in the hand of a Mediator " (Gal. 3:19), as part of a grace-scheme towards them and typically towards mankind. This mistake is astonishing; for this theocratic government over Israel was not over any of man kind before it was ordained at Sinai; nor was it ever over any other people; nor has it been over them since the time of Christ or the destruction of Jerusalem; nor will it ever be over any of mankind again; yet surely God has always had His moral government over all mankind and all rational creatures, and always will have. It is from the penalties for sin of this universal and perpetual government that the scheme of redemption provides the way and means of sal vation for human sinners; and it is by the infliction of these ever lasting penalties that all not saved by this grace-scheme will be punished. We have no knowledge of any such scheme in or con- EXACT RETRIBUTIVE PUNISHMENT. gj nected with God's government over • rational beings in any other world; and thus this notion of a redemptive provision in it, as insti tuted, and therefore universal for sinners, vanishes into air, and it is made certain that the redemptive provision for human sinners is outside of God's government over them both in origin and in intrinsic nature. His moral government is founded in and demanded by His own and all created moral natures; His redemptive system is His device, His scheme to save sinners from its penalty and their sin. As already said, this provision is related to this government as medicine is to man's bodily constitution. Men become diseased in body by violating their constitution, just as they become sinners and liable to penal retribution by violating God's government; and, as the design of medicine is to cure the disease of the body, so that of the redemptive provision is to cure the whole condition of the sinner induced by sin. § 58. FURTHER REASONS WHY HE MUST INFLICT EXACT RETRIBUTIVE PUNISHMENT ON SINNERS AS THEY DESERVE, UNLESS HE CAN SAVE THEM THROUGH A SUBSTITUTION. As God created all moral natures with His law in and dictated to them by their practical reason, and established by conscience with its intuitive affirmations of desert of reward or of punishment by obeying or disobeying for sanctions; and as He thus instituted His moral government in them, He not only constituted them a universal ethical society, but by necessarily putting Himself into it and being its Ruler, He must be responsible before His own con science for securing to Himself and the loyal of them the due of retributive suffering from sinners, which justice in them all, in the law, and in His government demands. As He is eternally identified with the society and its Head, He must have infinite rights, dues, interests, and concerns in and from it; and justice, therefore, has everlasting demands upon each and all in it, or in revolt from it in respect to Him, both as a Person and as sustaining to them all the rela tions He does as their Maker, Proprietor, Preserver, Benefactor, and Ruler. Sin not only robs Him of the moral love due Him naturally as a Person, and morally as absolutely good and deserving the greatest possible gratitude, honor, reverence, and all obedience, but it intrinsically and practically denies and wars against all His authority, and all His rights to moral love and that can belong to it in action. Sinners therefore owe Him a correlative due of suffering immeasurably greater than to all other beings, and His claim against 94 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. them for it is correspondingly greater than that of all others for what is due to them. His relations to all, and His responsibility to all the loyal, existing, and to be created in all futurity, make it impossible that He should abandon this claim and leave it unse cured. To do so, He would war against His own law and govern ment founded in His own nature and theirs, and thus subvert His whole character. As His claim and due are of the very essence of justice, which is the bond and clamp of the intelligent universe, and as essential to it as the attraction of gravitation is to the material universe, how can He disregard them in any degree or respect? As it respects the universal holy society, a shuddering terror might well sieze it, if it found that God would leave the least jot of His own or their just due from sinners unsecured in some way. For, to do so would be an arbitrary negation by Him of ethical justice to them, according to which as a precedent, He might wholly and for ever disregard it, and make injustice the principle, or want of it, of His treatment of them all. For, as justice is the great universally social principle, injustice, its opposite, must be equally universally dissocial and rife with conflicts, wrongs, and wars. As every penal claim of God is also one of the whole society under Him, and as every due of penal suffering to Him is also one to it, if He should leave any such claim unmet or due unsecured, He would thereby sanction universal injustice and make caprice His only rule of pro cedure, and outlaw all rights, and all His law. For, in whatever way he treats one transgressor, He can, and virtually does, treat every one; and He would thus arbitrarily discard all regard for all the claims and dues of justice in the universe, not only as retributive, but as ethical, because, in essence, they are identical. With justice, He would necessarily discard the pure moral tore, which the imper ative of the law makes due from each and all to each and all accord ing to their rights; and with this its end, their true and everlasting good. The whole interlinked trio go together. § 59. JUSTICE THE SOCIAL BOND, TYING ALL TO RENDER RECIPROCAL MORAL LOVE ILLUSTRATED. Thus, as justice in the law is the one social bond which ties all to render moral love to each other, if that bond be broken, thev, like the material worlds, if their bond of attraction were gone, must unsphere themselves from their Divinely constituted correlation of mutual love, and, driven on by their mere personal, self-centerin" tendencies and selfishness, must rush lawless into all disorder, JUSTICE THE SOCIAL BOND. 95 collision, and anarchy, each ruined and ruining forever. Or, as justice is the one Divinely-wrought vase to hold and preserve the sacred cordial of the mutual holy love of all moral beings, if that vase be broken and not repaired by the boundless moral act of its Great Artificer, its infinitely precious contents must flow away from them all forever, leaving them to perish with the raging thirst of the consuming fever of confirmed selfishness and all its terrific progeny of acted enormities and eternal natural consequences. Or, as justice is the heart, arteries, and veins, which contain and diffuse the blood of holy love in the body of the universal society, if the heart or one of these main conveyers of that blood, which is the moral and spir itual life of that body, be cut or torn open, it must gush out of it and leave it collapsed in the spiritual death of utter selfishness and all its issues and trains of consequential curses. Is it possible, then, that, if moral beings break that bond, fracture that Divine vase, cut or rend that heart or its great conduits for circulating that moral blood of holy love through the whole body of the universal society by sin, and cause all the disorder, conflict, anarchy, and pernicious consequences which convulse it, and blight, torment, and blast themselves and each other forever, and which afflict all the loyal and even their Creator, subjecting them to grief, trials, endurances, self-denials, labors, and measureless sacrifices, they will yet incur no positive retribution from God according to their deserts, or beyond the mere personal natural consequences of their sin? Is it possible that no endurance of penal suffering from the hand of God is due from them to Him and the loyal society for the injustice and injury they have done to Him and it? Is it possible that justice has no claims, function, or existence against wrong-doers? Is it possible that, if the bond it constitutes be not restored, the fractured vase not repaired, the deadly wound to the heart and circulating appa ratus not perfectly healed, the harmony which that bond alone can secure, the cordial of moral love which can only be kept in that vase, the life-blood of that love which can only circulate in that heart and apparatus can, by any means or power in the universe, be secured, kept, and circulated, or have existence in the empire of God? They have robbed that empire and its Head of the love they owed it and Him; shall they not pay the correlative of retributive suffering in its stead? They have projected into it a curse of malig nity sufficient to turn it into a universal hell; shall they not receive a corresponding curse of punishment in return? They have tram pled justice, as ethical, into the dust by substituting their selfishness 96 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. and its deeds for the love it binds them to render to God and all others; shall it not spring out of it again, as retributive, to smite them back according to their ill-deserts? § 60. THE PRINCIPLE OF ETHICAL AND RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE THE SAME. To answer such questions in the negative is to contradict uni versal conscience; for its voice in consciousness is even stronger for retributive than for ethical justice, amazingly strong as it is for that, as shown in Chapter II.; and, if men build their ethical and theo logical fabrics professedly on psychology, they should accept and adhere to all its deliveries alike. When they do this, they will no longer advocate and eulogize ethical justice, as they should, and then turn round and denounce retributive as an outrage on the sensibil ities of mankind, and at war with the benevolence of God, when moral reason is for the latter equally as for the former. Theodore Parker, in his sermon on "The Function and Place of Conscience," preached in 1850 against the Fugitive Slave Law, spoke thus of ethical justice — "It is the point in morals common to me and all mankind, common to me and God, common to mankind and God; the point where all duties unite — to myself, my brethren, and my God; the point where all interests meet and balance — my interests, those of mankind, and the interests of God. When justice is done, all is harmony and peaceful progress in the world of man; but when justice is not done, the reverse follows — discord and confusion; for injustice is not the point where all duties and all interests meet and balance, not the point of morals common to mankind and me, or to us and God." Truly and grandly said, but deeper truth than its author thought. For, suppose justice is not done by any number of moral beings, but injustice, assailing all duties and interests common to God and His rational universe, and setting discord and confusion into action against Him and it with measureless damage to them. Has justice then no farther function respecting the evil-doers than like some rightful and illustrious monarch, deposed and confined by his rebellious subjects, who, still crazily fancying himself their sov ereign, persists in proclaiming his mandates to his mocking deposers, to act the discrowned and degraded part in moral natures of con tinually babbling out to them its ethical rights, demands, and man dates, as if still sovereign, only to see them disregarded and scorned by those natures because it has no power to enforce them by deserved and requisite penal retributions ? Does the fact riiat the rebels and scorners have trampled and flouted ethical justice end the matter, REPENT FOR FORGIVENESS. 97 so that they owe no endurance of retributive justice from God, as due to Him and His loyal society instead of the love of which they have robbed Him and them, and for the injury they have done them by acting against it? Does conscience ever attest any such stu pendous folly ? No; it attests with unsurpassed positiveness, as already repeatedly shown, that not only guilt or desert of punish ment, but that endless, is created by all sin, and that the endurance of it by sinners is due to God and all holy beings. It is essential to God's benevolence to secure this due, because justice is social, and what it demands is His and their everlasting interest, concern, and right, as the safeguard of their love, order, and blessedness, and therefore of His own righteous character and all the holy relations between Him and them forever. It is ethical justice in Him to secure it, and would be ethical injustice in Him not to do so, because, if He should not, they would be universally, perpetually, and fatally wronged and ruined, as He would thus practically declare moral love and its results to them of no importance, and show Himself indifferent, whether they mutually rendered it or not, and between those who did and those who did not. It is therefore absolutely incumbent on Him to punish all sinners as they deserve, or to meet the ends of retributive justice in their behalf by a substitution, which, if they avail themselves of it, will at least equally secure those ends to Himself and all loyal beings, before He can forgive and save one of them, even if he should repent. § 6l. NO SINNERS EVER WOULD OR COULD REPENT, IF NO ATONEMENT, EVEN IF GOD WOULD FORGIVE THEM. Men say, God is infinitely good and merciful, and therefore would and must forgive sinners, if they repent for that reason alone. But the inference is without foundation in the premise. For, with out an atonement and the grace manifested on its basis, they are under the law alone, and there are no facts, truths, motives, influ ences, manifestations, nor conditions, either in and from the nature of law and government, or from God as Moral Governor, which, considering their subjective state and objective liability to the pun ishment their conscience tells them they deserve for their sins, have the least adaptation or tendency to bring them to repentance. All there are have directly the opposite tendency. Repentance consists essentially in turning from sin, which is selfishness, to true moral, complacent love to God by an entire surrendry to Him in faith on the ground of His manifested mercy and grace. But sin separates 98 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. and alienates its actor from Him; creates in conscience the sense of guilt or desert of punishment from, and a profound dread of, Him; makes its actor regard Him, not as kindly disposed, but as an incensed adversary and punisher; and it therefore excites aversion and hostility of heart against Him, especially when His holy char acter, claims, and relations lo himself are brought clearly before him. Conscience, the terrible judge, condemns and dooms him without a hint of Divine mercy or grace for him; and thus, with his guilty aversion and opposition of heart towards God, and without hope of favor from Him, he shrinks from Him, and dislikes to retain Him in knowledge, or to be pressingly reminded of Him as related to himself. Besides, the law of habit increasingly binds and sets him in this state of sin and alienation; and there is an intrinsic self-delusion, a kind of sorcery in sin, which infatuates its actor and urges him on in it, and which increasingly blinds his eyes to all spiritual realites, and prevents all proper apprehensions of them. Such being the subjective state of sinners, which renders it among the most difficult of things to bring them to repent, even under all the Divine manifestations, revelations, truths, motives, agencies, and influences of Christianity, how could they possibly be brought to do it, if without these, and left entirely to themselves under the law alone, by which they are already consciously condemned and doomed? As they could have no ground of hope, because they would have no promises or intimations from God, that He would be merciful and gracious to them, if they should repent, how, in their whole condition, could they possibly trust him as willing to forgive them? and, if they could not trust, how could they love Him with any complacency, or hope for any favor from Him? Men cannot act morally without motives, without which their will is "as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean," but in view only of such as are before them, and therefore it avails nothing to say they are still free agents; for, without an atonement and all the redemptive pro visions, disclosures, truths, motives, agencies, including that of the Holy Spirit, and influences it involves, besides which there are none adapted to bring men from the state in which they are to repentance, how could they repent? The law is without a single motive in itself to bring men to repentance, that is, to renounce their selfishness and hostility to God and to begin to love Him, while its whole bearing on them in their subjective state renders it impossible, that, under it alone, they ever would, or morally could, repent, if the entire redemptive provision had not been graciously made for them, REPENT FOR FORGIVENESS. 99 including the agency of the Holy Spirit. This is no less the ground and source of all the necessary conditions of repentance than of forgiveness.* No heathen ever could repent, if it were not for the traditions and shimmerings of redemptive grace announced to our first parents in the protevangel, indicated to Noah, and diffused to the nations in the reports they received of God's dealings with Abraham and his Israehtish posterity — all made effective by the mighty agency of the Holy Spirit. § 62. EVEN IF THEY COULD, IT WOULD BE NO REPARATION FOR THEIR SINS. But, assuming that men could and would repent without any redemptive provision, what reparation would that be of the stupen dous wrong and injury they have done to God and His loyal uni verse? How could it restore justice to its power to bind men to render to each other the moral love which it makes owed by and due to every one? How could it restore the broken bond, the fractured vase, the ruptured heart, artery, or vein, arrest the pernicious conse quences sent out through mankind and the intelligent universe by sin, and set moral love and its consequences in that universal and perfect operation, which they would forever have had, if they had not been so appallingly supplanted and counteracted by sin? It could do nothing of the kind, meet no end of justice, and repair no damage whatever. If, therefore, God should pardon sinners and treat them as the obedient merely because they repent, and without the ground of a substitutionary atonement for so doing, He would practically put universal conscience, His own creation, with its sense of guilt, and its judicial condemning and dooming in them, and its corresponding action in all holy beings under ban as false, and would capriciously and fatally outrage all moral nature, including His own. He would disregard the law in and from it with its justice, which makes moral love owed by and due to every one, and thus dis mantle this love of all enforcement, defense, and estimation, con signing it to the mere option of each actor, whether to render it or not, and leaving its end of the true good of moral beings like Jeru salem razed and trodden down of the Gentiles. He would practically proclaim moral nature with its conscience, the law in and from it with its justice, matter, and end, the love which fulfills its matter with its natural consequences, the sin which destroys that love and its end with its natural consequences, the everlasting tendencies of (*) § 73. P- 96- ioo THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. each of these kinds of action, and all the rights, dues, debts, inter ests, Concerns, securities, and necessities of Himself and His whole loyal society forever such insignificant trifles, that they weigh com paratively nothing against the mere personal and forfeited interests and concerns of a repentant sinner of whatever degree, even though his enormities may have hurled "myriads or millions into eternity, few of them repentant, many of them black with most, some with all, named and nameless crimes and vices, but the great mass chiefly innocent of these; and though he may have devastated nations and continents and caused multiplied millions to cry to heaven with immeasurable anguish for just vengeance. How could God possibly be just or benevolent, or not the direct opposite, if He should dis regard that cry, should pardon any such tiger of the world or actor of crime, vice, or wrong of any kind simply for repentance? No essential truth or error abides alone in human minds; but, from a necessary logic, each belongs to a whole family circle adhe sively united, and draws its kindred with or after it. So, not only does this notion, that repentance is the only requisite for the for giveness of sinners, deny the necessity for and the fact of an atone ment, and involve all the consequent positions and negations indicated, but it makes place for itself and its kindred inventions by evicting denials of staple truths. Let us here notice one or more of these kindred. § 63. POSITION THAT GOD AND ALL GOOD BEINGS SHOULD ENTER INTO SYMPATHY WITH, AND GO TO COST FOR, SINNERS, LIMITED. Some who maintain the notion stated concerning repentance, represent that it is the great business of God and all good beings respecting sinners, to enter themselves by voluntary sympathy into their bad condition and woes, and to woo, serve, endure, sacrifice, and put themselves to cost for them, no matter what wrong or enormity of wickedness they may do. They state this without limi tation; and, as far as God is concerned, they represent His doing this as the only atonement He makes. According to the principle as declared, He and they should do this for them the more devot edly, the worse they grow in sin and the deeper they sink in its dfre results. They should do it with superlative zeal for all of highest bad eminence, whose enormities of crime and all wickedness con vulse, torment, debauch, and curse their fellow men! The principle, as they state it, spreads its all-embracing arms around the anti- diluvians, the Sodomites, the Pharaohs, Csesars, Herods, and Judas FALSE SYMPATHY AGAINST TRUE. iol and the murderers of our Lord, the Alvas, the perpetrators of the St. Bartholomew massacre, of the dragoonades, and of all the horrors of the French Revolution, and all the scourges of nations who find their territories gardens and leave them deserts! Whole Amazons and Mississippis of greatest sympathy and cost should be poured on all these and millions like them, impersonated pestilences, earth quakes, famines, deluges, and wars; and, with them, on all the mil lions of monsters of lust and crime, outrage and wrong of every kind; while comparatively only brooks and dwarf rivers of these expenditures should be poured upon the multitudes of their mur dered or living victims of each sex and all ages! Such, in substance, is a fair representation of this principle. Connected with the notion, that the natural consequences of sin are its only retribution, it not only requires God and all good beings to be absolute non-resistants to all bad ones, but to be their everlasting sympathizers and cost- payers in proportion to their wickedness and whole bad condition, as if their sins against God and wrongs or enormities against men were merely their calamities, and the sympathy and cost of God, of all they have wronged or outraged, and of all good beings were only or supremely due to them! and for God to render these to them is atonement! This notion is a tangle of precious truth with hideous error, a mixture of sacred honey with destructive poison. God enters Him self into no sympathy with, and goes to no cost for any grade of sinners, especially those whose vices and crimes make them the pests of mankind, which in the least conflicts with His punishing them exactly as they deserve when the gracious probation He has given expires, as He often begins to do in time. Nor should angels or men. Rather should they enter themselves into thorough sym pathy with all the wronged — with all good beings wronged with them in principle, feelings, and interests — and with God, the benev olent and just Ruler and Guardian of His intelligent creatures, who is transcendently wronged and outraged in all the wrongs and out rages done to them. And, as the magnates in sin and its enormities never, or very rarely, repent, all others on earth and all in heaven should rejoice that they will infallibly receive the retribution they deserve; and all sympathizers with the victims of their crimes rhould put themselves to all requisite cost to bring them to deserved justice on earth. If we trace history, sacred and secular, from its beginning till now, and aggregate into one catalogue all the human monsters ot the successive generations in every part of the world, 102 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. who, as monarchs or rulers of empires, kingdoms, or republics, or those in some way subordinate to or connected with them; or, as conspirators, traitors, rebels, usurpers, tyrants, mighty conquerors, or commanders of armies, or as their subordinates, agents, and tools; or as some Popes, and inquisitors and all persecutors who have blackened its pages with their recorded crimes, vices, and enor mities; and if we notice and realize the measureless evils and mis eries inflicted and caused by each and all of them, male and female, on others, whether on individuals, on a few, on hundreds, on thou- . sands, or on millions — on a single nation, or on many, or even on vast portions of continents— -of brief, or of protracted, continuance, even for centuries, or perpetual — evils and miseries often including incalculable havoc, not only of lives by wars and otherwise, but of treasures, and of the products of the arts and labors of vast popu lations through numerous generations and ages: — if we thus trace, notice, and realize, how, I ask, is it possible that the benevolent and righteous God could enter Himself into any sympathy with, or go to any cost for, the authors of such stupendous crimes and evils, which would in the least conflict with punishing them exactly as they deserve when their probation is ended? or, that angels could, or even the mass of mankind, though consciously sinners themselves? But, besides these magnates in wickedness, there have always been multitudes in inferior spheres equally apostate from all good and rank in vice and criminality — murderers, parricides, matricides, fratricides, killers of wives, of husbands, of offspring, even of embryos, and assassins — pirates, robbers, burglars, thieves, swin dlers, forgers, cheats, gamblers, and such like — liars, deceivers, impostors, slanderers, treacherous dissemblers, perfidious injurers, underminers, hypocrites, perjurers, blasphemers, profane deniers of and scoffers at God and His Gospel, and persecutors — crowds of men and women sunk in all the pollutions and crimes of licentious ness — drunkards and drunkard-makers, and ingrates who repay good with evil. Considering all the crimes and enormities of all such, the destruction of life and well-being they cause, the hosts of their vic tims, the millions of souls blighted and forever ruined by them, the incalculable injury and agony caused to untold millions in time, the countless currents of corruption, degradation, shame, desolation, and despair they originate or make worse, and the impiety and out rage they commit against God and all that is pure, just, and good on earth and in heaven; — and considering, on the other hand, what all these dark legions of men and women would have been to them- SYMPATHY AND COST FOR EVIL BEINGS, LIMITED. 103 selves, to the world, to the whole everlasting society, and to God, if they had lived just and holy lives, and all the souls they would have been agents in saving, of all of which they have robbed God and His loyal society forever in addition to all their acted enormities — ¦ considering all these, by what possibility could God, that society, or even mankind not ot them, so withdraw and alienate sympathy with, and cost for, all their victims, all even of themselves not yet dra°wn beyond recovery into their whirlpools of wickedness, and all liable to be their victims in this world and forever, as to expend these upon them in any sense which would conflict in the least with their subjection to the punishment they deserve when their proba tion is ended, or with such beginnings of it in time as men find it practicable to inflict? But mankind are all sinners, and all sin is opposition to and wrong against God and all His society, being in smaller measure the same in principle, effects, and tendencies as in the appalling measures already considered; and they all deserve punishment according to the degrees of their guilt. Neither God nor other holy beings, therefore, can enter themselves into any sympathy with, nor go to any cost for, any of them, except within the same limits which confine them respecting the worst of the race. For the sympathy intended is not mere natural pity or compassion, which is involun tary, but is voluntary, and the cost intended is an expenditure of effort and sacrifice for its objects to bring them back to obedience to God, and both must terminate towards the incorrigible when their probation ends. A knowledge of the history of the world is a sufficient antidote to all this sentimental invention of sympathy and outlay of cost beyond that bound. The true view of God's real sympathy for mankind will be expanded in the sequel, and we only indicate it here. The rule of its outgo is, that its largest, fullest exercise or current is towards the innocent or least guilty, especially when and in proportion as they are subjected to wrongs and sufferings by others, are beset with temptations, particularly if resisting them, or are compassed about with difficulties and dangers — the more in every case, if they are His children and ask' His interposition in their behalf. But the strength of its outgo towards every worse class diminishes, till, ¦ towards the worst, nothing of it remains but that Divine pity or compassion which His all-perfect nature must feel for them as irre claimable and necessitating the punishment they deserve from Him. This rule is precisely the same for all good beings, and is the one for 104 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. His own and their going to cost for them. Any other rule makes a moral system and moral government impossible. § 64. NO CHANGE OF WILL AND CHARACTER BY OMNIPOTENCE, NO ANNI HILATION, AND THE RADICAL FAULT OF ALL THESE NOTIONS. Before concluding this Chapter, I must glance at two other notions sometimes advanced in opposition to positive future and endless retributive punishment. One of them is, that God will omnipotently change the perverse will and character of those who die in sin to righteous at, or in connection with, death, and make them all blessed forever. As if either sin or obedience which consist in the choices of moral beings which mold each one's character, could possibly be either abolished or created by physical omnipotence, and were not necessarily their own work in complying with or resist ing motives and influences! But, if God can thus change sinners to saints, when dying or dead, by omnipotence, why not while they live? Why did He not so change the first pair immediately after their fall, and before they had offspring, and thus prevent the pro pagation of a race of sinners? Why has He not thus excluded sin and all its measureless train of curses and woes, not only from earth, but from the total universe, and compelled universal holiness and blessedness? What moral system is possible with a principle so preposterous and pernicious to all accountability, according to which, there would be no difference, beyond this life of condition or destiny, between the righteous and the wicked, the best and the worst while in it ? Even the semblance of a probation or plan of redemp tion is out of the question; and it matters not how men live and act before they die. The other notion is, that God will annihilate all the incorrigible, despite the fact that He made them in His own immortal image. Why, then, did He not annihilate the fallen angels when they sinned, and thus prevent all their inconceivable deviltry, especially that which they have done to man? The fact that He did not makes it certain, along with what Scripture teaches respecting their destiny and that of incorrigible human sinners, that He. will not then. Anni hilation of moral natures is plainly abhorrent to His great plan respecting them. But the radical fault of all the notions invented against future and endless punishment, except this last, is, that, by discarding the ethical justice of the law and thus reducing the moral love it requires to a mere personal matter, they reduce sin to the same, and, with it, NO CHANGE OF WILL OR CHARACTER. 105 its penalty to its mere natural consequences. They thus equally reduce the motives to repentance and against sin; and, when their advocates add that sinners will have a probation after death, in which they can repent when they will, they reduce and enervate them to mere trifles, and lead men, set in sin, to go on impenitent through life under the infatuation that they can repent beyond it, and will not be punished before they do. But the adherents of all these fictions constantly assume and assert that, if God should not treat sinners as they teach, but should inflict retributive punishment upon them as they deserve, He would violate some supreme obliga tion, do some stupendous wrong, be heartless and cruel instead of a good being and Father, and would deserve the condemnation and denunciation, instead of the love and honor, of all His rational creatures! — we add, especially of persistent sinners! Hence, if they profess belief in any atonement, it is not in a vicarious one, for this they denounce because it implies retributive justice, but in what they call a moral one, which is none at all, but is intrinsically non- moral and contra-moral. No so-called atonement can be truly moral, which discards positive retributions from God, as demanded by the nature of moral beings, the social and just law dictated by it, and the judicial sentence of conscience, that sin deserves and demands such retribution. These demands require perfect justice to be maintained throughout the universal society, as the conserv ing condition of all true moral love and blessedness in it. The conclusion of the whole preceding discussion is, that, by the law as social and just, and for its end, all sinners must suffer exact retributive punishment according to the measure of each one's actual ill-desert as God sees it. From this, they have no possible way of escape by anything they or any mere creatures in the uni verse can do to retrieve them. "Die they or justice must," both as ethical and as retributive, and both in God Himself and in His uni versal society; and with it all moral love and good in Him and it forever. A substitutional atonement is absolutely necessary as a ground of forgiveness and all salvation for sinners. Without it all mankind are forever lost. CHAPTER VII. Confirmation of the foregoing exposition of the law in moral natures, and of retributions, by the teaching; of both the Testaments of Scripture. God not merely a Father, but has and administers a uni versal moral government. No probation after death. § 65. SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF THE LAW IN THE MORAL NATURE OF MAN, WHAT AND WHAT NOT. The remarkable passage in Rom. 2:14-16 positively teaches, that all Gentiles, and, of course, all mankind, are, by their nature, "a law unto themselves," "showing the work of the law written in their hearts" — that is, that the law in them is essentially identical with that declared and legislatively applied to Israel in the Theocratic government instituted over them. The Apostle's argument, from verse 9 onward, demands this identity, as does the nature of the case. This is plain, if we supply in the passage the word declared or revealed where it is implied. " For when Gentiles, having no [revealed] law, do by nature the things of the [revealed] law, these, having no [revealed] law, are a law unto themselves: Who show the work of the [revealed] law written in their hearts " — that is, not on tables of stone, as that was. The law, then, being thus innate in the spiritual nature of man, is no Kantian imperative without a rule of actjon having a matter and an end, a kind of hook inserted in it, on which each person may suspend any maxim he may deem fit for law universal, thus making him law-maker as to all executive action for himself and the intelligent universe! Nor is it an imperative in each one to do that, and that onlv, which he deems due to his own spiritual excellence or dignity, in which also there is no rule other than his own notion or judgment of what is becoming to himself, and which, therefore, has no social character, enjoins pure egoism, and, like the former, makes him deem his own judgment or action of what is becoming to himself the rule of all executive action for all others. Nor is it an imperative in each to love the true, the beau tiful, and the good for their own sakes. For these are not identical SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF THE LAW. 107 with God and other moral beings; are not ultimate ends of moral action, the first two of them being affirmed by reason, as all first truths are, and the last of them, virtue, being acted for an end beyond itself; are not ends in themselves; cannot consequently be loved for their own sakes; and, if they could, there could be no virtue in so loving them. Nor is it an idea of right, or of any kind, conceived as a rule of action and different from the revealed law; for no idea can be a rule of action or a law, and, if it could, it must be identical with the one law declared in Scripture and written in human hearts. Nor is it a rule for mere utilitarian action. Such action is always determined by judgment; is only a means to accom plish a chosen end or ends, which is or are not otherwise binding; is therefore always merely executive and to be acted only when deemed useful; and is mere prudence. For judgment can prescribe no end, law, or obligation. Moral reason alone prescribes these; and true virtue is willing or choosing its end for what it is in itself accord ing to its law and obligation. Nor is it a rule for mere sentiment or feeling of any kind; for no such rule is possible. They are in them selves involuntary, and there is no law or obligation to them. When the will is submitted to the law, they are attendant incentives to its steadfastness and to benevolent actions; but when it is submitted to their sway, there is no virtue in complying with it, but selfishness, often developed in opposition to law, justice, government, order, and public good. Rejecting all these mutually clashing notions as neither truly psychological nor Scriptural, we believe that there is a truer psychology and a deeper philosophy of man and law, of virtue and sin, and of the way to become and be really virtuous in the Bible, especially in the Epistle to the Romans, than can be found in all the moral philosophies which have been written in any land or age. We believe that, in the teachings of Christ, of His Apostles, taught by Him and the inspiring Spirit, and of all "the holy men of old, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" respecting the law, the guilt of violating it, retributive reward and punishment, the government of God, justice, mercy, faith, and the whole moral condition of man, we have the real truth, and what a correct psy chology will always find substantially in consciousness. What, then, do these unerring teachers tell us respecting the matter, end, and justice of the law, which is written first in all human hearts, and than on the pages of the inspired Book? The substance of the Decalogue is thus declared by our Lord, quoting from Lev. 19:18 and Deut. 6:5 — "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 108 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM.- with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself (Mat. 22:37-40; Mark 12:30,31; Luke 10:27); and He added, that "upon these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" — that is, they embody the essential principle of the whole legislation of God in the Old Testament. He also expresses it as requiring perfect ethical justice in the golden words — "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them" (Mat. 7: 12; Luke 6:31), adding — "This is the law and the prophets." That is, the whole legislation of God in the Old Testament involves the principle of perfect ethical justice, so that all true moral love is required to be just love — a love due from and to each other and to God, and acted in all doings of each towards every other one. In perfect accordance, the Apostle Paul says — "Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: love therefore is the fulfillment of the law" (Rom. 13: 10; see the two preceding verses), thus making it embrace pure ethical justice; and he says again — "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," which love is perfect justice (Gal. 5:14). So runs the whole current of Scriptural teachings respecting the law and obedience to it; and it proves that the law is concrete and social, binding mankind and all moral beings by its intrinsic quality of justice to render its matter of pure moral love to each other equally as to self, and to God abso lutely, for its end of the greatest good of each, and to render this as what is reciprocally due or just, and therefore righteous. As far as this obedient love is moral, it is voluntary and designed, and consists in freely willing or choosing the good of its objects for their sakes. It is unselfish, disinterested, embraces all righteousness; and, because it is just, it is impartial, and, in principle, universal. But, while morally consisting in free action of the will, yet, according to that correlation of faculties with which all rational creatures are consti tuted, it always evokes from the sensibility and expends all con gruous emotions upon its objects; and it directs and molds the thoughts and whole mental action in relation to them. It should be as consummate as possible towards God, and towards our fellow men equally as towards ourselves. The expression "as thyself" shows that each one is required by the law to choose his own good or love himself morally, not selfishly, and, because his love of him self is known to him by his own consciousness, and is thus a con stant medium of knowing that due to others, to make it the measure and standard of that. MORAL LOVE. 109 § 66. NO OTHER VIRTUE THAN MORAL LOVE; THIS THE SAME IN GOD, ANGELS, AND SAINTS. There are those who maintain that love is not the only virtue, and that there are others. If they mean merely instinctive, emo tional, naturally affectional, or sentimental love, they are, in a sense, right; for in neither of these senses is it moral love at all. But, if they mean moral love, which is that required by the law, set forth throughout the Scriptures, and specially asserted in the teachings of Christ and His Apostles, they are certainly mistaken; for one main fact thus rooted and reiterated is, that it is the one only real virtue in itself, the one only obedience to or fulfillment of the law, the one only bond of perfectness, the one only pure ethical justice or righteousness, the one only generic virtue, or right moral heart, out of which all known good acts or doings proceed, and from which no consciously bad ones can, (I. Cor. 13; all the passages quoted above; I. John 3:4-10; and the whole current of Scripture). What could be taught more conclusively than that, besides moral love, there is and can be no other virtue in any moral sense, none which does not spring from it as its vital source, as the branch does from the originating vitalizing trunk ? Do the asserters of other virtues than moral love mean particular species or modes of action which are not included and enjoined in the Thou shalt love of the epitomies of the two tables of the law, both quoted from the Old Testament by our Lord and His Apostles, and which therefore are not done from) but are entirely separate from and independent of, this love? In Rom. 13:8-10, the Apostle distinctly declares that all the command ments of the second table of the law, and, by the nature of the case at least, if not by intention, that all others whatever, which enjoin duties of man to man, are summed up in the epitome of that table, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; " and that "love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." The same thing is clearly taught, at least by necessary implication, in I. Cor. 13, in Gal. 5:14, and in other places. How, then, can there possibly be any other virtues than are included in, or proceed from, this ethical soul of all? " In some fair body thus the informing soul With spirit feeds, with vigor fills the whole, . Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains; ' Itself unseen, but in the effects remains." — Pope, Essay on Criticism, Part I, lines 76-80. Are not " all deeds of the law," all moralities without this either actions of custom, "dead works," or Pharisaic legalities or hypoc- no THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. risies ? It is customary in common use to call different exhibitions of character virtues, some even which are not really moral. In the same way, different modes of acting out and manifesting moral love are and may be called virtues. But they are such, not in themselves apart from this love, but as its fruits or emanations; and all the moral life and worth in them are from it, the mother from God of all specific actions which are of truly right moral quality. Unless it can be shown that there are actions and modes of action which are not required by the law, and not produced and inspired by the love it enjoins, but are wholly apart from and independent of it, and yet are somehow really moral, it is idle to say there are other vir tues besides love. Scripture makes no mistake in its teachings. Such is the law written essentially in the hearts of men, but with clear distinctness in the Scriptures. That it is in the nature of God, they clearly teach. How else could He be love, or good, just, right eous, holy, or merciful? How else could He appeal to Israel to judge whether His ways are equal ur just? — could justice and judg ment be the habitation of His throne ? — could He be a moral nature? — could mankind be such natures by being created in His image ? — could they, by rendering the love required by the law, be perfect even as He is perfect? — could He declare the law, and have a moral government? — or could He deserve praise and glory for His character and whole conduct from all moral beings ? That it is in the nature of angels is shown by the facts, that some of them sinned and are reserved unto judgment; that they are to be judged by the saints; that some of them do the will of God and are holy; that they were commanded to worship our Lord at His advent into the world, and are all made subject unto Him; that they are all ministering spirits [not of dead men] sent forth to minister to the heirs of sr-.lvation; that they are represented as doing God's will in high Providential missions from the antiquities of time to its end; and that they are to be forever associated with the saints around the throne in heaven in worshipping, serving, and praising God and the Lamb. The law is thus the social bond and constitution by which all moral beings, existing and to exist in all futurity, are combined into one grand, universal, everlasting moral system and society. All obedience to this law being social, is that, therefore, to which this whole society has a right from each of its members; and sin is anti-social, as it is injustice and wrong against the whole, an actui.1 robbing it, with God at its head, of its supreme right and due. POSITIVE MORAL GOVERNMENT. xu § 67. GOD HAS A POSITIVE MORAL GOVERNMENT, AND NOT A MERELY PATERNAL ONE. That God has a positive moral government over all created moral beings, or is their Moral Governor and Guardian, as He must be if He has a law, is prodigally taught in the Bible. Very few things are taught in it with greater profusion. . It is as if God fore saw, and, in giving His Word, designed by this profusion to forestall, the attempts of the numbers who are constantly endeavoring to get rid of this radically important fact as somehow inconsistent with His goodness, and are declaring that He is simply a Father, has only a paternal government, and deals with and treats each of His offspring without regard to any rights, claims, dues, interests, or concerns of Himself and of His loyal universal society, as affected by their character and conduct on the one hand, and by His treat ment of them on the other. Constantly harping on this one string of His Fatherhood, and representing His love for mankind as mere natural affection, like that of human fathers, or even mothers, instead of moral conformity to the everlasting social law in both Him and them, they deny, sometimes even contemptuously, that He is a Ruler having a moral government over all, and maintain that His only government over them consists in the self-acting laws of their own nature! As if laws, either natural or moral, ever exe cuted themselves! Accordingly, they deny that, in devising the measure of human redemption, it was any part of His design to secure governmental or social ends for Himself and His loyal society wronged by sinners, and assert that it was solely to win men from sin, and so to save them from the rack of these automatic laws. The train and head of this comet, sweeping for some years past specially athwart the face of the theological heavens, demand each other; and it was for the sake of the train that the head was invented. But so insubstantial and tenuous are they both, that all the everlasting lights in those heavens shine through them, as through gauze, bright still to all clear-seeing eyes; and, when soon the gauze shall have flitted away, those all-glorious lights will appear brighter than ever before. How adverse to the psychological facts concern ing the law written in the heart the tenuous vagrant is, we believe we have shown; that it is equally adverse to revelation we hope to show in the sequel. It is certainly surprising that the assumption that God is the Father of mankind as His creatures, and especially in sin, should be arrayed against the doctrine that He is the Moral Governor of all rational creatures; for neither is there a shadow of 112 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. contradiction between the two, if the assumption were true as made, nor is it affirmed in Scripture that it is true. What does it teach on these two points? § 68. THAT GOD IS THE FATHER OF MANKIND AS CREATURES NOT TAUGHT IN THE SCRIPTURES. In the first place, this assumption has no support in the Old Testament. Should any point to Mai. 2:10 — "Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us?" — as supporting it, the reply is, the context shows that the prophet asked these questions with reference, not to mankind generally, but to the Jews only, as God's peculiar people; and, besides that, according to Hebrew parallelism, the term in the first question, is used as parallel to "God created" in the second. Essentially similiar are all other instances in the Old Testament, in which God is called the Father (Deut. 32:6; Is. 63:16; 64:8; Jer. 3:4, 19; 31:9, and Mai. 1:6). In the second place, it can only be assumed as implied in three passages in the New Testament. The first of these is Luke 3:38, in which the evangelist closes his ascending genealogy of Christ by saying that Adam "was the son of God." He certainly does not mean that he was the son of God by physical generation as Scth was of Adam, or as any other one of the descending line was of his father, nor in any other way than that he was created by God in His own image and after His own likeness, and He was therefore God's son only in the figurative sense that he was His creature, as all his descendants are equally His creatures. The second of these is in our Lord's Parable of the Lost Son (Luke 15:11-32), in which the relation of God to two classes of mankind, those who, having for saken Him and sunk into grossest immoralities and vices, are brought to return to Him truly repentant, and those who, like the self-righteous Pharisees, claim to have been always righteous and to need no repentance, is represented by that of a human father to two sons, such as are described. From this representation, it is inferred by some that He implies that God is the Father of all men in the literal sense in which a human father is of his children, overlooking the fact that God is simply man's Creator literally (Gen. 1:26, 27), and his Father only figuratively by the nature of the case. The point of the analogy is, that the tenacious, merciful love of the human father pictured towards his lost son, and his welcoming reception of him when he returned repentant, illustrate, not the physical paternity, but the tenacious, merciful love of God towards Cod's Manifested loVE. 113 human sinners as His creatures, and His welcoming reception of all of them who return to Him truly repentant; while the course of the human father towards the elder son, whose whole conduct and spirit showed him the contrary of what he assumed and claimed to be, in taking him on his own ground to show him his perverseness and to bring him out of it, illustrates the course of God toward those Pharisees and all like them, whose whole conduct towards Himself and repentant sinners proved them the contrary of what they assumued and claimed to be, in forbearingly taking them, as it were, on their own ground to show them their perverseness and to bring them to repentance along with the publicans and sinners. The illustration neither asserts nor Implies the absurdity of the natural Fatherhood of God, nor proves anything in its favor; but, as it was intended to do, it wonderously represents His merciful love towards mankind despite all their sins, but especially to all of them who return to Him in true repentance. The third of these is Acts 17:28, 29, in which the Apostle Paul quotes from the Greek poet Aratus the words — "For His offspring" [or race, as we prefer] " we are; " and, assuming that his hearers agreed with the quotation, he went on to argue from it, as if their own ground, against their idolatry. Neither it nor his use of it signifies that God is the Father of mankind in a natural or physical sense, or in any other than that He is their Creator, which is the only natural meaning it can have. There is no other Scriptural passage on which this assumption can even seemingly rest. Why this extremely parsimonious use of even the analogy there is between God's Creatorship and human father hood? We believe, to avoid furnishing even a seeming basis to sentimentalist preachers and others for attempting to get rid of the fundamental truth that God is a Moral Governor by arraying against it this fancy of His natural Fatherhood of mankind, with only a Father's government or lack of one over them. They thus attenu ate and debase in conception the consistence of His love from moral to natural, from designed, voluntary, and social towards all to merely emotional, affectional, and sympathetic towards each. The climax of this attenuation and debasement is capped by the folly of the motherhood of God. § 69. GOD'S MANIFESTED LOVE AND CHARACTER AS A MORAL GOVERNOR UNAPPROACHED BY WHAT THEY WOULD BE, WERE HE MERELY A FATHER. Obviously, this notion of the literal or natural Fatherhood of God to mankind, instead of being a conviction based on clear, per- 114 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. tinent evidence, is merely a tenet invented and adopted without such evidence for an end beyond itself, and in antagonism to the invincible fact and truth that He is a Moral Governor over all His rational creatures; and the reason for the antagonism is in the law He administers. The holders of this notion antagonize the law both on account of the action it requires and of the penal retribu tion it threatens for sin. The action it requires is pure moral love from each to God and every other one; and it requires this as justice to God and every other one. It is its quality of justice which con stitutes it bindingly social, so that the love it requires is owed by each to God and every other one, and is due from every other one, even God, to each who has not forfeited the right to it. All action contrary to this love is, in principle, necessarily in violation of the rights of God and all others, and is thus universal, everlasting, measureless wrong, injustice, and injury to Him and all others; and this quality of justice, as retributive, demands that each sinner shall be positively punished by God exactly according to his ill-desert, as He sees it, when the time of retribution comes. If God is a Moral Governor, and maintains His law and government, He must infal libly thus punish all sinners, unless He can retrieve them by a redemptive measure, containing an atonement. If He does not, He necessarily treats the law, obedience, and sin as trifles; prac tically abolishes the universal moral system with all its order and well-being, and brands the very constitution of moral natures, in which that system is founded, as only to be disregarded and tram pled upon; makes nothing of all the violations of the rights and dues, natural and moral, and the interests and concerns of Himself and others done by sinners; and, by thus virtually sanctioning all the wrong, injustice, and injury of all these violations by every one since Adam fell, evinces Himself infinitely more unjust and injur ious than all of them together, and shows that He is neither a right eous nor a good being. Hence, the absolute necessity for the mission and atoning death of Christ in order to the salvation of any; and the fact of the manifested love of God, of the Father in giving His only-begotten Son to meet this necessity, of the Son in coming and doing it, and of the Holy Spirit in performing all His part in accomplishing this unparalleled measure of Godhead. The love of God thus manifested for human sinners immeasurably surpasses, not only all His other manifestations of it which have ever been made, but any that He could possibly make of it, if His relations to them were those of a merely literal Father, and not of a Moral GOD'S MANIFESTED LOVE. 115 Governor. There is nothing moral in such Fatherhood, nor in mere natural affection for offspring, since, whether paternal or maternal, it is simply instinctive or natural in human as well as in all inferior animal parents, just as filial affection to parents also is; and there is nothing done from it, however beautiful or lovely to see, by creaturely parents of any'species, nor could there be by God, which approaches comparison with the excellence and glorious beauty of truly moral action and manifestation. For God to create mankind and other moral beings must necessarily be, not only moral action, but of its highest kind; for it was to make living miniature images and likenesses of Himself, having the same kind of spiritual, intellectual, moral, sensitive, and voluntary nature as His own; endowed with moral reason, which, by containing and affirming the law, renders each of them a moral being, and under a natural neces sity of acting morally and responsibly in all his relations to other such beings and to Himself; it was to constitute a universal moral system embracing with Himself, by a necessity of their nature, all His intelligent creatures; it was to assume towards them absolute obligations to govern them all according to the law in their reason and the universal moral system constituted by it, and not according to any mere sentimental, simply personal, sympathies; and it was to do and to assume to do all this, knowing perfectly that sin would invade the universal and eternal moral society with all its train of curses, all the inconceivable havoc it would work among mankind and others of it, and the stupendous cost it would bring on Himself to retrieve even a part of them from its destructive power. To ereate such beings was therefore incomparably the greatest and grandest of the works of God, the one of matchlessly highest design, highest end, highest nature, highest wisdom, highest creative power, the one for which all the others were done, the sole one of moral kind among them, and, of such kind, the fundamental and the consummate one of all others ever done or to be done by Him even in executing the redemptive measure through all its parts and stages. It is as certain, then, as that He created all moral beings, and as that, by their moral nature with its law, they are in a universal moral system, that He is, in the strictly normal sense of the words, Moral Governor over them all. By creating them what and related as they are, He necessarily created an infinite obligation and responsibility upon Himself to each and all of them, while without sin, not only to govern them, but to do so exactly as pure moral reason, the law, and the universal moral system demand. It would be infinite injustice in Him, if He did not. n6 the Moral law and system. § 70. THAT GOD IS FATHER OF MANKIND LITERALLY IS ABSURD, AND THAT HIS GOVERNMENT IS ONLY PATERNAL IS DEGRADING TO IT AND HIM. The relation of God to mankind as the Originator of their being with all its essential qualities is the same to all other moral beings; and not Father, but Creator is the only term which does or can express it. The term Father, in its literal sense of begetter or generator, is not synomymous with Creator; and it is purely absurd to apply it to Him in that sense, or otherwise than figuratively in reference to His relation to mankind as their Creator. He can figuratively be called their Father, to indicate His affectionate interest in them, in entire consistency with the real fact that He is their Moral Ruler and must govern and treat them every one pre cisely as the universal law and moral system demand. But when He is called their Father in opposition to and rejection of this whole real fact, the term is necessarily used literally, and therefore absurdly. Literally He is not the Father of mankind; but He is incomparably more, their Creator, who has in Him all the amazing affection for them demonstrated by what He has done and sacrificed in His whole redemptive measure, especially in the incarnation and atonement of His Son, in connection with His eternal law and gov ernment over them, and the universal and everlasting moral system. But the asserters of this literal Fatherhood are such in opposition to this moral system, to the law with its justice, and to its administra tion. They want a God too good to have and execute such a law, and to maintain such a system of as perfect universal justice fulfilled by holy love as possible! — one who will treat His own law, not as such, authoritative and absolutely binding on all with proportional sanctions, but merely as an unauthoritative ideal rule of action, per fect, but not to be enforced as practical! — a Father, therefore, with will free from it to follow His mere feelings of affection for His sin ning children, and to deal with each of them regardless of others, and of all their and His own rights, dues, interests, and concerns outraged by him, and of the universal, everlasting, moral system, founded in all moral natures, but fundamentally in His own! It ought to decide against this notion, to look at what must be true, if it is, in contrast with what must be true, if God is a Moral Governor over all His rational creatures. 1. If it be true, and God is not a Moral Governor who, at the time of final reckoning, will deal with every sinner as all the rights, dues, interests, and concerns of all Others and Himself, which have been violated by him, and as the god's Fatherhood. 117 law in all moral natures and the universal and eternal moral system demand for perfect maintenance, then the following, among many other things, must be true: — He is in antagonism to His own and all the moral natures He has made; to the law in and from them, and declared by Him; and to all the intuitions and affirmations of moral reason and conscience connected with the law and with obedience to it and sin, specially as to natural and moral rights and dues, obligations and debts, good-desert and ill-desert, accountability and retributions of both reward and punishment: — He makes no account of either obedience or sin, except as it concerns its actor, and him only as the one benefits or the other injures him, and is regardless of all the evils, injuries, and miseries caused, and the sins, vices, crimes, and enormities committed by sinners: — And, if judged by the standard of the law, He cannot be just, righteous, benevolent, nor good, but must be the opposite, His whole character as a right eous and good Being being swallowed up and lost in this invented, non-moral, sentimental, literal notion of the paternity of God to all mankind — "A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog, * * * where armies whole have sunk." 2. But, if God is a Moral Governor, and will, in the final reckoning, deal with every sinner, not saved by grace, precisely as His own and all created moral natures, as the universal, unchangeable law and moral system, as all the intuitions and affirmations indicated, and as eternal justice in the law and moral system, as all these with all they involve demand, then He is absolutely just and good, the exactly righteous Moral Governor over His whole intelligent universe. Such are these two alterna tives; and they demonstrate the absolute necessity for the atone ment of Christ in order to the salvation of any human sinner. §71. THE SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF GOD'S FATHERHOOD, AND OF HIS REAL CHILDREN. It is only of the regenerated of mankind, or the truly religious, that God is declared in Scripture to be, and to offer to be, the Father; and of course he is the Father of such, not as their Creator. nor in any natural sense, but in a spiritual and moral or religious sense. Such only can from the heart truly say — " Our Father, who art in heaven" (Mat. 6:9). "But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" [John 1:12, 13). "Wherefore, come ye out from among them, n8 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be to you a Father, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty " (II. Cor. 6:17, 18). "For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26;. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God" (Rom. 8:14. See also verses 15, 16). So runs the whole current of Scriptural teaching as to those to whom God is a Father, and those who are His children. As to others in contrast, see Mat. 13:38; John 8:37-44; and I. John 3:8-10. § 72. MEANING OF THE WORD GOD, AND WHAT THE SCRIPTURES TEACH RESPECTING HIM AS MORAL GOVERNOR. What now do the Scriptures teach as to whether God is a moral Governor over mankind, and all intelligent creatures? Not only do they positively teach that He is one, but they do so in every variety of way and most aboundingly. It is important to notice that the very word God includes governing in its meaning. In Webster's Dictionary, under this word, after referring to it in some half a score of branches or varieties of the Teutonic language, the writer says — "As this word and good are written exactly alike in Anglo-Saxon, it has been inferred that God was named from His goodness. But the corresponding words in most of the other lan guages are not the same, and it is believed no instance can be found of a name given to the Supreme Being from the attribute of goodness. It is probably an idea too remote from the rude conceptions of men in early ages. With the exception of the word feliovah, the name of the Supreme Being appears usually to have reference to His supremacy or power, and to be equivalent to lord or ruler. In the present case, there is some evidence that this is the sense of this word; for, in Persian, goda, or khoda, signifies lord, master, prince, or ruler." Under No. 2 of its specific meanings, he gives — "The Supreme Being; the eternal and infinite Spirit, the Creator and the Sovereign of the universe; Jehovah." So, in Hebrew, Elohim, which is the name of God as Creator, Upholder and Controller of all things and beings, signifies strength, almightiness, the Author, Controller, and Ruler of all things and creatures; while Jehovah designates Him as the specially revealed, eternally existing God of redemptive providence, grace, and salvation. The word God, there fore, is a correct translation of the word Elohim, both having the main functional meaning in relation to moral beings of controlling, ruling, governing them as such. Absolute moral rulership is in MEANING OF THE WORD GOD. 119 every generic idea of God, and is so prominent in a large number of Scripture passages, that it is impossible not to receive from them a profound sense of His sovereign majesty and universal moral government. The Scriptures superabundantly teach both directly and by implications, that God is a Moral Governor, and sovereignly requires from men and all intelligent creatures perfect obedience to His law. as known or knowabl'e by them, under the sanctions of deserved retributions of rewards for it, or punishments for disobedience. To prove this, we need not quote nor even refer to all the passages which so teach, but to a proportion of them sufficiently large to evince the momentous importance to mankind of this sovereign function of God towards them, and of their knowledge of the fact that He exercises it over them. We adduce them in separate groups according to the special points they inculcuate: — 1. He is called Lord, which properly means ruler or governor, hundreds of times; and much the most frequently it has or includes this legitimate sense. It is applied to God as one, and to the Father and the Son. For proof, see Cruden's, Young's, or any full Concordance. 2. In I. Tim. 6:15, He is called "the blessed and only Potentate," imply ing that, in the absolute sense, He is the only real one in the uni verse. 3. In the same verse is added "King of kings, and Lord of lords." See same titles in Rev. 19:16; also in changed order in Rev. 17:14. In 15:3, He is called "King of the ages." In I. Tim. 1:17, He is called "the King eternal, immortal, invisible;" and, in all, He is called King about thirty-five times. 4. A throne, the official seat of a king, and so the symbol of sovereign majesty and government, is ascribed to Him in the heavens, or as heaven itself, about seventy times. 5. Majesty is ascribed to Him some fifteen times. 6. He is represented as reigning over all mankind and all moral beings about fifteen times. 7. Also, as ruling mankind twelve times. 8. Also as doing His sovereign will universally three times. 9. Also as having universal and everlasting dominion about ten times. 10. Also, as having a kingdom over mankind and all intelli gent beings more than a dozen times, besides scores of passages which speak of the kingdom of God, and of heaven, in the Gospel sense, it. Also as a laiv-giver, able to save and to destroy. 12. Accordingly, He has declared His law (1) in the moral nature or reason of man, and all His rational creatures (see Rom. 1:18-32; 2:6-15, 26, 27); and (2) He has added to man an objective, inspired declaration both of its essential principle and of a vast number of 120 THE MORAL LAW AND SYSTEM. its applications to them in all their relations to each other and to Himself — this declaration of it being made indispensably necessary by their extremely defective knowledge of it in both the respects mentioned, caused by their moral depravity and corruption. 13. He has declared the sanctions of His law, of both reward and pun ishment, and that He will administer them in exact accordance with the good or ill desert of every moral actor for his deeds done during this life. We have shown that universal conscience attests that He will administer positive retributions, distinct from, and in addition to, all the natural consequences of moral action; and we now proceed to point out what the Scriptures teach respecting this radical point. We indicate only part of their teachings on this point, and request readers to turn to and read the passages referred to: — (1) God will reward or punish every moral actor, except sinners forgiven on the 'basis of Christ's atonement, strictly according to his deserts for his works or deeds done in this life. This is His absolute rule of retribution (II. Sam. 3:39; Job 34:11; Ps. 62:12; Prov. 24:12; Is. 3:10, 11; Jer. 17:10; 32:19; Ez. 7:27; Mat. 16:27; Rom. 2:6-10; II. Cor. 5:10; I. Pet. 1:17; Rev. 2:23; 20:12, 13; 22:12). (2) He will do this conclusively in the day of judgment (Eccl. 12:14; Mat. 7:21-23; i3:4°-43> 47-5°; 16:27; 25:31-46; Luke 13:23-30; John 5:27-29; Rom. 2:5-11, 16; 14:10-12; I. Cor. 4:5; II. Cor. 5:10; II. Thess. 1:6-10; Heb. 10:26-31; II. Pet. 2:4-10; 3:7). (3) Penal retributions to which the wicked will then be consigned. First, those awaiting the wicked angels (Mat. 25:41, 45; II. Pet. 2:4; Jude 6). Second, those awaiting wicked men— (tz) They will not enter into, but will be forever shut out of the kingdom of heaven (Mat. 5:20; 7:21-23; 8:11, 12; 13:41, 42, 47-5°i 25:1-12, 14-30, 34-41; Mark 9:47; Luke 13:25-28; I. Cor. 6:9, 10; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph. 5:5) — (b). They will not enter into the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:27; 22:IS) — (0- They will be cast into "outer darkness" (Mat. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30; II. Pet. 2:17; Jude 13 — ( DICTATE TO THE DEMAND. 227 each excited by an occasion. That of the first of them was foreseen sin or sinners; that of the second was the fact of the first against them, and was to rescue them from suffering its execution; and, when, at the final judgment, the former shall be executed upon all of them found incorrigible, the latter of them will cease forever- more. From their beginning to their end, the relation between them is never reversed nor reversible. The demand for punitive retrib utive justice upon sinners is always and necessarily antecedent to and the occasion of the dictate to exercise mercy; so that mercy is always subordinate to and restricted by that demand, and that must therefore be perfectly met and satisfied before this can act effectively for its objects. One solid, invincible reason is, that retributive justice guards all the rights, dues, interests, and concerns of the whole eternal, ever-augmenting, obedient society, and of God as its Ruler, which are immeasurably greater and more momentous ends, than those of mercy to any number of sinners; and to exercise this to them without first satisfying the demand of that against them would be to sacrifice all these of that society for the incomparably less good of that doubtless incomparably less number. It would be universal, absolute injustice, utterly subversive and destructive of that entire moral society and system; and we know of nothing said or written concerning the relation between justice and mercy more alien and adverse to either theological or ethical truth and discrim ination than the following excerpts, among others which might be found in the same Work and Chapter — " Having much to say about justice, as an exact doing upon wrong of what it deserves, we begin to imagine that justice goes by desert, both in its rules and meas ures, and thinks of nothing else. It follows, of course, that justice lets go being just, exactly as it falls below the scale of desert in its executed penalties." * "In some sense we have two [dispensations], viz., justice and mercy; but it does not appear that there is any pri ority of time in one as related to the other, or that both are not introduced to work together for one common result." f "Then, by the supposition, justice may have taken away the chances and in fringed the rights of mercy, as truly as mercy can have violated the rights of justice; when if compensations are to be made, the mercy- impulse of God's feeling has as good right to compensation from his justice, as that from his mercy. For his mercy is as old as his justice, and began as soon, and is a character certainly not less dear (*) Bushnell's V. S., Part III., Chap. HI., pp. 267, 8. (t) Do p. 271. 228 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. or sacred. Justice, too, may as fitly groan for the pacification of mercy, as mercy for the pacification of justice."* "God nowhere signifies that he has given up the world to the prior right of justice, and that mercy shall come in, only as she pays a gate-fee for the right of entrance."! What a muddle! What a void of analysis, discrimination, definitions, and clear views of the real meanings of the main terms of the discussion, and of their necessary relations! But what better could consist with the anti-social, anti-moral, law- annulling, God-dethroning, conscience- contradicting, naturalistic absurdity, that the natural consequences of sin are its only punish ment, and that God will inflict no positive retributions. The Scriptural doctrine as to the relation of the demand of retributive justice against, and the dictate of mercy towards, man kind has always been, in substance, this: — In accordance with God's foreknowledge and plan, when the first human pair sinned, instead of immediately executing the demand of retributive justice upon them, at the dictate of His mercy He devised the redemptive meas ure for them and their race until He saw it would be best to end this. Through that whole time, the execution of that demand against them was to remain for them entirely suspended during this life; and mercy, with her darling daughter grace, attended and aided all along by all best providences, both disciplinary and beneficent, and working with or against the natural consequences of all moral action, good or bad, which follow no rule whatever of justice or desert, has constantly had them under her benign tutelage, doing all and the very best for them that could be done through all their generations. Retributive justice has been no co-factor or co-agent with her in that tutelage, except as certified to all men by the prophet conscience, and to all who have the Word of God by its foretellings, to resume its long-suspended immediate relation to all the incorrigible despite all mercy's intervention to rescue and save them. No, as retributive, justice sprung instantly forward with its demand "at completing of the mortal sin original," but, by Divine behest, with assurance of perfect satisfaction, forthwith withdrew or stood aside, leaving the whole run of the race to mercy, with her daughter and all her attendants indicated, who took all possible possession of the field with all the agencies, means, and methods ot infinite wisdom, including the incarnate, atoning Christ and all the gifts He secured for men, with this present life as a time of gracious (*) Do p. 275. i\\ Do n. 276. ATONEMENT, GOD, MAN. 229 probation, or opportunity for reconciliation with God and eternal redemption, which is an incomparably higher, richer view of mercy than any jumbling, co-factor notion can possibly permit. All denial of positive retributive justice equally derogates from mercy; and, with natural consequences as the only retributions, God can exercise none in remitting or forgiving them. Whoever fights justice, fights mercy; the slaughter of justice is that of mercy; and never were truer lines written than those of the poet Young respecting the deniers in his day of God's retributive justice, who made His mercy mere good-natured indifference that would not punish: — " They set at odds Heav'n's jarring attributes, And with one excellence, another wound; Maim Heaven's perfection, break its equal beams, Bid mercy triumph over— God himself, Undeified.by their opprobrious praise: A God all mercy is a God unjust." — Night IV. § 125. POINTS CONNECTED WITH THE SUBJECT OF THE ATONEMENT RESPECTING BOTH GOD AND MAN. To the preceding discussion concerning the relation of the two cardinal points of justice and mercy, we here fitly append brief state ments of some other points essentially involved in the subject of the atonement. As to what must be true on the side of God, we notice the following: — 1. In the nature of the case, the measure of the atonement must have been purely God's own device, and was one which He only could execute. All other moral beings are His creatures and under His government, and are therefore wholly incapable of either devis ing or executing one. On account of His infinite nature, attributes, excellence of character, and relations to all as their Creator and Ruler, He must be absolutely responsible to His own conscience and to the everlasting holy society, all inter-bound by their natures in a moral system with Him, to govern it in perfect ethical justice or moral love to Himself and all in it according to His own and their natural and moral rights to such a government. As the atone ment is a measure for sinners against Him and that society, and is, therefore, directly related to His government, He only can originate and execute it; and He must do so in perfect consistency with ethical justice to Himself and that society. This justice must, like an insur mountable, adamantine wall, forever shut out all favor to sinners which does not consist with and confirm it as the supreme right, interest, and concern of Himself and all its members. For, it must forever be, not only " the point where all interests meet and balance, 230 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. those of God and those of all other" moral beings, but the bond that ties Him and all to the perfect reciprocities of the love required by the eternal law; and never, while He and they have rights, dues, interests, and concerns, natural and moral, can it cease to be the standard and measure of that love, and thus the Divine vase to hold it for Him and them. As retributive, it is the measure of all rewards owed by and due to Him and all holy beings in eternal mutuality, and of all the punishments to be inflicted by God on sinners at the final judgment. It is thus an eternal defence of all the holy against them and all the pernicious results of their sin and its prolific and ever- varying modes of outward action and manifestation. 2. The impulse in God's sensibility to make an atonement for human sinners was doubtless the deepest feeling that ever occupied it. It was measureless pity or sympathy for them in their lost con dition as He saw it, both as under the necessity by the law in Him self and them of suffering the punishment demanded by retributive justice, and as wholly incapable of restoration from sin and its natural consequences to the love enjoined by the law and its natural consequences by any efforts of themselves or of any other creatures for them, or even by any of Himself, except by making an atonement for them, by which to meet the demand of retributive justice against them, and to provide agencies and instrumentalities necessary to restore any of them to love and obedience to Him. He foreknew all it would cost Him of self-denial and self-sacrifice to make it, but also that, on the one hand, it would be a vastly less evil, and, on the other, an immeasurably greater good, to Himself and all holy beings, including all He could thus redeem, than the perdition of all, or even of the part, of mankind He saw He could save by it. His infinite reason therefore accorded with His infinite pity, and He accordingly zvilled to make it, and thus to save as many as He saw could be brought by all that He could consistently do to fulfill the ethical conditions necessary to their forgiveness on its ground. His sensibility, intelligence, and will thus perfectly concurring, consti tuted His heart towards them, which is one of pure mercy and grace — mercy, the disposition to do all possible to save them, con sistent with the indefeasible demand of retributive justice against them, and grace, the disposition to give and to offer to give them while yet sinners, notwithstanding their sins and ill-desert, all gifts and favors prompted by mercy, and consistent with their rela tions to Cod anil holy beings, and, to all of them who yield to the required conditions, all the measureless additional ones promised MEDIATORSHIP OF OUR LORD. 231 in the inspired Word. But, because mercy and grace are in no sense due to them by any obligation of justice upon God, and are exercised by Him towards them to rescue them, from the demands of retributive justice against them, which nothing less than the atonement could deliver them from, they are necessarily restricted by those demands until they are in fact or fixed design met and moved out of the way. When this is done, all obstruction to the exercise of these towards human sinners is suspended till their gracious probation has ended, and they are free to pour their ex- haustless riches upon the successive generations, unhindered except by their resisting depravity and the counterworking of Satan. As God's pity for them must have been vastly the strongest sympathetic feeling that ever occupied His sensibility, so His wisdom in devising a measure to be a perfect ground for His forgiving them on con dition of their true ethical return to Him, and His exercising all grace towards them consistent with the everlasting rights, dues interests, and concerns of Himself and all holy beings, as ethical justice demands, must have been incomparably greater than in devis ing the whole material universe and all the orders of creatures. So also the determination of His will to execute it must equally have transcended in exertion of will-power any other ever made by Plim, both on account of the infinite self-denial and self-sacrifice it would cost Him, and of its intrinsic and fundamental importance to Him, to all holy beings, to mankind, and especially to all of them who will be saved by it. For on that Divinely prepared ground would be rooted, grow, and flourish the only spiritual life-tree for mankind with all its fruits of salvation and joy; whose glorious branches would spread far beyond them to the whole universe of created holy beings, and would bear for them endless, measureless augmentation of knowledge of God's character, of the absolute justice of His love to themselves, and His mercy to human sinners to the immense- ness of amplitude that justice permits, of their own satisfaction from the numbers of these sinners redeemed and added to their everlasting holy society, and of all their good and blessedness, while it would bear for God Himself endless and boundless pleasure and glory. § 126. DEVICE OF THE INCARNATION AND MEDIATORSHIP OF OUR LORD, AND ERRORS CONCERNING THEM. 3. We have shown the origin of the demand of retributive justice against mankind as sinners, and that of the dictate of mercy 232 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. towards them. To these antiquities in God's mind, was forthwith added from the pressure of pity and the dictate of mercy the device by Him of the redemptive measure for the ruined race. The funda mental requisite in this device was an atonement for the sins of the world; and the fundamental requisite for making it was the incar nation of the second Person of the Godhead, as Scripture surely teaches.* Not only is there not in all Scripture even a hint that our Lord would ever have become incarnate, if mankind had all remained forever obedient, but in the passages referred to, it is directly taught, and, in others, it is plainly implied, that the principal, transcendent end of the incarnation, that upon which all its other ends and uses in this world and the heavenly one depended, was that He might ''have somewhat to offer" (Pleb. 8:3), and be thus able to make an atonement, a propitiation for the sins of the whole world. It was as the rewarding result of finishing the work which His Father gave Plim to clo by His atoning sufferings and death, that He prayed His proleptical High-Priestly prayer for His own eternal glorification with Him, as risen from the dead, still and forever to be incarnate, and for that of all believers to be with Him in a union so complete that they will constitute, in a profound sense, His body."}" As there is no warrant in Scripture for supposing that our Lord would ever have been incarnated, if our race had never sinned, so neither is there, even the least, that He ever has been or will be a Mediator between God and any other beings than mankind. The Greek noun, /leairr/c, mediator, is used in the New Testament four times to designate Christ — in I.Tim. 2:5; Heb. 8:6; 9:15; 12:24; — and its meaning in all the cases is, that He executes the function between God and human sinners of one who interposes between hostile or adverse parties to bring them into reconciliation. In Gal. 3:19, it designates Moses as discharging essentially the same function; and, in verse 20, signifies only that a mediator is necessarily between at least two parties. There is no Greek verb which means to mediate in the New Testament. It is therefore simply futile and worse, as well as to misuse language, to make our Lord's mediator/ship consist in, or include anything else than, His acting between God and man, in their opposition produced by man's sin, to effect their reconcili ation, which acting was mainly in His priestly function of making atonement for their sins and His intercessions to Cod for them; or (*) Mat. 20:28; John 3:10, 17; 1. John 4:.), 16; Gal. 4:4, 5; Phil. 2:6-8; Heb. 2:9, 14 17; 9:11, 12, 26; 10:5-10; I. l'ct. I:lS 20. (*) John 17; Epli. 1:20-23. IF MAN HAD NOT SINNED. 233 to say that He mediates in any other way than in so acting between these two parties, God and man. Scripture knows nothing whatever of "the mediation of Christ in its universal character," or "His mediating God to the entire universe." His mediating is just as universal as mankind and God, and no more so. Creating is, in no sense, mediating; nor is His upholding or causing the consistence of the universe of things; nor is His revealing or manifesting any thing; nor is "communicating" anything "into finite existences." All such notions of Christ's mediatorship are not only groundless, but are, and necessarily produce, " confusion worse confounded." Distinct actings and things must be kept distinct in mind. Invented, supposititious meanings of words and facts are no less perversive and no more allowable in theology than in any other science, or than counterfeit coin in a nation's currency. The Scriptural truth is, that, if God had not foreseen the lapse and sin of our race, and the demand of retributive justice for their punishment, He would never have experienced the dictate of mercy; nor, moved by it, have devised and purposed the plan and measure of redemption; nor, in purposing it, have foreordained the incarnation and redeem ing death of Christ.* § 127. NO END OF IMPORTANCE ATTAINABLE BY THESE, IF MAN HAD NOT SINNED. The incarnation and mediatorship of Christ are fundamental constituents of the measure of redemption; and this is as exclusively for our race of sinners as its direct objects, as a remedial prepara tion is for the sick. We must assume both of these constituents of that stupendous measure and mystery of God's justice and mercy as thus wholly confined to it; and to assume that either of them would have been effected, though mankind had never sinned, is essentially to derogate from and depreciate the intrinsic nature and the special relation to man of that whole measure. For, as it respects such an incarnation, although it would be in human nature, it would be for the benefit, not of mankind only, but of the whole universe of the obedient alike. How for thfeir benefit ? or for what benefit to them alike? Is it said, for an organ and medium of revealing and manifesting Himself to them? We ask again, reveal ing and manifesting what of Himself? Surely not that He exists; for they would universally know that without such a medium. Surely (*) I. Pet. 1:18-20; Acts 2:23; Eph. 3:9, 11; Col. 1:26; II, Tim. 1:9, 10; Titus 1:2, 3; Rev. 13:8; Rom- 16:25, 26. 234 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. not that Pie is the Creator and Upholder of all things, including themselves; nor that He is a moral Being, and that they are the same; nor that they are in a universal moral society and system. with Him as its Ruler, to whom they are responsible and account able; for there would not be an agnostic, nor a blind infidel among them, nor one without at least a concrete knowledge of the essen tials of the moral system. Surely not that He is ethically just to them in being retributively just in punishing sinners; for this is moral common sense, when the case and terms are understood. Surely not that He is merciful and gracious to any degree; for there would be no sinners, except those apostate angels who were beyond mercy, and therefore none to whom to act or manifest it. And surely not that He so loved the nature and proper good of such sinners as mankind are, despite all their hostility and guilt, as to devise and execute the whole measure of redemption, connected with and dependent upon the incarnation, for their salvation — all the infinite humiliation, self-denial, and self-sacrifice of the Son under the law and in human relations, in all His atoning sufferings and death on the cross, and of the Father in His part towards His only- begotten and well-beloved Son in sending and giving Him to fulfill all the part He did among men, and in not sparing, but freely deliv ering Him to suffer and die on the cross for them as He did; for nothing of all this measureless mercy and grace to such sinners would be possible, as there would be none. What a dream is the supposed revealing and manifesting effect of such an incarnation? Besides, as it would be in human nature, unfallen, and in its relations and conditions, and would be revealing and manifesting to mankind, if anything at all concerning Himself, only more clearly the per fection of His character, as it could be disclosed to and appre hended by the obedient generations, and as it would be vacant of all the exhibitions of justice and judgment, or of mercy and grace, wisdom and goodness, which He has actually exercised and made towards them as sinners, how could it possibly have any such supposed effect on other orders of moral beings, existing or to exist? It does not seem to us, that the angels would have much " desire to look into it," as disclosing anything remarkable about God's character, or that it would be to them more than a noteworthy curiosity in His course towards men! "Progressive orthodoxy" must not imitate that crustacean animal which so readily progresses backward. Plainly, these notions of the incarnation and mediatorship of Christ must greatly impair the reason and sense of gratitude to God, TRUTHS ON THE SIDE OF GOD. 235 Father, and Son, in mankind, in respect to them and the redemp tive system. As to " difficulty in believing that, but for this insig nificant earth, the most glorious revelation of God might not have been given at all," see Discourse IV. of Dr. Chalmer's Astronomical Discourses, and the Scriptures he appends to it. § 128. OTHER TRUTHS ON THE SIDE OF GOD. 4. God is one being; but, if only one Person, He could not make an atonement. As Scripture certainly teaches, He exists as three Persons in one being or spiritual substance.* 5. Scripture also teaches that the incarnation of the second Person was a necessary prerequisite to God's making an atonement. By this, that Person became the representative of our race, to act for it in all things, and so its substitute in His atoning sufferings and death; and it is by being such that He became and is the " one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all." 6. In order to the atonement, it was necessary that each Person of the Trinity should fulfill a special part, as Scripture clearly teaches each of them did. And, from the oneness of their substance, attri butes, and character, they must have been equally and absolutely voluntary and agreed in devising and adopting the stupendous meas ure, and in acting their respective parts in it. There can be no schism in the Godhead; and the Son therefore neither would nor could be forced in any sense to become, do, or suffer anything to execute His part, more than the Father or the Holy Spirit to execute His. As far as the execution of each one's part related to men, the only bond on Him to perform it was their mutual agreement freely entered into from measureless mercy and grace to them. 7. It is intrinsically absurd to suppose it was any part of the design of God, Father, Son, and Spirit, in making the atonement, to render Himself merciful and gracious towards human sinners. For, besides the silliness of the supposition, that He, or any intelligent being would undertake in such, or any way to work these or any dis positions in Himself, they were the supreme and constraining rea sons and impulsions in Him to make it for them. It was their product, their child brought forth designedly to meet and appease the righteous demands of retributive justice in God and all other moral natures, as we have abundantly shown. How infinitely strong ;*) See Chapter VIII, throughout. 236 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. these dispositions in Him must have been to impel Him to make the atonement for our race of sinners, and, as such, enemies, at such a stupendous cost to Plimself, no mortal can tell or conceive, except in limited measure. They are morally dimensionless (Eph. 3:17-19). § 129. WHAT TRUE ON THE SIDE OF MAN. On the side of man, two great common facts made an atone ment possible for them, which did not exist in the case of the fallen angels: 1. One was their race-constitution, by which the Second Person of the Trinity could become incarnate, the Son of man as well as the Son of (iod, the God- Man, and thus the representative of our race in His entire mission, and, by consequence, its substitute in Plis sufferings and death. It was thus that He was naturally by the Divine arrangement "the one Mediator between God and men." 2. The other was, that there were mitigating circumstances, not only in respect to the fall of our first parents into sin, but in the case of their whole posterity as sinners, which modified their sin, so that it was not absolute, as was that of the fallen angels. These will be shown in another place; and we only notice here that, on account of them, although mankind as sinners deserved just retributive pun ishment, yet that desert of it was modified, and their condition made them objects of God's infinite pity, which prompted Him, as He saw that vast multitudes of them, if not all, would be yet capa ble of redemption and restoration to harmony with Himself and His universal holy society, to exercise mercy to them to the stu pendous degree of making the atonement and doing all connected with it, in order to save as many of them as would be morally possible. CHAPTER XII. Expiation and Propitiation. § 130. MEANINGS OF THESE TERMS; RELATION OF THE TWO, EXPIA TION DEMANDED BY JUSTICE, BOTH AS ETHICAL AND AS RETRIBU TIVE. It is specially important in relation to the subject of the atone ment to understand clearly what is meant by the terms expiation and propitiation, and we begin this Chapter by investigating their import. Expiation consists in satisfaction rendered by wrong doers, or others for them, to those whom they have wronged, or to rulers by some equivalent of repairing action, sacrifice, or suffer ance of penalty. In theological use, the term means a vicarious sacrifice offered to God by or for sinners in a way authorized by Him, which sacrifice is accepted by Him as a full equivalent for the penal suffering deserved by them for the sin or sins on account of which it is offered, and which is thus a satisfaction of the demand of retributive justice against them. This demand being thus met, God is propitiated towards those for whom the sacrifice has been offered, so that expiation and propitiation are essentially connected as cause and effect. God is propitiated towards sinners by the de mand of retributive justice against them being met and satisfied by the sacrifice substituted for them as liable to suffer the penalty they deserve, that they may be saved from it; and, on account of all involved in the case, the fact that He is propitiated towards them only in this way is gloriously honorable to Him; while any imagin able propitiation without expiation would be, on account of all in volved in it, enormously dishonorable to Him and noxious to the whole family of Christian truths and doctrines. Those who reject expiation do so, because they have previously rejected retributive justice, and substituted for it an indefinable cloud, which they call righteousness,' or very often nothing but foolish talk about the mercy or love of God as disregarding such justice. But what kind of an 238 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. ethical entity could this imagined righteousnes of God be, which lacks the osseous quality of justice, and violates its bond to secure to the utmost the rights, dues, interests, and concerns of the whole loyal society under Him, and of Himself? What kind, when that quality of the law, which alone makes it right or straight between moral beings, and conformity to it righteousness, is treated as of no account or wrong. What kind, when, instead of making the crooked straight by retributive inflictions upon sinners themselves or upon a substitute, in order to secure from them the due of penal suffering which they owe to God and the holy society under Him, He and it have no such due from them for all the wrong and injury done by them; and, however enormous their sins or crimes may have been, He must inflict no retributive punishment upon them, but must enter Himself into their bad condition from the natural consequences of all the evil they have done, and must put Himself to cost and tragic suffering for them, to rescue or relieve them, the greater, the worse in sin and condition they are ? What kind, when, as is asserted, He has been in this attitude towards, and at this outlay for, them from eternity past, and must be in the same forever, and is thus made not only an eternal non-resistant, which He has no right to be, and which it is utterly wrong for Him to be, but, worse yet, the perpetual vassal and victim of the wicked? It is no kind at all; for nothing can be righteousness in God or any being which is in conflict with any real demand of justice, or the nature and pos sibility of a moral system. There is no unjust righteousness, nor righteous injustice; for justice is an eternal, fundamental fact in the nature of God, of all moral beings, and of the everlasting law in it; and, in essential principle, ethical and retributive are, as we have said elsewhere, one, and cannot be severed. Were it true, as has been asserted, that the idea of justice is not from the Bible, but only from the Greek and Roman Classics, while it gives that of righteous ness only, we would say, so much the worse for the Bible; for, as to this idea, the classics are certainly right. But it is not true; for no other book or class of books in the world competes with the Bible in setting forth in positive declaration, in distinct assumption, and in plain implication, the fact of God's eternal, immutable justice, and that it will be infallibly executed towards His rational creatures, good and bad, as the basis of His holiness, His government, and, in a fundamental way, of His very gospel. It is this fact, that made an expiation a conditio sine qua non of the forgiveness of sinners; and rxoiation is intrinsically propitiation, because His justice, being EXPIATORY SACRIFICES. 239 perfectly vindicated and sustained by the substitution which makes it, is no longer a bar to His mercy and grace, which are therefore set free to operate towards sinners to the utmost degree which con sists with infinite wisdom. § 13 X. EXPIATORY SACRIFICES NOT ORIGINATED BY MEN, BUT EVI DENTLY BY DIRECTION OF GOD TO ADAM, AND SO TO MANKIND. The fact of the expiatory character of all the bloody sacrifices required by the Levitical Law, and also of the same in the heathen world from the earliest times, is certain. The only reasonable explanation of this fact, as it respects the heathen, is, that their offering them as such had its origin in the Divinely authorized offer ing of them by Adam, followed by Abel, by others to the Deluge, by Noah and his sons after it, and by their descendants along down the centuries. Some, however, while admitting the Scriptural account of the origin of such sacrifices, yet say that the belief of the heathen that they were expiatory was not developed till in generations after the Deluge, and was a perversion of the primitive view of them. But the reason and facts of the case are against them: — For, 1. According to history, the heathen were always unanimous in this belief, and made these sacrifices in it. How came this unanimity? Some say, simply from the teachings or impulsions of their con sciences or moral nature under the convictions and sense of sin — a specimen of mere naturalistic invention, not comporting with any tellings of Scripture respecting their relation to and effect upon God on one side, when rightly offered, and the offerers on the other, nor with their typical relations to the offering and sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world. This unanimity is one to be noticed — that of the nations and races of mankind through decades ot cen turies, which starting in the blind guess of some troubled sinner, that, if he should build an altar, lay wood upon it, slay a domestic animal, sheep, goat, bullock, or heifer in such a manner, burn the carcass prepared so and so upon the wood on the altar, and suppli cate pardon and favor from God, He would grant them; which guess, acted out and told by its author, being adopted by one, by another, and so on as readily and rapidly as dry combustibles adopt touching flames, became, as fast as made known, the common be lief, ritual law, and practice of the unanimous world! To add to the wonder, this guess was so perfect, that God also forthwith adopted it! We have no extra capability of belief to waste on so unreasonable an attempt to account for either the origination of 240 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. these sacrifices, or the common unanimity of all nations during more than 2000 years before Christ, both as to offering them and as to believing them strictly expiatory. It seems manifest on the- face of Gen. 4:3-5, that Cain and Abel simply did as their father had taught and trained them from childhood to do in bringing offerings to the Lord — Abel's being, and Cain's for some reason not being, of the kind proper at that time; and Cain's not being respected by the Lord, because designedly different in kind from Abel's, and brought without faith in a proud, rebellious self-willedness against Him (Heb. 11:5). Our explanation, given above, is therefore plainly the true one. It harmonizes all the involved facts — that of the Divinely directed origination by Adam, the sinning head of the race, of the offering of special kinds of domestic animals as sacrifices to God — that he offered them as expiatory, and taught his children that they were, and his sons to offer them as such — that, apostate Cain doubtless excepted, these children so taught theirs, and these sons offered them as such — and thus this belief concerning, and custom of offering, these sacrifices as expiatory were transmitted down the generations of the ever-increasing numbers and the branching divisions of mankind, till, as far as all embraced in the Roman Empire were concerned, they were abolished in it by Constantine at the end of the third century after Christ. Neither Scripture nor other history hints of any different or later origin either of offering them or believing them both Divinely instituted and expiatory; so that there is no shadow of reason for supposing or g\iessing that the belief that they were expiatory was a heathen ish corruption or departure from the correct, primary view of them handed clown from Adam. 2. The fact that God instituted the offering of these same animals as expiatory by the Levitical Law goes to confirm the preceding, and evinces that the heathen were always right in believing their sacrifices expiatory. 3. The fact also that, as appears from Scripture and other history, these domestic animals only were offered by them for even centuries, as they had been by Noah, and as they were afterwards to be by Israel as required by the Levitical Law; and, that they remained the chief sac rifices after, although in some regions others were added, strengthens the proof of the preceding positions. 4. The heathenish perver sions consisted in gradually adding many other kinds of victims, and even human beings, not only foreigners, enemies, captives in war, criminals, slaves, and sometimes poor people, but sons, daughters, and sometimes persons of highest rank, even kings, and persons OBJECTIONS TO EXR1AT1UN. Z41 taken by lot — in offering their sacrifices to false gods and idols — in making the mere offering of them an opus operatum, as ritualists and formalists have always used the Christian sacraments and other religious rites — and in all the gross ceremonies, practices, pollu tions, and superstitions more and more connected with them from the ever-increasing darkness and corruption of the heathen mind. But neither any nor all of these go a step towards proving or im plying that the belief in the expiatory character of their animal sacrifices was in the least degree a perversion. On the contrary, amidst all these, this fundamental character of these sacrifices remained steadfast in the belief of the heathen, like some peak standing high out of the all-surrounding ocean, unchanged by all its currents and commotions. It was a Pharos shedding the hope-light of the primal revelation of a redemption by sacrifice from the curse of sin over the benighted deep of the apostate mind of the world, and, at the same time, laid and kept a solid foundation in that mind for the truth of salvation by the expiatory sacrifice of Christ; and it thus greatly conduced to the wonderful rapidity of the conver sion of the heathen under the preaching of the Gospel. § 132. FROM WHOM OBJECTIONS TO EXPIATION ALWAYS COME, AND TO WHAT DENIAL OF IT ALWAYS LEADS. The objections to expiation from their special start with Socinus down to Dr. Bushnell and since have all along been the same swal lows returning. They always come from deniers of retributive justice, or, which is the same in effect, of the moral necessity for its execution, and consequently of the necessity for vicarious atone ment to meet and avert its demand against sinners, in order to their forgiveness. The denial of these is prolific of others of correlated and dependent truths and facts of revelation and the Christian sys tem. It involves a denial of any real moral government or even law of God, of real moral nature in God or man having the law in it, of course, of any universal and eternal moral society and system, hence of any rights, dues, interests, and concerns of God and that society against sinners, consequently of any real moral probation under either the law or the gospel, consequently again, of the possibility of the exercise of "anv mercy or grace by God towards men in mak ing an atonement to rescue them from suffering deserved penal infliction, of their forgiveness on the basis of an atonement, or at all, if the natural consequences of sin are its only punishment, for these cannot be forgiven, and the word is without meaning, and of 242 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. still other truths, some radical and vital. The samples and parodies of exegesis this denial induces are wonderful to contemplate. Such eliminations of meanings from, and importations of meanings into, texts; such assumptions of having proved the teachings of Scripture on essential points in controversy, when a thorough canvass of them has not even been fairly begun, certainly not in the works in which they are declared; such misrepresentations and caricatures of doctrines opposed; such ventures of assertion respecting matters of Scripture or fact, reckless of what proper investigation may dem onstrate to be truth; such arraying of subordinate parts or appli cations of prophetical, typical, and other inspired deliverances against the main and transcendent matters communicated, in order to negative or evade those matters and to establish their opposites; such distortions and perversions of words and expressions, and overleaping or trampling upon the most certain principles, pro cesses, and conclusions of logic and sound reasoning; such transfers of real or assumed heathenish and superstitious views and perver sions of expiatory sacrifices over to the Scriptural and Christian views and belief concerning them, as they really are, in order to en velop the truth of these with odium and contempt; such rackings and metamorphosings of the palpable meanings of Scriptural terms and teachings respecting sacrifice, atonement, redemption, reconcil iation, justification, and others, to force them to fit the poor sem blance of the gospel of Christ, which is left when its real expiatory atonement is eliminated from it; such manifold resorts to these and all kindred modes and artifices of partisan controversy as throng the works of some rejecters of this doctrine from Socinus down, cannot, we think, be paralleled in the works of writers on any other subject of partisan authorship. The champion foremost of all in recent times, and most expert in all such modes of warfare, who exerted his prowess against this central truth of Christianity, was the late Dr. Bushnell. In the opulent war-chariot of his exuberant dic tion, imagery, and rhetoric, in design at least, "O'er shields, and helms, and helmed heads he rode," bearing down on all who with stood his bold career; and he won abundant eclat, if not victory, by the dashing recklessness of his dare-doings. § 133. BUSHNELL'S ASSAULTS ON IT MISREPRESENT IT, AND ARE GROUNDLESS AND FALSE. In his last work, " Forgiveness and Law," he rushed in his usual wav. in Section V., pp. S1-92, against the doctrine of expiation, his BUSHNELL'S ASSAULTS GROUNDLESS. 243 method being to set it forth with the superstitious adjuncts and per versions attached to it by the heathen in the run of time; to assume it thus shown to be identical with the Scriptural view; then to hurl the coruscating shafts of his rhetoric at it as a moral monstrosity antagonist to propitiation as conceived by him; and, having en veloped it with the dust-clouds of his assumptions against it, to leave it as if done to death by his resistless onslaught. But he so left it in utter mistake; for, all invulnerable, it still lives unimpaired, and is destined to live till time shall end. Some of his assumptions against it deserve notice. He says — "it cares never for the morality or justice of what is gained, but only for the agreeableness of it," (p. 83) — that it is " fairly unmoral; * * showing that God accepts the pains of the good in payment for the pains of the bad, and is more intent on His modicum of pains than on having proper justice done — taking clean away the word and fact of forgiveness; for, if the debt of sin is paid, there is no longer anything to forgive; sub stituting government also by a kind of proceeding that has no relation whatever to conscience and right " (pp. 86, 87). A more pre posterous tissue was never woven in any loom of absurdity. Of this, we believe the whole Part I. of this work is absolute demonstration; and we here make a glancing reference to it. In that Part, we have shown that the justice of the law is the protecting fortress of its matter of pure moral love, and that, if justice is not maintained unimpaired, that matter, and with it the rights,' dues, claims, interests, and concerns of God and His entire holy empire, is dismantled of all enforcement and protection, and left to be forever swept away from regard and drowned by an all- prevailing deluge of unrestrained selfishness, corruption, and horrors of crime. The eternal law in all moral natures and the moral sys tem it constitutes therefore demand that, if the perfect moral love which is required by the justice of the law as ethical be not rendered by moral actors, the penal suffering which is required by its justice as retributive, and which is the natural correlative or substitute for that love withheld, shall be inflicted. In this Part, it is shown that there is no valid principle or reason conceivable why God cannot, if He will, assume this suffering Himself, instead of inflicting it upon human sinners, and that the imperative of the law to the love due to the ever-obedient, modified towards them by their sin to mercy, requires Him to do so for the sake of their good, if He sees that He can thus consistently secure a sufficiently greater good to justify the self-sacrifice. Instead, therefore, of substitutional suffering, 244 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. which, in the very nature of the case, is expiatory, " caring never for the morality or justice of what is gained," it is precisely this that it does care for; and instead of its being "fairly unmoral," not only is it consummately moral, but forgiveness of sinners without it would be, not merely unmoral, but utterly immoral. It would be a violation of the law, of all moral nature, God's included, and an absolute in justice to Himself and all holy beings forever. " He must accept the pains of the good "-—that is, of Himself in Christ, "in payment of the pains of the bad"— that is, of human sinners, and must be "intent on getting," not "His modicum," but the full equivalent of them, or the following alternative is before Him: He must Himself commit infinite sin by His utterly immoral, unjust course towards them as sinners against Himself and all holy beings: For next in necessity and importance to the holy love of which they have rob bed Him and them, in order to secure the greatest possible good to Himself and them, are the pains of retributive justice, which, although so lightly spoken of by those who make morality, whether conceived as mere sentimental love or as so-called right, simply a personal matter, are due by justice to Him and them, and are irre- pressibly demanded by universal conscience, when the case is seen as it is. As to the objection, that these pains "take clean away the word and fact of forgiveness," it is made on the assumption that there can be no provisional, conditional substitution, designed to be made an actual one for those only who comply with its conditions, and then receive forgiveness on the ground of it — the forgiveness making it actual— that there can be none which is not, in and of itself, unconditionally actual. If it is provisional, an offered one on compliance with the prescribed moral condition, to be made actual to all who do comply, the objection is a birth, of which its parent should be profoundly ashamed.* Substitution does not imply that Christ suffered the aggregate amount of inflicted pains deserved by all human sinners. His sufferings would neither have been increased nor diminished, if mankind had been a millionfold more or less numerous than they will be. They must be of infinite value to save one; they can have no more, less, or different value to save myriads, billions, or all. By His one righteous act (pinaluiia , Rom. 5:18), of offering Himself an expiatory sacrifice for all men our Lord potentially set aside conditionally the condemnation of all and made all righteous (Rom. 5:19). This act 'had an unlimited, eternal, in finite value, and could have no less, because of the Divine nature. (*) See places indicated on preceding page. B USHNELV S A SSA UL TS GR 0 UNDLESS. 245 relations, and character of its actor; because it was devised and designed -by the infinite wisdom of Godhead as the best, if not the only one, possible to attain the necessary ends and means for human salvation — those on the side of God, those on the side of man, those on the side of the universal and eternal holy society, those on the side of justice and law, and those on the side of mercy and grace; and because, by it, as the acme and consummation of His whole mission, He made God known, not to man only, but to "the princi palities and the powers in the heavenly places," in His full-orbed character, glory, and all moral perfections, as was necessary to secure its ends (Eph. 3:9, 10). This substitutional, expiatory, right eous act of Christ, having this infinite value is provisional for all human sinners, but made actual only for those who appropriate it by faith, and thus receive forgiveness "through His blood" shed in it. How, then, is there any validity in the old, effete objection of infidels, Socinians, and other misbelievers on this essential point, that expiation by the substituted sufferings and death of Christ " takes clean away the word and fact of forgiveness; for, if the debt of sin is paid, there is no longer anything to forgive?" A debt provisionally paid for one or many by another on a stated condition, is actually paid when the condition is fulfilled, not before; and then its payment is a fact; and, when the required ethical condition of faith is fulfilled by any one, God makes the provisional substitution of Christ actual for him by forgiving him on the ground of it — that is, by applying it to him. But the last of these objections is worthy of its forerunners, and runs thus: — "substituting government also by a kind of proceeding that has no relation whatever to conscience and right." Just the contrary! Maintaining it absolutely inviolate and unimpaired in the very respect in which it is always liable to subversion and destruction — that is, by not giving up a jot or tittle of its fundamental principle of justice, even when moved by .urging mercy, for to jdo that would be radically immoral, but by Himself meeting and satisfying its retributive demands against mankind by suffering in their stead, provisionally for all, to become actually for as many as fulfill the conditions of the substitution, which was to harmonize forgiveness on the prescribed conditions with the main tenance of unimpaired moral government. His doing this from pure mercy to sinners, that they might escape the punishment de served by their sins, was the peerless "proceeding" or "righteous act," even of Himself, in its intrinsic moral excellence and grandeur, and in its perfect and supreme " relation to conscience and right " 246 THE A TONEMENT OF CHRIST. or justice — was one the equal of which the universe will never see again, and one before which its unanimous conscience will forever pour forth its delighted approbation and applause. " In love immense, inviolably just! Thou, rather than thy justice should be stain'd, Didst stain the cross; and work of wonders far The greatest, that thy dearest far might bleed." — Young, Night IV. § 134. HOW THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST FOR MANKIND MEET AND STAY THE DEMANDS OF JUSTICE AGAINST THEM. The substituted suffering of Christ, the Divinely constituted representative of our sinful race, propitiates God towards them, be cause it expiates their guilt — that is, because it provisionally meets and suspends the demand of God's retributive justice against them, provisionally for all, actually for all of them who appropriate it, and thus gives full flow to the abundance of His mercy and grace towards them. This demand of His justice is in Scripture com monly called His wrath (fpyV); but it is utterly to mistake its meaning, to suppose it to be that His infinite sensibility is excited to mere angry emotion or passion against sinners, and that it is entirely optional with Plim whether He will gratify it by punishing them, or suppress it, as best He may, and inflict no punishment, being controlled by nothing but His simple will. To conceive it so is to exclude both it and God's action relative to it entirely from the sphere of morality, and to make that action merely a thing of caprice. That His sensibility is occupied with emotions of holy anger against all sinners we hold true; but His wrath against them is vastly different from these. It is the demand oi His infinite moral nature evoked by their sin that they shall suffer the just penalty they deserve. It is the correlative of the like demand of it aroused by the obedience of those who have never sinned, that they shall re ceive the reward they deserve; though in their case they have a right to their reward, while sinners have none to their punishment, God and His loyal universe having it.* His wrath, being this demand of His nature or moral reason for the punishment of sin ners as they deserve is not mere angry emotions, nor any state at the mere option of His will for keeping or suppressing. But, because He and Plis holy universe have the right to their penal suffering, (*) For a few out of scores of passages concerning God's )'/, wrath, see the following: — Mat. 3:7; Luke 3:7; John 3:36; Rom. i:tS; 2:5,6,8,9; 3:5; 4:15; 5:9:9:22; 13:4,5; Eph. 2:3; 5:6; Col. 3:6; 1. Thess. 1:10; 2:16; 5:9; Heb. 3:11; 4:3; Rev. 6:10, 17; 14:10; 16:19; I9:IS- SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 247 thus demanded, He, as Ruler, has none to exempt them from it, without or on condition of repentance alone, regardless of that demand. But He has an absolute right, moved by His mercy towards them, to suffer it Himself as a substitute for them, as ex plained, and thus to expiate it. Having thus met and satisfied this demand against them, called bpyfi, wrath, by anthropopathic figure, He is, ipso facto, propitiated and reconciled potentially to all, and actually to all who fulfill the prescribed conditions. Thus His mercy and grace are set free to act towards all without any hin drance whatever, except what they themselves make. Justice is per fectly maintained and established inviolate forever, while mercy and grace are at perfect liberty to act in harmony with it for the recon ciliation of as many as possible of mankind to God. Such being the nature of God's wrath and of expiation and propitiation, and the mode in which these two essentially identical modifications of the mind and moral relations of God towards mankind are effected, we see that there is nothing arbitrary or capricious in them; no devia tion from, or disregard of, the demands of His own eternal, immut able, archetypal, moral nature, and of all finite ones created by Him in His own image; no acting as if there were no moral system and no social-moral nexus of justice, the granite foundation and constit uent of that system of mutual rights, dues, obligations, responsi bilities, accountabilities, interests, and concerns, binding all moral beings to each other and to God; no immoral acting as if sin were not positive wrong and injury to Himself and all, the one blight and curse of the rational universe, but a mere personal concern of the sinner, who, therefore, instead of being subjected to the infliction of the social-moral penalty he deserves, should be regarded by God and all others with yearning sympathy for being encircled by the tightening, injuring, often ruinous coils of the train of its natural consequences, thus making it socially an utter trifle, and personally a comparatively diminutive evil; and no like acting as if obedience were of correspondingly meager importance. All diminution of the badness and guilt of sin is equally of the excellence and good-desert of obedience. But, in this essentially united pair, expiation and pro pitiation, we see God maintaining the great social-moral law in His own and all other moral natures with its immutable quality of justice in absolute integrity, and harmonizing His mercy towards, human sinners with the whole social demand of that justice against them by an infinite self-sacrifice in their stead, thus acting a style of moral greatness, the grandeur and glory of which are without parallel or 248 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. approximation in all else ever done, not by creatures only, but even by Him in all His eternal activity. §135. I.USHNELL'S NO'IION OF PROPITIATION A PRODIGIOUS CONCEIT, ANTI-MORAL, AND DEROGATORY TO GOD. Instead of this essentially united pair achieved by substitution, a prodigious conceit of the latter has been set forth. In it, expia tion is discarded as a heathenish perversion and superstition, and a propitiation without it imagined. When it is denied that there is any demand of justice as retributive in God's nature or law, and that Christ suffered instead of sinners to meet and satisfy it, of course propitiation can have no real relation to God's moral nature, and must relate simply to His sensibility as aroused to angry emo tion against them — that is, to mere emotional wrath or passion, which is not moral, because it is involuntary and may be complied with or resisted at option. It is not a moral state or requirement of any kind, and puts no obligation whatever upon Him to act according to it; and it can have no moral quality or principle in it more than there is in such wrath or passion in man. In this con ceit, too, God is not regarded as Ruler, having all the rights, dues, interests, and concerns of the universal and eternal society in His keeping, so that He is responsible for them, nor as being sinned against as such, but merely as a Person without official relations and responsibilities. Nor are sinners regarded as having sinned against Him as a Ruler, and with Him against that whole society, to the irreparable damage of its everlasting good, thus subjecting them selves to the demand of His retributive justice according to the ill- deserts of their sin against both Him as Ruler and that society as ¦ subject to Plim; but only as having individually sinned against Him alone. Both He and each sinner towards whom He is to be propiti ated are regarded wholly aside from governmental or even social relations, obligations, and justice.* This itself brands the notion as utterly false. As He is in and Ruler of the universal moral society and system, He can have no right so to act. ("') "The foigivem-ss of sins, aliendy considered in the Chapter on Forgive ness and I'lopiiialion, is a purely pcisonnl matter, in which the Fatherhood love and feeling and the ollended holiness of God are concerned. The proceeding bore is intelligible and simple, because the forgiveness in question is to be a strictly Personal Settlement, that and that only." Forgiveness and Law, Chap. II., V- Vi- GOD'S ANGER AT SINNERS. 249 § 136. ON HIS GROUNDS, GOD'S ANGER AT, AND NEED OF PROPITIATION TOWARDS, SINNERS REASONLESS. Add now, that the natural consequences of sin are held in this notion to be its only penalty, unless the exclusion of its incorrigible actors from association with the holy is considered a positive one; so that God will inflict no positive punishment additional to this upon any. It is in connection with such notions that God is con ceived to be emotionally, even passionately angry at human sinners. Why? Not because, according to these notions, they are guilty of any injustice against Himself and the universal society — that is, of withholding or taking from Him and it anything which was due by right to them; and consequently not because they deserve a corre sponding infliction of punitive justice, to be suffered by them as due by right to Him and it — that is, not because there is any real jus tice, ethical, or retributive, in Plis own or other moral natures, in the law in and from them, or in His government, any natural de mand for the positive punishment of sinners any more than for that of sick people. Why, then, should He be angry at them at all? — ¦ we mean especially, in any sense implying the least disposition to inflict punishment upon them ? We can see that, because they have trampled on the so-called idea of right in them, and so greatly debased themselves, although this is only a matter personal to them selves, God has good reason to regard them as perverse, foolish mean, and contemptible, and to be revolted and disgusted at them. But why He " should be put in arms against wrong-doers by His moral disgusts, displeasures, abhorrences, indignations, revulsions," so that, " by force of these recalcitrant sentiments, He is so far shut back in the sympathies of His love, that He can nerve Himself to the severities of His government so long as such severities are wanted" — how " He is not less perfect because these antagonistic sentiments are in Him, but even more perfect than He would be without them," and " yet a propitiation be required, not because they are bad, but only to move them aside when they are not wanted " — none of this can we see, make what optical effort we can; nor do we think any one else can, even the keen-eyed Uriel stand ing in the Sun. The so-called sentiments named recalcitrant, an tagonistic, unreducible, obstructive, and what not, are not properly sentiments at all, but simply emotions, feelings, states of sensibility of different qualities and degrees of antipathy and aversion; and there is nothing in them to antagonize or obstruct any proper sym pathies of His love towards them, nothing to put Him in arms 250 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. against them, or to constitute even real anger, much less wrath. It would be impious to suppose that in Him, the absolutely perfect ( )ne, they could possibly be or become over-measured or excessive, or that they are not, and must not always be, precisely fitting and what they should be towards every sinner; and as long as sinners remain such, we deny that He could move them aside, if He would, or ought to, if He could. The only thing which can possibly move them aside is not any so-called propitiation of Himself towards them, but their true return to obedience; and therefore, the necessity and fact of expiation being denied, propitiation is neither neces sary nor possible; and the whole notion of God's propitiating Himself towards sinners by going to cost and sacrifice for them to quell or soothe His emotional passion against them, is of such stuff as is made up of the vainest kind of dreams. § r37- THE MODE OF GOD'S SELF-PROPITIATION STATED IS SELF-CON- TRADICTORV AND RIDICULOUS. We are told that, " We do not ourselves go into sacrifice for our enemy to gain or soften ourselves, but only to help him in his trouble, and to minister to his bad mind in ways that may gain him to repentance; everything we do and suffer is for his benefit, or for effect on him, only it results that our sacrifice affects our mind or disposition also towards him. We are in a way of being completely reconciled to him, as we hope he sometime will be to us. The stress of all we do or suffer is for him, and in that consciousness it is that we are atoned, having all our aversions, disgusts, and condemnations liquified, or dissolved away." This is designed to represent God's going to cost and sacrifice for sinners; and observe, that He has no purpose whatever in the pioeeding to propitiate Himself towards them, His whole aim being to pi opitiate them to Himself. But now look at this — "The propitiation itself proceeds from His love and is only designed to work on other unreducible sentiments that hinder His love in forgiveness it might otherwise bestow. Our own love, as we saw, might be sufficient, if it were not hindered by certain collateral, obstructive sentiments, and God is in this moral analogy with us." Then follows what is quoted above, ending with the statement that "a propitiation is required, not because " [the antagonistic sentiments in him] "are bad, but only to move them aside when they are not wanted." How this and that agree ! Designed to loork on other unreducible sentiments that hinder, etc.\ " Our love hindered by, etc., and God in this moral analogy with us 1 A propitiation required GOD'S SELF-PROPITIATION. 251 to move them aside! Then God did design to gain and soften Him self and to remove the hindrance of certain collateral, obstructive sentiments, and a propitiation was required to move aside the antag onistic sentiments in Him! Could He, in His high morality, comply with the requirement without designing to ? This against that, in which self-propitiation is not designed at all, and if it comes, it is only as an incidental result ! — also against that, as all the words, mitigating, mollifying, assuaging, liquifying, dissolving, and bathing His feelings till they no longer.obstruct, plainly show. But, whether merely incidental or designed matters not; the notion that God pro pitiates -Himself towards sinners in the way asserted is preposterous — especially so, the notion that He designed thus to propitiate Him self. We have shown above that His feelings towards sinners are precisely what they should be till they repent, and that, under all the assumed conditions, there is nothing whatever in Him to be propitiated towards them. His self-propitiation, in any such way, therefore, whether merely incidental or designed, is not among pos sible things. But on supposition that it was designed, His thought would run thus: " I have antagonistic, recalcitrant feelings against these sinners, which are unreducible by my holy will. They shut back the sympathies of my love from them, and thus, blocking up my way, hinder me from exercising towards them the love in for giveness I otherwise might. I am not less perfect because of them; but even more perfect than I would be without them; and yet I must be propitiated, to move them aside, because they are not wanted. They are not bad, but they are not good, because they shut back the sympathies of my love from sinners; and yet they do not hinder me from doing all I possibly could for them, if I did not have them. For, urged by these sympathies, I have been, not merely in the time-sufferings of Christ, but eternally putting myself to infinite cost and tragic sacrifice for sinners; yet not for them as my direct end, but to reduce and move aside my unreducible, obstruc tive feelings, antagonistic to my loving them in forgiveness, so that I, more perfect with, than I would be without them, may, with my perfection thus diminished, be propitiated towards them, and into greater perfection; and, when I succeed in getting myself propiti ated, which I have been eternally endeavoring to accomplish, then all my going to cost and sacrifice will cease, and thence forward all my sympathies and love will be at full liberty without cost, although then there will be no sinners to expend them upon ! As soon as I get propitiated, my being so will be useless." If the miniature copy 252 THE A TONEMENT OF CHRIST. is not fascinating with beauty, we believe it is essentially faithful to its original 1 § 138. THIS MODE NOT ACCORDING TO ANALOGIES IN HUMAN EXPERI ENCE. But this conception of the matter, we are told, "is according to analogies in our human sentiment and practice." That there are analogies in these to some of the feelings and actions ascribed to God in the notions we have been examining is admitted; but they have no more to do with propitiation, in any proper sense of the term, than had the ancient warriors around Troy. No sane human being ever thought of going into cost-making and sacrifice for ene mies, injurers, or any wrong-doers for the purpose of thus propiti ating himself towards their — of thus mitigating, smoothing, soothing, mastering, or call it by what word or words you will, his indig nations, revulsions, disgusts, animosities; or did not act a perfectly foolish and ridiculous part, if he did; for he must have been saying to himself all the time — "I am trying to cheat both those I am pro fessing to act for and myself — them, by seeming to make their good my end, when I am not in fact; myself, by trying thus to cool down and work off my exorbitant irritation or angry emotion or passion, rowing one way and looking another." It would be a kind of double imposture, having no relish of true virtue in it and more likely to make matters worse in both directions than better. It seems hardly possible that he should not laugh at himself in consciousness of his tricky maneuver. But, if he goes to cost and sacrifice for his ene mies or other evil-doers, not for the purpose of operating any mod ification in his own feelings against them, even though to do so he must resolutely resist or subdue them, but with a pure design to do them good and to please God, then his endeavor is to propitiate them, and himself not at all; an 1 if the idea of propitiation enters his mind, he knows that it is to be wrought in them, not in himself. Pie is simply acting benevolently towards them in spite of his feel ings, and doing nothing else. This whole conception, therefore, of man or of God propitiating himself, in the sense of allaying or miti gating in any way his own mere feelings or so-called sentiments of any kind or degree against others, by any process whatever of going to cost or sacrifice for them, whether designed to produce that per sonal effect or not, is as baseless and wild a fiction as was ever invented ; and considering all the incongruities, unwarranted assump tions, illogical reasonings, misapplications of Scriptures, uses of CONCEITS ABOUT THE TRINITY. 253 terms and phrases in new or changed meanings, the lavish garniture of language and imagery clothing the whole congeries, and the so- called head of propitiation set on such a body, we think the lines ot Horace at the beginning of his Ars Poetica most fittingly descrip tive of it: — " Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne, Spectatum admissi risura teneatis, amici? Credite, Pisones, isti tabulae fore librum Persimilem, cujus, velut aegri somnia, vanae Fingentur species; ut nee pes, nee caput uni Reddatur forma;."* § I39. CORRELATED CONCEITS ABOUT THE TRINITY, THE TEDIUM OF AN UNTRAGIC WORLD, THE PROPITIATION ETERNAL, ETC. But when, to carry out this conceit of propitiation, it is said concerning the Trinity of Persons in the Divine nature — " The three are still one, and the three-folding is but a plural in so many finite forms, used representatively as personations of the Infinite One; " and that — "when these grammatic personalities are all resolved into their representative import, God is one, only so much better known:" — when, to jump the difficulty that this notion of propitia tion "requires us to be not only well-doers, but atoners also," it is said — " there is no imaginable world, I am quite sure, that has a thousandth part of the tedium in it which one would have that is wholly made up of delectations. Insipid, uneventful, flat, with no great sentiments in it, no heroic side in duty, nothing heroic any where, nothing to condemn that touches us, nothing to forgive because we are not touched — why, such a world would even die of inanity. No, let us have tragedy, and a strong, large mixture of it" — [i. e., a world of universal holiness would be insipid, etc., and one of sin, such as ours, incomparably preferable] : — When it is said that — " the propitiation, so-called, is not a fact accomplished in ('"") Translated: — If to a human head a painter vvill'd To join an equine neck, and to bring in On members drawn from creatures ev'rywherc Soft feathers var-ious, that a woman fair Above in a black fish should end ; could you, My friends, allow'd the sight, your laughter hold? Believe me, Pisos, that a book would be Much like this picture, as its meanings all, Like sick men's dreams, would quite be figur'd false; That neither foot, nor head could be redue'd To one sole form. 254 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. time, but an historic matter represented in that way, to exhibit the interior, ante-mundane, eternally proceeding sacrifice of the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world: " — When many other such follies, alien to " the glorious gospel of the blessed God" are advanced as correlates or essential implications of this other gospel; such as the natural consequences of sin its only penalty; justification, of course, not pardon or remission of penalty, but reno vation of character; God has a moral government and yet forgive ness and propitiation a purely personal matter between God and each sinner; and justice made a thing of Divine will and institution, and therefore of mere option as mercy is, instead of being an eternal, immutable quality of the Divine nature and the law in and from it; — we answer that this fancied propitiation and all its cognate no tions are cockatrice's eggs instead of transcendant truths of inspired revelation. And, when we hear " of the religious benefits to be ex pected from the worthier and better ideal conceptions of God that will, of course, go with it and keep it company," while dissenting entirely from the utterance and marveling at the self-delusion, we nevertheless enter ourselves without cost or sacrifice sympathetically into the hope of a veteran, who, measuring what he has done by what he wished to do, fed himself with its honied, though delusive promises. Intention anfl effort are the root of hope; but not of truth, nor of its realization. § I40. RECONCILIATION OF GOD TO MAN OF HIM FIRST IN ORDER OF MAN AS A CONSEQUENCE OF HIS TO MAN. We can now easily understand the matter of reconciliation be tween God and man; for it is certainly mutual. On the side of God, there is wrath — the demand of punitive justice aroused in Him against sinners by their sins. It is not mere angry feeling or pas sion, although this in perfect measure is of course connected with it. It is not enmity against sinners; for God never was capable of a malign disposition towards any being. It is not something which by mere will He can disregard or not at option. It is not a demand which relates simply to Himself, but is social, as all justice is, and concerns also the entire and eternal universal society. It is an im mutable, indefeasible demand of his. eternal, spiritual nature, which must be met, because it guards and enforces the love which is the matter, and thus secures the well-being which is the end of the law, to the greatest possible extent and degree in the universe. Now, just because this demand is not what we thus deny, and is what we RECONCILIATION OF GOD TO MAN. 255 thus affirm, it creates no hindrance whatever to His feeling infinite compassion {sympathy is not the accurate word to express it) for them, nor to His infinite merciful love (properly, infinite benevolence, as He can have no other quality of love to sinners), from the utmost possible exertion to save them. Accordingly, that infinite compassion impelling, that exertion of His infinite benevolence He has made, not by a foolish and futile effort to propitiate, or properly to con ciliate His irritated feelings towards sinners, but by assuming the endurance of sufferings of infinite value, potentially instead of the penal suffering deserved by all men, and, in purpose, actually instead of that of all of them foreknown as receivers of the substitution, thus expiating their sins by Himself fully meeting the demand of punitive justice against them. By this expiation, made by Himself out of His infinite mercy towards them, He is propitiated towards all — i. e., He is potentially reconciled to all, so that there is no hin drance whatever in Him to the exercise of His mercy and grace upon and for them; and He becomes actually reconciled to every one of them whom He can bring by this exercise to become recon ciled to Him. Thus the fact of His making expiation for the sins of the world gives the highest conceivable conception and demon stration of His merciful love or benevolence for mankind, and of His actually going to infinite cost and sacrifice for them — immeas urably higher than the poor, meagre notion we have just considered, or than any other whatever, which rejects expiation and makes it God's whole effort merely to conciliate and reconcile them to Him self can even fairly intimate. The puny thing is unworthy to be thought of beside it, instead of being paraded in competition. By this stupendous self-sacrifice, God Himself lifted the bar of holy punitive justice, demanded by His own and all rational nature not subverted, out of the way of the goings forth of His infinite mercy and grace towards human sinners, not only to confer forgiveness upon all truly repentant of them, but to reconcile them to Himself, to do the utmost possible for them in time, to perfect and aggran dize their whole nature through death and the resurrection, and to exalt them to eternal inheritance and glory with Christ in heaven. On the contrary, the attitude of our world of sinners towards God is one of positive, amazing enmity; so that, while in Him reconcili ation to them is accomplished by Himself in the way of stupendous self-sacrifice stated, to meet and remove the demand of justice in His own eternal, holy nature against them, in them it is giving up that enmity, which is most wantonly against nature, and the most 256 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. unreasonable ever rooted in human hearts. While in Him it is by a self-moved act of infinite mercy and grace towards them, in them it is ceasing from this infatuated hostility and beginning a feeble reciprocation of His measureless, merciful, prevenient love for them, moving, urging, constraining them to be reconciled to Him by this transaction. And let it be marked well, that it is not by any ante- mundane, eternal going to cost and sacrifice for these enemies, the supposition of which has no foundation whatever in truth, and is only an imaginary invention to support a false theory, nor by doing the same for them in time either before or since the atoning suffer ings and death of Christ, nor anything aside from these, which men have asserted or imagined, that God is reconciling the world to Himself; but it is precisely in and by the fact of His infinite self- sacrifice in these, to expiate their sins by thus meeting in their stead, as explained, the demand against them of the holy wrath or punitive justice in Plis all-perfect nature. This one act and fact, among all ever done by Him in His eternal activity respecting them or His universe of creatures, is, when understood and realized by them, the one only solvent and subduer of their enmity against Him, and allure ment of them into love in return. It is "Christ crucified," and nothing whatever outside of that, ante-mundane or in time, that is " the power of God, and the wisdom of God " for reconciling sin ners. We say, when understood and realized by them, because neither is this mighty solvent with all its inexpressible adaptations effectual, of itself, to reconcile one of them, though taught in the best possible way by men or angels; nor is Christ by all He became, suffered, and did, taught and manifested in His whole earthly mis sion among men, nor by all in His heavenly mediation, personally the regenerator and reconciler of sinners to God. In no passage of Scripture are we taught that He is such, either alone or jointly with the Spirit. He tells us Himself that " it is the Spirit that quickens " or makes alive (John 6:63); and we are so instructed throughout the inspired Word. Without His renewing operation on the hearts of men, not one of them would ever be reconciled to God; and in this, as in all other respects, the so-called moral view of the atone ment utterly breaks down. This view not only has a far inferior conception and estimate, compared with that of the expiatory, of the adaptation of what Christ has done for man, but also of the insusceptibility of sinners to its power, and consequently of the absolute need of the agency of the Spirit to induce the change in their minds, which is necessary to their understanding and realizing RECONCILIATION OF GOD TO MAN. 257 what He has done and manifested, as set before them, and to show these to them in their true nature and import in such a manner as will make them effectual to win their faith and love. The truth of the case is, that although Christ is the life, and, by His sufferings and death has given free emission to it and created the greatest conceivable inducements to lead them to yield their opposition and to receive it; although, in view of all that the Gospel tells us con cerning Him and His mission, there seems motive and influence enough to overcome the strongest enmity ever intrenched in human hearts against God, and to melt and prostrate all the world in grate ful, adoring, all-absorbing love to Him; although, if facts did not demonstrate the contrary, it would seem utterly impossible that any, to whom the Gospel has been declared, should continue unsubdued; yet such is the hardness of heart and blindness of mind induced by sin, that, having eyes they see not, having ears they hear not, neither do they understand, and. not one of them ever would be reconciled, if the Holy Spirit did not perform the twofold work of quickening them within and of taking the things of Christ and showing them to them objectively till He brings them to realize and yield to their constraining sway. Christ has created and furnished the whole aggregate of objective facts and truths, motives and influences which constitute the sum of the Gospel, and which alone has adaptation to overcome sinners and win them over from unbelief to confidence, from sin to loving obedience, from enmity to reconciliation, and to cause old things in them to pass away and all things to become new; but the Holy Spirit alone can bring sinners into the internal condi tion, and place this sum in the relation to them, in which its mighty adapted power can work its proper effect upon and in them. It is Christ alone who creates and prepares all the material to be .used in constructing a new spiritual temple in a human soul; but it is the Holy Spirit alone who prepares a place for it and builds the edifice there from foundation to pinnacle for an habitation of God. He prepares the heart for the new structure in it by removing its wild- ness and disorder, discordant with itself, with the truth, motives, and influences of the Gospel, with Christ, with the law and will of God, with the intelligent universe and its good and with God, and thus reconciles it to all, and all to it, on earth and in heaven; and He thus makes it a harmonious dwelling-place for God. CHAPTER XIII. The Atonement ; its exclusive purpose; what not implied in it; in what alone it consisted; how it met the demands of justice; and love not in its nature essentially vicarious. " Man disobeying, Disloyal, breaks his fealty, and sins Against the high supremacy of heaven, Affecting Godhead, and, so losing all, To expiate his treason hath naught left But to destruction sacred and devote, He with his whole posterity must die, Die he, or justice must: unless for him Some other able, and as willing, pay The rigid satisfaction, death for death." — Par. Lest, Book III. , lines 205-216. § 141. ATONEMENT DEFINED, AND ITS ONLY DIRECT END. The offerings of animal sacrifices, prescribed in the Theocratic Law for Israel, to be made for its transgressors as a basis for their forgiveness on condition of repentance and confession of their sins, were, by the whole nature of the case, Divinely appointed substitu tions ot the animals in their sufferings and deaths for them, to save them from the penal sufferings and death which that law required should be inflicted upon them for their sins. Their forgiveness or not depended on the offering or not of the prescribed sacrifices; and thus those substitutions demonstrate that God can and does act ethically on the principle of substitution. While those sacrifices were valid only to rescue from the temporal penalties of that Law, they were designedly typical of the consummate one of " the Lamb of God, which beareth [not taketh away] the sin of the world; " and they thus demonstrate that God acted on it in this. The Plebrew noun and verb designating the designed effect and purpose of those sacrifices are, literally rendered, cover and to cover; but, in our common version, they are rendered atonement and to make atonement 80 times, and 49 times by nouns and verbs of like meaning; and the word, atonement, has uniformly this sub- LEVITICAL ATONEMENTS. 259 stitutional sense, except in Rom. 5:11, where it is wrongly used to mean reconciliation. Hence, in theology, this term is used in this strictly Scriptural sense, to signify that Christ, in His sufferings and death for mankind, represented and was a substitute for them as sin ners liable to suffer retifbutive punishment for their sins in this life; or, that He voluntarily endured them as substitutional, or vicarious in the true sense of the word, for the punitive sufferings and death de served by them and demanded by the justice of the law in God and all other moral beings. This substitution was a Divinely designed and adapted provisory substitution for them all as sinners, to be made actual for as many of them as, during the gracious probation of this life granted with it, would fulfill the necessary ethical conditions of its application to them by forgiveness, and for all who, dying before or without moral action, should be fitted by the Holy Spirit to dwell forever with God and all holy beings. As the animal sacrifices of the Israelites were, when connected with repentance, a cover to shield them from the penalties incurred by transgressions of the Theocractic Law, so the atoning sacrifice of Christ was a cover to shield all brought to fulfill the requisite ethical condition or condi tions from the penalties of God's universal and eternal law and government. § I42. LEVITICAL ATONEMENTS AND THAT OF CHRIST, ALL MADE TO GOD FOR HUMAN SINNERS. It is a radically important point, that, while the atonements of the animal sacrifices were made for transgressors of the Theocratic Law, they were made exclusively to God as Ruler of Israel; and so, while the atonement of Christ was made for mankind as sinners, it was made exclusively to God as universal and eternal Ruler.* Its immediate purpose was to produce an effect in God, and so in His relations to the universal and eternal society as its necessary Ruler, in their favor, and not one in them at all. As it was made to Him, not as a private, non-official Person, and in the relations of one, but as universal Ruler by moral necessity, and therefore as related, not only to human sinners, but to all under His eternal government, it is purely absurd to say that its designed immediate, direct effect was not entirely in Him, and so in His relations to the universal and eternal holy society, but in sinners, either wholly or at all, to whom it was not made in any sense or degree! The atonements of the animal sacrifices were plainly designed exclusively to produce an (*) Eph. 5:2; Heb. 2:17; 5:1, 3; 7:27; 8:3; 9:14, 26, 28; 10:10, 12. 260 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. effect 'in God as Theocratic Ruler in favor of those for whom they were made, and so in His relations to them and to the whole Theocratic people, and not directly any whatever in them. The result of benefit to them was wholly in consequence of these being made to Him for them, and of the effect they produced in Him, and so in His rela tions as Ruler to them and the whole people. This effect, whatever it was, was such as to make it perfectly just to the whole obedient theocratic people, benevolent to the whole and the transgressors, and wise and best in all respects, and therefore consistent for Him, not only to forgive them on their repentance, but to exert all practicable gracious influences upon them to induce them to repent. So the atonement of Christ, being made to God, and not to sinners at all, produces no effect whatever in them. If it did, it would in all, as it was for all; whereas no effect of moral renewal has ever been pro duced by it in any ignorant of it anywhere, and never will be. If it was to or to produce an effect in sinners, there is no possible sense in which it was for all men, or for any before or after Christ died, those only excepted to whom the Gospel has been made known. All effect of renovation in, and benefit to, any always has been and will be wholly in consequence of its effect in Him, and so in His relations as Ruler to all men as sinners and to the universal and eternal holy society. § 143. EFFECT OF THAT OF CHRIST IN GOD AND ON HIS RECTORAL RELATIONS. In what did that effect in Him consist ? We answer, in the naturally necessary demands of justice in Him, both as ethical to Himself and that entire society under Him, and as retributive to all sinners, being perfectly met and satisfied potentially and condition ally for them all, and actually for all who under grace fulfill the ethical conditions. Not only was all hindrance from these demands of His nature thus swept out of the way of His exercising mercy and grace towards them to the greatest degree consistent with His wis dom and their freedom, but three urgencies, infinitely strong, were thus created in Him, and combined in pressing Him to do all rightly practicable to save as many of our race as possible. These were in or upon the Father towards the Son, in addition to His own direct, merciful love for them as moral beings, and were (1) the impelling power of I lis boundless complacency in Plis Son for making the atonement at such terrible cost to Himself; (2) the obligation of His promise to Him that, for making it, He would give Him, as a main THAT OF CHRIST IN GOD. 261 part of His full reward, all of mankind who could be brought to "newness of life;" * (3) the obligation of justice upon Him to the Son to render Him the greatest possible reward, including all of mankind just mentioned, because, by the nature of the law, the Son deserved it for His obedience unto death, with His measureless self- denial, self-sacrifice, and endurance of suffering, so that it was due Him by moral right. But these urgencies' are not included in the real effect of the atonement in God, but are simply results or consequences of it, it consisting entirely in perfectly meeting and satisfying the two demands of justice already stated — that is, of the law — that is, again, of the uncreated, immutable, eternal nature of God Himself with the law in it — and that still further is, of His nature, not merely as a Person, but as related to the universal society as its Ruler, responsible to govern it in strict accordance with the eternal, uni versal law with its quality of justice. The atonement, as such, was completed (jET'dkeuTai) in doing this exactly when our Lord died on the cross. Thenceforth, it was an accomplished, fixed, unchange able fact in the moral universe, absolutely incapable of addition, subtraction, or modification; and, being a fact transacted wholly between the Father and the Son, in itself it never did nor could pro duce a scintilla of moral effect of any kind in any soul of man, more than did or could the primal act of creation. Yet all moral renovation and benefits to men, from Adam down, are wholly in consequence of the effect of that fundamental transaction in God, and so in His rectoral relations to all moral beings — especially all to men since the august moment of its accomplishment. We are thoroughly informed how they have all been achieved. To secure them, it was necessary that everything concerning it — on the Father's part; on the Son's; the moving cause and reasons why they each undertook and executed His part; all the important facts and truths involved and connected — should be made known to men "for the obedience of faith," since, if ignorant of the whole matter, ex tremely few would ever be renewed by the Spirit in consequence of it. It was absolutely necessary that the Holy Spirit should be given to exert His agency and influences on men along with the truth, since, without Him, none ever would be brought to comply with the requirements of the Gospel and be saved. It was necessary that the Church and ministry should be provided as organs and agents for carrying on the work of renewing and saving men. There must also be a collection into an authentic, inspired book of the whole (*) Ps. 2:8; 22:27-31; 72:8-11; 110:1-3; Is. 52:14, 15; 53:10-12; Dan. 7:13, 14. 262 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. family of facts and truths, essential and important to be known by men for their instruction and guidance; and these, not vain specu lations, theorizings, and conceits, should be everywhere preached and taught to all people. It is only by the knowledge given to men in all the ways indicated, especially of the facts and truths concerning and involved in the atonement, and of the measureless, merciful love which moved both the Father and the Son to their parts in that con summate measure, and by the supreme agency of the Holy Spirit, that any important number are ever brought to comply with the ethical conditions required in the Gospel, and to renewal of heart and life. § 144. THE SO-CALLED MORAL VIEW OF IT AGAINST SCRIPTURE AND ABSURD. From the foregoing showings, it is palpably contradictory and absurd to say or hold that the direct purpose or end of the atonement of Christ was or could be either wholly or partly in sinners — that it was or could be to reconcile them to Him, not Him to them — that is, to influence them to come into moral harmony with Him, and not to constitute a ground in Him, and so in His rectoral relations to the loyal universal society, on which He could consistently forgive all who would fulfill the necessary conditions. The exact reverse is the invincible truth. As we have before said, the atonement was perfectly accomplished, never to be repeated, the moment Christ died,* while reconciliations of sinners to God are continuous. Of the numerous passages which speak of the sufferings and death of Christ as related to God, not one dissents from the fore going statements respecting this transaction."! The words, to God, when not expressed, are plainly implied in each of these passages after the verb, to offer, and the noun, offering, being omitted, because understood by all from constant usage. It is omit ted for the same reason after the verb, to give, in another class of passages;! and after the word, propitiation.^ So, when the word sacrifice or its plural occurs, to God, if not written, is always implied after it;x and, if not written, it is always implied after the verb, to (*) Ileb. 7:27; 9:26; 10:12, 14; I. ivt. 3:1s. (f ) See passages referred to near beginning of the last section. (|) Mat. 20:28; Ma. 10:45; tJal. 1:4; 2:20; Eph. 5:2, 25; I. Tim. 2:6; Titus 2:14. (]) Rom. 2:25; 1. John 2:2; 4:10; Heb. 2:17, New Version. (x) Eph. 5:2; Heb. 5:1; 7:27; 8:3; 9:9, 23, 26; 10:5-8, n, 12, 26. ILL- DESERT OF SINNERS. 263 Sacrifice; and the expression, sacrifice or sacrifices to God, if not written, is always implied after the verb, to offer, or as its subject, if in the passive. The phrase for sin, or for sins, if not written, is always implied after the noun sacrifice or sacrifices, and often after the noun offering. These are all abreviated modes of expression used by the Israehtish priests and people from the time of their receiving the Law at Sinai and of their first sacrifices according to it down through the centuries; and they all accord in teaching respecting, not only those typical atonements, but the great antitypical one of Christ's offering and sacrifice, that, in no sense, were they or was it made to men to produce any effect in them, but to God only as gov- ernmentally related to them on account of their sins — that is, on account of their violations of His law — that is again, on account of their offenses against and opposition to Him as Ruler, whose law they have disregarded and whose authority they have practically defied. They all accord in teaching that, as the nature and necessity of the case absolutely required, if human sinners were to be saved from the punishment which they deserve and justice demands, the sac rifice of Christ to God was for them as a substitution for their sub jection to it. §145. NOT IMPLIED IN THE SUBSTITUTION OF CHRIST, THAT HE AS SUMED THE ILL-DESERT OF SINNERS. 1. In saying that, in His sufferings and death for mankind, Christ was their representative substitute, it is not implied that He assumed their ill-desert, and thus deserved to suffer all that was inflicted upon Him in their stead; nor that He removed their ill- desert from them in any degree, and thus gave them back the right to exemption from the necessity of suffering penally according to it; for to do either of these was, in the nature of the case, both unneces sary and impossible. Directly the opposite is implied; since His substitutional sufferings for them would be those of the just for those of the unjust; of Him perfectly obedient to God as the law requires, and therefore infinitely well-deserving, for them perfectly disobedient, selfish, and ill-deserving. These sufferings of Christ must be in measure, as seen, not by men, but by God who alone can see it, at least perfectly equivalent in value and efficiency upon Him and His rectoral relations to secure to Him and the universal, everlasting so ciety under Him the just due and end which the penal sufferings and death of all human sinners would, leaving their ill-deserts un touched. Both good- and ill-desert are personal, adhering like fade- 264 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. less colors to every moral actor, good or bad, and never, by any possibility, can be transferred, like property or garments, from one to another more than can personal identity. No one can ever deserve reward or punishment for the properly personal action of another; and therefore the ill-desert of human sinners could not be transferred to Christ. Besides this, He deserved the direct opposite of all He substitutional^ endured for them — complete exemption and protection from all, and positive reward commensurate with His consummate obedience as their representative before He en dured them; and He will deserve it forever, while they deserve nothing but punishment according to their sins, and will deserve it forever; for forgiveness, if they should receive it, does not obliterate ill-desert, but merely saves from suffering the punishment it calls for. But, because the substitution saves them from the necessity of suffering this, provided they return to obedience before the close of the gracious probation connected with it, there is no end of jus tice or benevolence to be secured by their suffering it, if they return; and should God inflict it, He would not only cause an unnecessary, measureless, everlasting evil in the universe, but consummate wrong to the whole loyal society with Himself at its head. He would do it especially to our Lord Jesus Christ, who, being sent by the Father, came and made the representative substitution at such cost to Him self, having the promise that all who would come unto God by Him should be saved, they being given to Him by the Father as a chief part of the reward He so consummately deserved, and it would be a violation of that fundamental promise to Him, as well as of the promise to every sinner that, if he will come, He will in mercy and grace forgive and save him. Besides, if the ill-desert of sinners were abolished by Christ, they could not be forgiven. They would have a right to be treated as if they had not sinned; and for God to treat them so, instead of being mercy and grace to them, would be demanded by justice. § 146. NOR THAT HE EXPERIENCED ANY PERSONAL, NATURAL CONSE QUENCES OF SIN. 2. Nor could His suffering and dying as the substitute of human sinners include the experience by Him of any of the natural conse quences of sin, whether those in and from conscience or any others in their constitution. For, on the one hand, it is impossible that a holy being that has never sinned, God or a creature, should exper ience any of these; and, on the other, these, as we have shown, are GOD'S ABHORRENCE OF SIN. 265 no part of the retributive penalty of the law, although abandonment to them by God will be. Besides, what conceivable relation or adaptation could there be in His suffering these, were it possible, to save sinners from them or from their sin which induces them? These can be arrested and prevented only by regeneration, sanctification, and the resurrection. By the first two of these He arrests their occasioning cause; and, by His operation on the body in quicken ing it and redeeming it at the resurrection (Rom. 8:11, 23), He com pletes a perfect and eternal deliverance from them; not by any suffering of men themselves, nor of Christ for them, nor by their forgiveness. § 147. NOT THE DIRECT DESIGN OF HIS ATONEMENT TO SHOW GOD'S ABHORRENCE OF SIN, ETC. 3. Nor could the direct design of Christ's atoning sufferings and death be to show God's abhorrence of sin, His determination to punish for it, His purpose to maintain His authority, His regard For Plis law and obedience to it, nor to magnify and make it hon orable, nor any such thing. They certainly would show each of these and other similar things to men and other intelligent beings having knowledge of them; and, as He foreknew they would, He doubtless designed them to do so besides or as consequences of their vreat essential end, which was the same as that of the retributive penal sufferings deserved by sinners. That is, they were to meet and satisfy the demand of justice as retributive to human sinners accord ing to the ill-desert of their sin, which, in its nature, at once dis cards the ethical justice required by the law to God, man, and, in principle, all other moral beings, existing and to exist, and is positive injustice to them, being pernicious antagonism to all their natural and moral rights, dues, interests, concerns, and everlasting good. They were to meet and satisfy this demand in God and all. holy beings against sinners for their punishment as perfectly at least as that would, so that all of them who would return to God morally, during their gracious probation, would be free from it forever. But, as Christ's sufferings and death were the peerless and consummate manifestation of God's character and whole disposition towards mankind and all created moral beings, they could not but be pro lific ever onward of a numerous and glorious offspring of facts and results, including those above specified. But to make any or all of them the direct end of the stupendous intervention is to make the offspring the parent, the radiance of the Sun the vast luminary itself. 265 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. It is only to state the end differently to say that it was the greatest possible good in the universe of moral beings. § 148. HIS SUFFERINGS DIFFERENT IN CHARACTER AND DESIGN FROM THOSE OF MOTHERS, FRIENDS, OR PATRIOTS. 4. The atoning sufferings and death of Christ for the end stated were radically different in essential moral quality or character from any sufferings or death for human sinners in the sense in which a mother makes sacrifices or enduies sufferings^/" her child in distress, a friend 6.00.1, for a friend in bad condition, a patriot does for his coun try oppressed, assailed, or in danger, or any one does for another or many in suffering or peril of any kind.* His differs from those of any of these in the precise fact that His were entirely substitutional, or, in the only proper sense of the word, vicarious for the punitive suffering and death deserved by sinners, while theirs were not. Neither in de sign nor in fact are the supposed sufferings of a mother instead of those of her child. They neither prevent nor remove its ills by being in their stead, but are simply sympathetic suffering with it in feeling and in endeavoring to minister to its need or to relieve its distress, not to retrieve it from the necessity of suffering deserved punishment by suffering in its stead. There is nothing properly vicarious in hers; there is nothing in His not properly so; and, while hers may be, and commonly is, from mere natural, maternal affec tion, not from moral love, and is confined to her own child or chil dren, His were absolutely from moral love, were for all mankind, and for them, not as friends but as sinners and enemies against Him. The same is substantially true of the sympathetic suffering of a friend for a friend, and of any one for any number of others. As to the suffering, or even the death in battle or otherwise, of a patriot for his country, so far is it from being vicarious for any sufferings of his country that his are simply a part of its, and are owed to it by him as a matter of justice. There is no mercy in the action of either, be cause there is no desert of punishment in its objects. § \.\r). HIS NOT EQUAL IN QUANTITY TO THE AGGREGATE OF THOSE DESERVED l'.Y ALL MANKIND, NOR DY THE ELECT. We hold it impossible that Plis sufferings could have filled any such measure, although doubtless greater than many suppose. If we hold in mind the teachings of Scripture concerning Him, that {*) Bushcll's Vic. Sac, pp. 46, 47. CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 267 He was God and man united in one Person, the God-man, and all His relations to the Father, to mankind, and to the universal and eternal moral society created by Him; and that He became such a Person by His incarnation, on puroose to be the representative of our race of sinners with God, both to act and to suffer for it, the plain fact is that He was its representative substitute in His atoning sufferings and death. Now, first, being such a Person; so related to God and the universal society; so absolutely perfect in His obedi ence to the will of His Father both in doing and in suffering; such a representative substitute in His sufferings and death for mankind liable to suffer as they deserve; being so moved by His Divine pity and mercy towards them, though sinners and enemies, as to act the infinite self-denial and self-sacrifice of abdicating the eternal glory He had with the Father, "in the form of God," and of "taking "the form of a servant" under the law, "being made in the likeness of men," thus deserving nothing from God but an infinite reward; but, instead of seeking it, "being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself" still more, "so as to become obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross," thus raising His desert of a reward to the greatest that even God could give; — what limit can there be to the intrinsic moral value and potency of such a substitution of Himself in His atoning sufferings and death for them liable to suffer the retributive punishment they deserve for their sins ? As a represent ative man is one for many, so his doings or sufferings, as one, are those of one for those of all represented by him; so that they neither need to be nor can be a quantitative equivalent of those of all he represents in them, but only of a representative one. That is, they need not, at most, exceed what any worst one of the represented is bound to do or to suffer. As his doing, so his suffering, as such, is equivalent in value and effect to that of all of them. Such is the nature of the case. So, accordingly, was it with the representative doings and sufferings of Christ as done and undergone to the Father as Ruler in behalf of all human sinners. And be it noted here inci dentally, that the fact that He, being their representative, could not be exempted from drinking the cup of substitutional sufferings and death for them, notwithstanding His agonizing pleadings for the ex emption, demonstrates that, unless He drank it in their stead, they could not be exempted from the necessity of suffering themselves the retributive punishment they deserve for their sins, after their gra cious probation is ended. 268 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. § 150. WHY HIS WERE EQUIVALENT TO THOSE DESERVED BY ALL HUMAN SINNERS. But, secondly, if told, that, according to Christ's teachings, the punishment of incorrigible sinners in the Gehenna of fire, and accord ing to John's ih the Apocalypse (Rev. 20:12-15), and to those of other Apostles, will be eternal, while the sufferings of Christ from their beginning in the garden to His death were not over fifteen hours; and if asked how His, so brief, could be a substitute for theirs, the question is already sufficiently answered, though, after some addition to this, a still more conclusive one will be given. Our only addition to this is, that, considering all above stated respecting the Person of Christ, His relations to the Father, to man, and to the universal and eternal society, why He became incarnate, and, as man's representative to the Father, did and suffered all He did, it is certain that His brief sufferings and death must have a moral value and potency to meet and sustain the demands of justice against human sinners and to that society absolutely infinite and eternal, and that all the retributive sufferings of all these sinners forever would have incomparably less of both. We add that, during those few hours, He undoubtedly did suffer all that such a Person could; and that all these sufferings were endured in obedience to the will of the Father, who would not hear His entreaties for exemption from them, but delivered Him up to the hands of His enemies, men and devils, and, in their acme, withdrew His supporting presence from Him; so that they were all, in a real sense, the product of posi tive inflictions upon Him by the Father, as the sufferings of lost sinners will be. This action of the Father towards His only-begotten and well-beloved Son was included in His part of the stupendous tran saction, as arranged in the far-back counsels of the Godhead, and was done by Him with infinite self-denial and self-sacrifice as the Son's part was by Him.* But the most conclusive answer of all to the question whether the brief sufferings and the death of Christ could be a sufficient substitute for those deserved by human sinners, as declared in the teachings referred to above, is the answer to the question, how did the Father, to whom as universal Ruler the atonement made by them, and in whom it was to have its sole effect, regard it? This is really the only important question for us con cerning it; and the delightful answer is, with infinite satisfaction. He alone could know all that pertained to the whole case as related to Himself and the universal and eternal society under Him, and [*\ Totm s:l6; Rom. 8:32, THE ATONEMENT. 269 what the effect in Him of this atonement was. He knew whether it was a perfect expiation for the sins of mankind, and so whether it was a perfect propitiation of Himself towards them. That is, He knew whether it perfectly met the demands of justice, both as retrib utive against them as sinners, and as ethical to Himself, and the universal society, so that they were absolutely unimpaired, and left mercy and grace entirely free to exert themselves to the utmost to bring them to fulfill the conditions of forgiveness on its basis. It is an absolute fact, certified in a throng of places and ways in God's own Book, that He did know it to have all this value and effect; that it did produce a perfect propitiation in Him towards mankind; that Christ, by His sufferings and death, was the propitiation; and that His being such precisely as He was, was arranged for in the redemptive plan in the antiquities of the eternal Trinity of the God head.* §151. IN WHAT THE ATONEMENT CONSISTED; WHY MADE; AND WHY IT MORE THAN MET THE DEMANDS OF JUSTICE. From all the preceding in this Chapter, the clear fact is that the atonement consisted wholly in Christ's representative substitution of Himself in His sufferings and death to the Father as Ruler of the universal, eternal society, for mankind as liable to suffer retributively as they deserve for their sins in this life, to exempt them conditionally from the necessity of undergoing that suffering themselves. It was solely from His pure philanthropy, pure mercy and grace towards human sinners, that, in perfect voluntariness, He thus substituted Himself for them, as no one can deny that He had an absolute right to do; and it was equally from the same that the Father sent and gave Him to do it, and did all His part towards Him in doing it according to their ante-mundane agreement. So all objections to it, as unjust to Christ, as possibly wrong in any sense, or as not the consummate, all-surpassing acting of absolute ethical justice to all, including the Godhead, in the universal society, and of measureless mercy and grace towards mankind as sinners and enemies, on the Father's part, are against everything in the case, and are implicit denials that He and the Son acted their parts in perfect concert, alike just, alike merciful, and alike with measureless philanthropy, self-denial, and self-sacrifice to the end. They both alike fulfilled their stipulated parts for ends of boundless, eternal gain and un- (*) Acts 2:23; 3:18; 24:28;— Is. 53:10-12; Phil. 2:9, 10; and numerous other places. 270 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. imaginable good — the salvation of numbers numberless of our lost race from all deserved penal retributions, and their exaltation to all their predestined glory, blessedness, relations and beneficent func tions with Christ in the intelligent universe; the maintenance and perpetual augmentation of the universal and eternal society in abso lute harmony with God, His law and all good; the utter suppression of Satan, his angels, and all his human adherents out of all farther action, influence, or injurious relation in that society; and the infi nite satisfaction and glory of the whole Godhead forever from the ever-augmenting result. A word farther here about justice. It is not a thing separate from the law, and, as such, retributively the summum jus, which is summa injuria, which, like Shylock with his bond for the pound of Antonio's flesh, exacts rigid execution of its demand. It is the in trinsic quality of the law which makes it social by making its matter of love reciprocally owed and due universally; so that the end of that love, which is the greatest possible real good of moral beings, and its end are identical. This is true of it even when retributive to sinners, as their punishment is to secure this good to the obedient. Hence, when Christ suffered as the representative substitute of sin ners to save them from the necessity of suffering as they deserved, He not only met the demands of justice, both as retributive against them and as ethical to God and the universal society, but Pie did vastly more than the punitive sufferings of all human sinners could have done — all the surpassing, measureless, eternal good, which is indicated above. § 152. LOVE, NOT A PRINCIPLE ESSENTIALLY VICARIOUS IN ITS NATURE. Examples of mere sympathy with, and self-sacrificing ministries to and efforts for suffering objects of affection go not a step towards proving the "theologic fiction," that love in any sense is, in its very nature, vicarious. They merely show that the love, whether of a mother for her child, of a friend for a friend, of a patriot for his country, or of any towards any number of others specially related by ties of nature, of mutual attachment, of country, of race, or how ever, impels to its special executive action for the object or objects thus specially related, but not towards entire mankind, and certainly not towards them when enemies without and against any just cause or reason, and more yet, not if in rebellion against its actor having rightful authority and government over them. Such love is not, in LOVE. 271 itself, intrinsically moral, as it is common to mankind, even the worst, and proves nothing as to the real nature and manifestations of moral love, which is essentially pure good-will to oilmen and moral beings, acted out according to their characters and relations. As we have before shown, no sympathetic suffering with others, whether spec ially related or not in it, with whatever labors and endurances for them, which is not designed to free them from the necessity of under going a deserved, punitive suffering by being in its stead, is or can be vicarious. This term cannot consent to be wrenched away from meaning substitutional, which it only properly can mean, and made to mean this mere sympathizing suffering with suffering objects of affection, which it never did nor can properly mean, to suit the exigency of any system-maker. Moral love in God or any other being is no principle at all, but is entirely action of the moral heart, a voluntary moral state of the mind of its actor according to the law, which is its only principle. It consists in pure good-will with its correlated emotions and intellectual action; and no action executive of it to or for its objects, nor suffering with or for them, is intrinsically any part of it, except as shore-creeks are of oceans. These are merely special effects or results of it, both the action and the suffering, as far as it is voluntarily undergone, being always to accomplish or attain some particular end or ends of good, because connected with, or important to, the grand end of this love, which is the greatest possible good of all its objects consistent with their several characters, deserts, conditions, and relations to each other, and to God. In itself, therefore, the love of God is in no proper sense vicarious to all, and involves no principle requiring Him to undergo vicarious suffering for human sinners otherwise than it does one to execute every special act or course which He sees to be made necessary or important, wise or best, by occasion — that is, in any other sense than it does one to inflict punishment on incorrigible sinners, to forgive those who truly repent, to visit persons, communities, or nations with special judgments , to exercise special providences, or disciplinary chastisements, or to do any special thing. If sin had never entered the universe, vicarious suffering would have been impossible, because there would have been no occasion and opportunity for it; and ye'. God and all moral beings would have been perfect in love. On the other hand, when God or even human rulers must inflict punishment on transgressors, there is no opportunity or place for it; and yet God is certainly in perfect love in inflicting punishment, and men may be. There was no opportunity or place for vicarious suffering by God 272 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. when He "spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;" and yet He was in perfect love in so treating them. It is only in respect to mankind, in whose case as sinners there are mitigating circumstances, that such suffering for them was possible for God; and therefore vicarious suffering is necessarily only a special measure of occasion and wisdom, fust as every other special measure and act or course is and must be. We will see that this measure was possible for God only once, and can never be repeated. So far is such suffering from being an essential principle in the nature of love. We simply notice here, that the vicarious suffering of Christ for mankind was not to rescue any of them from the necessity of under going any suffering in this life, whether natural, including that of bodily death, or providential, or disciplinary. For, (i) It does not do this as a matter of fact, although a mitigation of temporal suffer ing in various respects is among its effects. (2) It could not do this, because a substitution for any temporal suffering is impossible. (3) It could only be to rescue them as sinners from suffering deserved, positive punishment from God, which, without it, it was morally necessary that He should inflict upon them all. (4) As this life is one of probation, and not of retribution, it could only be to rescue from the necessity of suffering this after this life ends, so that as many as would return to God before it ends could be forever freed from suffering it by means of His vicarious suffering for them as the ground of their forgiveness and of all good to them. The atonement was for mankind as immortals, to secure their immortal good. Chris tianity is a religion for immortals. We must pursue this notion of a principle of vicarious suffer ing in all love farther. If we consider all the requisite and essential conditions of such a measure in a human government, it is perfectly obvious that it can never be adopted by one. Considering the very limited capabilities of all human rulers, the brevity of their lives, the indefiniteness and defectiveness of their relations to their subjects, their faultiness at best in moral character and wisdom, and their lack of truths, motives, and renovating agency and influences requi site to secure any beneficial results in their subjects from such a measure, even if it were at all possible to execute it, how could one even attempt to adopt it without utter folly and the certainty of evil, instead of auspicious results? We know the story of Zaleucas, which has been used to illustrate the vicarious atonement of Christ; but, LOVE NOT VICARIOUS. 273 while the idea of substitution appears in it, it is so defective in vari ous essential aspects requisite to represent that stupendous measure in its adaptations to meet the whole case between God and human sinners, that, in our earliest consideration of the subject, we dis carded the use of it for that purpose. But God, being all that He is in nature, mode of existence as tripersonal, character, and rela tions to mankind and all moral beings as their Creator, Preserver, and Ruler, and being unlimited in all natural and moral attributes, was infinitely able to devise and execute this supreme measure, to make all the manifestations of Himself in and connected with it to them, to place the momentous truths, facts, and motives involved in and created by it before them, and to exert a personal morally re newing influence upon them to secure, on the ground and in conse quence of it, results of salvation to men, of eternal benefit and bless ing to all holy beings, and of good to Himself, compensating for it beyond all finite conception. Seeing it thus practicable and infi nitely beneficent and wise, in the opulence of His mercy He adopted and executed it as the one only means to meet the one only occasion in the case of mankind at least, created by their sin and the right eous, holy, indefeasible demand of retributive justice against them; and He can never repeat it towards them, because there can never be another such occasion in their case. There is the strongest reason to think He can never repeat it towards any other race or order of moral beings in the universe. Hence, tliere never was, nor can be, a Geth semane, nor, what is more, a Calvary, in the love of any other being than God; never in His towards mankind otherwise than all special acts, courses, and measures are in it when occasions for them arrive whether they are of beneficence, of mercy, or of judgment and justice, He eternally foreknew the occasions for all His special acts, courses, and measures, this among them; and it was in His eternal purpose to execute this "in the fullness of time" forseen by Him in the atoning sufferings and death of Christ. But, since then, it never has been nor will be in His purpose, in His executive acts, nor in His love again towards mankind. Gethsemane and Calvary, therefore, whether viewed separately or together, will forever stand alone among all the executive acts, courses, measures, and manifestations ot God towards them; and no real parallel of them will ever be exe cuted again towards them, nor probably towards any other order of beings in the universe. 274 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. § 153. THAT IT IS NOT, SHOWN BY APOSTROPHIZING PROPHETS, CHRIST, ETC. We think the foregoing a demonstration of the falseness of the notion that love, especially moral love, is in its nature, vicarious. But, as this notion is the legitimate outcome of denying real retrib utive punishment, and of holding the natural consequences of sin the real and only retributions, and with this that, from the nature ol love, God and all good beings must enter into the bad condition of, and go to cost for sinners of all characters and degrees with unlim ited sympathy and persistence, we deem it important, besides, to place it in a position that will expose its unscriptural and obnoxious character. For, if true, it is worse than that of non-resistance, main tained by some in the anti-slavery struggle, which required only passive endurance of what assailants might inflict, but not vicarious suffering for them, which is voluntary and positive. To expose its true character, let us apostrophize as follows: — Oh prophets, psalm ists, and saints of the Old Testament down to Malachi! Wherefore did you predict and denounce such appalling burdens and dooms on your own people and their generations, and on all the nations and kingdoms from Babylon to Rome and down the centuries for their sins and apostasies, instead of voluntarily entering, and teach ing your people to enter, into their wretched conditions, and of going to the cost of vicarious suffering of the kind of this notion accord ing to this inherent principle of all love? And wherefore did Jehovah, from whom you declaredly spoke, violate " this principle of all love," in so terribly executing them all along the centuries, even until now, overwhelming and sweeping them away with horrors on horrors, the records of which make the hearts of readers quake? But, as many decry the Old Testament in these days, let us come to the New. Oh Saviour of men, the center and sum of absolute love! wherefore didst thou declare thy terrific threatenings and woes against all incorrigible sinners, especially the Scribes and Pharisees, and the Jewish nation adhering to them, dooming Jerusalem and its temple to destruction, and the remnant surviving that destruction to their still-continued dispersion over the Gentile world, and to all their incalculable endurances, notwithstanding thy vicarious suffer ings for them and the world, instead of persistently entering thyself into their miseries and going to helping cost for them? and where fore hast thou been executing thy menaces and doomings until now? Wherefore didst thou threaten all incorrigible sinners, not in relation to Sheol or Hades, the place of all the souls of the dead, but in LOVE NOT VICARIOUS. 275 relation to Gehenna, Hell, the place of future punishment, nine differ ent recorded times — six times without qualifications, once "hell of fire," once with the addition, "the unquenchable fire," and once with the addition, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched; " declaring four times, that they should "be cast into" it> twice that they " shall go into " it, once that " God is able to destroy both soul and body in" it, once that they are "in danger of it," once that they are "sons of it," and once asking "how they can escape the judgment of it?" Wherefore, further, didst thou announce that "thou wilt say to them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels," and that they " shall go away into eternal punishment; " and make numerous other averments of the same awful import? In what possible way can all thy various and appalling declarations of eternal punishment con sist with thy love, or with truth, if the natural consequences of sin are its only punishment, and all love is in principle vicarious, and must therefore persistently enter into the bad condition of, and go to cost for all sinners? Are the so-called liberals right or absurd in pronouncing them all merely figurative, so that they do not mean what they say, inflicted eternal punishment, but merely the natural consequences of sin, from which thy vicarious love of sympathy and cost will yet retrieve all sinners? Oh holy Apostles, imbued so peerlessly with love from its very fountain! wherefore did you, in your preaching and writings, denounce such numerous and terrible positive retributions from God upon all incorrigible rejecters of the grace of salvation, instead of declaring to all the doctrine of vica rious, sympathetic love, that God will never inflict positive punish ment upon any; that only the natural, consequences of sin await any, however refractory; that, if they only repent at any time in futurity, they will escape these, and would if Christ had never come and died, nor any grace through His cost-death been given; and that, accord ing to this vicarious principle in the very nature of love, God and all good beings must make themselves their loving vassals and vic tims by persistently entering themselves into their evil condition, and vicariously going to cost for them to win them from their sin and its bad natural results either until they repent or until assured that they never will? Why did you not understand the love you proclaimed, and not shock the sensibilities of at least all claiming to be most advanced in culture and refinement by these gross and bar- barious denunciations and appeals to the low principle of fear? Oh thou, of holy love the most perfect human shrine, who wert the 276 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. Apocalyptic seer! what potent drug had laid thy love asleep, that thou couldst, unparalyzed, bear to see the dreadful panorama of scenes and convulsions; hear the cries of single mighty angels with mighty voices — of hosts of them combined, loud as of tumultuous seas and volleyed thunders — of myriads in heaven united in hymns and hallelujahs, with harpings loud as the sound of many waters or rolling thunders— of Him on the heavenly throne or His criers, uttering great commands or proclamations with mightiest sound — of the souls of the martyrs under heaven's altar crying with loud voice against their murderers — of trumpetings and thunderings with all the attending explanations, informations, songs, lamentations, and sayings in heaven and on earth: — all relating to a correspond ing series of appalling retributive judgments from Him who sits on the throne on vast portions of mankind for their incorrigible wick edness, and including famines, pestilences, wars, earthquakes, fires, tempests of hail, locusts, and the exerted wrath of God, with all con ceivable calamities, torments, and exterminating destructions of the cities, nations, and tribes of the earth, all ending with the final judg ment, and with casting into the lake of fire, which is the second death, all whose names are not written in the book of life; — and that thou couldst relate the whole in a book, beside which all the catas- trophies and horrors of all the tragic dramas and the epics ever written shrink to comparative trifles, and give it to the Church and the world as a prophetic revelation from Jesus Christ Himself, cer tain to be fulfilled, to forewarn and prepare its crediting readers through all following centuries? Is this thy own and God's way of entering into sympathy with, and going to vicarious cost for, the generations and nations hostile to Him, to His moral system and truth, and to all good? Should not Jesus Christ through you have said that His Father and He could never do any such dreadful things to His children, however apostate, wicked, and hostile; and that the loving angels could never act such parts as those of the seven trumpets and the seven seals, and as those who executed such terrific destructions acted ? Should not the souls of the martyrs under the altar, "crying with a loud voice, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" instead of being told "to rest yet for a little season until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled," have been told to cease their loveless, revengeful cry for vengeance on their murderers, and instead to exercise the love of sympathy and vicarious cost for LOVE NOT VICARIOUS. 277 them? Instead of receiving the assurance that, after a little season, God would avenge them, should they not have been told that He would never inflict any positive punishment upon their murderers for their crimes against them and all their wickedness, but that He, they, and all good beings must, by the vicarious principle of love, enter into sympathy with and go to cost for them on account of the miserable natural consequences of their very atrocities against them, and of those of all their sins and crimes? To forgive them was of course impossible for either those souls or God, because, as they deserved no infliction of positive retribution, there was nothing to forgive; and as the vicarious principle of love required helping sympathy and suffering for them, how could they, in their white robes, clamor for vengeance on them, which love made it impossible for Him to take, or be assured by Him, " the just and true," that He would inflict it ? And how could the angelic and saintly hosts in heaven rejoice and praise God at beholding the inflictions of retrib utive vengeance on the incorrigible myriads of persecutors, of cor rupters of the earth, of worshippers of the wild-beast, of the fol lowers of the false prophet, of the fornicators with the great whore, and of the inhabitants of Great Babylon? Then, how could our Lord Himself on the white horse, "having on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords," go forth, followed by the armies of heaven, like a mighty Conqueror, to "smite the nations with the sword which goes out of Plis mouth, to rule them with a rod of iron, and to tread the wine-press of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God," an angel "crying with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come, and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God," specifying what the supper is, which is prepared for them by this resistless One? Lastly, how can the description of the final judgment in Chapter 20:11-15 possibly consist with the notion that the merely natural consequences of sin are real, and its only, retri butions or punishment? — or with the notion that love is intrinsically vicarious, and must be persistently acted out towards all sinners by- sympathizing with and going to cost for them in the bad condition of those consequences of their sins? — or with any position whatever, other than, that the only retributions are positive inflictions of pun ishment on finally incorrigible sinners "according to their works," the universal rule, twice expressed in this passage, which punishment, according to the unequivocal teachings of our Lord recorded in the Gospels, as we have shown, consists in being "cast into the lake of 278 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. fire," Gehenna, with the devil and his angels for whom if was pre pared, which " is the second death? " From this death there will be no resurrection. It will be eternal. The eternal door is locked on them. The eternal curtain hides them. They are eternally outside of the universal moral system.* What enormous nonsense this notion of love is! and how perfectly its likeness is its child, the notion of the so-called moral atonement, which is none at all! I*) Chap. 21:8, 27; 22:11 ir,. CHAPTER XIV. The designed relations of the Atonement to human sinners as such, io those brought io comply with the conditions of salvation and forgive ness during their probation, and connected points. § 154. THE ATONEMENT A PROVISION FOR ALL MANKIND ALIKE, BUT AN ACTUAL ONE FOR THOSE ONLY WHO COMPLY WITH ITS TERMS. That, in designed adaptation, it is a provision for all mankind alike is in the nature of the case. They are all alike creatures of God, made by Him in His own image; alike intrinsically valuable in nature as immortal moral beings; alike in having the law in and from their moral nature, and in being naturally and necessarily sub ject to it and to the government of God; alike consequently related to Him and all moral beings, existing and yet to exist in all futurity, and He and they to them; alike from and related to Adam as their natural head and representative; alike fallen in and with him in his "first disobedience," thus becoming vitiated in nature and sinners; alike, as such, in their relations to God, to His law in them with its justice, to His government, and to His universal and eternal moral society and system; alike liable to the retributive punishment de served by their sins, and powerless to escape it; alike sinners, not in an absolute, but in a modified degree during this probationary life, or as long in it as they do not by willful presumption make themselves utterly incorrigible apostates from God and all obligation, as doubtless some, comparatively very few, of them, do; alike capable of misery and all ruin, if unrescued, and of glory and all good, if saved; alike absolute objects of mercy, the very nature of which is to rescue the guilty, as far as possible, from, punishment and all the evil of sin, and to restore them to right character and all good; alike capable, if so rescued and restored, of being occasioning causes of pleasure and glory to God and of happiness to all good beings forever, but, if not, of sorrow to Him and them forever; alike, in fine, in all essential respects. There is not therefore a conceivable principle, 280 THE A TONEMENT OF CHRIST. not purely arbitrary, aside from their own voluntary action and courses under and respecting the truths and motives He sets before, and the influences He exerts upon them on the basis of the atonement, and their consequent relations to Him, to the universal holy society in which He is, and to His eternal law and government, on which the atonement could be exclusively designed, as a provision, for only a part of mankind, or not, in the fullest sense, for them all alike as sinners. As they are alike in all the respects mentioned, so God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, His law and government, and His universal holy society are all equally and changelessly alike in them selves and as related to them as sinners, fn designed adaptation, therefore, the atonement must be for them all alike as guilty, in order to be a provision, on the ground of which forgiveness and all salvation may be freely offered to all on condition of their compliance with the terms of the offer, and that He may make an actual application of it to all of them who fulfill this condition. That is, it must, in the nature of the case, be primarily simply a social, provisional, and, of course, conditional substitution for the penal suffering of them all as sinners, to be made an actual one to such of them only as comply with the conditions under the motives of the facts and truths and the influences of the agencies connected with it, as known to and operant upon them; and it cannot be either an absolute or an actual one for any of them while continuing in sin. 7/ is only God's act of forgiving each one who fulfills the condition, that makes it actual for him. § 155. THE CONDITION OF ITS APPLICATION TO ANY, AND HOW IT IS MADE. The condition which constitutes ethical fitness for the actual application of the substitution to any one by forgiveness is not, of course, any kind of works to deserve, earn, and win the favor of God as their reward; nor the mere belief of anything concerning Him as true; but is the voluntary act or exercise of yielding up sin and self to God, as known, by believing, trusting, relying upon Him as merci ful and gracious to forgive sin and set free from its punishment. It is by faith, that it might be by grace (Rom. 4:16), and can be no other way. According to this general definition, it may be fulfilled by those who are ignorant of the Gospel, because such a faith in God, as known by them, involves such an ethical state in them by the grace of the Holy Spirit, that, if they did know the Gospel of Christ, they would believe in Him as their Saviour and Lord, and that, when Pie shall become known to them, they will, as it were, ATONEMENT FOR ALL. 281 spontaneously believe in Him. Such, doubtless, was the esse of the centurion of Capernaum, of Cornelius, and of otners among 'he heathen, to whom the Gospel was preached by the Apostles; and is the case, we hope, of some among them of all times. But, confining ourselves now to those who have knowdedge of the vicarious suffer ing of Christ for mankind, it is, in the Gospel, offered to them all alike and declared to be for all, as the ground of forgiveness on the ethical condition stated; and were it not really so, the offer would neither agree with the fact, nor with sincerity and truth. § 156. IF NOT FOR ALL, WOULD NOT ACCORD WITH EITHER JUSTICE OR MERCY. There are two other confirmations of this position. (1) Unless the atoning suffering of Christ was, in God's design, a provisional substitution for the deserved retributive suffering of all, as alike in all the respects noticed, it would neither accord with the universally social nature of the justice of the law, the retributive demands of which are against them allih behalf of God Himself and His entire and eternal holy society, nor with the nature of mercy, which is an tithetically correlated to these demands 'against them all, as it is love of their nature and its good for their immortal, intrinsic value, not withstanding their sin and guilt; and therefore it cannot, from its nature, be confined to any part of them, but must be towards and act for them all alike as sinners. It never exists and acts towards holy beings, nor towards sinners absolutely lost, but only towards sinners who may be redeemed, and, through redemption, restored to right character, and so to God and His holy society; and, because redemption from the righteous demands of retributive justice against them is the only gate through which forgiveness and all good from God can enter to any of them, it was necessarily the consummate action and measure of mercy to all to provide this gate, which it could only do by providing a substitute to meet those demands by suffering in their stead. But, as they are all alike in all the respects noticed, all intertied by their race membership and relations, and all objects alike of mercy, which cannot be partial, the substitutional suffering which would provisionally meet, and stay the execution of, those demands against one, would do the same for every other one, and so for them all. Besides, and by doing this, it would secure for them their gracious probation with all the Providential blessings and good they receive during its continuance, and all the truths, motives, agencies, and influences created by and connected with it to bring 282 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. them to return to God in faith and its loving obedience. But it could not be either an absolute or an actual substitution for all or any of them before such returning, not only because that is the necessary ethical condition of its application to any of them by forgiveness, but because it cannot, in the nature of the case, be absolute for any during this probationary life, and, if it were actual for all or any persisting in sin, it would be an utterly unrighteous measure, at war with the imperative and all the characteristics and obligations of the law, and so with the possibility of a moral system, and would be a license to all to disregard and violate it with entire impunity to any degrees they may wish. We think this argument decisive. §157. NOR WITH CHRIST'S BEING THE REPRESENTATIVE OF MANKIND. 2. But there is another which we think confirms the position stated beyond question. Our Lord Jesus Christ was the represen tative to God of our whole race in His person and in all His action for it;* and therefore His atoning suffering must have been a pro visional substitution for it all. He represented it all, not as right eous, but as sinners deserving to suffer penally for their sins as retrib utive justice demands; and, in principle, a representative is always a substitute for all he represents. He is necessarily such in the most absolute sense, if he represents them in suffering and dying to rescue, or provide a rescue for, them from suffering and dying in a punitive sense as they deserve. When our Lord, therefore, as representative of our race of sinners, suffered and died, He was necessarily the substitute in doing so for them all alike as sinners — that is, not an absolute, nor an actual, but a provisional, conditional one, to rescue them all alike from the necessity of suffering and dying penally as they deserve, provided they ethically return to God during their probation. Only thus could His substitution be an object for any of them either to accept and rely upon, or to reject, or in relation to which they could act at all. We think this manifest, if looked at in the following way: — § 158. WHAT TRUE IF IT WERE AN ACTUAL SUBSTITUTION FOR ALL MANKIND AS SINNERS. 1. Suppose the atonement of Christ was made for all mankind as sinners, not as simply a provisional, but as an actual substitution for their deserved suffering, and, as truth requires, was so declared. (*) I. Tim. 2:5, 6; Heb. S:6; 9:15; 12:24; also involved in Rom. 5:12-19; I. Cor. 15:21, 22; also in John 3:16; Heb. 2:9-18; and commonly. ATONEMENT FOR ALL. 283 It would then be also an absolute one, as it would have no ethical condition for them to fulfill. No action of theirs could have any relation to it either to secure or to prevent its effect. They would all be exempt from all penal liability for their sin of any degree, however enormous. It would make a moral system impossible, as it would practically supplant the law and government of God, and all ethical, no less than retributive, justice, all responsibility and accountability, and so the foundations of all ethics; and it would make forgiveness neither a thing for men to seek nor for God to bestow. It would be utterly immoral in principle and effect — a license to all to live as they list with perfect impunity, certain of heaven and blessedness in the endless future, if any blessedness could be possible for them thus saved in their sins from penalty alone. § 159. WHAT TRUE, IF IT WERE SUCH FOR ANY PART OF MANKIND, AND NOT FOR ALL. 2. Suppose again, that God did not design the substitution to be a provisional, and so a conditional one for all men, to be made actual for all who fulfill the condition, but to be an actual one for a part of them only, and that He has so declared it. In this, as in the former case, it would be for them in their sin and guilt, and would meet the demands of retributive justice against them without any condition to be fulfilled by them, so that no action of theirs could have any relation to it, either to secure or prevent its effect. Whatever they might do or become in bad character, they would be absolutely exempt from all penal liability for it. On the contrary, no action of those for whom it was not made could have any rela tion to it, either to secure or to prevent its application to them, because it was in no sense designed for them. Neither part, there fore, could with any reason or eTect act in relation to it, to change its relation to them, more than they could to the man in the moon or to the steadfast northern star. Neither in principle nor effect would it be better in relation to its objects than if actual for all; while, by being exclusively for them, it would be a purely arbitrary discrimination between them and the rest of mankind, in conflict with the nature and reason of mercy and the whole nature of the case, which has been shown. But, although its effect to rescue its objects from penalty would be the same whether they knew them selves such and relied on it or not, yet supposing it could be differ ent if they did know it was for them, from what it would be if they 284 THE A TONEMENT OF CHRIST. did not, how could any of them possibly get the knowledge that the)' are its objects, unless by a special revelation to him of the fact? Without this, belief that they are would be without evidence, mere assumption.§ 160. IF EITHER OF THESE SUPPOSITIONS WERE TRUE, A PROBATION IN ANY SENSE WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR MANKIND. 3. But, we reject both these suppositions not only for the reasons stated against them, but the additional special one under lying them, that the substitution in either case would make a probation in any sense impossible for mankind. For what could the objects of it in either case be on probation for, when no action of theirs could affect or relate to their future salvation from penalty more than that of the confirmed angels in Heaven could affect or relate to theirs? Of course, if the substitution is actual and for only a part of the race, the other part cannot be on probation in any sense; for their perdition is irreversibly certain; and thus no pro bation is possible for any of the race, and God can have no moral system and no government over them more than over the irrational animals.§ l6l. MUST BE SIMPLY A PROVISION FOR ALL ALIKE TO BE MADE ACTUAL FOR ANY, OR TO BE OFFERED Td ALL OR ANY. We therefore hold it certain, on every ground, that the substi tution, as it relates to human sinners, as such, must be designedly simply provisional for them all alike, and that it must be so in order to be made actual for any of them when renewed. It must be such, to be truly and sincerely offered to all alike as directly related to them and their action, the alternative for each being that, if he accepts it in the prescribed ethical way, it will be made actual for him, but, if he will not, it will avail him nothing, but will make his guilt and punishment greater. The knowledge of it is thus a mighty motive in itself, a momentous inducement and impulsion to draw and impel him to fulfill the condition, being a solid and sure basis for his faith and hope, and at the same time vastly augmentive of his fear to continue in sin. The fact, that the Son of God, moved by His infinite pity for our race of sinners despite all their hostility of heart and wrong of action against God, in pure mercy and grace to them all, voluntarily became man under the law to represent and act for them, not merely in teaching them all necessary moral and gracious truth, in declaring His Father to them, and in His whole absolutely perfect example of character, conduct, and all manifesta- PROVISION FOR ALL ALIKE. 285 tion in His relations to them, but supremely in substituing Him self as the representative of them all in His suffering and death to rescue them from the necessity of suffering and dying penally as retributive justice demands, and, by doing this, to secure for them all gracious truth, agencies, and influences to bring them back to God morally, in order that God may make this pro visional substitution for all actual by forgiveness for each return ing one, and may, on the ground of it,' give him eternal salva tion and all the blessings and glories premised in the Gospel to all such as are made " meet for the inheritance of the ' saints in light" — this most stupendous fact in the universe is, and, through all time, must be to all who know of it, the monarch motive, com pared with which all others are as asteroids or satellites to the glor ious sun, to rouse in men the impulse of gratitude, to subdue their stubbornness in sin, and to allure and sway them to renounce it and yield themselves to God in faith, love, and true obedience. It is only when one is brought by this mighty solvent of sinful hearts to do this under the agency of the Spirit showing and impressing it as a designed provision for all, that it can righteously, and without positive injustice to God Himself and all good beings under Him, be made actual for him by forgiveness from God. But, as we think we have shown, if it were directly actual for all or only a part of mankind as sinners, it could be no motive and have no adaptation or tendency to bring its objects from sin to trust and love God, but would serve as a license to them all, and, in the case of its being for only a part, for the other part also, to continue in sin. All, therefore, would continue to experience the natural consequences of sin, and, if the substitution were for a part only, the other part would suffer its positive retributive punishment in addition, while it would be utterly arbitrary, being at war with the law, with universal moral nature which contains and issues it, with the whole moral system it constitutes, and so with all ethical justice to God and all good beings according to their natural and moral rights to each other's pure moral love, and demanded by their everlasting dues, interests, and concerns. By their sin, all men are morally out of and in conflict with this moral system, and the problem for God to solve was how to get all or any of them back into it consistently with all the rights, dues, interests, and concerns of Himself and the whole everlasting society in it. He solved it by devising and mak ing a provisional substitution for them all, to be made actual by for giveness for every one of them who would truly return into it under 286 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. the gracious motives and influences in and secured for them by the amazing measure, which thus at once looks to, guards, and secures all the rights, dues, interests, and concerns of Himself and His everlasting loyal society, and looks to and provides for the salvation and all good of as many sinners of our race as can be brought to return truly into the moral system constituted by the law in all moral natures. That is, it is at once a measure of ethical justice to God and all good beings forever, and of representative substitution for retributive justice against all human sinners, provisional for all, and actual for all who truly return to God. § 162. THE ATONEMENT BEING FOR ALL, ALL HAVE A GRACIOUS PROBATION. Thus and thus only, can all have a probation; for the only one they can have is a gracious one, one to which they have no possible right, not even by promise, as, like life, it is given without any, in which they may return to God and be forgiven by Him, if they will. But as those who return and receive forgiveness are not confirmed in holiness in this life, their probation continues to its end, though under vastly better conditions than before on account both of their changed subjective state and of their objective relations to all holy truth, to God, and to His universal holy society. While, therefore, forgiveness makes the substitution actual for them, it does not make it absolute, as its continued application to them necessarily remains conditional till probation and life end together, when, if they have continued to fulfill the condition, they will be confirmed, and the substitution will be made absolute for them forever. If they should not continue to fulfill it, they would necessarily fall back under the penalty deserved by their sins. If they are still on probation in any sense, their forgiveness is in the same sense conditional, and could not, of itself, prevent such a relapse at any time of its continuance. But, while we fully hold the freedom of the will, and, therefore, the possibility and danger of such a relapse, and the certainty of it, if the forgiven were left to themselves under all the temptations which surround them, and with all the suceptibilities and tendencies to evil which still remain in them, we do not believe any of them ever have fallen or will fall into it. For the best of reasons, which we may show in the sequel, we joyfully believe that God has so arranged and provided for their conservation, that, even if at times in their course they fall into sin, they will be kept from apostasy and per sistence in them, restored and preserved in habitual fulfillment of ALL SAP RED TRUTH, ETC., PROVISIONAL. 287 the condition till death ends their probation, when they will be con firmed and the substitution will be made absolute for them forever. " Sin shall not have dominion over them; for they are not under law, but under grace." Such, we think, are the relations of Christ's atonement to man kind, and we see not how any other or others can possibly harmonize with the nature and essential facts of the case. We believe the teach ings of Scripture concerning it, when we come to examine them, will be found to harmonize with and be reflected in this view in all respects, and not with any other essentially different one. § 163. ALL SACRED TRUTH, MOTIVES, ETC., LIKE THE ATONEMENT, ONLY PROVISIONAL FOR MANKIND AS SINNERS. Not only was the atonement to the Father as Ruler a conditional provision for all mankind alike as sinners, but all done for them, as such, along with it was of the same kind. Such in relation to them as sinners was all the truth of revelation with its measureless motives, all that Christ manifested of infinite merciful love for them in His temporal life and death, all that He continues to do and secure for them in His Mediatorial reign, all that the Father does for them graciously, all that the Holy Spirit does in His agency for them, all the workings and manifestations of God in providence, and all done for them by the Church and by Christians individually or in cooperation in their various relations. These motives, influences, instrumentalities, and agencies are the greatest conceivable or pos sible; and we cannot even imagine any added which could either augment them or add to their adaptation and potency to bring them to exchange, by their own free and cordial choice, their wrong for right moral action, trustful and loving obedience for sin. The whole nature of the case — of justice, of mercy, of God's relations to them and the universal society, as Ruler, and of theirs to Him and that society as essentially the same of them all alike — shows that they must be equally provisional for them all as infinite wisdom directs. Any limitation of them by specializing design, inconsistent with all these facts, to any restricted part of the fallen race cannot even be supposed possible. There can be no reason in God for any, and it would be necessarily arbitrary. Hence, whether all, or only a part of, mankind, capable of acting responsibly under the Gospel, could or could not be brought by all included in and connected with the plan of redemption to comply with the ethical conditions of both forgiveness and the relations to God conferred with it must be de- 288 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. cided conclusively by the self-arbitrated act or choice of each in yielding to or resisting the motives and influences brought upon him according to the wisest, best possible plan. This choice of each cannot be made for him by any other being, nor compelled, super ceded, or dispensed with; for all that is morally good or bad, right or wrong, in any rational being must consist in and result from it. Of course, those not under these truths, motives, influences, and agencies of and connected with the Gospel, can only make it under such as exist for them in its absence, yet each of them must make it for himself under these, and must thus determine for himself its con sequences, good or bad. Hence, as far as accountable mankind are concerned, the question of the salvation of any of them is neces sarily conditional. But, as it respects those under the Gospel, the necessary condition for each of them of obtaining forgiveness and initiation by God into the relations to Him and all holy beings which follow it is his entrance by his own choice, under its truth, motives, influences, and agencies, into the right moral action and state which it requires; and then the necessary condition of his continuing in this action and state during his probation till death is habitual, watchful, militant persistence under the same as then related to and operant upon him. Conditions never cease for any in this life, be cause probation never does. Such is the relation of man on his side in time to all the provisions of God for his salvation. At his exit from time, he leaves temptation and probation behind, is at once confirmed, and the atonement is made absolute for him forever. Having shown in the preceding Chapter, §§ 145-150, what is not implied in our Lord's substituting Himself for mankind to make the atonement to the Father, as Ruler, for them, and in what it exclu sively consisted, we here call back attention some farther to that subject, both to expand some of the points there indicated, and to expose the futility of any objection the stupendous measure. § 164. BOTH THE SON AND THE FATHER HAD A PERFECT RIGHT TO ACT THE PARTS THEY DID, AND TO AGREE TO DO SO. In § 151, it is affirmed that our Lord had a perfect right to be come incarnate and, under the law, to be the representative of man kind, to act for them with the Father as Ruler, and to substitute Himself for them in His sufferings and death to extricate them from the necessity of suffering the punishment they deserve for their sins, or transgressions of the law, if they would return to obedience dur ing the gracious probation granted them. To deny that He had this ALL SACRED TRUTH, ETC., PROVISIONAL. 289 right absolutely is to deny a fundamental principle and basis of moral ity, and to contradict the common sense of mankind. It is to deny that He had a right to humiliate, deny, and sacrifice Himself for our race as He did — to become, do and suffer for it all He did — to be as phi lanthropic, merciful, gracious, and absolutely good towards it as He was — to accomplish and secure by His substitution all He did for it, both in this world in that which is to come. All who devote them selves to labors, self-denials, self-sacrifices, and sufferings, or even death for the good of their fellow-men — Christian missionaries, martyrs, philanthropists, and others — have always done so by this right; and to dispute it is not the part of the sane. Equally absolute was the right of the Father, in the arranged economy of redemption, to assume all the self-denial, self-sacrifice, and heart sufferings He did in fulfilling His part towards His only-begotten ion; and to dispute that He had it is equally preposterous. Hence, as both the Persons acted throughout in perfect agreement, and as they each had an absolute right to do, the least shadow of injustice on the Father's part towards the Son was absolutely impossible. Nor was there a shadow of it, but the contrary, ineffable mercy, towards human sinners, as, by the substitution, the demand of retributive justice against them was so met as to be eternally hushed towards all of them brought, in consequence of it, into the necessary harmony with God and the universal moral society and system. As meeting this demand was, ipso facto meeting that of ethical justice to God and that society, there was not only no possible injustice in the substitution to Him and it, but, as shown in the Sec tion referred to, a vastness of good beyond all the ethical justice which the full retributive punishment of all human sinners would secure, which no finite mind can measure. " O'er guilt (how mountainous!) with outstretch' d arms Stern Justice and soft-smiling Love embrace, Supporting, in full majesty, thy throne, When seem'd its majesty to need support, Or that, or man inevitably lost: What but the fathomless of thought divine Could labor such expedient from despair, And rescue both? Both rescue? both exalt 1 < O how are both exalted by the deed ! The wondrous deed! or shall I call it more? A wonder in Omnipotence itself? A mystery no less to gods than men! " — Young's Night Thoughts, Night IV. 290 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. § 165. HENCE, BOTH WERE ABSOLUTELY JUST IN ACTING THEM. Look closely at the case. As there was no possible injustice in it, how could the punishment of all human sinners more radiantly demonstrate the justice of God to the universal society, including Himself, both as a Person and as Ruler, than the fact that, although He infinitely desired to save them from it, yet as He could not unless He first met its demands against them, He devised and executed this stupendous substitution? How else could He so demonstrate His infinite regard for the everlasting rights, interests, and concerns of that society and Himself in and over it, and at the same time His infinite mercy towards hostile, guilty man? How else could He so demonstrate His inflexible regard for and purpose to maintain and secure to the utmost the eternal law of all righteousness in the uni verse as to its justice, its matter and its end, and to administer His government according to its perfect spirit and demands, both in rewarding the obedient and in punishing the incorrigibly disobedi ent? How else could He so demonstrate His estimation of the boundless value of the love which is obedience to the law, and of the corresponding evil of sin in itself and as related to the end of His law and government, which is the greatest good of all unfallen and all rescued moral beings? Considering all the peculiar circum stances in the case of mankind, how could He better, as well, or at all unfold and vindicate His all-perfect character, both as a Person and as Ruler, otherwise than by this stupendous measure of self- sacrificing love for them, His enemies against all cause, to rescue and save them ? What shadow of wrong in any sense can there be in it to any creature in the universe? Does any one still obtrude the old, stale objection, that it is clearly unjust and an offense to the moral sense of mankind, that the innocent should be punished for the guilty, and His suffering substituted for that deserved by them ? The perfect answer has been given again and again in both the pre ceding Chapter and this. What vve affirm is not that Christ was punished for the guilty, which was not possible, but that He volun tarily, having from infinite philanthropy become their representative with the lather as Ruler, acted the consummate self-denial and self- sacrifice of equivalently suffering their punishment in their stead, which He had an absolute right to do, as no sane man of respectable intelligence can deny; and that He did this in agreement with the Father, who had the same right to act the self-denial and self-sacri fice He did in His part of the amazing transaction. Thus justice ORTHODOX GOD. 291 and mercy, justice to the total and eternal loyal society with Him self central in it, and mercy towards hostile, guilty men, were so wedded in it, each in infinite culmination, that no creature can ever see ajar between them, or say "which of them brightest shines." Like gold in quartz, it is imbedded in the absolute consistency of the law with its justice with mercy and all its achievable good in the universe and the ages. No orb of creation moves in greater, if in equal, consistency with all the rest, nor in one half as sublime. If, from imbecility, ignorance, or worse, any lack capacity to under stand this, they should at least not expose the lack, and so escape the just opprobrium incurred by parading this silly objection. Their conception of justice itself expressed in it is not that of the law, but that of an imaginary ogre, distinct from it, and without moral mean ing, aim, or end, the summumjus, summa injuria. § 166. THE OBJECTION, THAT THE ORTHODOX GOD MUST HAVE BLOOD, EXPOSED. But, though thousands of times refuted and exposed, this senseless charge of inconsistency with justice, unabashed, as often reappears with unabated audacity, even often attended by its co-mate in silli ness, that "the orthodox God must have blood, if not that of sinners, then that of His own Son," the stupidity of which alone can mitigate its blasphemy. If men neither comprehend nor take cognizance of God's actual moral system, they, of course, can neither understand nor admit the atonement. But, if the law is in and from all moral natures and is therefore declared in God's inspired Word, there is a universal, eternal moral system with all its reciprocities, accounta bilities, and retributions of reward and punishment, as we believe is demonstrated and developed in Part I. of this Work, then the abso lute alternative for all human sinners is either the punishment of every one of them as. he deserves, as liable to which our Lord de clared them all "lost," or redemption from the necessity of suffering it by the infinitely merciful and gracious substitution for it which God has provided at such measureless cost to Himself. It is uni versal moral nature, the universal law in it, the universal quality of justice in the law, the universal obligation to obey it, its universal matter, its universal end, the universal rights, dues, concerns, and interests, the universal sense of desert of reward for obedience to the law and demand for it according to the desert, and the universal sense of guilt or desert of punishment for disobedience to it and demand for it according to the ill-desert; — it is all these combined, 292 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. hanging on and absolutely binding God, who, by necessity of the case, is in and eternal Ruler and Guardian of the total society, and who has in ITim the same fundamental law which is in it, to main tain and administer it with unswerving regard for its quality of jus tice/both as ethical and as retributive, as the everlasting conserva tive of both its matter of moral love and its end of entire good; and to do this either by inflicting on all human sinners the retributive punishment which they deserve as ethical justice to the loyal society, or by precisely the substitution He provided and made for them. It was all these together that with united outcry made the only demand for blood — that is, for the just punishment of all human sinners — that ever was made in reference to them or to His Son as their rep resentative substitute; and these made the demand on God, an abso lute one, which put an infinite obligation upon Him as Ruler to comply with it, which He could not disregard without utter unright eousness, injustice, and irreparable, ruinous, everlasting wrong to the total universe of moral beings. Not to comply with it would be abdicating His government and guardianship over them. For Him, having constituted them moral beings with His law in and from their practical reason, an'd so in a universal moral society and sys tem, with all else which we have indicated involved, along with all else that is true of them individually and socially, making them liable, especially our fallen, disordered race, to such appalling danger of precipitation into moral destruction and horrors of being, even in this life, and into worse still hereafter; — for Him, having so constituted all and all involved, to leave them ungoverned, un guarded according to the universal law with its justice, to refuse to inflict deserved retributive punishment upon all sinners among them, and to cause them to know that He will not inflict it, and so that they have nothing to fear from Him for their sins, would be infinite crime and cruelty. It would be for Him to turn His back upon all in and connected with them which we have indicated, and to give them all over to the devil, or to become devils themselves, reciprocally cursing and cursed, tormenting and tormented; in whom all love, all mercy, all justice, all moral union would be forever dead, and instead utter selfishness would reign, developed in every possi ble way into a universal anarchv of hate, rage, conflict, and cruelty, with all the natural consequences of such a condition preying, like hell-hounds, on the sensibility and whole immortal nature of each of them all forever — I'orcshadowings of all which are constantly, daily manifest to all open eyes in the cases of myriads of both sexes MORALITY OF GOD. 293 among mankind all over our world. There is not a particle of ten dency in any natural consequences of sin to bring sinners to love and obey God or even to fear Him. Nor is there any in inflicted punish ment. But the threatening of it, which has so radical a place in God's Word, and should have a corresponding one in true Gospel preaching, causes fear of it, without which who can appreciate the supreme meaning and importance of the message of salvation through Christ and His atonement? When this guilty fear is aroused,.if the knowledge of Christ with His perfect atonement, and the offer of free and full forgiveness on its ground attends or is received with it, it is not merely like drink to the thirsty or food to the hungry to meet the realized want. But the measureless merciful love and grace of God in the "unspeakable gift" of His Son, and of the Son in be coming the Person He did and the substitute in His atoning suffer ings and death for our hostile, guilty, wicked race, to retrieve them from the punitive retribution they deserve and to secure the agencies and means to bring them back to God in renewal to faith, love, and obedience, and to all the eternal glory and blessedness promised in the Gospel — -these manifestations of love beyond all finite capacity of conception by both the Father and the Son, especially the Son shown by the Spirit to all He can consistently bring to see them, constitute "the power of God and the wisdom of God," by which sin-closed hearts are opened, gratitude is evoked from them, the selfish, hardened will is melted and changed to a right one, and the whole moral nature is made a new creature in Christ, and restored to God and the eternal moral system. Thus God has done, at infi nite cost to Himself, the utmost possible for Him to do to save human sinners, and all are and will be saved that can be, while none could be, but all would infallibly perish, according to the alternative of all objectors. § 167. THE QUESTION OF THE ATONEMENT ONE OF MORALITY THE MORALITY OF GOD. As we said near the beginning of this Work, the question of the atonement is one of fundamental morality — the morality of God, as well as of all other moral beings — the morality of the one universal moral law and moral system. It is a foolish assumption of object ors generally, that God is outside and independent of this law and system, so that His will is free from obligation, control, or limita tion by them; that they exist only in and for His rational creatures, if not for man exclusively; and that He can regard them or not in 294 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. acting towards all or any part of these beings with an absolutely lawless freedom of option. It is a horrible assumption; for, if true, Pie is not a moral being, and can do no moral action. Pie can ad minister the law or not, reward the obedient or not, punish the dis obedient or not, treat both alike or not, keep truth or not by mere lawless will. He can be neither just nor unjust, merciful nor un merciful, deserving of love and honor or not, as He can be no moral actor, and can have no moral character. These objectors have no conception of a real moral system, which is necessarily founded in moral natures, having the law in and from them as a constant oblig ing mandate and standard of the heart-will and all its executive actions. Nor, as a side remark, does it ever enter the heads of many of them that, in the domain of morality, it is not the intellect that determines the heart-will to be good or evil and to right or wrong executive action; but that it is this heart-will that instigates, leads, directs, and determines the thinkings, reasonings, and judg- ings of the intellect, and the correlated desirings and feelings of the sensibility. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," said James profoundly. The objections we have been noticing are specimens of the superficial thinkings and reasonings of many respecting the atonement and connected points, which, thrown out by public and private tongues and pens, float and toss on the surface of the adapted general mind as chips do on water. The objections to points con nected with the atonement all imply the same assumption respect ing God's freedom from the law and the moral system which is noted above, and yet uniformly involve their own contradiction. For, when objectors say, that He is bound or ought to do this, or not to do that; that He would do wrong, and be wicked and cruel, if lie did that, and did not do this, they unawares assume that He is a moral being, that Pie is under obligation by the law in Him, and thus that He is in the universal moral society and system. When ever they say He ought or ought not to deal with or treat human sinners so or so, they assume all just stated; but when they say He is not bound to deal with and treat them according to the law, or the demands of its justice, by which they are all intertied in that society and system with all the reciprocities of obligation and ac countability they fundamentally involve, but is unrestrictedly free to deal with each of them personally as if not intertied in them and without regard to the law which constitutes them, and to all the rights, dues, interests, and concerns of all in them, they coaflictingly assume that the law is not in Him, that He is not in that society and QUESTIONS FOR OBJECTORS. 295 system, but is free to disregard them, and so that He is not a moral being. Thus, as the ante-natal Esau and Jacob strove in the ma ternal womb, do these antagonist assumptions respecting God hold constant strife in the mental wombs of all objectors to the atone ment and its allied points. Nor can this strife ever cease in any until they understandingly accept the fact of the atonement, in which alone all the truths respecting God as a moral being, and respecting the law with its justice in all moral natures, the moral system thus constituted, mercy and grace, are concentered and abso lutely harmonized. § 168. QUESTIONS FOR OBJECTORS TO THE ATONEMENT TO CONSIDER. In connection with the foregoing, we now ask objectors the questions following. How is such really vicarious suffering by : substitute, as we have shown Christ's was, any more or less consist ent with the law or its justice than God's acting self-denial and self- sacrifice for sinners in any other way ? — for example, as a mother does for her needy and suffering child, as a friend does for a dis tressed friend, or as a patriot does for his afflicted country? If self- denial and self-sacrifice by human persons, even for friends, win praise from all, and the more the greater they are, shall it be denied to God when He acts them to the greatest degree possible even for Him? and shall His right, power, and even moral liberty to act them be disputed? Nay, when there is no other way to rescue our world of sinners from the necessity of suffering the punishment they deserve for sin, which the first Part of this Work shows, and His infinite mercy impels the Father to act these to the degree of send ing His only-begotten Son, and His Son to act them to the degree of executing all for which He was sent, consummated by "giving Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God " in His suffer ings and death as our representative substitute to extricate us all from that necessity, on condition of our moral return to God, shall the compliance of each of these Persons with that boundless mercy for that end be objected to as in any possible way unjust, incon sistent, or unnecessary, not by angels nor devils, but by the very sinners themselves who are the objects of such mercy and cost of both? If, among men, one deserves the penalty of death for crime, how else could another suffer for him, so as to free him from the necessity of suffering it himself, than by dying in his stead? Or, if one can only save another from penal death by dying for him, if he does so is he not necessarily his substitute? How then can any 296 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. object without utter absurdity to the substitution of Christ for man kind? Plow is it tiot just as consistent with the justice of the law and the moral system constituted by it as His helping men in any other way, as His curing their diseases or restoring their dead to life? Since the matter of the law is pure moral love, and its end is the greatest good of God and all in the universal moral society; and since its justice is the eternal safeguard of both; by what possibility can His voluntary substitution of Himself in His sufferings and death for mankind to retrieve them from the necessity of suffering deserved retributive punishment, under the impulsion of His infi nite philanthropy and mercy, be inconsistent in any way with the law, as to its matter, its end, or its justice ? How can it be so for Him, as their representative, perfectly to render its matter to secure its end by meeting the demands of its justice, both as ethical to the loyal society and to God, and as retributive against sinners, that as many as possible of them might be saved from everlasting ruin, restored to God, and added, incalculably numerous, to the hosts which He only can count of that eternal society? How can it be less than the unapproached manifestation of the fulfillment of the law ever acted or to be acted by Christ or the Godhead, ever known or to be known by the intelligent universe? It was justice and mercy absolutely combined by the infinite self-denial and self-sacrifice of God. § 169. A STATEMENT BY BUSHNELL RESPECTING LOVE EXAMINED. With these questions and all our preceding showings respecting the substitution of Christ before us, what must be thought of this respecting love: — "It does not come in officiously and abruptly, and propose to be substituted in a formal and literal way that overturns all the moral relations of law and desert?"* We ask how, when it comes in Christ to make substitution for human sinners, it comes as the quotation says any more than when it comes in some dif ferent way to rescue them from deserved evil, or than it does in all acts and measures of self-denial and self-sacrifice to res cue them from such evil ? All acts and measures of God, whether of justice or of mercy, are necessarily not officious, but official, simply because they are executive and administrative. They are not love, but actings from it for special ends; and God's are all such according to infinite wisdom to secure the great social ends of the nature of social-moral beings, of the law with its justice (*) Bushnell's V. S., p. 42. JUSTICE DISCARDED. 297 in them, and of His government over them as such beings; so that they never can be abrupt in any other sense than that in which all right, benevolent, and wise acts and measures must be. Nor is sub stitution, as it really is, "formal and literal" in any other sense than that in which all acts and measures of administration must be; and as to its "overturning all the moral relations of law and desert," it is, as we have shown, the very and only thing which fundamentally supports them and keeps them from being utterly overturned, and which demonstrates that they are as firm and fixed as the pillars of the universe. It demonstrates that justice is no thing of mere inven tion and institution, but an essential of the law in all moral natures and of the changeless and eternal moral system; and that all the tumid sentimentalisms connected with this quotation and others which stock the whole Work it is from and its successor, and all kindred Works and sermons, are intrinsically, and especially if arrayed against substitution and the truths and facts it involves, in mortal war with "all the moral relations of law and desert," and all vital morality and theology. The objections in the quotation, and all others like them, are mere chimeras; and the position remains solid, that Christ's substitution of Himself in His sufferings and death for mankind as liable to suffer retributive punishment for their sins must be the one peerless exhibition in the history of the uni verse and of God Himself, on the one hand, of the absolute love with its essential justice which the law requires, and on the other, of the infinitude of His mercy and grace towards the hostile, self-ruined sinners of our race. § 170. IF JUSTICE AS RETRIBUTIVE IS DISCARDED, SO MUST IT BE AS ETHICAL; AND THE CERTAIN RESULT. We have shown that the natural consequences of sin are no part of the real retributive penalty of the law for it, although abandon ment of sinners to them is. The penalty is suffering inflicted by God according to their sins or ill-deserts. Its severity is not equal to all, but is proportioned to each as he deserves. The demand of justice against each is for it in this measure as ethically due to God and the universal loyal society both instead of the moral love he owed them and has robbed them of, and as the only possible repar ation from him for the wrong and injury he has done them. As this due is not to God only, but to the whole society as well as to Him, it is not a mere personal matter to Him to forgive him, even if he should repent, since He is Ruler, and could have no possible 298 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. right to do so, as it would be replacing him in the society with all the rights of the obedient restored to him without its due from him being in any way met. It would be an arbitrary violation of uni versal justice and an eternal wrong and injury to all in the society. as it would in effect declare both sin and obedience and all their consequences of insignificant importance. It would nullify the law with its justice and so leave its matter without enforcement; and it would thus dissolve the whole moral society to monads, and the moral system to nonenity. There is, therefore, an infinite obligation on Goa to inflict retributive suffering on every sinner, unless He provides a substitute to suffer an infliction in his stead which will at least equally meet the demands of justice against him and to Himself and His universal and eternal society. We have repeated this here to have it seen that the due or debt of every sinner is necessarily social, so that the natural consequences of his sin, which are per sonal and not social, cannot be the payment of this social due or debt, and that its only possible payment is punitive suffering to the measure of ill-desert, inflicted by God as the necessarily responsible Ruler of the universal loyal society. Without a substitute, the retrib utive suffering of all sinners as they deserve is the keystone of the arch of the universal moral system; but, with Him, His representative suffering instead of that of human sinners is at once that keystone, and the channel for the flow of the river of God's mercy and grace to all of them will ing to drink its life-giving waters. If it is inflicted on neither them nor Him, the intelligent universe is utterly loose from social account ability, whatever its countless units may do or become, a moral chaos resembling what the universe would be if the force of attrac tion acting by its law were abolished. If there is no justice as re tributive, there can be none as ethical, and so no social-moral bond and no social-moral love. Hence, all the raptures and rhetoric of sentimental writers, preachers, and talkers about love, love, love of any kind, not moral, not just, not obedience to the law and its obli gations, but of merely emotional, sympathetic kind, like in nature to the natural love of parents, to that of friends, to that of a patriot for his country, or to any compatible with persistent sin or even enormous wickedness, would forever lack utterance; and, instead of them, would be their opposites, if any remained uningulfed in utmost selfishness and depravity to utter them, sorrowful lamentations and fierce invectives by tongue and pen, poetic threnodies, Juvenalish and Aristophanic satires and mockeries over the race sunk and festering in inexpressible corruptions and horrors of inhumanity, CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 299 beastliness, villainies, crimes, and anarchies, raving and raging with deviltries and dynamite. Even the condition of the heathen world depicted by Paul in Rom. 1:18-32 would be universally outdone. A fig for all sentimentalities arrayed against, or not accordant with, eternal justice, both as ethical and as retributive; but life to all that truly are. The only alternative then for all human sinners was the necessary perdition of every one of them or the representative sub stitution of Christ to meet the demands of justice against him. But we have digressed from what we chiefly designed to say in this par agraph, and must resume it in another. § 171. WHY CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS MUST BE INFLICTED BY THE FATHER'S WILL, AND WOULD SAVE MEASURELESS SUFFERING. We have shown that the penalty of the law is punishment inflicted by God on sinners after their probation ends according to each one's ill-desert; that Christ equivalently suffered this punish ment for them all as their representative substitute according to the redemptive arrangement between the Father and Him; and that, being such a substitute, His suffering need not, at most, surpass that of any most guilty one of our race, as what would be equiv alent to that deserved by one would be to that deserved by any, and would thus equal in moral potency and effect the deserved suffering of all. We have also shown that, considering His Person, His rela tions to God, to the universal society, and to man, and His reasons and motives, subjective and objective, for becoming all that He did, for becoming the Mediator between God and man, the representa tive of man to God in His whole course of obedience to its close, and in "giving Himself for him an offering and a sacrifice to God" — considering all this, His substitution had in it a moral value and potency immeasurably exceeding what the suffering by all men of their deserved punishment could possibly have had, not only to meet the demands of justice against them, but to replenish the eternal holy society with incomputable increase of numbers and of all possible good, besides throwing wide open the flood-gates of God's mercy and grace to pour abroad benefits and salvation to mankind. Now, what we wish to be specially noticed here is, that, as the punishment deserved by human sinners was to be inflicted by God as Ruler, it was necessary that Christ's suffering it, as their representative substitute, should also be inflicted by Him — the inflic tion in either case being by Him as Ruler, in order to have a uni versally social effect. As theirs was to be inflicted by God, so 30O THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. Christ's must be to be the same in kind equally social, and so to meet the demands of justice against them and to secure its ends which are all social. It is certainly impossible in the nature of the case, that one should assume to suffer in the place of any number of others condemned to suffer the penalty of violated law, to free them from the necessity of suffering it, unless he assumes to suffer it essentially as they would. God's omniscience would infallibly see just what measure of suffering it would be necessary for Him to in flict on Christ as substitute as equivalent to that deserved by any sinner of the race, and that He would inflict, and no more. We thus see that the substitution of Christ in His suffering and death would be a measureless saving of suffering and addition of happi ness forever in the universe. It is such in proportion to the whole number of mankind saved in consequence of it from all their de served punishment, and made perfectly and eternally holy and blessed; and it must proportionally augment the happiness of all holy beings through endless ages, as also an eternal gain of pleasure and glory to God Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; for each had His part in achieving it. When we come to examine the teach ings of Scripture respecting the part of the Father towards Christ in relation to His atoning sufferings and death, we shall see that they were inflicted upon Him by the Father according to the ever lasting plan of redemption. As retributive justice to sinners is ethical justice to the universal society, a?id thus universally social, so the sub stitutional suffering of the former by Christ is the latter to that society, and thus necessarily equally universally social. § 172. GOD NOT IMPASSIBLE. We have all along disregarded the old dogma, broached by the heretical Noetus in the first half of the third Christian century, and adopted just after him by the great orthodox champion, Athanasius, that God is wholly impassible. We, of course, agree that He is in capable of physical or essential suffering, fully recognizing the im mutability of llis nature. But He is a moral being, and has the sensibility and susceptibilities of one in an infinite degree. The Scriptures abound with declarations and implications of most intense feelings in Him — -of indignation and anger against sinners — of pity, compassion, and sympathy for their sufferings — -of sorrow and grief for their conduct — of complacent love for all who love and obey Him — of every kind of holy emotion and passion, not necessarily peculiar to mere finite natures; and none of these can be true of Him, if He GOD NOT IMPASSIBLE. 3"1 is impassible. We must not deny nor weaken, but simply purify our conceptions of the emotions and passions ascribed to Him from the corruptions and taints which more or less pervade and pervert those of the same kind experienced and manifested by human sin ners; and then we must believe theirs, compared with His, as to their measure and intensity, as mere drops of water compared with oceans. And now, what enlightened observer or subject of what are called bodily pains and torments, it matters not from what causes, does not know that it is really not the body, but the soul that suffers? The body of Christ in itself suffered nothing from all outrages heaped upon Him. His bodily injuries were the occas ioning causes of all the pains He felt from them. As the Divine and human natures were united in Him into one Person, having one consciousness, and as His Divine nature must, as shown, have had an infinite sensibility and susceptibility, how is it conceivable that it should not have been pervaded with an infinite suffering sympathy with His human soul in His whole expiatory endurance? How is it possible that His Divine nature should have remained, like an infi nite Stoic, impassible, unmoved by the terrible inflictions under which His human soul was writhing in agonies, beside which all the pains from and the death of His body, appalling as they were, were far inferior, and which that nature, yet unincarnate, had assumed to bear, and had become incarnate in great part to bear? Yet accord ing to this notion of the impassibility of God, the only part that nature had in bearing any of them was that of supporting the human in doing it! How can this consist with a real union of the two in one Person? — with the fact that the Divine is a moral one? — with the fact, that the Person who atones for the sins of mankind by suf fering as their representative substitute the penalty of the law de served by them must be truly God as well as man, the one Mediator between God and man? — with the multiplied Scriptural assertions of the vast love of the Father for mankind in giving His only-begot ten Son, His own Son, the Son of His love, and of the Son in giving Himself, to suffer all He did to expiate the sins of the whole world? — or with the whole nature of the case? If we are told that, if the Divine nature of Christ suffered, then, as it is one in essence with the Father's and the Holy Spirit's, each of these must have suffered equally with it, and, as God is omniscient and immutable, we must conclude that the whole Godhead has suffered and will suffer eter nally, and thus it is inconsistent with the nature and attributes of God to suDDOse that Christ's Divine nature suffered, we here reply 302 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. as follows: — These difficulties are purely speculative about matters utterly incomprehensible by human minds; we encounter them equally in considering other truths concerning God; they conflict with the whole current of the teachings of Scripture concerning God; they are therefore of no weight against the position that Christ's Divine nature did suffer, as all moral natures can, as really as did His human, and in its proportion. This position is not one of speculation, but is perfectly comprehensible by human minds, and is demanded by the whole nature of the atonement, and by the facts, that God is a moral being, and, as such, must have an infinite sensibility, and that His Word teaches us that He is full of pity for sufferers, sympathizing, merciful, pleased with the obedient and angry with the disobedient, and that He has all the holy emotions and passions connected with absolute benevolence and justice. Nor would it be difficult to show, that, instead of the suffering of the Divine nature of Christ proportionally with His human, in its way, being incompatible with its perfect blessedness, it was really essential to it, and that it no more conflicts with the immutability of God than His emotions of grief, indignation, or any others. We only add, that it is our conviction, that this old dogma has, from the time of Athanasius down, wherever taught and believed, been a block in the way of understanding the doctrine of the atonement, which is fundamental to, and one of the most sublime and precious in, Christianity, the supreme manifestation of the unspeakable mer ciful love of God towards sinful, guilty man. The whole Church ought to rejoice with songs and shouts of jubilation, that, like the stone from the door of the sepulcher of Jesus, it has been rolled away, so that it and all willing to look may see Him in all His re deeming love and glory, and the Father and Ploly Spirit with Him. CHAPTER XV. Wliether there was an obligation on God to provide an atonement for human sinners, such as we have shown. § 173. THE POSITION OF THE REFORMERS ON THIS POINT NOTICED. The question here for consideration is, whether the law in God's nature, by its obliging imperative or mandate required Him to pro vide a representative substitute to assume and undergo a suffering fully equivalent in moral value and potency of influence to that deserved by mankind for their sins, to be a provisional ground for the forgiveness of every one of them who would truly return to Him in the moral way of faith and obedience enjoined in the Gospel. This question lacks and demands a thorough consideration. The Reformation was a return to the Scriptural doctrines of grace from the perversions of it. Its struggles and battles were waged with flaming zeal around these doctrines as the fortresses of Christianity; and everything was inexorably expelled from the lines of the renewed faith, which, in the Reformers' minds, was incon sistent with the radical truth, that all salvation comes to man as pure "grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." The leaders among them were by nature of the grandest order of human souls, and still more such by their devoted allegiance to what they believed to be the true Gospel of Christ. But they were men, as it were just aroused from a profound sleep, and were not infallible. In their time, mental and moral science was yet crude, and the book of consciousness, which contains it, was little studied for the pur pose of learning the true psychology. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at and noted for their disparagement, that, in their rightly fervent zeal for the doctrines of grace, and their mistaken view of the human will, as not the free self-determiner and author of its own moral choices in view of motives, and under whatever influ ences, and thus only responsible and deserving of praise or blame, 304 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. reward or punishment for them, they failed to make some important discriminations, to make even an approach to a reconciliation between God's sovereignty and man's freedom, and between what is true of God and what of man, made in I lis image as a moral nature and agent. It was a matter of course, that they should suppose and assume that the notion of grace excludes obligation on God, in any sense, to exercise it; that it was wholly optional with him to do so or not in any case; and that their view of these points should remain a settled tenet in the reformed Churches adhering to their teachings. In his Work, misnamed "Vicarious Sacrifice," Dr. Bush nell came forward asserting directly the opposite view in most unqualified terms. We had considered the matter for years before that Work appeared, and had reached the conclusions we now pro ceed to present. It will be seen by those cognizant of his sweeping view, that ours is very different from it. We deem this statement necessary to secure a just consideration of ours, to the presentation of which we now invite attention. § 174. NO OBLIGATION ON GOD TO SINNERS TO MAKE AN ATONEMENT FOR THEM, OR TO SAVE THEM; NOR TO OTHER BEINGS. We believe we have shown conclusively that all moral beings, God included, have essentially the same law in and from their nature; that justice is the intrinsic quality of this law, which gives it its social character by putting each of them under its bond of obligation to render to every other his due of moral love and of all kinds of treatment which men call duties; and that, by thus binding all to these perpetual antiselfish and holy reciprocities, it consti tutes them all into a universal and eternal moral society and system, with God, from the nature of the case, necessarily in them, and the responsible Ruler of the whole society and Maintainer of the system. We have shown that, as all sin is violation of the law with this qual ity of justice in it, it is, in principle, intrinsically antagonist to the total universal society and system with God in and over them, to all the natural and moral rights and dues of all in them, to all moral love and practical justice, and to all the interests and concerns of all in that society, including God both as a Person and as Ruler; and that its actors therefore forfeit all their rights to the love of God and of all in that society, and deserve nothing but retributive pun ishment according to their guilt. Consequently, the imperative or mandate in God's mind can enjoin nothing towards them as due to them on any ground whatever of justice, unless it be, that He shall NO OBLIGA TION ON GOD. 305 not treat any of them worse than his ill-desert and the whole end of the law demand. Hence, instead of the justice of the law being for them, as it is for all holy beings, it is turned positively against them and demands their punishment according to their desert. This demand must be met either by their suffering the punishment them selves, in which case they must be forever lost, or by a representa tive substitute, provided by God from His mercy, suffering it in their stead, in which case whoever of them will return to God during the gracious probation granted with the provision, will be saved. But, to say that He was under any obligation to them to make this sub stitution is to say that they had a right to have it made by Him, and so that His making it is demanded by justice, and not purely a measure of mercy and grace. There never can be an obligation of justice on God or any other being to the objects of mercy, to exer cise it to them; for, if there were, mercy would be no more mercy, and grace no more grace. He can put Himself under an obligation of promise to them, but the promise is mercy and grace, and the obligation is not directly one of the law, but one voluntarily assumed under it. Hence, whatever He does for human sinners vicariously or otherwise must be done without any obligation of justice upon Him to them. Mercy, as a disposition, is the will, and, as an exercise, is the effort, to do for the guilty whatever is consistently possible to secure or promote their rescue from punishment merely for the sake of their good, and the resulting good of others. Its direct aim is restricted to each of its objects. It is exercised and acted by God towards each of them to secure his good for the sake of what it is to him, and fherefore is not social in the universal sense in which justice is. Consequently, its aim and action must consist with that of justice, so that it can be acted only when and as wisdom directs. Wisdom stands in eternal league with justice, and can sanction no effort of mercy for any sinner which does not consist with the rights, dues, and good of all, holy beings, which justice guards. Hence, if there was any obligation on God to exercise and act mercy towards human sinners in any way, it was not one to them, not one to secure or promote the good of any of them irre spective of His own good and that of all holy beings. Nor could He be under any to the universal holy society to provide an atone ment for human sinners, however much the salvation of any num ber of these secured by it would accord with and promote the good of that society; for it could have no right to call on Him to provide it, or which could, in any sense, make it due to it from Him. What 306 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. the law requires of Plim to it is the full, unmodified, moral love, which is its matter, and His rendering this to it includes His pun ishing sinners as they deserve, instead of His exempting them from punishment. He could only come under an obligation to it to pro vide an atonement for them in the same way as to sinners them selves — that is, by a promise to it that He would, or by declaring to it His purpose to do so. It is therefore certain, that He was under no obligation to any created beings, bad or good, to provide one for mankind; and it is equally so, that He was under none to Himself in the same sense. For Pie had no right or claim against Himself to make it due to Himself to provide it. The unmodified love of Him self required by the law would have been perfectly rendered to Himself by His punishing human sinners as they deserve. If He was under the least obligation to the holy society or to Himself to provide an atonement for them, His doing so would be executing mere justice, and not mercy and grace. But is this saying that there was no obligation upon Him in any sense to provide one for mankind? § 175. GOD'S CREATION BY THE BEST POSSIBLE PLAN, AND WHY HE SPARED THE FIRST PAIR WHEN THEY SINNED. To find the true answer to this question, we must consider the main facts of the whole case. Both Scripture and the whole aspect and constitution of worlds and creatures attest that God created them according to an all-including purpose' ox plan, as set forth in § 100; — a plan of universally correlated means and ends, and one which, we may assume with certainty, was the best possible. As this plan of the universe embraced all its parts — all its material atoms, all the force-essences with their laws which operate upon those atoms and effect their combinations, correlations, and motions, but are not inherent in or qualities of them, all life, all varieties and species of living organisms, vegetable and animal, and all varieties and species or kinds of minds, sentient, instinctive, and rational, the rational being all moral — none of all these parts could be left out of it without either the abandonment of the plan, or more or less dam aging failure in its execution. But, if the plan was the best that the infinite wisdom of Cod could devise, we may be perfectly sure that in executing it, He never has varied from it, even to a hair-breadth, and never will, because He can never be wiser, nor have any motive to do so. By adopting the plan, Pie bound Himself to its perfect and perpetual execution. Neither matter nor any force with its law, which operates upon it, exists for, or is an end in, itself. The GOD'S CREATION. 3°7 same is true of the entire vegetable kingdom, and really of the whole animal kingdom below men, as far as this world is concerned. As far as the permanent force-essences of the universe relate to and operate upon our globe, and in it, no dwellings, engines, machinery, or instruments of man's invention are more manifestly designedly aimed to secure necessities for his existence, and advantages and benefits to him, than these are; and no less manifestly is the same true of both the vegetable and the irrational animal kingdoms. Science must recognize teleology or brand itself with willfully alien ating an essential part of its constituent truth and integrity. The plain fact is, that our globe and all its contents and processes were designed means for the existence and benefit of man as the consum mate end of all. He is such, because he is an end in himself; and he is so, because, though, as to his body, he belongs to the animal kingdom, its crown and glory, as to his mind, he is a spirit, a rational, moral, immortal nature, the peer or paramount of all other such natures, the image and likeness of his Creator. The first pair were made with a race-constitution, and thus all their posterity seminally in them; and the New Testament abundantly shows, that, as con nected with Christ, the redeemed of them will outrank all other moral natures in the universe and be of supreme importance to the ever multiplying universal and eternal society. It is often asked why, when the first pair sinned, God did not cut them off before they had offspring, and create another in their stead; and we think the foregoing supplies some hints towards an answer. If He created the total universe according to the best possible plan, which His omniscient wisdom could devise, He created every part of it accord ing to the same, and all the parts, not as separate from, but as cor related and intertied to each other in the everlasting whole. He must create the first pair precisely according to this best plan, if at all, though perfectly foreknowing their fall and its involved effects in all their posterity. We may infer with certainty that, if He had created them at all otherwise, the results would have been worse, probably wholly remediless. And, when they sinned, if God had cut them off and created a second pair, He could only have repeated' the first, it may be with far worse results. Besides, the best plan of the whole, and of every part as related to all the others, may have required, and doubtless did require, that He should preserve the fallen pair and their foreseen race, though so damaged by their sin. We say it doubtless did require this, because He did so, despite all that He knew would be true of them, and at such stupendous 308 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. cost to Himself. But, along with preserving the race, He knew all the temptation from the devil, the world, and the flesh that would beset all the individuals of its generations, all their susceptibilities to them, the bias of their will from obedience to sin and all their evil tendencies, the selfishness of their first moral choice between obedience to the law and self-gratification, and their continuance in it until or unless regenerated, all the natural and social consequences of it, their guilt or desert of punishment for it, and all their wrong doings from it; and He knew the absolute necessity that He should inflict this punishment upon them, or disregard and war with the eternal law, with all moral natures containing it, including His own, with all the moral love it requires, with universal ethical justice and the total moral system constituted by it, and should thus license and favor a universal riot and ravage of all wickedness, vices, injustice, crimes, havoc of all good and happiness, and the reign of the devil complete and unopposed, with all its horrors over our whole sub verted, dehumanized race, cursed and consumed by sin, or should provide a redemptive measure, including an atonement, for them, the best one possible, by which to retrieve as many of them as pos sible from sin and its deserved punitive retribution. Knowing all this, He devised and connected the plan of that measure along with that of their creation, and that of the creation of the earth and the universe — not as part of His moral government over them which is founded in their moral nature and His own, but as a measure of mercy and grace to recover as many of them as it would be morally possible to recover from their foreseen sin and all its ruinous conse quences, natural, social, and retributive. As previously shown, this measure would be a provision designedly adapted for them all alike, but, as moral beings naturally possess the power of free choice in view of motives, it could avail for those only who could be morally brought to comply with its conditions — -that is, to turn from sin and Satan to God by faith and obedience, for "without faith, it is im possible to please Him." We overlooked one radical point, when stating reasons a short distance back why God did not cut off the first human pair when they sinned and create another in their stead, which we introduce here. It is, that, according to His all-wise plan, Pie created all spiritual natures, not only rational, moral beings, but immortal, which is intrinsically included in the meaning of the words respecting the creation of man, that "Pie created man in His own image, in the image of Cod created He him: male and female created He them." As His nature is immortal, so must theirs be; INFINITE OBLIGATION. 3°9 and, as the principia of their posterity were all, according to that plan, included in them, to cut them off would have been to give it up, as it respected them and their race, as not wise nor good. That He created all spiritual natures immortal is evinced by the fact that He did not cut off the angels that sinned; and so the notion of the annihilation of the incorrigibly wicked of mankind is against all the evidence of the case.* If He had cut them off, what vast evil, according to ignorant human judgment, would have been prevented! But His ways are not as ours, nor His thoughts and plans. '§ 176. WHY AN INFINITE OBLIGATION ON HIM TO DO ALL MORALLY POSSIBLE TO SAVE HUMAN SINNERS. We have shown in a previous place that the sin and guilt of the first pair were not absolute, but greatly modified. They were in great ignorance of what sin, as disobedience to God, involved, and without any experience or knowledge by information or example of its dire consequences, signified by the threatened death it would incur. Eve was much the most susceptible to the influence of temptation. Satan, vastly superior in mind, and thoroughly prac ticed in craft and lies, chose her when alone to experiment upon. Scripture tells how he did it and succeeded in leading her to sin, and how she next led Adam to do the same. Plainly they were both guilty and objects of pity. They had disobeyed and " brought death into the world, and all our woe," but they were duped, and knew but little of what they did. In some respects the case of their posterity during the earlier portion of their life is even worse. They enter the world inheriting damaged natures and tendencies, by which their heart-will is biased to choose sinfully. With appetites and desires for gratifications intensely urgent; with susceptibilities promptly quick to be affected by the perception, knowledge, or im agination of objects or conditions adapted to excite them to urgent desires; with reason, conscience, and judgment at first undeveloped, like germs in new-planted seeds, and, after their development begins, imbecile as helpless infancy just born, and acquiring strength even more slowly than the infant does; with no experience of the ten dencies and consequences of moral action, nor knowledge of it as such; with the influences and infections of all the manifestations of temper, spirit, character, conduct, conversation, treatment, teach ings, advices, enticements, and all other modes of imparting the complex whole received from all others of all ages, much of it (*\ Tennvson's In Memoriam. XXXIV. 310 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. entirely, most of it to a great degree, stimulant to the natural evil tendencies of minds from early childhood through all youth, urging to and confirming in the selfishness of their first moral choice, and, in far the most cases, not counteracted, much less neutralized or pre vented by real religious and moral teaching, training, example, and influence; with all the temptations of the devil superadded to all indicated; with all there is besides in the whole heathen world, in all its superstitions, misbeliefs, pernicious customs and corruptions, ignorance of God and holy truth, savageries, barbarisms, and hor rors of inhumanity, and all there is in Christian lands of atheism and infidelity, of disregard and scorn of, and war against the Scrip tural revelation and all its truth concerning God and His law, the moral system, and all Plis relations to mankind, and enormities of villainies, crimes, and corruptions of all kinds; and with the thought of what immeasurably worse would have been true of our total race, if God had not devised the redemptive measure along with His purposing the creation of our race, what appalling danger surrounds them ! But, beyond all this, by purposing to create them moral beings, having moral reason with the perfectly just social law in it, and therefore all interbound in a universal and eternal moral system, with all its relations of reciprocity, responsi bility, accountability, demands for retributive rewards and punish ments according to deserts, and with God necessarily in the system and administering a moral government over all, He made it abso lutely obligatory on Himself, as subfect to His own moral reason and conscience, to inflict on every accountable actor of them all the pun ishment deserved by him, as ethical justice to all holy beings ever to exist with Himself in the universal, eternal society under Him demands; so that every accountable actor of the total race must infallibly "perish" and be "lost," as Christ clearly taught they would be, unless God should provide the redemptive measure. Such was the whole case before God's omniscient eye when He purposed to create mankind as He did according to His absolutely wisest and best possible universal plan; and, in view of the whole case, as we can see it, we ask, would it not have been infinitely wrong for Him to create our race, without purposing this measure for it, by and through which to do all possible "to repair the ruins of the fall," and to save as many of them as possible? Could His doing so possibly consist with benevolence, with mercy towards them as foreseen ? Must Pie not have felt an infinite obligation upon Him to purpose, and in time to execute that measure? IMMEASURABLE GOOD. 311 § 177- AN OBLIGATION TO RESCUE FROM ALL THIS EVIL, AND TO SECURE IMMEASURABLE GOOD, AS FAR AS POSSIBLE. To assist in answering these questions, let us consider how im measurable by any finite mind the good to be secured to even one sinner is, and how that of each additional one of all the countless hosts who may be saved constitutes an aggregate which the omnis cience of God alone can know. The greatness of that aggregate and of each constituent of it is measured by all the difference seen by God between the condition of each of these immortals in ever lasting ruin and woe from their perpetual, utter depravity and its natural consequences added to those of their sin in this life, from their endless exclusion from the universal holy society and restric tion to the region inhabited by those only of all grades of reprobate character, the outlaws of the universe; and from the positive pun ishment their sins deserve, and their condition, if in everlasting per fection of being, character, union with God and the universal and eternal holy society with all evil characters and influences forever excluded, and in blessedness and glory unspeakable from God's all- gracious, fostering, and consummating hand. We must also con sider, that God must foreknow that, by providing a redemptive measure, including an atonement, He can consistently secure this stupendous good for at least a sufficient number to justify it as worthy of it. Considering also, that His execution of this measure would involve the greatest self-denial and self-sacrifice possible for Him and would be done for them from infinite mercy alone, we are brought back to the same inquiry made above — Could there be any kind of obligation upon Him to adopt and execute this measure, including the representative substitution of Christ in His sufferings and death for them, to meet and satisfy the demands of justice, both as retributive against them, and as ethical to God and the universal loyal society, so as to permit a full outflow of grace towards them, and the salvation of every one of them who could be brought into the conditional moral state for forgiveness? Could His knowledge of the fact that, on the one hand, He could rescue so many of our race from utter loss in absolute sin and misery, and correspondingly diminish evil in the universe; and that, on the other hand, Pie could not only restore them to eternal holiness and perfect good and blessedness, but also to full union with the whole loyal, eternal society and Himself, and thus not only gratify its holy and benevo lent heart and vastly augment its everlasting good, but, in their special relations to Christ, they would be of everlasting service and 312 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. blessing to the increasing universe of moral beings and of delight and honor to Him, and that He, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, would fofever receive immeasurably greater pleasure and declarative glory from having saved them than He could from having punished them all as they deserve — could, we say, His knowledge of all this pos sibly fail to impose an obligation on Him to adopt and execute the great measure of redemption, including that of making the atone ment? Pie is a moral being; and His moral reason containing the eternal law, Plis conscience, and His sensibility are absolutely per fect. Whether, then, must not that reason have issued to Himself an obliging imperative, mandate, or dictate to exercise and act towards our foreseen sinful, guilty, "lost" race the benevolence, not of justice, as towards all holy beings, but of pure mercy and grace? — that is, to prevent all the evil and to do all the good possible to them consistent with the maintenance of perfect justice, and with these ends, to do such immeasurable good to the entire and eternal, ever-increasing loyal society, and to Himself? §178. THE REAL QUESTION — WHETHER THERE IS AN OBLIGATION TO EXERCISE MERCY, WHEN CONSISTENT WITH JUSTICE. Discerning minds, then, will perceive that the question is pre cisely this, whether there is an obligation or obliging imperative or mandate in moral natures to exercise and act mercy, when consist ent with justice, even if involving great self-denial and self-sacrifice for the achievement of its end, so long as that end is a good out weighing the evil of these. We answer it as follows: If there is not, how can there be any virtue, any worthiness of praise and honor in exercising and acting it, or in self-denial and self-sacrifice, however great, in doing so for its objects or end, or any sin in not acting it? In the nature of the case, all God's love towards human sinners must be pure mercy alone, because they have forfeited all right to it and deserve only punishment. That is, it can only be a love of their being and its good, despite their sin and guilt; and is not His love towards them morally virtuous and deserving of infinite praise and honor ? Is it not certain that all love, not merely in stinctive, merely natural affection, mere blind sympathy or senti mental gush — that is, all moral love ox pure good-will from any being for others, is moral simply because it is, in some sense, compliance with obligation, that is, with the law, being demanded as its matter for its end, which is the real good of moral beings ? This only makes it moral, and so, not only esthetically beautiful and amiable, MERCY AND GRACE. 3'3 as all kinds of love are more or less in some of their aspects, but morally praise-worthy and deserving; and does not the whole world know, nature-taught, that mercy and all the self-denial and self- sacrifice it involves for its objects are moral, virtuous, praise-worthy? — that to refuse to act them, when consistent with justice, is some how a violation of obligation, wrong, immoral, sin, often cruel, sometimes crime ? — and that, the more impossible it is that there can be any obligation of justice to its objects, the more morally sublime, illustrious, and praise-worthy the exercise of it towards them is, if consistent with justice ? This obligation to love moral natures and, as far as practicable, to promote their good for the sake of what it is to them, whether they deserve such action towards them or not — that is, solely because they are moral beings, has always been affirmed or assumed among men though so much disregarded or so defectively complied with. If men, so perverted and dulled by sin, have it affirmed in them, can it be thought that God, the all-perfect Archetype of them all, having created them in His own image, who is infinite in goodness and perfection, does not have it affirmed in Him, and absolutely binding upon Him? Besides, could He, as we maintain He did, adopt and execute in its time the redemptive measure in and through Christ and His really vicarious atonement for the sins of mankind without an obligation upon Him to do it, He perfectly knowing all if would cost Him to do it, and that His doing it would be His supreme moral action in the universe? If He had not done it, would Pie have violated His conscience? Would He have stood before His own eyes as the absolutely good and holy being which doing it would demonstrate Him to be, or not self-condemned as lacking benevolence and unworthy of His own approval and of the eternal approval and plaudits of the intelligent universe? No; we believe the position certainly true, that He was under an obligation, which no finite thought can measure, imposed by the imperative or mandate of His own moral reason or nature to adopt and execute the whole redemptive system, including the making of the atonement, if He created mankind. § 179. SUCH AN OBLIGATION DETRACTS NOTHING FROM MERCY AND GRACE, ETC. This position involves no slightest depreciation of the mercy and grace, self-denial and self-sacrifice of God in devising and exe cuting the great measure of redemption, its vicarious atonement, and all else included in it. It does not, because the obligation 314 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. impelling Him was, in no sense one of justice io them, or to any other beings, but was simply one to act the benevolence of mercy in willing and promoting, as far as that of justice would permit, and as far as would be possible, the good of human sinners purely for the sake of what it would be to them, and, doubtless, for the sake of the good which Pie knew would result from His doing it, and from the good which it would secure to the universal loyal society and Himself in it forever. This is really only saying in effect that this obligation upon Him from His own moral reason or nature was to act perfect benevolence to them in that way and, along with them to all holy moral beings — that is, to do the greatest good possible to them in their condition and along with them to the total intelligent universe. The fact, therefore, of this obligation on Him demon strates absolutely that it is only by mercy and grace that any sinner of our race can be saved. Nor can any of them with a particle more of consistency or reason claim, as his right and due, any favor from God on account of this obligation upon Him, than if there was none; and, if any of them receives it from Him, not a particle the less must he ascribe it to His mercy and grace alone. Plis com pliance with this obligation, sphered in Himself, is simply one way of acting out His goodness, which is certainly moral or righteous, absolute conformity to His eternal moral nature, or the law in and from it; and is it any detraction from His goodness, to say that both it and His adoption and execution of the whole redemptive measure for the stupendous end stated were done in compliance with an obligation imposed by the law in His nature? Must He have no law in it, and act by none, in order to be good, and to be merciful ? In fact, the whole question before us is rooted in this, whether His goodness is His most free, eternal conformity to the moral law in and from Plis nature, or to nothing, and consists in mere arbitrary willing without any obliging standard, which, there fore, could be neither right nor wrong, and be exactly contrary to all we necessarily deem right. If it consists in this, how could it have moral character, righteousness, praise-worthiness in it ? The question, why He is, in any moral sense, what we call good could never find an answer. Any will, which there is no law to direct or bind, must necessarily be purely arbitrary in all its action, and can not be moral in any. Is God's will such? Is it such in Plis moral government, in Plis providence, in the redemptive measure, in His assertion and administration of justice, in His mercy and grace, in His threatenings and promises, in any of Plis action towards moral SYSTEM OF CHRISTIAN TRUTH. 315 beings? The answer to all questions concerning this matter lies in this nutshell — He is a moral being; and, if so, is necessarily under the obligations of the eternal, immutable moral law in and from His moral reason in all His action towards His rational creatures to do the greatest good possible. He can never act towards nor treat any one of them irrespective of the obligations of that purely social law, as shown in our first Chapter and in other places. § 180. DEPRECIATES NOTHING, BUT EXALTS, SUBLIMES, AND GLORIFIES THE WHOLE SYSTEM OF CHRISTIAN TRUTH. This position loosens nothing, lowers nothing, depreciates noth ing, but exalts, sublimes, and glorifies everything in the system of Christian truth. Lord Bacon says, that "when man seeth the de pendence of causes, and the works of Providence, then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link of nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair." This is his prescription for the cure of atheism; and no less is it, we add, of all the silliness of agnosticism and mere materi alism. It is saying that all secondary causes, or forces with their laws, are established and maintained in linked dependence on God's omnipotent will as the primal cause and force, and operate accord ing to the counsels or plans of His infinite intelligence and wisdom for His determined ends in the universe. So, when one contemplates the whole m :asure of redemption, and sees the stupendous degrees of self-denial and self-sacrifice acted in it by the Godhead, especially in the sufferings and death of the perfectly righteous Son, as the rep resentative substitute of our race of sinners, to retrieve them from the necessity of suffering the penalty of the law as justice demands; and when he recognizes that, in all those wonders of merciful love for them, alienated from and hostile in heart to God by their sin, He has done nothing from mere arbitrary will or caprice, but all according to His infinite wisdom, with perfect adaptation to harmo nize ethical justice to all holy beings, Himself included, with mercy to them and grace to secure all possible, everlasting good to them, and with them to the entire and eternal holy society and Himself, he will easily believe that they were His transcendent moral acts, and that the highest link of the chain they constitute is tied, not to the foot of His eternal chair, but to the staple in His nature, as im mutable as it is, of the law's imperative to exercise mercy and grace to them, as far as justice permits, though at such measureless cost to Himself, to achieve all this boundless good. How vastly more 316 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. sublime is this fastening and its supernal pendent than that so finely expressed by the illustrious Bacon! § 181. NO MORAL ACTION SUPEREROGATORY. The common view of this matter makes the whole action of God in the redemptive measure entirely supererogatory, because done without any kind of obligation; and it is only a logical exten sion of the principle assumed, to say that all action of mercy by both God and men is supererogatory. If the obligation of justice is the only one, then all such action by Him or them must be such. But, if what we have shown is valid, it is a demonstration that such action could not possibly be moral, whether done by God or any other moral being, and that the assertion, or even the conception of it is instrinsically absurd, and as mischievous as it is absurd. That both God and man can do actions not demanded by justice or its obligation is, we think, incontestable; but that either of them can do any moral action, to do which no kind of obligation binds, is, in the nature of the case, impossible. Thus our position sweeps utterly away the whole delusion of a vast store of supererogatory merits of saints in reserve for supplying the deficiences of living sinners, and every kindred notion. No saint ever lived that had any such merits. There can be no moral action in heaven or on earth, which is not required by, and obedience to, the law in moral natures, either un modified or modified in the way we have shown. Conclusion of the preceding Parts. § 182. SOME REASONS FOR WRITING THE PHILOSOPHICAL OR PSYOLOG- ICAL PARTS OF THIS WORK. We have evolved our positions in the preceding Parts of this Work respecting the law, conscience, retributions, and some involved points from data in consciousness, and those respecting other points mainly from Scripture. We believe the former, as well as the latter, valid against all the objections urged against a positive moral gov ernment, positive retributions, substitutional atonement, and all the essential doctrines of Christianity involved in these. We had two reasons for adopting this method — one, that the principal recent attempts to subvert these fundamental doctrines have been made on an assumed philosophical basis, and should be met on the same; the other that we rejoiced in the opportunity thus presented to show that philosophy is not against, but on the side of, Christianity, even in its peculiar facts and doctrines, and really demands it as its SYSTEM OF CHRISTIAN TRUTH. 3*7 logical supplement; so that, whoever denies Christianity as a whole, or any of its essential parts, must assume positions at war with facts and truths of sound moral philosophy, from some of which the only logical road leads to the gulf of atheism, or, which is substantially the same, of pantheism. The grand characteristic of Christianity is, that is grounded on, embodies, and unfolds the social character of the law in and from all moral natures, and thus the social-moral character of all such natures. It does this in the mode made neces- saryby the fact and peculiarity of the sin of mankind; and the peculiarity of their sin springs from that of their nature, which determines their correlation to each other, to God, and to all other moral beings. It sets forth the acting out, on the one hand, of the absolutely just good-will oi God towards Himself and the universal holy society, and, on the other, of His mercy, the only remnant of good-will possible towards sinners, in such manner and measure towards mankind as must forever be the abiding amazement of all intelligent beings. Hence, to deny any of its essential parts is cor respondingly to deny the social-moral character of the law and of moral natures, and logically requires a denial of that character of both; and this involves the assumption, that the design of God in constituting rational creatures is realized in pure individualism and self-centering action; for there could really be no such thing as selfishness in them, any more than in the irrational animals. The social-moral nature of God and of His rational creatures is mani fested and demonstrated in Christianity in all Plis own action and suffering, and in all the relations of mankind to each other, to other intelligent creatures, and »to Himself; and it is asserted in the inspired revelation as the radical reason for His entire redemptive system. Nor is there another manifestation or demonstration of this transcendent fact in all the ways of God and all the phenomena of the rational universe, which compares with these, more than the light of the moon and stars does with that of the meridian sun, shin ing in his strength. The love of God for man, and that between man and man, and between men and all good beings, which fulfills the requirement and ideal of the Christian revelation, are simply the outflow and exhibition of the strength of the interbinding social- moral ties of their natures; and it is precisely this nature and the effect of sin upon it in man, and resultantly in God and all good beings, which made the redemptive system a moral necessity, and at the same time the unapproached and unapproachable demon stration of it and its intrinsic value. Deny Christianity, therefore, 318 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. and it fades away into comparative insignificance, as the effulgence of brighest sun-glory into the dim, glimmering light of moon and stars 1 § 183. CHRISTIANITY AND SKEPTICISM CONTRASTED. THE LATTER ONLY DESTRUCTIVE. Christianity has, therefore, no apologies to make for its exist ence, its nature, or any of its facts or features; no reason to hide, or repudiate anything in or belonging to itself, as unseemly or unsanctioned by reason; no indulgence to crave before any tribunal of philosophy or intellect, more than it had when Paul preached it before the Areopagus in Athens or than reason has. For, while it is the deepest, truest, grandest, most sublime philosophy on earth or in heaven, the philosophy of God brought down from heaven in a real sense never dreamt of by Socrates or Plato, all objections to it, or to any essential element of it, are demonstrably derogatory to the moral nature of God and of all His rational creatures, to His character as infinitely good, and to all that is great, grand, and holy in the end of creation; and they essentially tend to all denial, and thus to atheism as their ultimate terminus. Skepticism, therefore, is no evidence of superiority of mind, of independence of thought or investigation, of finer natural sensibility, of any worthy quality whatever, but is, in itself, a just reproach to all who become inmeshed in its superficialities. It belongs to the destructive, not to the con structive type of mind; to the lower, not to the higher order; to one which requires for the performance of its kind of work far less reason, insight, talents, and substantial attainment, than are requisite for seeing and grasping in thought all that essentially pertains to a great moral system, the vital relations of its facts, principles, and parts, its adaptations and tendencies, its intrinsic importance, and its sure results. The destructive may glow with luxuriant rhetoric; the constructive must elaborate the intrinsic reasons and logical con nections and dependences of all involved in the whole. The destructive may resort to all uses and tricks of wit, persiflage and ridicule in attacking some misconceived or misrepresented feature of even the grandest whole, to its temporary disparagement; the constructive must, like all builders, do serious, earnest, systematic, substantial work, and can only use like weapons to those of the destructive, if at all, in repelling and refuting his attacks, and then with becoming restraint. The destructive, as such, never achieves anything great or permanent; the constructive often leaves magnify OBLIGA TION ON GOD. 3»9 cent monuments behind him, more lasting than marble, and august with perennial beneficence to mankind. Skepticisms and skeptics spring up and flourish for a day, and then perish, like Jonah's gourd; Christianity and its loyal advocates and unfolders go steadily on in their Divine mission, achieving their matchless results and ends among men, unresting as the sun, with perpetual augmentation of good to man and glory to God, and with the sure destiny to bring the whole world yet under their benignant sway. Nor has anything ever been gained for Christianity, nor will there ever be, by repress ing, eliminating, subtracting from, or substituting something else for, any of its constellated facts or truths to suit skepticism. " The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men; " and Christianity can only prosper by being set forth as it is, unclouded, and with all its supernal lights complete. § 184. WHAT FOLLOWS, IF WE HAVE PROVED AN OBLIGATION ON GOD TO MAKE AN ATONEMENT. If we have proved, as we believe we have, that there was an obligation in God upon Himself, in the sense of an obliging imper ative or mandate from His own infinite reason or nature, to exercise mercy towards guilty men, by substituting His own suffering in Christ for that due by justice to Himself and all holy beings from them, then we have demonstrated that a real vicarious atonement is the only moral one, the only one at all. We have thus turned the positions of all who object to it, either as arbitrary, having no ground in morality, as the advocates of the so-called moral atone ment and others do; or as utterly inconsistent with the benevolent and righteous character of God, and revolting to the moral sense by representing Him as so inexorable, (some say, even cruel and blood thirsty,) that He must have blood to render Him placable, as infidels, generally, and some professed Christians, ignorantly and persistently say. This last objection, always shameful to its utterers, because always either a willful, or a grossly ignorant misrepresentation of the doctrine of atonement as held by any class, has been, thousands of times, scattered to the winds from the ordinary grounds of explain ing the great fact. But what becomes of it, or of any other, if we have established our position? They are utterly extinguished; and nothing could prove greater disregard or ignorance of what we have set forth, than the utterance of either of them against it. But, if one should really undertake to overthrow it, he must first overthrow our whole exposition of the law and its justice as in and from moral 320 THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. nature, and supremely in and from God's, and then show that sin creates no necessity for retributive penal suffering by its actors, as due to God and all good beings instead of the love and its conse quent good, of which they have robbed Him and them. Then he must show that, if God sees it to be consistent with justice and the law, as we have explained, for Him to exercise mercy towards them by and through the sufferings of Christ in their stead, and that He can thus save vast suffering in the universe and secure immeasur ably greater good in it than would result from inflicting the deserved penalty upon them, He is nevertheless under no kind of obligation to do it, even for so stupendous an end; and consequently that, if He did do it, though with self-denial and self-sacrifice beyond finite comprehension, it would not be virtue, nor moral action at all, and therefore not morally praise-worthy! — -that it would be action without any moral motive or intent! Whoever cannot show all these and more is bound to believe in a truly vicarious atonement! Hie labor, hoc opus est. § 185. THE BANE OF THEOLOGY The bane of all theology and religion, and no less of all oppo sition to both as they really are, is the wild imagination that God does all things by mere arbitrary will. Men argue, that, because He is Almighty and nothing can withstand His will, He is under or controlled by no law, no constitution, no obligation of any kind in His action, but can do whatever He pleases in an utterly lawless liberty. It is true that He can and does do whatever He pleases, and that none can hinder Him; but the important omitted truth is, that He only pleases to do as the uncreated, unchangeable, ever lasting law with its included justice in His own eternal nature requires; and His pleasing to do thus is precisely what renders Him, in all His doings, absolutely righteous and good. If there were no such law with its justice, and no obliging imperative or mandate in His nature, requiring Him to act as He does, how could He be right eous, or just, or holy, or merciful, or good, ot praise-worthy, or a moral being, or anything but either a characterless pantheos, or a mere infinite, Epicurean, soft-natured being, having no moral reason, no regard for any distinction between good or evil action, or for the happiness produced by the former, or the misery by the latter, and no moral government over His rational creatures ? All His special acts and measures towards His intelligent creatures, whether of government or of grace, are and must be positive in distinction from natural; THE BANE OF Til EO LOGY. 321 but not one of them is arbitrary or capricious, not one of them by counsel or in a liberty in the least degree devious from, or in conflict with, His eternal nature and the law with its justice in it. He ever lastingly abides by this, and will not, cannot depart from, or violate it for any cause or end possible; so that He does nothing merely because He is omnipotent and can do as He will in any arbitrary sense, but everything because the law with its justice, rmatter, and end in Him and in all His rational creatures requires Him to do it. "Will not the judge of all the earth do right?" No halfway house exists, or can be built to stand on any solid foundation, between that whose builder and maker is God, which stands displayed in the perpetual light of the whole moral nature of man and of the inspired revelation of Scripture, in its peerless and changeless grandeur and magnificent glory, and the dismal desolations of atheism and all infidelity, which are worse than even those of old Babylon prophet ically depicted by Isaiah.* For all other structures, houses or hovels, built by men, when essential parts of the Divine one are rejected from them, are on the sliding trend of negation and assump tion which ends in the fatal gulf of atheism, and are of construction and material prone to wreck of themselves. The false in them has no cohesion with what in them may be true, dissociates from and leaves it; and their wrecks strew the world. Man's moral reason and God's revelation alike repudiate them, as destructive of all the endless interests, concerns, and hopes of man, and all the rights, dues, interests, concerns, justice, mercy, and character of God. Intelligent moral reason screams, Avaunt, to them all with utmost abhorrence. (*) Cliap. 13:19-22. PART IV. SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS RESPECTING THE RELATIONS OF CHRIST AND HIS ATONEMENT TO MANKIND. CHAPTER XVI. Relation of Adam and of his sin and its personal effects to his race, and examination of Rom. -J:i2—ip and of 8:i8—2j in connection with Gen. 2:ij and 3 :i6-ig. % 186. NATURAL CONSEQUENCES OF ADAM'S SIN CONVEYED TO HIS POSTERITY BY PROPAGATION. We said in a preceding place that, if Adam had obeyed in his legal trial-action, not only would he have preserved the integrity of his own personal nature unimpaired, but that of his entire posterity, so that, when they came to live and act, they all consequently would also have obeyed under the secured conserving favor of God. The natural consequences in him of his obedience would have passed on into them. We discard in this matter everything not resulting from the nature and relations of man and the eternal righteousness of God — everything fictitious, arbitrary, or of mere caprice. We do not accept the theory of Creationism — that is, that God directly cre ates every soul for every new body propagated. We think it con tradicts the true view of the race-constitution and of the natural and representative headship of Adam over his posterity. As, accord ing to it, bodies only are propagated, it denies, in effect, that " the image of God," which belongs to the spiritual nature of man, passed from Adam to his posterity, and so the unity of "the higher species, the one spiritual humanity in all men." It does this in opposition to the obvious meaning of Gen. 1:27, 28; 5:1, 4; 9:6; Acts 17:29; James 3:9; and, in fact, to the whole teaching of Scripture involving ADAM'S SIN. 323 this matter. It lacks congruity, that, while God created Adam a being of body and soul combined into one, and enjoined propaga tion upon him as such, he and all parents of his descendants should procreate bodies only, and God should directly create a soul to occupy each of these bodies in the same vital combination with it. There is no moral nature nor character in bodies, and consequently this notion logically denies the transmission of a vitiated nature from Adam, and ascribes it directly to God, as either creating souls viti ated, or as somehow causing their vitiation by uniting them to bodies, which is or borders on an old heresy, that all corruption in souls comes from their connection with matter. Thus, on the one alternative, it makes God the direct author of their vitiation and sin, and, on the other, it subverts the true basis of morality and account ability, and even moral nature itself. Then, it is inconsistent with the inheritance by children of mental and moral traits, character istics, and tendencies, not only from immediate parents, but from ancestors of even many generations past. It is especially so with the inheritance from Adam of the common perversion, vitiation, or depravation of mankind, which is seated in their souls or spiritual part. Besides, not a solitary passage in the Bible teaches, or even implies it. Against it, we hold Traducianism, properly guarded, to be the truth — that is, that bodies and souls, as united in each human person, are propagated alike in their natural union by parents, and that thus only is there a human race and species. We believe this is taught by necessary implication in the meaning of every passage of Scripture, to which we have referred above, and besides, especially in Rom. 5:12-19. Our meaning is not that propagation is effected by mere natural laws or forces operating independently of God; for we deny that there are any such laws or forces in any department of nature. Despite all opposing assumptions, we hold that all matter is, in itself, totally inert, having no forces nor laws in it; that the forces which abidingly operate upon it in every condition are all force-essences distinct from it; that all natural laws, instead of being laws of matter, are laws or qualities of these force-essences only; that these are mediums or instruments of God for producing all com binations and conditions of matter not directly caused by His will; and that all and singular they are never loose from, but are ever held fast and wielded by His omnipotent hands. But not all nor any number of these forces with their laws, being utterly void of life and mind, could ever originate either, or any living organism, vegetable, or animal. These were all originated by direct creation. Each of 324 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. them is distinct from both the others, but they are combined essen tial parts in the constitution of every living creature, so that it can not exist without them all. Life is the same in all such creatures, but they are divided into distinct species by abiding peculiarities of organisms and minds, as each species is, by the same, into the two sexes; so that the race-constitution for propagation characterizes them all. But, because the constitution of every living creature em braces what we have stated, the fundamental rule of propagation is. that the constitution of every offspring must embrace the same, cannot exist without them. It is without any evidence and against all knowledge of the case, to suppose a single mind of any creature inferior to man has ever been created apart from its organism, and then added to it; and just as much that a single human mind has ever been so created. God created man, as He did all inferior species, with a race-constitution, that there should be a human species by propagation, not independent of, but under His own un ceasing efficiency exerted according to His determinate plan of cre ation. Without this efficiency there could be no human, nor inferior offspring, as there could be no vegetable productions from seeds. But He exerts it uniformly according to that plan, and not outside of it. As to the objections, that this view involves the divisibility, and thus the materiality, of human souls or minds, we hold them entirely invalid. For, (i) who knows that it is inconsistent with the nature of spirit, as combined with vital organisms, having the race- constitution, that, in procreation, human parents should not convey the spiritual as well as the material constituent, the mind as well as the body, of a new constitution like their own, as all the inferior creatures convey their kinds of minds as well as of bodies ? Who knows that God could not impart to the race-constitution of man, as well as to that of all inferior species, the capability of such con veyance? Or, that imparting it may not be the chief display of His wisdom and power in creating and perpetuating our race? Such a capability certainly is not of such a divisibility as belongs to matter. It in no way implies that minds or souls can be cut, torn, crushed, or disintegrated into pieces or parts by any application of force, or that they can ever cease to be the identical spiritual, personal essences or entities they are at their origin. Corporeal conveyance Implies material divisibility; spiritual implies nothing of the kind, but simply the issuance of another spirit like itself without at all diminishing or impairing its own identical nature or essence, which is absolutely impossible to be true of matter. The minds of human ADAM'S SIN. 325 and of all inferior parents are alike entirely the same after as before procreation. (2) Instead, therefore, of the doctrine that souls or minds are propagated as well as bodies implying or tending to materialism, it does neither, but rather the contrary. As it does not involve the divisibility of souls in any material sense, but a capa bility, Divinely constituted, of the issuance of others without the least detriment to or impairment of their identical integrity, which is utterly unlike the divisibility of matter and impossible to be true of it, it demonstrates that human souls are intrinsically different from matter, purely spiritual. It adds force to the proof of the essential difference between matter and spirit, souls and bodies, furnished by the total dissimilarity of the phenomena of souls from ;hose of bodies or matter, and by the entire drift of Scripture. So futile are these objections to the traduction of souls which have been urged since the days of Jerome in particular, in the latter part of the 4th Century. Those we have urged against Creationism ought, we think, to set it forever aside; and the quiet concerning these two opposite doctrines during the last two centuries ought to cease with the adoption of the one we advocate, since the doctrines of inher ited depravity and of the relations of mankind to Adam and to Christ are so essentially involved in it, and so marred by its opposite. j 187. WHAT, ACCORDING TO ROM. 5:12-19, WAS THE RELATION OF ADAM'S SIN TO HIS POSTERITY. Looking now at the passage in Rom. 5:12-19, we inquire what it teaches as to the relation of Adam's sin in his trial-action to his posterity. Was its effect in them substantially the same as if it had been their own? In examining this passage, we will mainly follow the New Version. What else, then, is taught in verse 12th — "There fore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned?" — or in verse 15th — "For if by the trespass of the one many died?" — or in verse 16th — "And not as through one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment came of one unto condemnation?" — or in verse 17th — "For if, by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one?" — or in verse 18th — "So then, as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation?" — or in verse 19th — "For, as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners?" These citations have vastly increased force from the contrasts stated between the relation of Adam and of his transgression to his race and that of our Lord and of his obedience 326 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. and gifts to the same, especially to all who receive Him and them. In Gen. 2:17, we have God's prohibitory command to Adam with its added warning — " But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" — "dying thou shalt die." This command he transgressed, and so became subject to the death. In the cited state ments of the apostle, we have the full import of both unfolded. Neither does the brief history in Genesis, nor any subsequent reve lation inform us, that God told Adam, or that he knew, that his obedience or disobedience would in any way affect his descendants or any one but himself; nor that he yet knew that he was to have either a wife or descendants. It was of no importance that he should know these things, as far as the effects of his trespass upon his pos terity were concerned, as they would be the same whether he knew these or not. It was not till Eve was created that he knew he was to have posterity; and the representative relation of himself and his obedience or disobedience to them, and the effects of his action to them in either case are not unfolded till the advanced revelation of the New Testament* It seems, however, that some knowledge of these things must have been imparted to him. What were the effects of his transgression passed down to them ? The effects or conse quences of sin are twofold, natural and retributive from God — the former from the nature itself of the sinner and of others to whom he is related; the latter from the infliction by God of its deserved pun ishment. Our inquiry here relates to its natural effects; and our readiest way to answer it is to seek what they must have been to Adam himself. " 188. ADAM AS CREATED, AND THE EFFECTS OF HIS SIN ON HIS NATURE. All recorded concerning him shows that he was created in full manhood, adult i*t body and mind. He was the end and crown of God's works in the whole mundane creation. His body, the highest realization of the Creator's ideal of organic form connected with its designed uses of all kinds, was all-perfect in health and vigor, sym metry and beauty, and in adaptation to the uses of his soul as its pliant servitor and mirror, and was formed for immortality. There was nothing in it in conflict with his soul, or its rectitude and supreme, immortal good; but it was altogether harmonious with the whole grand destination of his being. As to his soul, as God cre- |*) Rom. 5:12-19; I. Cor. 15:21, 22, 45-49. ADAM'S SIN. 327 ated it in His own image and likeness, there was nothing disordered, ill-biased, or impure in its sacred essence. All its susceptibilities and powers were in perfect adjustment; its moral reason was its center and controller; its will was morally as well as naturally free to obey the mandates of reason; its sensibility was without perverted susceptibilities and desires, and subject to its will; and its con science shed constant approbation upon it, attested God's com placency to it, and promised His ample rewards. Thus, with all its faculties in faultless harmony, as created, it was as strong and quick to all right action as a new-created angel; and its entire natural bent and tendency impelled it to perfect rectitude — to trust, love, and obey God, to hold communion with Him, to seek and receive His blessing, and, when others of his kind should come, to render to them all dues of love and righteousness. Thus Adam's will was virtually or potentially set in perfect aptitude for moral rectitude by his constitution before it put forth any action whatever; so that it was certain that, as soon as God should manifest Himself to him, and teach him His relations to, claims upon, and disposition towards him, he would spontaneously trust, love, and obey Him, Such was the "original righteousness," or properly aptitude for it, with which he was created, though he was necessarily temptable. We add that his spiritual nature, fresh from its Creator, must have been exceed ingly delicate and sensitive; so that, acting rightly, its conscience must have filled and thrilled it with a degree of happiness far sur passing any known among the best of his degenerate race; and, act ing wrongly, must have shocked and convulsed it throughout, disrupting the unity of the action of its faculties, and filling it with disorder, schism, and conflict, and all their dire natural conse quences; so that never again in this life, even under grace, could it be what it was in innocence and obedience. Milton represents that, when Eve eat the forbidden fruit, " Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat Sighing, through all her works gave signs of woe. That all was lost!" And again, that, when Adam eat it, " Earth trembled from her entrails as again In pangs; and Nature gave a seeond groan. Sky lower'd, and, muttering thunder, some sad drop:. Wept at completing of the mortal sin Original." This wound of earth and shock and woe of nature may fitly sym bolize the wound, shock, and woe of the souls of the guilty pair from the sin of each. 328 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. What now must have been the effects of that sin of Adam in and to himself? Plow must it have stung, tortured, and, as it were, exasperated the sensibility of his conscience, that holy center and vicegerent of God in his soul, and caused it to burst out of the native harmony which had bound all his moral faculties together; to turn in terrible antagonism against the whole essence to which it belonged; to pour through it, like tormenting venom, the sense of guilt, of shame, of regret, of self-contempt, of dread of God and His retribu tion, and of all good fled; to agonize it with the excruciation, as of lacerating gnawings, called remorse; to denounce its base apostasy, and foredoom it to deserved punishment; and, by all such antag onism, to drive from it all peace within and with God, all trust in and love for Him, all pleasure in His will, all sacred hope and joy in existence, all righteousness, and all power of self -recovery! All inward order was broken. Reason no longer swayed the will, spon taneously pliant and obedient to its mandates; nor controlled, by the will, the sensibility, with its desires moderate and docile. These, having broken the bounds, and all the restraints of previous right eousness being annulled, became at once imperious and turbulent; and domineering lusts and passions were then originated. Thus the sensibility, ''Usurping over sov'reign reason, claim'd Superior sway; " the will obeyed and was morally enslaved by it; and selfishness was the only choice and action of apostate Adam. This schism, discord, perversion involved a weakening of all the moral nature. Moral reason lost insight and clearness of vision; conscience became im paired both as judicial and as sensitive; and all the susceptibilities connected with these sacred faculties were enfeebled. God's rela tions to him were, by moral necessity, changed. As, on Adam's side, were conscious guilt, fear, shame, distrust, wreck of love, and initiation of selfishness, so, on God's, were holy recoil and wrath, an end of fellowship and complacent fostering influence, the determin ation to subject him and his fellow culprit at once to very great providential and disciplinary changes in their persons and condi tions, connected with putting them on a gracious probation, and the purpose, if under His grace, they would not yield themselves to new obedience during its continuance, to inflict upon them the retribu tion they deserved. Such were the immediate effects or consequences to Adam of his transgression, and also to Eve of hers. Some of them complete, some only begun, they followed the sin of each THREE DEATHS. 3*9 instantly; and, as they involved the extinction of all spiritual life in the souls of the fallen pair, they constituted incipient spiritual death in them, with liability to positive retribution after the close of their granted probation, unless restored during it. This was the very death meant in the threatening — "for, in the day that thou eatest thereof, dying, thou shalt die; " and it began instantly, as the aggre gate natural consequence of sin, not as an infliction of God. Adam could only know the meaning of the word die by an inspiration of God attending the threatening; and it was doubtless from his thus understanding it, and his teaching it to his receptive contemporary offspring, who again taught it to theirs, and so on down the theistic generations, that it came to be used so commonly throughout the Scriptures to signify the whole evil, spiritual condition induced by sin, including its penal liability. The term life, as the antithesis of the term death in this sense, so frequent in the Scriptures from its first mention by Moses in Deut. 8:3; 30:15, 19, signifies the whole good spiritual condition induced by obedience, including the gracious rewards promised to follow in the endless future. Both this death and this life consist in, or essentially are, the natural effects or consequences of the two contrary kinds of moral action, and even God could not prevent them except by annihilating the actors of each kind. § 189. THREE DEATHS, BODILY, SPIRITUAL, AND RETRIBUTIVE, ANL OTHER EVILS. We must vindicate the above. There are three deaths, one corporeal, improperly called natural; another spiritual, just shown; the third, called both eternal and the second death.* One opinion in conflict with our position is, that bodily death alone was intended in the threatening; and another is, that it meant all the three kinds. Against the first we urge the following: There is no evidence that bodily death was a natural effect of Adam's sin, any more than that the multiplied sorrow of Eve, her dependent subjection to her hus band, the curse on the ground, its yielding thorns and thistles to Adam, his eating bread in toil and sweat all his days, and the herb of the field instead of the fruits of Paradise, his ejection from it, lest he should take of the tree of life and eat and live forever, were all such effects of it; which they plainly were not, but were all to be positive inflictions, Gen. 3 : 16-19. Against the other of the opinions we urge the following: This death is not the actual suffering of the (*) Mat. 25:41, 46; II. Thess. 1:9; Rev. 2:11; 22:14, 15; and equivalently in many other places. 330 SCRIP! URAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. positive retribution deserved by sin, called the second and eternal death. For that is not to be inflicted till after bodily death or the end of probation; and it was purposely to avoid the necessity of inflicting it on the guilty pair, or on any of their race who could be reclaimed, that God put them and the race with them on a new gracious probation under the designed redemptive measure, which He indicated to them in the protevangel (Gen. 3:15) before dooming them to the providential and disciplinary evils, including bodily death, mentioned in Gen. 3:16-19. These evils were not included in the retributive, penal death, but were what God saw to be essential to any successful efficiency of the redemptive measure for the moral rectification and salvation of men, and were therefore, in a most important sense, really embraced in or auxiliary to it, being designed to be remedial in effect. If they would return to God under that measure, not only would they be substantially restored from their spiritual death in this life, but they would never suffer the deserved penal retribution, being justified on the ground of Christ's atone ment. Yet, according to this opinion, they must, though forgiven, still suffer bodily dea,th as if they had not returned! What kind of a forgiveness would that be? How can all this consist with itself or with a real vicarious atonement? The fact is, that neither atone ment, nor pardon or justification relates to either bodily or spiritual death, but to deserved positive punishment alone, which is the sec ond or eternal death. Justification sets this aside for all the reclaimed, while bodily death must be suffered by all, and spiritual death is only removed by the Holy Spirit. What then was the rela tion of bodily death to the sin, and to the spiritual death, of the first pair ? § 190. RELATION OF BODILY DEATH TO THE SIN, AND TO THE SPIR ITUAL DEATH, OF THE FIRST PAIR. The following points seem manifest: — (1) It bore no comparison as an evil, in either severity or duration, to the eternal, positive penalty deserved by them. It ended with the last breath, was a thing of minutes, and the involved separation of the soul from the body by it was to be terminated by the providential measure of the final resurrection, whether the person should be reclaimed or not. (2) It was deserved by their sin in no other way than were all the other temporary evils to which they were doomed. But they were subjected to it, no more than to the others, as properly penal or retributive, but simply as made necessary by their sin for the ends of the redemp- CONS ID ERA TION. 33 1 tive system. (3) The atonement was not made to save from bodily death any more than from the other temporary evils of these doom- ings, but, as said above, relates solely to the deserved, positive, retributive punishment. Were it a substitute for bodily death, as it must be if this was included in the retributive penalty, then pardon or justification must have rescued from this with that; but it does not, as "it is appointed unto men once to die." Besides, if it had been designed to be at all a substitute for it, the Scriptures would certainly somewhere have said so, whereas they have not, and their whole drift is to the contrary; and, further, no justified one'would ever suffer this death. (4) All the evils of these doomings of Gen. 3:16-19, operating in connection with the redemptive provisions and agencies, become, in effect, according to the Divine design, actual goods or means of blessing to all brought to repentance, so that, to all such, even bodily death is "gain," while the suffering of the pos itive legal penalty can never have any such effect, and never be "gain," but eternal loss. These evils, therefore, cannot be penal or retributive, but are merely providential and disciplinary. It is no objection to this, that, in I. Cor. 15:26, bodily death is called an "enemy;" for this is a figure, and all the other evils are enemies in the same sense, or they could not be disciplinary. This death is so called only because it is the most formidable of all these evils; and yet even it is "gain" to the righteous. It is so because, among other reasons, it opens the way for the resurrection-body, which, fashioned conformably to the body of Christ's glory, will inconceivably excel the one that dies.* §191. CONSIDERATION OF ROM. 8:18-23, AS RELATED TO GEN. 3:16-19. It seems important here to consider the contents of Rom. 8:18- 23, which plainly refers to and unfolds Gen. 3:16-19. It demon strates that the dooms pronounced on the fallen pair, and in them on their posterity, including the curse on the ground, were not prop erly to penal retributions at all, not sentencing them to anything threatened or warned against in Gen. 2:17, but simply to the speci fied providential and disciplinary inflictions for the good of them and their race. In verse 17, the Apostle assumed that suffering with Christ was necessary to believers. For their support and comfort under them, he says in verse 18 — " I reckon that the sufferings of (*) See the excellent Work of the late Rev. Robert W. Landis, D. D., on The Immortality of the Soul, Part III., Chap. I., pp. 315-348, for a valuable argument on this position, essentially agreeing with our own. 332 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward." In verse 19 he declares as a reason for estimating this glory so highly, that "the earnest expec tation of the creature [creation of the N. V. is too wide a term] is waiting for the revelation of the sons of God." To show the im portance of this fact, he states in verses 20, 21, the condition of the creature, and why it is so waiting — " For the creature was subjected to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bond age of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God." In verse 22, he appeals to the general recognition of the fearful state of vanity and bondage of corruption in which the creature is — " For we know that the whole [not universe or crea tion, but] creature groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." In these verses, the Greek word, which we render creature, as we think it should be throughout, occurs four times, and is plainly a noun of multitude. We think its meaning very plain. What, according to Gen. 3:16-19, was subjected by God to the conditions stated by the Apostle, on the basis of hope, but not willingly? It was consummately the fallen pair, and in them their race. They were the intelligent soul and end of all mundane nature, inanimate and animate, it having been created for, and correlated, adapted/ and made subservient, to them, its appointed possessors and lords; so that they lived by it and all its ministries and supplies; and as its condition would necessarily profoundly operate upon and affect them both physically and morally, and they, by all relations to, uses of, and influences upon it would, in turn, correspondingly affect it, it was, of course, necessarily involved in their dooms, including the curse on the ground which doubtless implicated it all. But the Apostle, in his reference to those doomings, makes no separation between mankind and it any more than between their bodies and souls. He lumps them and it all into one creature (aziaig); and thus, instead of passing, in silence, the intelligent, incomparably superior and most suffering part of the whole, and, by a monstrous prosopopxia, intrinsically absurd in itself, making the unintelligent, unconscious, subservient part, which, taken separately, is valueless in itself, the subject of all he ascribes to the creature, he ascribes nothing whatever to either the inferior or the superior part separate from the other, but all to the whole together. But, because man kind is the all-important constituent of the whole, he ascribes the conditions, experiences, and activities, which are mainly peculiar WHAT THIS WHOLE PASSAGE SHOWS. 333 to this constituent, the lower animals sharing in only the very in ferior of them, to the whole, just as we do those peculiar to the soul alone to the whole man, soul and body. Brute matter has no par ticipation in them. Thus understood, the Apostle states only pro foundly important truth and fact, when he ascribes to the whole creature, under the dooms of Gen. 3:16-19, an "earnest expectation, waiting for the revelation of the sons of God" — that is, some such one as theirs will be; when he states the historical fact, that it "was subjected to vanity, not willingly, but by God upon the basis of hope," (that furnished by the protevangel and new probation of grace (Gen. 3:15), and impressed on the race by the Spirit of grace), that it would yet be " delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God," (I. Cor. 15:42-54) — that is, into some such liberty of glory as theirs will be; when he declares, as commonly known from the facts of the world, that "the whole creature groaneth and travaileth in pain together (like a vast curse-laden Eve) until now;" and when he says, that "we ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit (that is, who, out of the whole creature, have become children of God, and heirs of the glory to be revealed in all such), even we ourselves groan within our selves, waiting for the adoption (the consummation of it), to wit, the redemption of the body" — that is, from its subjection to vanity and the bondage of corruption by the resurrection, by which we shall be delivered into the full liberty of the glory of the children of God, and a revelation of it shall be made. § I92. WHAT THIS WHOLE PASSAGE SHOWS. Thus this whole passage has pertinence to the main point stated in verse 17, that it was necessary that the children and heirs of God should suffer with Christ. It shows that this necessity was created by the dooms on the fallen pair and their race, including the curse on the ground — that those doomings were not, as many Commen tators assume, sentencing that pair to the death intended in Gen. 2:17, which was spiritual and liability to positive retribution, or to anything included in it; but, on the contrary, that, as surgical ope rations and other severe treatments of injured or diseased bodies or parts of them are to preserve or cure them, so the inflictions of all these doomings were severities designedly remedial and restorative to the spiritually dead souls of mankind, being connected with the hope inspired by the protevangel of the redemptive measure. Not one of them was penal or properly retributive; they were all disci- 334 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. plinary or necessary means to the greatest or to any success of that measure with its new gracious probation, and were therefore parts of the grace-scheme. We have, therefore, in this passage in Romans the whole philosophy of the necessity for and the uses of providential and disciplinary sufferings in this life, as distinguished from retribu tive or penal. The relation of these to the whole creature in time, and to the new creatures or children of God forever, is revealed with great and various repetition, and with ever-increasing distinctness, through the entire progressive revelation of Scripture to its end — by sacred historians, prophets, psalmists, our Lord, the Apostles, and specially by Paul, not in this passage and Chapter only, but in numerous others throughout his Epistles. It is only from this disclosure of the necessity for, and beneficent uses and ends of, this perpetual, awful tragedy of the world, in which all the human generations have been the principal participants, and all the animal tribes, and, in only a ' figurative sense, inanimate nature have been subordinate sharers, that the least light comes for the solution of the profound problem why this tragedy exists, and relief from the appalling spectacle it presents — that writer, preacher, poet, philosopher, and comforter have drawn the consolations and cheering wisdom which they im part to the suffering, sorrowing, despairing, and dying. "For by hope were we saved" — that is, by that primal hope, invigorated by all the subsequent additions to it, which, despite all the subjection of the race to vanity and the bondage of corruption, has still lived on inextinguishable, an "earnest expectation" in human souls. Whatever the earthly conditions and experiences of men may be, consciously or unconsciously they look forward for rescue from all evils and for a good that shall be satisfying, and a state of being that shall be complete; and, as they know that no such good and state are possible for them in time, and that they must die, they earnestly hope and long to find it somehow after death in the bound less future. In the beautiful words of Augutus William Schlegel, in a Lecture on Dramatic Art and Literature, written probably without a thought of this passage in his mind — " When the soul, resting as it were under the willows of exile, breathes out its longings for its distant home, what else but melancholy can be the key-note of its songs ? " The words of Cicero in his De Senectute, put in the mouth of Cato, speaking of Elysium, and those of Seneca concerning im mortality, seem as if written to confirm the statements of the great Apostle in verses 19-21. Says Cicero — "O illustrious day, when I shall go to that assembly and union of divine souls, and when I shall WHAT THIS WHOLE PASSAGE SHOWS. 335 leave this crowd and confusion! For I will go, not to those men only, concerning whom I have before spoken, but also to my Cato [his son], than whom no better man has been born, no one more excellent in piety." Says Seneca — "It pleased me to inquire con cerning the eternity of souls, yea, by Hercules, to believe. For I easily believed the opinions of great men, promising rather than proving a most pleasing thing. I gave myself up to so great a hope." As to the uses of suffering and affliction, when their end is fulfilled, says the really great moral poet Young: — *' And have I been complaining, then, so long? Complaining of His favors, pain, and death? Who, without pain's advice, would e'er be good? Who, without death, but would be good in vain? Pain is to save from pain; all punishment (discipline) To make for peace; and death to save from death." — Night IX. "Amid my list of blessings infinite, Stand this the foremost, 'That my heart has bled.' 'Tis heav'n's last effort of good-will to man; When pain can't bless, heav'n quits us in despair." — Idem. The same great lesson is beautifully taught in Gray's Ode to Adver sity; in Wordsworth's Excursion; in the last two Books of Paradise Lost; and God's mysterious way of treating men in His Providential dealings with them is remarkably shown in Samson Agonistes, lines 667-709. Of course, if the beneficent ends of man's subjection to vanity are unsecured in any, it is by their own persistent sin. In view of all thus shown against the notion, that the doomings of the first pair, and with them of their race, to bodily death were sentencing them to the death or to any part of it, threatened in Gen. 2:17, we urge its rejection, as not only wholly erroneous, but equally injurious in its bearings on the true view of retributive penalty; of the grace of God in placing man immediately after the fall on a gracious probation under the redemptive measure; of the designed uses or mission of providential and disciplinary sufferings, as auxil iary to that measure; of the real atonement, as a substitute for the positive penalty incurred by sin; of justification on the ground of it, as rescue from the penalty in accordance with the justice of the law; of the resurrection of the bodies of all men, good and bad, as inconsistent with the position that bodily death is the whole or a part of the penalty of sin; and of all involved and correlated truth. It is confusing, misleading, and subversive; and without basis in either Gen. 2:17 or 3:16-19. For (1) in the latter passage, it is pure arbitrariness to single out bodily death from the other dooms as all or part of the death threatened in the former. (2) There is no 336 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. exegetical warrant for taking the doomings in it as God's sentencing man to any part of the death threatened in the former. (3) In this, the warning announcement was — " in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." As shown, both Adam and Eve did, that very day, instantly die a spiritual death, while he did not die bodily for nearly a thousand years after. § I93. INHERITED EFFECTS OF ADAM'S SIN; ATONEMENT AND THE HOLY SPIRIT' NECESSARY TO SAVE EVEN INFANTS. We have shown the natural effects of the disobedience of the first pair in their souls and upon their relations to God, in contrast with what those of their obedience would have been; and also that they propagated their species, or entire complex nature, soul and body; and now, it seems to us, we need not make a great mystery of the transmission to their posterity of those effects, and the per version or vitiation they involve. What else could they propagate than offspring "in their own likeness" (Gen. 5:3), having the same disorder, vitiation, and bias of will to wrong moral action, which they had? How could natures so perverted issue offspring in arche typal order of spirit ? — natures in spiritual death issue offspring in the integrity of spiritual life? — natures in the relations to God of their perversion issue offspring in relations to Him of unperverted; spiritual life, and bias of will to right moral action? Well might Adam say, as Milton represents: — " But from me what can proceed, But all corrupt: both mind and will depraved, Not to do only, but to will the same With me?" We have shown in what sense Adam could be created righteous — that, from the perfection of his nature, he would spontaneously will rightly in his first moral choice, so that his will was virtually or potentially righteous in the sense of being naturally apt or bent to right moral action before it acted morally. After the vitiation of his nature by his sin, its aptness or bent was to the opposite until changed by regeneration, as we think both his and Eve's were (Gen. 3:20, 21; 4:1, 25, in connection with 3:15). Now, just as, if they had not sinned, their offspring would have inherited their perfect nature and virtually right wills, so, as they sinned and brought the perversion of the natural effects of their sin into their nature, their offspring naturally inherited this perversion, including virtually wrong wills, so that their posterity all spontaneously choose sinfully in their first moral acting, and will do so forever if not regenerated WHAT THIS WHOLE PASSAGE SHOWS. 33? in time. But sin is vastly more than mere injury to themselves and each other — than the mother of only those effects which constitute spiritual death. It is manifold in wrong qualities against God, as well as against His universal moral society. It is intrinsically dis belief concerning Him, rebellion against His authority, self-will confronted against His will, the enthronement of self instead of Him, and disregard of all His rights, dues, claims, and government. It is selfishness against Him and all other moral beings as such. How, then, could God not hold and treat the fallen pair and all actual sinners of their race accordingly — as deserving penal retribution from Him, as in and Ruler of the universal moral society, propor tional to the guilt of each ? How could He, with any justice, regard and treat them as obedient, or not either inflict that retribution on every one of them, or vindicate His justice against them in some other way? As to children of Adam's race, not yet actual sinners, but inheriting the vitiation and potential wrong wills stated, and sure to sin as soon as they act morally, even if taken to heaven without repair, how about them, if they die before they so act? Could He possibly hold and treat them otherwise than according to what they really are, or as if they had no such vitiation of nature and will? We surely believe all of them, so dying, will be saved, but not according to the law or its justice; but by virtue of the atonement and the regenerating agency of the Spirit which it secures for them. The atonement was as really necessary to put them, as to put actual sinners, into right relations to God and the universal moral society. For, with their inherited bias of will to sin, making their actual sinning certain when they act morally, they are already alien, and are sure to be antagonist, to the universal and eternal moral system, and to deserve the penal retribution necessary by that sys tem; so that their reinstatement in it is possible only on the atone ment. Then, they equally need regeneration to remove their spir itual death and to institute spiritual life in them; and the Holy Spirit, secured for and given to operate upon mankind by the atone ment, doubtless effects the regeneration of all children who die before they act morally. Thus they are all saved, and on the same ground and by the same agency, as all actual sinners are, who are saved. But, back of the reasons just stated, why they could not be saved on any legal ground, but only by the atonement and the regeneration by the Spirit given on its basis, is the fact shown by the whole Scrip tural account of the case, that Adam's trial action was really that of all his posterity — that the thou in the warning in Gen. 2:17 was 338 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. virtually thou and thy race. Even the temporal dooms on the guilty pair were not confined to them; for certainly that on Eve extended to all her daughters in like conditions to the last; and those on Adam to all his sons, and mainly to his daughters too; and who will say that the curse on the ground ended with him ? Nor, from the race- constitution, could it possibly be otherwise. Despite all the differ ence between the relation of the original pair to their offspring and that of all subsequent parents to theirs, the representative character of the relation constantly more or less reappears, not only as to temporal conditions and positions in society of offspring, but as to moral and religious tendencies and shapings of character and des tiny, relations, and experiences. We believe we have shown that the death warned against in Gen. 2:17 was entirely spiritual, and included only liability to the penal retribution deserved by sin, which is eternal death, and is, in the Apocalypse, four times called by John the second death (2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8). Because this was positive, its infliction could be suspended, the guilty pair was spared, their race was continued, and the redemptive measure with a new, gracious probation provided for them, so that it need not, and would not, ever be inflicted upon them or any of their race, if they would comply with its necessary moral conditions. None who do so will ever suffer it, nor will others till their gracious probation ends at death. In the intermediate state, the incorrigible will be abandoned by God, separated from the righteous, and in a place of punishment corresponding to their bodiless condition (Luke 16:23-28); but they will not be subjected to the infliction of this second death till after the resurrection and judgment (Mat. 13:40-42; 25:41; Rev. 20:12-15; 21:8). Spiritual death, which is a wholly personal matter, came immediately into the souls of the sinning pair by necessity of their nature, not by inflic tion of God, while this retributive penal death, which is social, will not come on any by their nature, but will be inflicted by God as ethical justice to the universal, holy society, including Himself. Of course, spiritual death will be eternal in all not regenerated in time; but it is not the endurance of this retributive punishment deserved by sin, which is the second death. § 194. DIRECT EXAMINATION OF ROM. 5:12-19. VERSE 12 CON SIDERED. From the foregoing, the reason is manifest why and how "through one man sin entered into the world, and death through EXAMINA TION OF ROM. 5:iS-lt). 339 sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned." All sinned — (i) virtually in the trial-action of Adam, their natural and representative head; just as in the doomings of Gen. 3:16-19, all daughters are held to have sinned in her transgression (I. Tim. 2: 12-15), and all Adam's offspring of both sexes are held to have sinned in his; — (2) by inheriting from him the natural effects of his, including virtual wrong wills, incipient spiritual death. We must not suppose that this inheritance implies privation of natural free dom of will, or power to begin and continue right, instead of wrong, moral choice in view of motives; for, if it did, they could not act morally, commit actual sin, nor have a gracious, or any personal, probation; and there could be no redemptive system for them. However long or much they may actually sin, and form the habit of sinning, or obey, and form the habit of obeying, this natural power of choosing rightly or wrongly, even of changing moral choice, under motives and influences, belongs to them, as long certainly as they are on probation. It cannot longer, because it has both a sub jective and objective basis, as has been previously shown. For, besides the subjective confirmation of habit, there will be no objec tive motives and influences to operate upon either the righteous or the wicked to induce either ever to change their radical choice.* Besides the testimony of consciousness in mankind, that, despite all th.eir inherited bad condition, they do still possess this power of moral choice under the motives and influences which operate upon them in this life, the facts of their being under a gracious probation and of the redemptive system with its conditions, motives, and influences prove that there is no natural necessity that their inherited virtual wrong will should become actual in their first or any other moral act during their probation, or that they could not will rightly from first to last. Nevertheless, such is the force of their whole perversion, the weakness of the motives and influences upon them in it against sin, and the strength of those to it, that they all do sin from the first, and onward, except those turned from it by regenera tion; and because, by doing so, they morally sanction and appropri ate the sin and guilt of Adam in addition to their spiritual death, they thus incur the sentence to positive retributive punishment, and are necessarily forever lost, unless saved by the grace of God de veloped in and through the atonement of Christ. The connection of verse 12 and onward with verse 11 makes it important to observe the use of the Greek verb Xa/ifSavew in verse n, where it means (*) See this point illustrated in § 96. 340 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. have received or appropriated,' as it also does inverse 17. It is plain from the relation of Adam to his race, as naturally its head and representative, and from that of Christ to it, as supernaturally the same, and from the relation of the action of each of them, as such, to it, that, as there is a voluntary receiving or appropriating of "the reconciliation" of God to man by the atonement, and "the abund ance of grace," etc., effected by Christ's action, by all who become Christians, so there is of the sin and condemnation, effected by Adam, by all who become actual sinners. The expression, "all sinned" (not "have sinned"), at the close of this verse, doubtless refers to the transgression of Adam, as, in effect, that of all. Says Dr. Schaff, in Lange's Commentary on Romans, in loco — "The aorist was chosen with reference to the past event of Adam's fall, which was at the same time virtually the fall of the human race as represented by him, and germinally contained in him." We think we have shown that spiritual death did in fact, by natural necessity, enter the world by Adam's sin and "passed unto all men because all sinned," while bodily did not so enter, and was not penal at all, but was appointed by God purely for redemptive purposes. There is no evidence that it would, but clear evidence that it would not, have come upon man at all, although fallen, if it had not been thus appointed. Medicine is given in consequence of disease, not as penalty for it, but to cure it. So, like all the other providential and disciplinary evils, this death is neither a natural effect, nor the retributive penalty of sin, but was appointed to man as a necessary part of the antidote for it or some of its natural effects. In this sense only can it be recog nized as a consequence of sin, as medicine may be of disease; and, in this sense, it may be referred to as an index and proof that the real disease of spiritual death is universal, but no other. If alluded to at all in the term death in this passage, it can only be in this sense, while spiritual death is the real kind of death intended. This is evident, not only from what has been shown, but from the whole scope of verses 12-19, and from the use of the term in the same sense right on in Chap. 6:13, 16, 21, 23; — in Chap. 7:5, 10, 24; — in Chap. 8:2,6; and elsewhere whenever this Apostle speaks of the generic effect of sin, as in Eph. 2:1,5, am' in Col. 2:13. The purpose of this passage, verses 12-19, is t0 exhibit in contrast, "on the basis of a vital, organic union of humanity, both in the order ol fallen nature and in that of redeeming grace," the bad effects in and upon the race by the fall of Adam, its natural head and representative, and the good effects provided for, and secured in and upon all who "receive VERSES 13 AND 14 CONSIDERED. 3- This Hebrew verb sig nifies: 1. To cover, to overlay, which is probably its original mean ing; 2. To cover over sins — that is, to forgive, to pardon; 3. As causative, to cause to forgive, or to obtain pardon — that is, (a) to expiate, to atone for, an offense; (b) to make expiation or atonement for an offender or transgressor, to free him from guilt; (c) to appease, to placate, to propitiate the one offended. The verb and noun occur 154 times. In 13 instances, it appears to refer directly to its orig inal meaning, to cover; in 12, to the second meaning, to forgive; and in 129, to the third meaning, to make atonement. Of these last, 80 are rendered atonement in our [the old version, and we suppose in the new], and 49 by nouns and verbs of a cognate signification. Its customary meaning is, to make atonement, to expiate. As a verb, it means, to cover, or to cause to cover, sin; as a noun, it means, a cover for sin or guilt. In his volume of "Select Discoveries," Boston, 185 1, pp. 41,42, S. E. Dwight gives the following very valuable foot-note, which it doubtless cost him much patient labor to pre pare: "As a verb, in the following passages, it is translated, to make an atonement. Ex. 29:33, 39, 37; 30:10, 10, 15,16; 32:30; Lev. 1:4; 4:20,26,31,35; 5:6, 10, 13, 16, 18; 6:7; 7:7; 8:34; 9:7,7; i°:i7; 35fi SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. 12:7,8; 14:18-21,29,31,53; 15:15,30; 16:6,-10,11,16-18,24,27, 30, 32-34; 17:11, 11; 19:22; Num. 5:8; 6:11; 8:12, 19, 21; 15:25, 28, 28; 16:46,47; 25:13; 28:22, 30; 29:5; 31:50; II. Sam. 21:3; I. Chron. 6:49; II. Chron. 29:24; Neh. 10:33. As a noun, it is rendered atonement in Ex. 29:36; 30:10, 16; Lev. 23:27, 28; 25:9; Num. 5:8; 29:11. As a verb, it is used in a similar sense in Num. 35:33; I. Sam. 3:14; Ez. 43:20, 26, where it is translated, to purge, to cleanse: in Lev. 6:30; 8:15; 16:20; Ez. 45:15, 17, 20; Dan. 9:24, where it is rendered to reconcile, to make reconciliation, but should be rendered to make atonement: in Gen. 32:20; Prov. 16:14; Ez. 16:63, where it is rendered, to pacify, to appease, because an atonement, an expia tion, procures forgiveness, ox pacifies anger. As a noun, it is used in a similar sense in Num. 35:31, 32, where it is rendered satisfaction: in Ex. 21:30, where it is rendered a sum of money, i. e., a fine, as giving satisfaction for an injury: in Ex. 30:12; Job 33:24; 36:18; Ps. 49:7; Prov. 6:35; 13:8; 21:18; Is. 43:3, where it is rendered a ransom, and in all but the two last, denotes a ransom for the life, because an atonement released ox ran somed from punishment: in Ex. 25:17-22; 30:6; 31:7; 35:11; 37:6-9; 39:35; 40:18; Lev. 16:2, 2, 13-15, 15; Num. 7:89, where it is ren dered (Sept. i\acTiipiov~) mercy seat, i. e., the place of expiation, or of receiving pardon: and in Amos 9:1 ("nHSS by mistake for n*")C3)> where it is rendered altar, or that on which the atoning sacrifice is offered." These Discourses possess very great merit in many respects, although not according with our view of the nature of the atonement. With these meanings of the Hebrew verb and noun before us, we are prepared to examine the Levitical Law, to ascertain what, according to it, constituted a cover or atonement for sin. But there are four cases of a cover or atonement for sin without the sacrifice of animal life, which we must first dispose of. § 201. FOUR CASES OF THE USE OF THE WORD ATONEMENT WHEN IT DOES NOT MEAN ANIMAL SACRIFICES. Three of these are legislative, one merely a recorded occur rence. In two of them, the atonement was made in money. The first is that required in Ex. 21:28-30. If an ox, known by his owner to push with his horn, and yet not kept in by him, killed a man or woman, the general law required the ox to be stoned and his owner to be put to death. But in certain cases, the owner might pay a THE WORD ATONEMENT. 357 Sum of money as a ransom, cover, for his life. If it was a servant that was killed, the fine went to his master. This atonement was not to God, and has nothing to do with our inquiry. The second case of atonement in money is found in Ex. 30:12-16, and acted upon in Num. 31:48-54. When a census of the Israelites was taken, every man of twenty years old or above was required to give half a shekel as " a ransom, a cover, for his soul unto the Lord," " an offer ing unto the Lord to make an atonement, cover, for their souls," "that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them." The word occurs four times in the passage in Ex. This shekel was called the cover or atonement money of the children of Israel, and was " appointed for the service of the tabernacle of the congrega tion." It was thus virtually the same as the sacrifices furnished by it, which made atonement for the lives of the people, and so does not conflict with the position that the Levitical Law required the substitution of a life for an atonement. The third legislative case of atonement without the actual sacrifice of animal life is in Lev. 5:1-14, where the four offenses of not disclosing the truth when adjured as a witness, of touching a carcass, of touching the unclean ness of a man, and of designedly not doing what one had sworn to do are prescribed for. If the offender in any of these ways was too poor to bring a lamb, or even two turtle-doves or two young pigeons, he was required to bring, instead, the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a sin-offering. The priest took a handful of it, and burnt it on the altar as a sin-offering, and made an atonement, cover, for him; and his sin was forgiven. This flour was substituted for the regular sin-offering of an animal sacrifice on account of his extreme poverty, as mercy on God's part; and, because it was a substitute for that, it does not conflict with the fact that atonement could not be made to God without an animal sacrifice. The fourth case, not legislative, but an incidental occurrence, is in Num. i6:.4t-5o. The whole congregation of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, on account of the destruction of Korah and his company, which caused the anger of the Lord to be kindled against them, so that thousands of them were falling under it. To arrest the destruction, Moses said to Aaron, "Take thy censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and lay incense thereon, and carry it quickly unto the congregation, and make atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the Lord; the plague is begun." Aaron did so, and made atonement for them, and he stood between the living and the dead; and the plague was stayed. In this terrible emergency, instead of delaying 358 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. to go through a regular sin-offering, Moses, doubtless Divinely im pelled, directed Aaron to substitute the censer and incense for it; and God mercifully accepted the substitution. In form, the case was exceptional; in spirit, it was not a departure from the rule of the law, and in no way conflicts with it. Of the last three cases, Dr. S. E. Dwight says: " They are all the cases which I have been able to find, in which it can be even supposed that an atonement was made to God without the sacrifice of life." "These cases, I think, will satisfy no one that the Levitical Atonement did not imply the substitution of a life." We have profited by his examination of these and the two following cases. There are two instances of atonement recorded as made by the sacrifice of human life. The first is in Num. 25:1-13. In that case, when Moses called on the judges of Israel to slay every one his man of those guilty of whoredom with the Moabitish women, Phin- eas, grandson of Aaron, rose up and took a spear in his hand, and went after an Israehtish man who brought a Midianitish woman into the camp, and thrust them both through; and the plague was stayed, after twenty-four thousand had died. And God blessed him, " because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel." Taking the lives of these guilty persons was the atonement; and they were recognized by God as substitutes for the rest of the yet living people. The other case is that of II. Sam. 21:1-9. ft was an atonement made, not to God, but to the Gibeonites, who themselves sacrificed, as anathemas, seven of Saul's sons, "because he slew the Gibeonites," in violation of the treaty made with them by Joshua. It was a public punishment for a great public crime; and, after it, the famine which had oppressed the land for the crime was stayed. While these two cases exhibit the general nature of atonement, the latter very feebly, yet, in them, the word is not used in its proper Levitical import. § 202. SCRIPTURAL STATEMENT OF WHAT THE ATONEMENT OF AN ANI MAL SACRIFICE CONSISTED IN. In Lev. 17:11, we have a direct, definite statement of what con stituted the atonement made by sacrificing animals, as required by the law: " For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given" it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life." Fair- bairn,* commenting on this passage, says: "The grand reason for (*) See his Typology oi Scripture, Vol. II., pp. 304-306— fifth edition. ANIMAL SACRIFICE. 359 the singular place which, in the hand-writing of Moses, is assigned to sacrifice by blood, is expressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where it is said, that, ' without shedding of blood, there is no remis sion,' consequently no peace or fellowship with God for the sinner." * * * "And the full and correct import of this passage [Lev. 17:11] is to the following effect: 'You must n t eat the blood, because God has appointed it as the means of atonement for your sins. But it is the means of atonement, as the bearer of the soul. It is not, therefore, the matter of the blood that atones, but the soul or life which resides, in it; so that the soul of the offered victim atones for the soul of the man who offers it.' The passage, indeed, is intended simply to provide an answer to two questions: Why they should not eat blood? viz., because the blood was appointed by God for making atonement. And, why should blood have been ap pointed for this purpose? viz., because the soul or life is there, and hence is most suitably taken for the soul or life of man forfeited by sin. This is also the only sense of the passage that can be gram matically justified; " which he shows. § 203. THOSE SACRIFICES AND THE THEOCRATIC GOVERNMENT OF GOD OVER ISRAEL FOR THEM ONLY IN THIS WORLD. Not only all the different kinds of sacrifices presented at the altar, but other things not presented there, were called by the gen eral name of offerings (corbanim). These included the ransom- money which furnished supplies for the atonement-services of the sanctuary (Ex. 38:25; 30:16), and other occasional offerings for the same end (Num. 7:3; 31:50), and contributions for the support of the ministers of the sanctuary — tithes, first-fruits, and free-will offerings. Corban literally signifies a gift, and anything solemnly dedicated to a sacred use; and all these corbanim were required or encouraged by God from Israel to support and give sacred import ance in their estimation to His house, which he had placed among them for their supreme, perpetual good. That good consummately depended on the sacrificial offerings to Him at His altar, the blood, or the soul in the blood, of which was given by Him expressly to make atonement to Him for their souls forfeited by sin. These offerings were the burnt-the sin-the guilt-or trespass-the peace- offerings, and the meal-offering as a supplement to the last two. All these offerings were enjoined on the Israelites as the theocratic peo ple, under the special, temporal, theocratic government of God over them, and not as under His universal and eternal moral government. 360 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. The whole Levitical Law, with its retributions, especially of punish ment, its atonements for violations of it, its forgivenesses, its purifi cations and cleansings, and its priests, while based on and adapted to the eternal moral law and government, as far as it related to these, was only for that theocratic people in their temporal, organic relations to each other, and to God as their Theocratic Ruler in this world; and, therefore, while it was a real law and administration for them, it was, throughout, so devised and adapted as to prefigure and be typical of Christ in His redeeming mission and of its effects in time and forever, as related to God's universal and eternal law and government over mankind as related to Him and the universal society. In itself that Levitical system never effected the forgive ness, spiritual purification, and salvation of any one, as the Epistle to the Hebrews distinctly shows, but, by its typical prefiguration of the real redemptive system, it doubtless contributed to secure these results to great multitudes of that peculiarized people until Christ came. Considered in itself, apart from its typical character, the inspired teaching is clearly to the contrary.* The theocratic law and government were confined to that people, in this world, and were only for a time; and the forgivenesses secured by its sacrifices were only for sins as against that law, not as against His eternal law, though all who truly repented of them as against this, as well as that, were also forgiven for them as against this on the ground of the atonement of Christ prefigured by these sacrifices (Rom. 3:25; Heb. 9:15). As said elsewhere, that people, during that time, excepted, no others ever were or will be under that law and government, but all, that people included, always have been and will be under God's eternal law and government, modified in application to them in this life by the one great atonement of Christ for their sins, to rescue them from subjection to the penalties of this eternal law in connec tion with their restoration to righteousness by the means it secured, and on the conditions the Gospel prescribes. This law and govern ment and the atonement for sinners against them, therefore, no more pertain to that people than to all other races and nations. Under standing readers can thus see the necessity and reason for our course in the first part of this Work, in investigating and unfolding what the universal law and its real retributions are, especially in the clear light of all that Scripture teaches concerning them, but also in the light of consciousness and the known action and manifestations of (*) Rom. 3:20; 5:20; 7:8, 13; Gal. 3:19, 21, 23. Respecting the Levitical sac- rilices, see llcb. 7:18, 19; 9:9, 10; 10:1, 4-1 1, and numerous other places. THE SIN-OFFERING. 3^1 the common conscience of mankind, and their moral intuitions and judgments. § 204. THE SIN-OFFERING. In considering the animal sacrifices, we begin with the sin-offer- jng. This related to sin as against God, a direct violation of His will and authority; and, therefore, while it was an actual expiation or atonement to Him for violators of the theocratic law in the ways specified, it was the leading prefiguration of the great expiation or atonement for the sins of the whole world against God by the offer ing and sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Its special relation to sin in this radical aspect is indicated by its distinctive Hebrew name, rlNGM, chattah, the exact rendering of which is sin. Bush says that, in the Septuagint version of the Pentateuch, this word is translated by the Greek word d,uapria, sin, in more than 80 places, in all which it is rendered sin-offering in our English version; and Dwight says that in that version of the O. T., ijiapria, in at least 114 instances, denotes a sin-offering. It was never applied to any sacrifice before the time of Moses (Ex. 29:14), and is entirely peculiar to the Levitical Law, the great end of which was to arouse a consciousness of " the sinfulness of sin," and of the necessity for its expiation, as represented in that law, in order to the sinner's acceptance by God. It was offered when persons committed acts of sin specified, or were in conditions resulting from, connected with, or implying it, as the following specifications show:— r 1. When any committed the following aggravated sins: — (1) When a witness was adjured, or put under oath, to disclose the truth, and yet kept it back (Lev. 5:1). 2. When one swore rashly (Lev. 5:4). 3. When any one, the High Priest, a ruler, or a private person, sinned against any of the commandments of the Lord, doing what ought not to be done against any of them, unwittingly, or through inconsiderate error* 4. When, on the great day of the yearly atonement, the High Priest made an atonement for himself and his house (Lev. 16:3, 6, 11-14). 5. When consecrations were made, as they implied separation from sin or its taint to holy services or uses: — (1) Of the priests (Ex. 29:10-14). (2) Of the altar and the tabernacle (Ex. 29:36, 37; 30:10; Lev. 16:15-19). (*) See Acts 3:17; Eph. 4:iS; I. Pet. 1:14. Lev. 4:2, 13, 22-35; Num. 15: 27-29.1 (j-) See Magee on Atonement and Sacrifice, Vol. I., Essay XXXVII., pp. 239- 244, and note on pp. 241-243. Outram, Dis. I., Chap. XIII., pp. 152-154. Fair- bairn on Typology, etc., Vol. II., pp. 327-329. 362 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. 6. When one was cured or recovered from a disease: — (i) From leprosy (Lev. 14-19, 31). (2) From a running issue (Lev. 15:14, 15, 29, 30). (3) When a woman was purified after child-birth (Lev. 12:6, 7). "The language of the law, in these cases, taught them to regard diseases as consequences of sin; and the fact, that, when one recovered from a peculiarly painful and defiling one, God required him to present, besides a thank-offering, a sin-offering also, to make atonement for his sins, most impressively reminded him, that he deserved death at the hands of God. That the Jews regarded it in this light is obvious, not only from the language of Scripture, but from the common testimony of their distinguished writers"* (Dwight varied). 7. When sacrifices were offered for ceremonial uncleannesses: — (1) For touching the carcass of an un clean animal (Lev. 5:2). (2) For touching the uncleanness of men (Lev. 5:3). In both these cases, if the touching was hidden from the one who did it, when he became aware of it he was to be guilty of it, and was to offer a sin-offering for his cleansing (Lev. 5:6-9). (3) For breach of the Nazarite vow (Num. 6:1-21). This offering was to be made regularly for the whole people at the following "set feasts" — the New Moons, Passover, Pentecost. Feast of Trumpets, and that of Tabernacles (Num. 28:15-29,38), Also on the great day of the annual Atonement, when the two goats were offered (Lev. 16). Also when the whole congregation sinned through ignorance (Lev. 4:13-21; Num. 15:22-26). The animals and ceremonial of this sin-offering were the follow ing: — For private persons, the animal was to be a female kid, or a lamb; also for the discharge of the Nazarite from his vow, and the purification of a leper — or, as a substitute in cases of poverty, two turtle-doves or two young pigeons; or, if any poor persons could not furnish these, a little flour, without oil or incense. For a ruler, it was to be a male kid. For the congregation, or the High Priest, on ordinary occasions, it was to be a young bullock; and on the great day of the annual atonement, they were to be, for the congre gation two goaN, and for the High Priest a bullock. All the animals must be without blemish, typically perfect; and the value of the (*) Sec Magce on Atonement, etc. Dissertation 33 Vol. I., pp. 95, 96 — partly quoted by l'wiglit in a footnote; and indorsed by Him, not quite correctly, we think. Gen. 3:16-19 and Rom. N:20 23, as also Rom. 5:12-18, I. Cor. 15:21, cer tainly teach that all sufferings are consequences of sin; but these are partly of the sin of our first parents, partly of the sins of others, and partly of our own; some of them natural consequences of the sin of the first pair, some of that of others, and some of our own. The Scriptures do not teach us, that " the sufferings which we ourselves endure are [all] chastisements for our personal sins." THE SIN-OFFERING. 363 offerings grew according as the offerer was a private person, the whole congregation, or a ruler, or a High Priest, that of the latter being highest on the scale — thus indicating degrees of responsibili ties and of guilt in the offerers according to their positions, or num ber. When the offerer brought his victim to the altar, he was to lay his hand on its head, doubtless with confession and prayer, and then kill it. Its blood was carefully caught, and the peculiarity of the sin-offering was in the uses made of it. If the offering was for a private person, or a ruler, "the anointed priest" (High Priest) was to take of the blood with his finger, and put it on the horns of the altar; and then pour the remainder at the bottom of the altar. As the altar was the special meeting-place of God and His people, its horns were emblems of His omnipotence, which would keep and save them, if they met Him there in the appointed way of atone ment and in the proper spirit. If, on account of poverty, one brought two turtle-doves or two young pigeons, the priest was to sprinkle of the blood of the one for the sin-offering upon the side of the altar, and wring out the remainder of it at its bottom. If the offering was for " the priest that is anointed," or for the whole " con gregation of Israel," he was to take some of the bullock's blood into the Holy Place of the Tabernacle, to dip his finger in it, and to sprinkle of it seven times before the Lord, before the veil of the Most Holy Place, in which God dwelt; then to "put some of it upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord" — that is, before that veil; and then to pour all the remainder of it at the bottom of the altar of burnt-offering before the Tabernacle. When, on the great day of annual atonement, the High Priest offered the pre scribed sacrifices for himself and his house, and for the whole con gregation, he first killed a bullock for a sin-offering for himself and his house; then, having burnt incense in the Most Holy Place before the Lord, he took of the blood and sprinkled it with his finger upon the mercy-seat on its east side, and then before it with his finger seven times. He then killed the goat of the sin-offering for the peo ple, and did the same with its blood in the Most Holy Place, which he had with that of his bullock, and thus made atonement for the Holy Place, "because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins." He then went out of the Most Holy Place to the altar of incense before it or the Lord, and made atonement for that, taking of the blood of the bullock and of the blood of the goat and putting of each upon the horns of that altar round about, and sprinkled oi the blood with his finger upon 364 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. it seven times, to cleanse and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel. He then laid both his hands on the head of the live goat, confessed over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon his head, and sent him away by an appointed man into the wilderness, bearing upon him all their iniquities into a solitary land, who was to let him go there. The fat of the bullock and of the killed go'at was burnt on the altar of burnt-offering, and the whole remainder of their bodies was carried out of the camp and burnt. These atone ments for the priests and the whole people were to be made annually in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, to expiate all their iniquities of the preceding year. Such, were the sin-offerings, and the atonements were only accomplished when, after the imposi tion of hands on the heads of the victims, death was inflicted on them, and their blood was used as shown. The life-blood of the victim was given to and accepted by God as a substitute for the life of the guilty offerer, forfeited by his sins; and the acceptance was ratified by the burning of the fatty parts as a sweet savor unto the Lord. § 205. THE GUILT- OR TREPASS-OFFERING. This offering, G&'N, asham, guilt- or trespass-offering, was always for individuals who were guilty of wrongs done to others, and to God as Ruler and Guardian of their rights and interests. Lange says,* "Trespass is wrong done to another (whether God or man), and involves not only sacrifice for its sin, but also amends for its harm." " The asham expresses that man has become guilty, liable to punishment, towards Jehovah or towards his fellow man; and the emphasis lies so strongly on the liability to punishment, that the same word denotes at the same time satisfaction." Guilt, as such, is the entire effect of sin in its cosmic sphere, from the bad conscience even to death, to Sheol, to Hell." " Sin is like a stone cast into a lake; guilt like the wave-circles which go out from it, the circumference of that evil center." This sac rifice was offered in the following cases: 1. When one committed a trespass, and sinned through ignorance or inadvertence in the holy things of the Lord (Lev. 5:14-16); in not paying his full tithes; in neglecting to redeem his first-born; in appropriating the first-fruits to his own use; or in eating parts of the sacrifice which pertained to the priests. Besides bringing to the Lord a ram without blemish, (*) See Coram, on Lev., in beginning his comments on 4:1-35 — 5:1—13. THE GUILT OR TRESPASS OFFERING. 365 he was to make compensation in money, according to the priest's estimation, with a fifth of the value added. 2. When one trans gressed any prohibition of the Lord in the law unconsciously (Lev. 5:17-19), he was to, bring the same offering, according to the priests' estimation of its value. 3. When one dealt falsely with his neigh bor in a matter of deposit, or of bargain (pledge), or of robbery, or oppressed him; or had found that which was lost, and dealt falsely therein, and swore to a lie, he must restore it in full, with the addi tion of a fifth part of its value, and must bring the same offering, a ram without blemish, to the Lord, whom he had wronged by trans gressing His law in wronging his neighbor (Lev. 6:1-7). 4- When a man had illicit connection with a bond-maid, betrothed to an other, but not free, he was to bring the same offering, and when the priest made atonement for him with it, he would be forgiven (Lev. 19:20-22). 5. When a leper was to be purified (Lev. 14:12), and when a defiled Nazarite was to be purified (Num. 6:12), a trespass- offering was sacrificed in connection with a sin-offering — a he lamb. This statement shows that the guilt- offering differed from the sin-offering. 1. In being only for the specified sins of individuals. 2. In the character of the sins, as consisting in some fraud or wrong against man, and so against God also, for which restitution, except in the cases under 4 and 5, must be made to those wronged, and to God through His priest as a substitution for his deserved punish ment. In the cases excepted, it was made only to God. 3. The fact, that a sacrifice to God was required for these sins, in addition to restitutions to the wronged, shows that their aspect as sins against God, which could not be forgiven without atonement, was not over looked, but merely set forth less prominently than that of the sins for which the sin-offerings were made. 4. This sacrifice was called the guilt-offering, because it signified the fact that the sins desig nated created a guilt-debt to men, and to God with them, as theo cratic Ruler, which could only be cancelled by restitution to men and sacrifice to God in addition. We might almost call it the offer ing for the guilt of dishonesty. 5. In all the cases, except that of the leper and the Nazarite, the offering required was the same, a ram; and the mode of the offering was much less solemn and signifi cant than that of the sin-offering, " the blood being only sprinkled round about upon the altar" (Lev. 7:2). 6. In the cases of the leper and Nazarite, a he lamb was the offering, instead of a ram. These were to bring this offering, because they owed a guilt-debt to the people and to God — the leper, on account of his disease, viewed 366 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. as a special consequence of sin and dangerous to them, as well as preventive of his duties to them, and the Nazarite, on account of his ceremonial defilement; so that both had violated the duties they owed as members of the theocracy, and had shed a bad influence upon it. Such were the requirements of the law respecting the sin-offer ing and the guilt- offering; the former for sin in its intrinsic nature, viewed as directly against God, and hence the fundamental sacrifice of all; the latter, a closely connected adjunct to it referring directly to the sins specified against men and so against God as Theocratic Ruler, as wrongs against them creating a guilt-debt to them in their theocratic organization under God and to Him. These two offer ings covered, expiated, atoned for, all sins that were pardonable — all not presumptuous, or committed with a high hand. If these were offered as required, the promise was that they should be forgiven; if not, " there was no remission," and the presumptuous despisers "died without mercy." § 206. THE BURNT-OFFERING. NOT ORIGINATED BY THE LEVITICAL LAW, BUT BY ADAM, TAUGHT BY GOD. It is not important here to develop the Scriptural teachings respecting the burnt-offering and the peace offering; but we have a few things to say respecting them, especially the former. We refer to the passages concerning them (Lev. 1:2-17: 3:1-17). One thing to notice is, that, as far as the imposition of the hands of the offerer on the victim's head, his killing it, and the sprinkling of the blood round about upon the altar by the priest were concerned, this offering had the characteristics of the sin-offering, and it was " to make atone ment for him.* This offering was not only for individuals, or, by itself or along with the sin and guilt offerings, for the whole people, but was the constant daily morning and evening sacrifice for the whole people. It was not originated by the Levitical Laiv, as the others were, but evidently by some direction or inspiration of God to Adam, and not by any instinctive impulse, guess or reasoning of his. It is plainly assumed in the first chapter of Leviticus, that it had been a standing custom of individuals to offer it; and Scripture tells us that it had been offered by Abraham (Gen. 22:1-14), by Noah (Gen. 8:20), and by Abel (Gen. 4:4) — a ram by Abraham (*) See Magee, Vol. I., XXXIX., pp. 262, 263. Vol. II., LXVII., pp. 24-26. Outram, Dis. I., Chap. X.; also Chap. Y.,pp. 125, 126. Fairbairn, Typology, etc., Vol. II. 1 pp. 347, 348. Lange's Lev. Int. and Chap. I. THE BURNT-OFFERING. 367 (Isaac's question in verse 7 clearly showing that he knew the cus tom, and that a lamb was the usual victim); " of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl " by Noah; and " of the firstlings of his flock" by Abel — all the animals being of the kinds afterwards required by the Levitical Law. Sacrifice no more begins with Abel's, than with Abraham's or Noah's, but is spoken of in his case as much as in theirs as according to custom. We see not how the inference can be avoided that it originated with Adam. How or when ? We can see no shadow of reason for supposing that he was led to peform it by any "instinctive impulse " under " the sense of guilt and lost communion with God," or by any mere self-sprung feeling; or that he ever invented it. As permission had not been given him, as far as we know, to eat animal food, or to kill any creature, by what conceivable psychological process could even a guess have entered his mind, that it would be pleasing to God to kill and offer animals, especially sheep, as sacrifices to Him ? How, without some kind of a revelation or direction from God, could he have any conception whatever of animal sacrifices, and of these offered on an altar ? Or, if such a conception could possibly have sprung into his mind, how could it seem other than unnatural, cruel, and revolting to inflict the pain and suffering of death upon inno cent creatures, not even rational, to pour out their blood, and to burn up their bodies on an altar? — how otherwise than utterly absurd, to do so to either placate or please God, without authority or license from Him? What relation could he, or any one since, discern between such use or abuse of innocent animals, whether called eucharistic, votive, precatory, propitiatory, or expiatory, and God's claims on him for gratitude, or against him for penal suffer ings deserved by his sins, or for anything else ? What could such offerings be, but mere guess-work, instead of which throwing stones or tearing up rose-bushes would have been just as good? — an exceedingly risky venture of experiment, with much greater reason to fear incensing or displeasing God by such destruction of inno cent animals, than to hope to please and appease Him by such unauthorized immolation ? To us, therefore, the supposition that Adam originated these offerings without Divine direction of some diiect kind is utterly incredible and unreasonable.* The standing reason for this supposition and against the origin ation of sacrifice by God is the absence of a command from Him to Adam to offer it. In the article on " Sacrifice," in Smith's Dic- ("-") Maeee, Vol. I., pp. 378 -W, Essays LIV-LVIII. 368 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. tionary of the Bible, the author says: " Sacrifice, when first men tioned in the case of Cain and Abel, is referred to as a thing of course; it is said to have been brought by men; there is no hint of any command given by God. This consideration, the strength of which no ingenuity has been able to impair, although it does not actually disprove the formal revelation of sacrifice, yet at least for bids the assertion of it, as a positive and important doctrine." In a foot-note, he presents some more of the same kind of reasoning. He states the facts of the case correctly; but, like Mephiposheth, his conclusion is lame in both its feet — in what it denies and in what it assumes. The strength of the facts no ingenuity has ever been exerted to impair; his conclusion none can impair, because it has no validity to impair. The true reasoning is this: The recorded facts show that sacrifice did not originate with Cain and Abel, but with Adam, who was still alive when they made their offerings, and with him either by or without Divine direction. The objections urged above to the latter alternative, as well as positive reasons for a Divine authorization, show this alternative unreasonable and absurd, and that the other must be true. The objection, that no command of God requiring it is recorded, is of no weight, because there may have been one, though not recorded among the brief sketches of the first part of Genesis, and because, as we think, a direct positive command was not given, but directing instruction; for it was plainly important, that the guilty pair in their condition, and their descend ants until a nation should be prepared to observe the commanded institution of sacrifices, should recognize Him as granting or con ferring upon them, as an act of mercy and grace, a great privilege and benefit; and further, because there seems to have been no set times for making the offerings, but doing so was left to the prompt ings of their own hearts or consciences as special occasions of any kind might move or urge them to it* The first chapter of Levit icus shows that this voluntary character of the burnt-offering was partly preserved in the Levitical Law. It is among our wonders, that such a man as Lange should have adopted the notion of the merely human origination of sacrifice, the opposite of which we deem of great importance, viewed in connection with the eternal plan of redemption and the consummate sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. (*) Magee, Vol. I., pp. 381-385, Essay LVTI. Fairbairn, Typology, etc., Vol. I., chap. IV., pp. 287-300. Valuable note of John Allen, translator of Out- rain, on pp. 18-22. SACRIFICE. 369 § 207. THAT SACRIFICE WAS ORIGINATED BY ADAM UNDIRECTED BY GOD, GROUNDLESS AND UNREASONABLE. Glance at the case. How can it consist with any fit conception of God's eternal plan of redemption for mankind foreseen as fallen, including His whole course towards them, and specially the incar nation and sacrificial death of the Son, to suppose that, although He designed in it the whole institution of sacrifices typical of Christ, as making the great fulfilling, antitypical one for the sins of the world, and its results; — that, although the burnt-offering was the foundation of that institution, and the others were distributed from it; — that, although it had been recognized by God as the special medium ot access to Him and mode of securing His favor from Adam down, He having furnished a ram for it to Abraham, having accepted Noah's as "a sweet-smelling savor," and "having had respect to Abel and to his offering;" — that, although these offerers of it always built altars to offer upon, and offered the " clean beasts and fowls " which were afterwards required in the distributed sacri fices of the Levitical Law; — and that, although no other ground of approach to, and acceptance by, God was ever revealed to mankind than that of sacrifice; yet it was not originated by God, but by Adam by some inexplicable freak or process of his own uninspired, undirected, guilty mind; and God forthwith adopted and consti tuted that guess or invention of Adam, including the altar, the kind of creature, and the mode of sacrificing it, to be such for the whole race until the final day! To us it is utterly incredible and absurd to suppose any such thing — to suppose that the origin of sacrifice and of all the sacrificial types of the expiatory sufferings and death of Christ for the sins of the world was not embraced in the eternal redemptive plan and in its execution in time, but left to the mere blind, groping guess of the one first guilty, sin-darkened man — to make the supreme plan of God hinge on such a contingent guess! Suppose Adam had not guessed this seemingly unreasonable, un natural way of animal sacrifice, but something else! What course would God then have taken? We are told that Abel offered his sacrifice by faith, and was therefore witnessed to by God that he was righteous. But how could he offer it by faith, if he did not know that God had authorized it ? On what ground could he act it in offering what and as he did? Or could Cain, if he had offered just what and as Abel did ? Essentially the same objections are equally valid against the notion of Spencer that the Levitical Law of sacrifices was given to 37° SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. the Israelites by Moses, not because they were embraced as sym bols and types in God's redemptive plan, as the Epistle to the Hebrews and other Scriptures plainly teach and imply, but because the Israelites, having been accustomed to such in Egypt, were so infected with a superstitious regard for them that they " could neither be safely prohibited, nor, amidst the daily growth of super stition, be left to the choice of every individual; " so that, to prevent disastrous corruptions and perversions, this Law, prescribing the victims, the time and modes of sacrificing them, and all relating to them, was given out of indulgence to the prejudices of that people, and to guard as much as possible against abuses.* § 208. A CLUE TO WHEN GOD TAUGHT ADAM TO OFFER ANIMALS IN SACRIFICE THE KINDS AND HOW. We believe we have a clue to the time when God in some way directed or taught Adam, not only to offer animals in sacrifice, but the kind or kinds of them, and the generic meaning of the rite. It was when He made for the guilty but repentant pair "coats of skins, and clothed them" (Gen. 3:21). He had placed them on the basis of the redemptive system by the promise of the serpent-quelling seed of the woman (verse 15), which He immediately followed with the stern doomings of verses 16-19. Adam's faith in the promise so lifted him above even the doom to bodily death, that he " called his wife's name Life {Havali), because she would be the mother of all living," doubtless using this term in its highest significance. It is manifest that Eve also thus seized the promise by faith (Gen. 4:1). But they must leave Paradise, and go out into the rough brake of the rude, wild world, where their wretched fig-leaf coverings, wit nesses of their guilt and shame, would utterly fail to serve their need. As before the doomings, God, to support them under them, gave them the promise of the serpent-queller, so now, before expelling them, in order to support them under the terrible trial of their expulsion, He demonstrated His merciful and gracious care for their welfare and comfort by fittingly clothing them (Gen. 3:21). It is not said in what manner God did this, but probably in a way which would be to them a kind of object-lesson how to do it, or by teaching them to do the whole themselves. Unless God somehow instructed Adam to kill the animals, he would not have dared to do it; and it (*) Outrain, l)is. T., Chap. I., ^ 7 io, pp. 22-30; also Translator, John Allen's note against this notion, pp. 2S, 29. Magee, Vol. I., Essay XLVIL, pp. 335-345- SACRIFICE. 371 is improbable that God would have instructed him to kill them for their skins, and not also what to do with their carcasses, that they should not be left to rot in Paradise, but put to some good use, especially when He might have taught them to procure clothing from other materials. His care for them in thus clothing their bodies would inspire faith in them that He would also care for them in all pther ways necessary for their real good. But we cannot think that this care for their bodies, and its natural impression on their hearts was all, or even the chief part of God's entire provision for them at that time; for to clothe their bodies without also providing for their souls would have been a very small matter, especially as they were just to be launched into the wild world to live and propa gate their race of sinners in it, under all the severities of their dooms, also propagated along with the spiritual vitiation of their sin and all the resulting evils in time and the liabilities to retribution beyond time — all known to God, who was acting on His own knowledge. His eternal plan of redemption was based on the designed sacrifice of the seed of the woman as "the propitiation for the sins of the world," by which the serpent's head was to be crushed. It was in that plan, as the Epistle to the Hebrews and other Scriptures abund antly teach, to symbolize and typify that one great, real sacrifice for sin, until the fit time for making it, by sacrifices of animals, not only from the giving of the ceremonial law through Moses to the pre pared nation of Israel, but, as already shown, from before the offer ings of Cain and Abel; their object from the first being to impart all the light, hope, and encouragement possible to Adam and to all down till the great antitypical sacrifice should be made. Is it not then beyond any reasonable doubt, and simply a matter of course, that, before expelling the fallen, but then repentant, believing pair (Gen. 3:20; 4:1), God would impart to them, especially to Adam as the natural head of his race, and therefore most fittingly before any of them were born, such an elementary knowledge of vicarious sac rifice as the basis of all forgiveness and acceptance by Him, as they were capable of receiving, and would, in some adapted way, teach and lead him to offer designated animals as such sacrifices upon an erected altar? Does not every reason of relation, fitness, authority, influence, and type demand that the origin of the rite should be con nected with Adam, and not with any one of his sons or natural descendants ? For what kind of race-relation, propriety, authority, influence, or type could the rite possess, if its origin were connected with one of them ? The others would almost certainly have opposed 372 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. and rejected it; while, if originated with him before any of them were born, and they were taught concerning it and accustomed to its performance from childhood by these first parents and by suc ceeding ones, they would naturally recognize it as sacred and author itative, as children always do religious customs and institutions observed by their parents, at least during their earlier years; and, when they would come to act for themselves, they would, according to this tendency, practice as they did. This view alone accounts for and explains all the facts connected with the case — how Cain and Abel came to bring offerings to the Lord while their parents were living, as a matter of course — why Cain's was not, and Abel's was, accepted; Cain's being a willful substitution for the Divinely authorized, expiatory animal sacrifice of his father, and offered, of course, without repentance and faith, while Abel's was that of his father in its atoning significance, he thus " by faith offering unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain," so that God had respect to both him and it, but not to Cain and his — why Noah, having received the transmitted knowledge of this Divinely authorized sac rifice, offered it after his egress from the ark — why offering the same kind in essentially the same way was carried on and continued by his descendants, wherever they scattered and settled, as families, tribes, and nations — why Abraham, Melchisedec doubtless, Job whc probably lived in the patriarchal times, Moses before he received the law (Ex. 17:15), Jethro (Ex. 18:12), Balak (Num. 22:40), and Balak and Balaam (23:1-5), offered the same, all on altars — why Moses placed this kind of sacrifice foremost and fundamental in the list of those of the Levitical Law as a matter of course, and as that from which all the others were distributed — why, in the earliest periods, fathers of families and heads of tribes and clans were their priests — why, later, kings, as possessing the same rights, were, not rarely, recognized as priests by their office — why afterwards the priestly office was generally established among the nations as a dis tinct and sacred one, its peculiar function being to offer animal sacrifices, commonly the original kinds of animals, or including them, and to do so in essentially the original way — and why well nigh the entire human race, not sunk in barbarism, has always relied on these sacrifices as expiatory to propitiate God or the gods. The key which fits so many locks, and alone opens any of them, must be the only right one; and, without this, all the facts mentioned, occur- ing from the morning of the race down through thousands of years, and pertaining to so many persons and nations, are inexplicable SACRIFICE. 373 mysteries. To us, therefore, it is certain that animal sacrifices were originated with Adam by a direct authorization of God. § 209. THIS ADAMIC SACRIFICE WAS NOT MERELY EUCHARISTIC, BUT EXPIATORY. That this, which we name the Adamic sacrifice, was not merely eucharistic, nor expressive of the self-devotement of the offerer to God, but typically expiatory, signifying a vicarious basis of forgive ness of sin and acceptance with God, is not doubtful. In Gen. 4:4, it is said: "the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering; " and, in Pleb. 11:4, the reason is given, that " by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." Faith is trust, confidence in, reliance upon God on the ground of some revelation or declara tion by Him to us, including or implying invitations and promises to assure us that Pie is disposed to be merciful and gracious to us; and, without such a ground, it is impossible for any of mankind, all consciously sinners and guilty, to exercise any real faith ih, love of, or obedience to Him. Faith comes from hearing, or objective com munication only; and what is heard must be some gracious revela tion or disclosure, which faith accepts just as given. What ground of faith had Cain and Abel? No other than their father had, the promise of the serpent-bruising seed of the woman, followed by God's clothing him and Eve with coats of skins, in connection with which, as we doubt not, He instructed them to offer the bodies of the animals on an altar, as sacrifices for their sins, as the ground of His forgiving them, His acceptance of which with full favor to them He showed by sending fire upon the sacrifices to consume them.* God also, we think, instructed Adam at the same time, that such sacrifices were to be made in future by him and his descendants whenever a special sense of need of forgiveness and help should press them; and offering them was thus made an established custom. Adam and Eve, of course, taught their children respecting the great promise of grace and its sacrificial supplement; and accordingly Abel by faith brought and offered his animal sacrifice as the ground of his acceptance with God, which Cain, in willful unbelief, refused to do, but substituted an offering, not sacrificial, " of the fruit of the ground." He thus acted a denial of his need for, and a defiant rejection of, the revealed ground of faith and Divine acceptance; and his sin with its guilt was left like a terrible wild beast couched at his door, waiting to rend and devour him, while Abel by offering (") Afagee. Vol. 1., Mo. LVIf., pp. 3SS-39!. 374 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. in faith was testified to by God, as righteous, ( tSimw; ) — that is, justified by his faith, "God bearing witness in respect to, [or over] his gifts," doubtless by sending fire upon and consuming them.* By thus manifesting His respect unto him and to his offering," He recognized him as righteous.^ § 2 10. THE BURNT-OFFERINGS OF NOAH, ABRAHAM, ETC., NOTICED. That the burnt-offerings of Noah (Gen. 8:20), were designed by him to be expiatory seems to us manifest, not only from the fact that he evidently knew the circumstances of the origin of suoh sac rifices, and their significance in relation to men as sinners and to their promised deliverer, also of Abel's offering, and not improbably of such offerings not unrepeated during the 1,600 years since Adam by the pious line, but because, as he was now the new natural head of the race, and fully knew why the Flood had drowned all but him and his family, and that his and their sin exposed them to like destruction, he desired to secure His forgiveness and favor in this hereditary way. As the burnt-offering was an undivided unit con taining all the others, until its distribution by the Levitical Law, Noah's design in his great aggregate offering was doubtless com plex, including with that of expiation that of thanksgiving and that of a special dedication of Himself and his whole family to God. His aggregate offering " of every clean beast and every clean fowl, as burnt-offerings on the altar " was, we think, under Divine direction. The expression in verse 21 of God's pleasure in the sacrifice, that " He smelled the sweet savor" of it, is applied by Paul directly to "the offering and sacrifice" of Christ to God for us (Eph. 5:2), which distinctly proves the chiefly expiatory character of Noah's offering. The case of the burnt-offering of Abraham (Gen. 22:1-13), is one of the supremely wonderful matters contained in the wonderful Book of God. Without enlarging on it here, we notice only the following respecting it. This command of God to Abraham shows the latter's knowledge of this race-long rite of burnt-offerings, how it was executed, and its religious and moral purposes. But, instead of the regular animal, the command now was: "Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, * * * and offer him * * * for a burnt-offering." This command was to prove or test his faith in and obedience to Himself. At the critical moment, when, (*) Lev. 9:24; Judges 6:21; I. Kings 18:3s; I. Chron. 21:26; II. Chron. 7:1. Hengstenberg renders it — "But he bare our sick nesses, and took our pains upon himself." We may see for ourselves by examining its chief terms, beginning with the Hebrew verb WD1 , nasa. According to Gesenius (Heb. Lex.), it primarily means, to take up, to lift up, to raise, as one does a weight or burden. Then very frequently it means, to bear, to carry. Then, it means, to endure; and hence, to bear with, that is, to suffer, to permit (Job 21:3). Then, when followed by "ly , sin, guilt, iniquity, crime, it means, to bear it, that is, to suffer the punishment of it. If one takes on himself to bear the sin or guilt of another or others, it is to bear or suffer its punishment. He refers to Is. 53:12; Ez. 18:19, 20, to which we add Num. 14:33; 30:15; Lam. 5:7. To bear one's own sin is to suffer its punishment himself.* Then it means to expiate the sin or guilt of one or many by a sacrifice as a priest does (Lev. 10: 17); and to forgive or to pardon sin (Ps. 32:5; 85:3; Job 7:21; Gen. 50:17). The adverb away is no part of the meaning of this verb, unless in that last specified. Even in that, it is to depart from its (*) Lev. 5:1, 17; 7:18; 17:16; 19:8; 20:17, 19< 2°; 24:15; Num. 5:31; 9:13; 14:34; 18:1; Ez. 23:35; Job 34:31. 4o3 SCRIPT 'URAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. essential meaning to say that either to expiate, as a priest does, or to forgive signifies or includes to take away. The real meaning of both these expressions is, according to the radical one, to take up, to lift up, to raise off the guilty one, the burden of punishment deserved by him. Certainly, away never belongs to it when its object is sin, iniquity, transgressions, or disgrace, reproach, shame, or anything deemed punishment for sin. Magee says — "We find it, when joined with the word sin, constantly used throughout Scrip ture, either in the sense of forgiving it, on the one hand, or of sus taining, either directly or in figure, the penal consequences of it, on the other. Of this latter sense, I find not less than 37 instances, exclusive of this Chapter of Isaiah, in all which, bearing the burden of sins, so as to be rendered liable to suffer on account of them, seems clearly and unequivocally expressed. In most cases it implies punishment endured or incurred: whilst, in some few, it imports no more than a representation of that punishment; as in the case of the scape-goat, and in that of Ezekiel lying on his side, and thereby bearing the iniquity, i. e., representing the punishment due to the iniquity, of the house of fsrael. But in no one of all this number can it be said to admit the signification of carrying away, unless perhaps in the case of the scape-goat, Lev. 16:22, and in that of the priests, Ex. 28:38 and Lev. 10:17; and of these no more can be alleged, than that they may be so interpreted. To these instances of the word nasa connected with chattah, navon, sins, iniquities, etc., may fairly be added those in which it stands connected with the Hebrew words, meaning disgrace, reproach, shame, etc., of which there are iS to be found: and in all of them, as before, the word is used in the sense of enduring, suffering. The idea, therefore, of a burden to be sustained is evidently contained in all these passages. Of the former sense of the word when connected with sins, iniquities, offences, either expressed or understood, namely that oi forgiving, there are 22; in all which cases the nominative of the word nasa is the person who was to grant for giveness. To forgive, then, on the part of him who had the power so to do; and to sustain, on the part of him who was deemed actu ally or figuratively the offender, seem to exhaust the significations of the word nasa, when connected with sins, transgressions, and words of like import."* He states, as the result of his investigation of this word, "That the word nasa, when connected with the word sins, or iniquities, is throughout the entire Bible to be understood in one of these two significations: bearing, i. e., sustaining, on the one (*) Magee, Vol. I., No. 42, pp. 300, 301. SEVERAL MEANINGS. 409 hand; and forgiving, on the other; and that, in neither of these applications does there seem to be any reason for interpreting it in the sense of bearing away; nor has any one unequivocal instance of its use in that sense been adduced.."* Respecting this word, Heng stenberg says — " Some would translate it abstulit, removit, but in opposition to the whole context [i. man after his death;) although he had done nothing unrighteous, and there was no guile in his mouth." The sense, as he states it, is • — " not satisfied with his sufferings and death, they sought to insult him, the innocent and righteous one, even in death, since they wished to bury his corpse among criminals. It is then incidentally remarked that this object was not accomplished. Christ was en tombed by Joseph of Arimathea, who is here called, as in Matt. 25:57, a rich man." If this is doubtful to any, see Nagelsbach's comment in loco in the Lange series. It is probably correct, as the whole verse pertains to the spirit of Christ's enemies against him, and the treatment He received from them. It is not important to our purpose to notice it further. § 239. JEHOVAH SUBJECTED HIM TO HIS SUFFERINGS HIS SOUL AN OFFERING FOR SIN, AND THE RESULTS. Verse 10. " Yet it pleased the Lord 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 the Lord shall prosper in his hand." This verse declares God the prime Causer of the Messiah's sufferings, their design, their fruit and result, and His restoration to a perpetual life. Its sense is, that His suf ferings have been inflicted upon Him, not for any sins of Plis own, nor by His enemies, acting independently of any design or control of God; but, according to God's infinitely wise and benevolent 420 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. purpose. While He permitted them to act out their wicked will_ against Christ, Pie overruled and guided their action to be put forth precisely as it was, and subjected Him to it, in order out of and by their evil to accomplish, by the atonement which His sufferings and death would make for the sins of mankind, and by all the grace it would secure for them, the infinite good of the salvation of immense multitudes of them, of vastly augmented, everlasting blessing to all holy creatures, and of unlimited and perpetual pleasure and glory to Himself. In this sense and for this incalculably great reason, " it pleased the Lord to bruise him, and to put him to grief; " and for this same reason, He voluntarily came on purpose to be subjected to this bruising and grief, just as He was " when His soul [/. e., He] made an offering for sin " — for the marginal reading in our version, and not that in the text, is, we believe, (against Nagelsbach,) the true one.* The Hebrew word, asham, means, first, guilt, desert of pun ishment for transgression (Gen. 26:10; Jer. 51:5); then, transgres sion itself, or sin (Num. 5:7, 8); and then, guilt-offering (Lev. 5:19; 7:5; 14:21; 19:21). In our examination of this word, as used in the law [§ 205], we saw that, when signifying an offering, this and the sin-offering were essentially the same — i. e., were for an expiatory covering or atonement for sin. It was to expiate the guilt or debt of sin; and the prophet says that, when Christ shall make this offering, "he shall see his seed," etc. In these clauses, he expresses the crowning reason and end of Christ's sufferings. In this suffering, He was to be an offering for sin {ye pi r« auapriaC) to cover, to atone, to make expiation, for it. Hengstenberg says — "According to this pas sage, Paul affirms, II. Cor. 5:21, God has made Christ to be d/iapria, a sin-offering, whereby we become righteous before God, as in Rom. 8:3, God has sent Christ -epi ti/; aimpnac, for a sin-ofering, and Christ is called uacpbg, iWaa-riipiov , a propitiatory sacrifice for all sins, Rom. 3:25; I.John 2:2; 4:10. Compare Heb. 9:14." The language of this verse could never be applied to any martyr; nor to any other one than Christ; nor to Him as suffering for us merely in sympa thetic feeling; but to Him only as suffering all He did for us as mediately and immediately inflicted upon Him by God Himself, with His most free consent and obedient co-operation in submitting to it, as our Great High Priest, to atone for the sins of the world. The results and promised rewards are more fully expressed in the next two verses. (*) Magee, Vol. I., No. XXVII., pp. 168-174; Hengstenberg, Barnes. JEHOVAH SPEAKS. 421 § 240. JEHOVAH SPEAKS AND DECLARES THE RESULTS. Verse 11. "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities." Jehovah is represented as again speaking, the first time since Chap. 52:13-15. The noun rendered travail signifies labor, toil, i. e., wearisome labor, Eccl. 1:3; 21:11; tropically of the mind, Ps. 73:16; then, trouble, vexation, sorrow, (Gen. 41:51; Deut. 26:7; Job 3:10; 16:2; and here). It includes the two-fold meaning of labor and suffering, and indicates all that the Messiah did and endured in accomplishing the great atone ment. Because of this travail, 1. e., labor and suffering of His soul, " He beholds " — it is not said what, but doubtless the fruits and rewards of it indicated in the previous verse; and, with the sight of them, He shall satisfy Himself for it all, as the farmer does Jbr all his toil and weariness with the sight of an abundant rewarding crop. Beholding the hosts of millions of mankind, of all nations, genera tions, and ranks eternally saved, blessed, and unspeakably aggran dized, all the good to the intelligent universe, and all the pleasure and glory to God produced by their salvation, He will estimate this consummate, eternal result amply worth all He did and suffered to secure it; and He will forever rejoice that He paid the requisite price, though so vast and terrible, to secure a good so exceeding all finite comprehension; especially, because otherwise our entire race must have perished, the intelligent universe must have suffered an eternal loss and evil as great as the good effected, and God must have lacked all the pleasure and glory of that good secured, and of the contrasted evil prevented. Besides, His gratulation and joy must be eternally augmented by all the results to Himself He will forever possess and contemplate. " By or through His knowledge " — i. e., men's knowledge of Him, as made known to, and believingly appropriated by, them, as their Saviour, Jehovah says, " shall my righteous servant justify many." As the next line is the parallel of this, and gives the ground or reason for the justification, and as it is something which Christ will do for " the many," because He will bear their iniquities, the justifying must be understood, not in a sub jective, but in a forensic sense — i. e., that He will forgive their sins, remit their penalty, and treat them as if 'they were legally righteous.* The justifying is opposed to the condemning, not to sinning, and is the act of the one absolving from punishment, not of the one ab- (*) Deut. 25:1; I. Kings 8:32; II. Ch-on. 6:23; Is. 5:23; Ex. 23:7; Ps. 82:3; Prov. 17:15; Is. 50:8, and many other places. 422 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. solved. Christ, though perfectly righteous (verse 9), nevertheless equivalently suffered the penalty of sin, and He therefore bestows justification upon all who believingly repent, restores them to the favor of God, and treats them, as far as penalty is concerned, as if they had not sinned, but were subjectively righteous and deserving. See verses 5, 6, especially, "by His wounds we are healed." The last clause assigns the reason — " And he shall bear their iniquities," {sabhal') — shall carry. This verb, as we saw (verse 4), never means bear or carry away, but simply as a burden; and to bear sin or iniquity, or the plural of these, always means to suffer the penalty of it or them, and nothing else.* These expressions are technical, legal formulas, invariably meaning, to suffer penalty; and they mean just that, and nothing different, when another than the guilty one or more suffer it instead of Him or them (Lev. 19:17; margin; Num. 14:33, 34; Lam. 5:7; Ez. 18:19, 2°i fs- 53:II> 12)- The sons are spoken of as bearing the sins oi their fathers in all these citations, except the first and the last. In none of them, can it be pre tended that the meaning is, that the sons bore them away, or any thing else than that they suffered their punishment. Sabhal in Lam. 5:7, and nasa, in all the rest, are the verbs to express this bear ing."!" We think Henstenberg made a decided mistake in accepting the position of Gesenius, that " all the preceding and following futures in verses 11,12 refer to the state of exaltation " [of the Mes siah], and in his consequent interpretation of sabhal, carry, in this line, because it is in the future. He says — "The Messiah takes upon himself the sins of every one who, after his exaltation, fulfills this condition" — [of having the knowledge of Him mentioned in the preceding line] " i. e., He causes His own vicarious obedience to be reckoned to him, and imparts to him forgiveness. He will bear their sins is the same, only under a different image, as He will justify them." We deny the sameness; to justify is not to bear in any sense. The mistake (Nagelsbach also makes it) is in making the prophetic future of Christ's sufferings and death that of His sub sequent everlasting exaltation. He bore sins once, when He suffered and died, and never has nor will again to all eternity. Not a hint is there here about Plis bearing them as consisting in Plis suffering with men in sympathetic feeling. (*) V.\. 28:38, 43; Lev. 5:1, 17; 7:18; 17:16; 19:8; 20:17, 19; 22:16; Num. 5:31; 14:34; 18:1, 23; 30:15; Is. 53:11; Ez. 4:4; 18:19, 20; 44:10, 12 — to bear sin or sins, Lev. 19:17, margin; 20:20; 22:9; 24:15; Num. 9:13; 18:22, 32; Ez. 23:49; Heb. 9:28; I. I'et. 2:24. (J) Magee, Vol. I., pp. 310, 312. JEHOVAH DECLARES HIS REWARDS. 423 § 241. JEHOVAH DECLARES HIS REWARDS. Verse 12. " Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors: and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgress ors." Jehovah still speaks, declaring the rewards He will give, and why He will give them, to the Messiah. We think the rendering in our version of the first two clauses of this verse is essentially the correct one, as the prepositions before the words rendered great and strong plainly correspond, and should be brought into the trans lation. As the great and mighty among men always had, before Christ's death, divided the spoil of the nations among themselves, and would afterwards strive to do so, it has vast and fine significance, that Jehovah asserts that, after Christ's most ignominious and appalling sufferings and death, as if one of the worst and basest of criminals, He, the Almighty and absolute Disposer, would Himself reward Him by dividing the spoil to Him with them, giving Him, as the imagery implies, the Conqueror's share, what the Romans called the spolia opima, leaving to them the very inferior remainder. It is Jehovah that divides it to Him; and the language does uot imply that the portion divided to Him would be of the same kind as that divided to the great and mighty of the world. It would be both different and incomparably superior, as the whole history of true Christianity shows it has been; so that even many of the great and mighty have been and will be themselves part of it, as the whole Church, and all the results of its and His influence are parts of it. If, in the short time of a little over eighteen centuries, His portion has become so immense and inestimable, wha't will it become in even half as many to follow ? — or, in five ? What, when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of Christ? What, in all the eternal ages? The remainder of the verse presents the meritorious reasons why Jehovah will so reward Him. (1) Because He poured out His soul unto or in death. The language is taken from that used in the law respecting the animals slain in sacrifices, whose blood contained their life or soul, and was poured out and caught by the priest to be sprinkled, on the great day of atonement, before the mercy-seat in the Holy of holies, then on the altar of incense in front of the veil, and its remainder on the altar of burnt-offerings in the court in front of the temple. Christ was both priest and sacri fice, and poured out His blood, life, and soul, to atone for the sins of the world (Lev. 17:11). (2) He was, or suffered Himself to be, 424 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. numbered with the transgressors. Although perfectly obedient, Pie suffered Plimself to be so numbered by men, and by the plan of God, as if one of the worst among them, in order thus to work out His great atonement. (3) He bore [aorist] the sin of many. What an illustration it is of the effect of adopting a false principle of inter pretation, that so grand a scholar as Hengstenberg should be led, by adopting that of Gesenius already noticed, to interpret the aorist of nasa here, as "determined to be the future by the context, in which the exaltation is the subject of discourse," so as to make it correspond with the future sabhal in verse 11 and refer to Christ's exaltation, which i= not even mentioned, and at most is only implied as one part of the rewards to be given Him, instead of making both the words express, as they plainly do, the preceding fundamental, meritorious reason of those rewards! The consequence is, that, by making Christ bear sin in His exaltation, He makes His bearing it mean only forgiving it, of which meaning there is not, as we have shown, another instance in the Bible, when the word is connected with sin or iniquity. Sin is borne only by suffering its penalty, whether by the sinner himself or by a substitute, and it was thus only, as the whole Chapter shows, that Christ bore the sins of many. (4) He made intercession for the transgressors. The verb here ren dered, " made intercession," is the same which in verse 6 is rendered, "hath laid," and, as here used, means, in addition to praying for them, presenting Himself before the Father with all His merit and claims on account of all He has done and endured to redeem them, and securing for them all the favor and assistance necessary for their complete salvation, eternal glory and blessedness (Heb. 7:25; 9:24; Rom. 8:34; I. John 2:1). Of these four specifications, the first three set forth the main parts of His atoning sufferings and death, and the fourth what He continually does to make the others effectual for the complete salvation and glorification of as many as possible of the transgressors; and in none of them is there any reference to His suffering with men in sympathetic feeling for their woes or miser able state.* To this exposition of this wonderful prophecy, we add the fol lowing remarks: — 1. It is essentially an inspired exhibition of what was symbolic ally typified by the animal sacrifices of the Levitical Law, as is man ifest from the language from that law applied to the great predicted (*) Hengstenberg's Chris., Vol. I., pp. 4S4-499, 537-560; Barnes' Int. to his comments on the Chapter. CHRIST NOT A MARTYR. 425 sufferer. The expressions — "he hath borne our sicknesses and car ried our sorrows" — "the chastisement of our peace was upon him '' — "the Lord has caused to meet on him the iniquity of us all" — "for the transgression of my people, the stroke was upon him" — "when his soul or he shall make an offering for sin " — " for he shall bear their iniquities" — "he hath poured out his life or soul unto death" — and "he bore the sins of many," are all derived from that law, and clearly show that the prophet meant to set forth the Mes siah in His sufferings and death as the antitype of the sacrifices of that law — how the great reality would correspond to and fulfill the typical syinbols. § 242. CHRIST NOT A MARYTR, BUT A VOLUNTARY SUBSTITUTE FOR SINNERS IN ALL HE SUFFERED, ETC. 2. It proves that the sufferings and death of Christ were not those of a mere martyr, who fell a victim to the malignity and vio-. lence of persecutors, being unable to escape from their murderous hands, but were entirely voluntary on His part and in obedience to the determinate counsel and righteous will of Jehovah. It thus proves, that they Were not for any sin 01' fault of His own, but for the sin of mankind — that they were for the advantage or benefit of mankind by being in the stead of the penal suffering deserved- by them to save them from it, and were, therefore, purely vicarious or substitutionary, as no mere martyr's nor patriot's ever were — that they did not consist at all in His sympathetic feeling with the woes or miserable state of mankind, but entirely in what was inflicted upon Him from without — that it is only on the basis of this substitution that any of mankind can be saved — and yet, that, in themselves, His sufferings and death secure the salvation of none, but are merely provisional iox all, until by His prevailing intercession, as the Great High Priest, such transgressors as can consistently be brought to receive salvation on their basis, do so, and are forgiven; the forgive ness making the substitution actual for all such. To deny this sub stitution is to deny the whole fundamental meaning of this prophecy, as the expressions quoted from it above and its whole tenor clearly show. It is to deny that Christ was, in His sufferings and death, either sacrifice or priest, since by the law the very purpose of the priestly office was to offer sacrifices to God with intercessions for the transgressing people; since, in the nature of the case, all sacri fices were substitutions, and nothing else; and since intercessions were grounded upon them. The sympathetic feelings of the typical 426 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. priest for his fellow-men were exceedingly important as a personal qualification for his office (Heb. 5:2), but in no way belonged to the sacrifice, nor affected its validity for its objects, the sufferings and death of the victim being wholly inflicted. So those feelings of Christ were inexpressibly important to men (Pleb. 2:17, 18; 4:15), as a qualification for Plis priestly office, but were no part of His sufferings and death as "an offering and a sacrifice to God for men for a sweet-smelling savor" (Eph. 5:2). These were entirely inflicted upon Him from without; and, as neither in this prophecy, nor any where in Scripture, are those feelings of Christ for mankind ever even alluded to when Plis sufferings and death for them are spoken of, it is not only purely arbitrary to attempt to make them consti tute His vicarious sufferings or any part of them, but it is to make His inflicted sufferings and death to no end and of no account, and Jehovah unreasonable and unjust in subjecting Him to them (Acts 2:23; 4:28; Rom. 4:25; 8:32), by "causing to meet or rush upon Him the iniquity of us all," "bruising him," "putting him to grief," causing him to be "pierced for our transgressions," "crushed for our iniquities," and to suffer "the chastisement to secure our peace" with Himself; and it is to make Christ Himself voluntarily undergo them all equally to no end and without reason. Thev did not come upon Him as mere incidental results of the malignity of His mur derous persecutors, as those of martyrs come upon them, but as inflictions to which He was subjected by the purpose and sovereign will of Jehovah; and it was as such only that He voluntarily and obediently endured them, "bearing the sin of many." He tells us Himself that it was in obedience to that will and for the purpose of enduring them, that He came into the world. Hence, to deny that He suffered and died as a substitute for men, to rescue them from the necessity of themselves suffering the punishment deserved by their sins, is not only to make nonsense of this whole prophecy and of all Scripture which declares that He suffered and died in our stead and for us, but it is to impugn the justice and character of God who subjected Him to the infliction — to deny the very foundation of Christianity — to reduce the immensity of the love of both the Father and the Son for guilty men to a comparatively meager measure — to make justification in the proper sense of the term impossible — to substitute for it the uncouth thing, fitly expressed by the uncouth word rigbteousing, which means, not freeing men from penalty and treating them as if personally righteous on the ground of atonement made for their sins by Christ, but making them subjectively righteous MAGEE' S VIEWS. 4?1 by mere moral influence — and to put in the place, by all this, of the real Gospel of Christ another, which is not another. § 243. PASSAGE FROM MAGEE RESPECTING THIS CHAPTER AND ITS IMPORTANCE. 3. As the last of these remarks, we quote a passage from Magee. He says — "I have gone thus extensively into the examination of this point, both because it has of late been the practice of those writers who oppose the doctrine of atonement to assume familiarly, and pro concesso, that the expression bearing sins signified in all cases, where personal punishment was not involved, nothing more than bearing them away, or removing them; and because this Chap ter of Isaiah contains the whole scheme and substance of the Christian atonement. Indeed, so ample and comprehensive is the description here given, that the writers of the New Testament seem to have had it perpetually in view, inasmuch as there is scarcely a passage in the Gospels or Epistles, relating to the sacrificial nature and atoning virtue of the death of Christ, that may not obviously De traced to this exemplar: so that, in fortifying this part of Scrip ture, we establish the foundation of the entire system. It will con sequently be the less necessary to inquire minutely into those texts in the New Testament which relate to the same subject. We cannot but recognize the features of the prophetic detail, and consequently apply the evidence of the prophet's explanation, when we are told, in the words of our Lord, that " the Son of man came to give his life a ransom for many" (Mat. 20:28); that, as St. Paul expresses it, "he gave himself a ransom for all" (I. Tim. 2:6); that "he was offered to bear the sins of many" (Heb. 9:28); that "God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin" (II. Cor. 5:21); that "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us" (Gal. 3:13); that "'he suffered for sins, the just for the unjust" (L Pet. 3:18); that "he died for the ungodly" (Rom 5:6); that "he gave himself for us" (Titus 2:14); that "he died for our sins" (I Cor. 15:3); and "was delivered for our offences" (Rom. 4:25); that " he gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice io God" (Eph 5:2); that "we are reconciled to God by the death of His Son" (Rom. 5:10); that "his blood was shed for many for the remission of sins" (Mat. 26:28). — These and many others directly refer us to the prophet, and seem but partial reflections of what he had previously so fully placed before our view.* I*) Magee. Vol. I., pp. 317, 318. 425 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. § 244. PASSAGES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, IN WHICH NASA AND SABHAL ARE TRANSLATED INTO CORRESPONDING GREEK VERBS. We close this Chapter by calling attention to some passages in the New Testament in which the Hebrew verbs sabhal and nasa, which express the very life of this prophecy, are translated into corresponding Greek verbs which signify precisely what they do in it, the purpose and sacrificial character of Christ's sufferings and death, and which thus show that the prophecy related to and was fulfilled by Christ in undergoing them. We first notice I. Pet. 2:24 — " Who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree." He uses the Greek verb dvafykpa , which means the same as both the Hebrew verbs mentioned, as they stand in Is. 53:11, 12, but here specially for sabhal in verse 12, from which he evidently quotes; and, by the wav, the meaning he gives it plainly disagrees with that given it by Gesenius, etc., referred to above. The Greek verb primarily means to bear upward, to carry up, to lead up, i. e., from a lower to a higher place; and then, to take up and bear, to take from another upon one's ;,as in Heb. 9:7; 10:12, where reference is made to Lev. 16:3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 15, 27, prescribing the offerings to be made for (~f/») sin by the High Priest once every year. It primarily means, over, or above the place where anything is or moves, yet not in immediate contact with it. In its secondary sense, when governing the genitive of objects affecting persons, it may signify either " for the benefit of," or " in the stead of," or both these together, as the nature of the case determines; so that, of THE GREEK PREPOSITION. 435 itself, it does not determine which. Liddell and Scott, in their Greek and English Lexicon, give under No. 5 of its meanings, when it governs the genitive, for, i. e., instead of, in the name of, virip eavrov, in his stead, Thuc. 1.141." Donegan says — "for, i. 20; I. John 1:7; 5:6: Kev. s.y:" 7:14; 12:1 [. ' HE GAVE II IS LIFE FOR US. 453 on account of their eminent truth, clearness, and important dis criminations respecting the Scriptural teachings on this fundamental subject. § 255. PASSAGES DECLARING THAT HE GAVE HIS LIFE FOR US." All these passages teach the same doctrine of substitution. The way in which he gave Himself or His life was by voluntarily dying on the cross for us. Mat. 20:28, " Even as the Son of man came — to give his life a ransom for {anti) many." Mark 10:45, the same. , John 6:51, "The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for {huper) the life of the world. 10:11, "The good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Verse 15, "I lay down my life for the sheep.' 15:13, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Gal. 1:4, "Who gave himself for our sins." 2:20. "The Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.' Eph. 5:2, "And hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." Verse 25, "As Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it." I. Tim. 2:6, " Who gave himself a ransom for all." Titus 2:14, "Who gave himself for uSj that he might redeem," etc. The life of Christ in these passages means the same as his blood 'in those of the preceding paragraph, as, according to Lev. 17:11, the life, v/hich includes the soul, is in the blood, which the word "himself" implies. Christ's giving himself, or His life or soul for the life of the world, or for the Church, us, or Paul, is plainly done by Him as the great antitypical High Priest, making " an offering and a sacrifice of Himself, or of His blood. life, or soul to God" "for our sins" (Gal. 1:4; Eph. 5:2), and thus a ransom (Mat. 20:28; Mark 10:45; I- Tim. 2:6; Titus 2:14); and in being thus a sacrifice and a ransom He was necessarily a substi tute for {anti, in the stead of) many — of the world provisionally, op the Church and each true member of it actually. It is a gross con tradiction of terms and sense to deny that a person, a victim, a life which is given as "a ransom instead of many" — "for all" — "that he might redeem us," etc. — "for the life of the world" — "for the sheep" — "for the Church," or "for us," or "for me" — "for friends or enemies" — "for our sins" — and as "an offering and a sacrifice to God," is a substitute from the nature and necessity of the case; or to say that it could possibly be so given, if not such. The concep tions and principal terms of these passages are plainly drawn from and based on those of the law and of prophecy respecting Christ, embodied in those of the law. For ransom, see Ex. 21:30; 30:12; 454 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. Num. 35:31, 32; Prov. 6:35; 13:8 (Septuagint); for giving or laying down His life, see Lev. 17:11; Is. 53:10, 12; for "giving Himself for our sins," and "an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet- smelling savour," see the Levitical law on sacrifices; for substitu tion, it is radically involved on all ransom and sacrifice ex neces sitate. § 256. CHRIST, AS HIGH PRIEST, OFFERED HIMSELF TO GOD, A SACRIFICE FOR THE SINS OF MANKIND. That Christ, as High Priest, offered Himself to God as an offer ing and a sacrifice for the sins of mankind is often asserted in the New Testament. Eph. 5:2, quoted above. Heb. 7:27, "Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: For this he did once for all, when he offered up himself." 9:14, "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself with out spot to God," etc.? 25, "And not that he may offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with the 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 [ages] hath he been manifested to put away sin by means of his sacrifice." 28, " So also Christ was once for all offered to bear the sins of many." 10:10, "In which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." 12, "But this one, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God." 14, "For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." "He declared that His blood was shed for the remission of sins," Mat. 26:28. This language is simply that of the typical law applied to Him as its great fulfilling cntitype. He, the Great High Priest, offered up Himself on the cross to God as a sacrifice for the sins of the people, thus bearing them in their stead, as the typical sacrifices bore the sins of those for whom they were offered, being their substitute, in suffering for them. There is nothing figurative in the language, as our examination of he teachings in the Epistle to the Hebrews concerning the priest hood and sacrifice of Christ, and their reality as typically prefigured and shadowed out in the priesthood and sacrifices of the ceremonial law clearly certified; and to attempt to get rid of the momentous icality by calling the inspired declarations oi it figurative is nothing but the recklessness always engendered by the adoption of an antag onist theory, which can in no other way be even plausibly main- THE SUFFERINGS AND DEATH OF CHRIST. 455 tained. The passages are purely affirmative of fact and didactic; and, if their language is merely figurative, their writers either lacked common sense in asserting them, or intended to deceive and mislead their readers, as, according to this supposition, they most certainly have generally done. All canons of interpretation are struck down by such arbitrary substitutions of figures for literalities, and fancies for facts; and criticism is turned into the art of disinheriting the true meanings of the words and sentences of authors by supplanting them with false ones foisted into their place. In offering Himself as a sacrifice, He did what He came to do, what He was sent by the Father to do, what His Father willed and required Him to do, and acted in pure obedience (Heb. 10:5-10). § 257. PASSAGES CONCERNING THE SUFFERINGS AND DEATH OF CHRIST. In immediate connection with these passages, we refer to those concerning His sufferings and death on the cross. That He fully knew that it was the chief part of His mission to suffer and die as He finally did according to the will of His Father is clearly manifest from Mat. 16:21; 17:12; Mark8:3i; 9:12; Luke9:22; 17:25; 22:15. 24:26, 46; John 3:14; and that He did so in fulfillment of the types and prophecies of the Old Testament is declared by Peter in Acts 3:18; I. Pet. 1:11; and by Paul in Acts 26:22, 23; 17:3. As to the fact, purpose, and end of His sufferings, it is said in Heb. 2:9, 10, " But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels because of his suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God might taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom, etc., in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect, 1. e., as a Savior, through sufferings." In 5:8, 9, "Though he was a Son yet learned he obedience from the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them thai obey him." In 9:26, "For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by means of his sacrifice." In 13:12, " Wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate." In I. Pet. 2:21, it is said — "Because Christ also suffered for {huper) us." Chap. 3:18 says — " For Christ also hath once suffered for {peri), on account of, sins, a just person for {huper), the benefit of by substitution, (confirmed by -irpooayu-j following), unjust persons, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh," etc. Chap. 4:1 says — 456 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. "Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for {huper, for our benefit and 'in our stead,' Fronmiiller) us in the flesh." Chap. 5:1 says — "I — a witness of the sufferings of Christ." Now, looking at these passages, we see that, in the first of them (Heb. 2:9, 10) the death which Christ "tasted for {huper) every man" was suffered by Him when "He gave Himself an offering and a sacrifice to God for us," and was therefore sacrificial and so substitutional." It became God, in bring ing many sons unto glory, to make the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings" — that is, to qualify Him perfectly by subjecting Him to His sufferings as a sacrifice for their sins, to be the Author of their salvation. See 5:8, 9. In Chap. 9:26, Christ's suffering once " to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself " is set in contrast with the repetitious suffering of the victims, with the blood of which the Aaronic high priests entered yearly into the Holy of holies. By the statement, His suffering is here made ident ical with His own sacrificial death. Let this be noted against Dr. Bushnell's assertion * that the Old Testament " makes nothing ol the pain of the victim," " the pains of the animal." As if the Law did not require it to be killed, slain, put to death, and it could be subjected to this, and its blood, with its life or soul in it, could be poured out without pain, even death-agony ! Did they chloroform the animals before killing them ? As if, provided the blood and soul of the animal could have been somehow extracted from it with out putting it to the agony of death, it would have served at all as atonement ! It was by the inflicted pain of death, that its blood. soul, life was given to make atonement; and, when he savs — " there is no vestige of retributive quality in the sacrifice" — "no compen sation in the sacrifices. They are not satisfactions, nor any way linked with ideas of satisfaction — no man's lamb pays for his sin. They are never offered as a legal substitution," one is compelled to put on the brake hard, to keep from characterizing the bold asser tions as they merit. If the animals were not sacrificed for the transgressors, as required, must these not suffer the declared penalty ot their sins? If they were, were not- the transgressors exempted from suffering it by forgiveness on the ground of these? What else.. in the world, is this, but pure legal substitution? than legal com pensation and satisfaction for their sins? than the lamb or othei animal offered paying for the sin of him who bought it? If God. the Theocratic Ruler, would not forgive transgressors, except on the ground of these sacrifices being made for them, as He would not (*) Forgiveness and Law, p. (>(>, and p. 87. CHRIST'S DEATH FOR MANKIND. 457 and would forgive them on that ground, what sheer nonsense and folly it is to utter such denials! The " retributive quality" of course was not in the animal sacrificed, but in its being representatively substituted in its sufferings and death for the retributive sufferings incurred by the transgressor as declared in the Law. There was no such " quality " in the sacrifice of Christ, as it pertained wholly to the deserved sufferings of human sinners, for whom Pie representa tively substituted Himself in it, of which the animal sacrifices were only " types and shadows," the real meaning of them as such never having entered the Doctor's mind. What could he understand by the inspired words — " without shedding of blood there is no remis sion." Bold denials and assertions are easily made, but cannot set aside truth and fact, nor hide want of knowledge of Scripture and of the valid mode of exegesis by which to find its real meaning. § 258. PASSAGES WHICH SPEAK OF CHRIST'S DYING AND DEATH FOR MANKIND. We first adduce Rom. 5:8, which says — "But God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." We have already shown that in this, as twice in verse 7, huper must mean for the benefit of by substitution. Verse 9 con firms this by saying — ¦" Much more then, being now justified by his blood [/. tsedeq, of every such Latin word from jus, of every such German word from recht, of every such English word from right, and of every, such word in any other language, ancient or modern, from the corresponding root-word in it. Christ is called "the just" "the righteous," in the passages refer red to above, not only as peerless among men in His perfect obedi ence to the law and the will of His Father, but as provisionally fulfilling, in His freely assumed Mediatorial relations to God and man as man's Redeemer, by His obedience unto, and in His volun tarily endured sufferings and death, all the requirements of the law He had come under for mankind in sin (Gal. 4:4; Mat. 3:15), and all the demands of its justice against them by His atonement. The designation, 6 Sinaioi, the just or the righteous, is doubtless taken from Is. 53:11, p"1"^?, the righteous one, rendered 0 dimioc in the Sept.; for it is there used with direct reference to His having made the atone ment. In I. John 2:1, it is evidently used with the same reference, as it is followed by — "And He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world; " and, in 500 SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS ON THE ATONEMENT. Acts 3:14; 7:52, and 1. Pet. 3:18, it also seems plain from the con nections, that Peter, like John, uses this designation by the great evangelical prophet with the same reference. Ananias also, in his words to the just converted Saul (Acts 22:14), adopted it from the same place, and uses it with the same reference. It should certainly be noticed here, not only that this designation singles out our Lord as perfect and peerless among men in fulfilling all requirements of justice as ethical, and all its demands as penally retributive for the salvation of men, but that it is one which sentimentalists would never have given Him. Given by them, it would be — the sympa thizer — the pitiful — the merciful — the loving — the benevolent — the tender brother, or some like one, which would express His fellow- feeling with, and yearning disposition towards, mankind; whereas 0 diKaior, the just, or righteous, has none of these meanings, nor any like them, expressive of His feeling, affection, or disposition towards them as sinners, or at all, but simply, that He is the one who trans cendency does, vindicates, and maintains justice. All mere senti mental flummery is debarred from even its threshold. He is the righteous one specially because " He bore the iniquities of men," "is the propitiation for them," "once suffered for them," "has been killed," "has been betrayed and murdered." It is an essential point in the true Scriptural doctrine of the atonement, that Christ was the Divinely constituted representative of mankind, and, as such, obeyed and suffered and died for them; and the consideration of that point will add light and force to the preceding. But, before considering that, we must notice other Greek words formed from Sum. § 280. MEANINGS OF THESE GREEK WORDS. biKainniwi means righteousness, the state of being righteous or just in agreement of character or of judicial relation with the essen tial quality of the law as righteous or just. It belongs to those only of men who receive it by faith as a gracious gift from God (Rom. 4:3, 5, 6, 9, n, 13, 22; 5:17; S:io; and elsewhere). Auraujiwr means justification, the judicial justifying act of God, which sets a believing sinner right, straight, square with the demands of the retributive justice of the law against him, and puts him in the state of righteousness, Aamioaimi , (Rom. 4:25; 5:18). cunaiuim means a righteous or just decree, judgment, or requirement (Luke 1:6; Rom. 1:32; 2:2(1; 8:4; Pleb. 9:1, 10; Rev. 15:4: or, as in classic Greek, a righteous or just act or deed, an action of justice, the amend ment, rectification, or making good of, a wrong (Rom. 5:16, 18; Rev. RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. 501 19:8, New Ver.). In Rom. 5:18, it clearly has this classic meaning; for its connection in the verse requires this, and its meaning there is plainly included in that of «nm! in verse 19 (Phil. 2:8; Heb. 5:8; 12:2). Its meaning in verse 16 must, it seems to us, be essentially the same — an act of righteousness, as in the margin of the New Ver sion. The adverb 6uiaiac means justly, rightly, with strict justice (Luke 23:41; I. Pet. 2:23). This verb and these other words formed from tusn were used by the Greek ethical philosophers who held justice to be the root and sum of all virtue; and, as used in the New Testament, and especially by Paul, are translations of the Hebrew verb and other words corresponding, and exactly represent their meanings, as a comparison of the Lexicons clearly shows. The truth clearly demonstrated by the uses of the verb and kindred words - under consideration in each of these languages of Scripture is, that justice is the fundamental quality of the law, and of obedience to it, and can never be discarded, nor in the least disregarded by God, nor cease to be the basis of morality, of the moral system, of moral government, of moral love, and of all true moral philosophy and theology.* §281. MEANING OF THE EXPRESSION S°5- Not punished toy sins of mankind, but, as their representative and substitute, bore their punishment equivalently, 290. Perfectly voluntary in His whole part, 269, 284. His merit infinite, 504, 505, 506. Only Mediator between God and man, 232. High Priest and Mediatorial King in heaven till after the judgment, 185, 391, 392. Judge of the race, 84. Christianity, what grounded on, and demonstrates, 317, No apologies to make for itself, 318. Church, whole destiny of, included in redemptive plan, 186-8. Cicero, on the law, quoted twice in note, n. Definition of justice by, 18. Aspira tion of for immortality, 334. Declared man made in the likeness of God, 173. Clark, Adam, held that God can limit his omniscience by His will, 189. Concern, supreme, of God and all good beings, whether the due of moral love is rendered by any or not, 44, 48, 54-5, and in other places. God without, if pardons for mere repentance, 99. Coleridge, his estimate of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, 217. His erroneous notion of the atonement, 434. Condition, ethical, of forgiveness on ground of the atonement, 280. No, if the atonement is actual tor all, or any part of mankind, 282-3. Is for all through life, 286. Conformity, to image of Christ, one end of predestination, 207, 210. God's good ness, absolute, to His eternal nature, 314. Conscience, gives verdict respecting action done or thought of, 5. Attests and enforces the law as God's, 9, 493. Judicial respecting moral action and char acter, and sensibility connected with, 12. Affirms good-deserts of obedience and ill-deserts of disobedience, 135, 46, 64, 96-7. God has a, 17. What, has always taught mankind, 20. Sensibility of, blunted, etc., by sin, 36, 52, 69, 327. Ever points to God, etc., 38, 60. What alone it presignifies, 38-9, 42, 59. Attests and demands Divine retributions, 39, 42-5. Has a two-fold func tion, 41. Does not threaten the natural consequences of sin, 49. God's ver acity in its averments and prophecies, 53. In what it speaks falsely, if natural consequences of sin its retributions, 56. Action of, comparatively slight, if this were true, 57. Center of the moral nature, 69. Both it and Scripture declare positive retributions from God, 72. Acts alike respecting the retribu tive consequences of each kind of action, 90-1. God responsible before His own, 93, 310. Contradicted, if positive retributions are denied, 96. Con demns and dooms without a hint of mercy and grace, 98. God would war with, if should pardon for mere repentance, 99, 491-2. Retributive justice certified by, 223. Unanimous, will forever approve and applaud the substi tution of Christ, 445-6. Adam's, as created, 327. Became impaired by sin, 328. Obligation of, on God to do the best possible to save men, 461. Merit or desert of reward for obedience affirmed by universal, 5°5~6. As quickened by the Spirit in regeneration, 508. Consciousness, one teacher concerning the law, 3. The law given in, as God's, 9. Personal identity known by, 69. What a correct psychology will find in, 107. Of each a medium of knowing what is due to others, 108. Defined, 133. Of each Person of the Godhead His own, 137. Testifies that men, though fallen, have the natural power of moral choice, 339. Consequences, natural, of obedience and sin, 34-7. Why called natural, 37. Not retributive, nor presignified by conscience, though many of, caused by its action, 38-40. Not social, but personal, and what are no expression of, 44-9. Not nor among, retributions, 51-9, 62-6. Why cannot be, 6S-72. What it makes God to assert these the only retributions, 74. If the only punitive, also the only remuneratory, and what, 46-7, 64. Bad, cannot be forgiven, 56-7, 76, 522. None of bad, experienced by Christ, 264. Difference between 534 INDEX. condition of immortals in ruin from, and saved from, to the eye of omniscience, 311. Not the sanctions of the law in Scripture, 51-5, 75~6. Cook, Joseph, his view of the Trinity rejected— Note, 138-41. Cost, concerning God and all good beings going to, for the wicked, 100-104, 238. Absurdity of, 249-53, 274-8, 488. What would make Him and them, 101, 238, 274-5, 488. 492- God's real, what, 255, 230-1, 264, 443, 461. Counsel, God has no right of, as to punishing sinners, if does not provide substitu tion, 84-7. Crawford, J. T., author of " The Scriptural Doctrine of the Atonement," on Pass over in note, 383. On Greek phrase, "to die for {huper) any one," 435, 438. On Bushnell's assertion respecting the usus loquendi of sacrificial language, 415. Creationism, objections to, 322-5. Creature (/crime ), meaning of in Rom. 8:19-23, 332. Cud-worth, on justice as intrinsic, in his "Divine and immutable Morality," 30. References to, respecting notions of a Trinity among ancient heathen, 141. Death, meaning of, in Gen. 2:17, how known by Adam, and bodily, not included there, 329-31, 194. This, meant in Gen. 3:19, 329-31. Why infliction of penal, on first pair suspended, etc., 338. Bodily, not a natural effect of sin, but appointed; and how may be included in Rom. 5:12-19, 340. No bodily, if had been no sin, 340. Christ retrieves believers from every kind of, 345. Fundamental sense of, 329. Delitzsch, quoted, 388. Desert, good or ill, 13-15, 39, 41-3, 46. Good, of God, boundless, 17. Con science and revelation alike teach that God will punish according to ill, 60. Not the rule forrewarding, if not for punishing, 64. Essential to moral beings to have intuitive affirmations of good or ill, for their moral action, 69, 81 . Dura tion of ill, 82-3. Ill, the only measure of just punishment, 83-7. Ill, intrinsic in wrong action, and never affirmed by conscience on the ground of its con sequences, 88-91. Disobedience, tendencies of, whence, 37, 44. Is to God radically, not to men, 49. Dooming, of Adam and race to bodily death, in Gen. 3:17, 19, what not, shown by Rom. 8:19-21, 330-3. Due, of moral love, by the law, to God and all, including self, 5. To every obedient one is justice by two rights, 13. From God and men to one always perfect in moral love — e. g. Christ, 14. In a modified sense, to the truly renewed, 15. From men to each other, though sinners, 15-17. To God, by all rights, the absolute love of all, 17, 18. Is to all having rights to this love, 17, 18. Rendering it is paying, and not is robbing God and all moral beings of this radical, 40-4, 47. Substitution for this, must secure the same, 298. Dusterdieck,, mistake of, respecting propitiation in I. John 4:10, 446. Dwight, S. E. in note, on Heb. verb and noun rendered to atone and atonemeent, 355-66. On atonements to God by substitution of a life, 358. On Jewish view of diseases as punishments for sin, 362. On all bloody sacrifices being vicarious, 379. In text and note on Greek verb iXaoKO/iat , etc., 448. Efficiency, Divine, to secure the conversion of sinners, limited, 191-4. Lack of the Spirit's never given in the Bible as the reason why any remain uncon verted, 196. Election, not for any secret reason independent of the redemptive measure; and Christ the sphere of, 194. Made with reference to the foreseen effects of that measure, 195. Based on God's foreknowledge of the effects stated, 199-201. Nothing in, inconsistent with man's freedom, etc., 200-1. Distinct from fore knowledge, 201-2, 208. What the elect are chosen to, 205-6, 210. Included in God's purpose, 205-9. Of Jacob, Rom. 9:11, different in end and in all respects, 211-215. End, of the law, of obedience and of sin, 4, 58, 94. Aggregate, of love same as of the law, 46, 58, 514. Of retributive punishment, 46-7, 484. Of God's administration of the sanctions of the law, 54, 91. Natural consequenceism at war with the, of the law, etc., 56. Of justice, social; and, of God's benevo- INDEX. 535 lence and justice the same, 86-7. Of punishment, love, and substitution the same,-87, 97. Repentance meets no, of justice, nor of moral love, 99. Kant's imperative has neither matter nor, 106. To create moral beings, God's work having the highest, 115, 182. These alone ends in themselves, 176, 307. A social system must have social, 183. Of election, 205-6. Different from those of predestination, 206, 208, 210. No special, assigned to God's purpose, 209. Of retributive justice immeasureably greater than the, of mercy, 227. Of the atonement, 259, 262, 484, 486. Man the consummate, of our world, 307. Cluster of, secured by the atonement according to Governmental Theory, 476-85. Epicurus, his notion of God, 45, 148, 518. Eve, effects of her sin same to her as of Adam's to him, 328. Expiation, defined, and connection of, with propitiation, 237, 472. Justice makes, a moral sine qua non of forgiveness, 238. Sacrifices of Israelites and heathen from earliest times all expiatory, and origin of, 239. Essentially same objec tions to, from Socinus down, and by whom, 241-2. Assaults on, by Bushnell, and refuted, 243-6. His notion of propitiation without, a prodigious conceit, 248-53. Wliy sufferings of Christ propitiate God towards sinners, as an, 246-7. Fairbairn, on Lev. 17:11, 358-9. Referred to, in note, on sinning ignorantly, 361. In note, on laying hands on heads of victims, etc., 366. In note, on origina tion of sacrifices, etc, 368. His quotation from B'ahr, 377. On why laying hands on heads of animals of guilt-offerings is not mentioned, in note, 378. Another reference to, in note, 378. On the expiatory and typical character of the Passover, in note, 383. Faith, appropriates "abundance of grace, etc," Rom. 5:17, 345- Of Adam and Eve, 370. Of Abel, and what it is, 372-3. What is in general, 2S0. Condi tion of forgiveness and justification, 493, 497-8, 501, 507, 5o8_9- Father, God, not of mankind by creation, 111-117. Of whom, 117, 118. Infin itely unjust to the Son, if He only a martyr, 443-45. Had a perfect right to act His part in the redemptive measure, 269, 288-9. Agreement between, and Son, as to their parts, 269, 289, 290, 444. Christ subjected to His sufferings and death by the, 268, 419-20, 426, 442-3. How their value regarded by the, 268. Moral necessity on the, to act His part in the redemptive measure, 440 Force, has no adaptation, to secure right moral action, 59, 104. Forfeiture, by sin, 6, 13, 14, 31, 40, 46-7, 83, 87, IOO, 312, 492. Forgiveness, impossible if natural consequences the sanctions of the law, 57, 76. No, except on basis of the atonement, 98, 105, 244, 280, 497. No, to Israel ites, except on basis of animal sacrifices, 377-81. No, if no desert of and demand for penal retributions, 277. Bushnell's views of, ridiculous, 250-1. Repentance not the only requisite for, 100, 238, 241-2, 244-5. Makes atone ment actual for one, 280, 282, 285, 468. All may have, if will, 286. Ethical conditions of, 287-8. Not a mere personal matter, as Bushnell held, 489-93, 509. What is, as Scripture teaches, 493-4. Done in God's mind, not in its objects, 495. Immoral, if not consistent with justice, 496. Included in justi fication, 496, 507-8. Cannot be prayed for intelligently by holders of so-called Moral View, 524. Foreknowledge, of God, necessary part of His omniscience, 189. Determines nothing concerning its objects, but is determined by them, 190. Relation of, to God's sovereignty in executing the measure of redemption, 148-9. The antecedent of election and predestination, 202-204. Of results of His eternal purpose, His reason for adopting it, '208-10. Created angels and men with perfect, of all who would be lost, and why, 175-7, 178-84. Fronmuller, on meaning of "redeemed" in I, Pet. 1:18, 451. On do. of huper in I. Pet. 2:21, 456. Gesenius, his interpretation o! meanings ot nasa and sabhal in Is. 53:11, 12,422, 424. God, the law given in moral beings as His, 9. Note on classic authors asserting the lav in men from, 9. 11. Could not institute a government requiring jus tice and forbidding injustice, if justice not required by law in Him and all, 29, 536 INDEX. 30. If not an administrator of rewards and punishments, like lazy God of Epicurus, etc., 56. Obligation on, and character of, eclipsed, if natural con sequences the only retributions, 58, 63-66. Can administer real retributions only after probation is ended, 72-3. Bound to have a moral government, 74- 77. Wrath of, against sinners, 83-4. Meaning of word, God, 118. Groups of Scriptural passages respecting, as Ruler, 1 18-21. His mode of existence, attributes, etc., mysteries to man, except as revealed in Scripture, 128-30. No reason to reject Scriptural doctrine of His existence in the mode of the Trinity, 133-42. The fact and doctrine of His love rest entirely on those of the Trinity, 156-60. The Creator of man, 1 7 1 -3 . Do. of all worlds and creatures, 173-7. Reconciliation of, to men by expiatory sufferings of Christ, 254-7. Not im passible, 300-2. Atonement devised by, why and when, 460-3. Government, God's moral, modified towards mankind, as sinners, 7. Universal, endless, and distinct from His Theocratic, over Israel, 8, 360. No, without positive rewards and punishments, 40. Conscience attests that God has a, 49. Chief business of God as having a 54-5. Butler's natural, of God groundless, 68-74. Alternative, if He has no moral, 74-7. No redemptive provision in His, gi-3. That He has a positive, prodigally taught in Scriptures, III. All men alike related as sinners to God's, 279. His Theocratic, over Israel, how related to His universal and eternal, 380-1, 398. According to Governmental View of atonement, God's, only a device, 475. Contrast between God's real and this, 477-80. Why He must have a, 482-4. So-called Moral View makes a, impossible, 517. Grace, of God, as a disposition, daughter of mercy, dwarfed, etc., by so-called Moral View of atonement, 521. Defined, 149. Sinners renewed and exercise moral love under God's, 14. Redemptive measure devised and executed by Persons of Trinity from pure, 83-4. Forgiveness and salvation gifts of, 203. Gray, Ode to Adversity by, referred to, 335. Grinfield, states number of direct quotations from O. T. in New, nearly ail from Septuagint, 401. Guilt, sense of, 40-1. Correlative sense of, of wrong-doers in others, etc, 41-2. Not abated by any experiences of natural consequences, 41-2. How has always led men to act and express what it teaches, 42. How quickened and ener gized, or diminished, 57. c7z«'#-offerings, 364-6. Habit, law and effects of, on action of the Will, Intelligence and Sensibility, 35-6. Makes indefinitely prolonged probation impossible, 36, 98. Involved in ten dencies of all moral action, 44. Essential to a moral being, and results of, 69. Increases difficulty of repentance, 98. Binding and dire forces of the, of sin, 191-2. Does not destroy natural freedom of will during probation, 339. Hagenbach, reference in note to his History of Doctrines, 166. Hamilton, Sir William, on term, idea, referred to, 29. Happiness, Butler on, 78. What; without moral significance and definable mean ing, 182-3. Hengstenberg, reference to his "Genuineness of the Pentateuch," respecting post tive punishment in this world, 62. On Heb. verb, nasa, 407-9. On Heb word rendered sorrows in common version, 409. On Is. 53:7, 418-9. His translation of v. 9, 419. Reference to, on v. 10, 420. Mistake of, we think. respecting futures in vs. 11, 12, following Gesenius, 422. Reference to, 424 Holy Spirit, third Person of Trinity, 130. Not an impersonal hypostasis — in note, 138-9. Supreme Author of Scriptures, 139. Proceeding from Father and Son, and could not perform the part of either, ,153. His part a distinct manifestation of God's love for man, 156. Union of Christ's two natures effected by, 165. Under His supreme agency that men ever turn to God, 191. Given on basis of atonement, and exerts His agency on all as much as wisdom permits, 192. How His efficiency is limited, 192-4. Difficulty why one does, another not, yield to His agency lies in human will, 196-7. Nature or kind of power of, 193-4, 200-1. Agency of, included in God's eternal plan, 198. What is to accomplish, 200. Election made effectual to its objects by agency of, 205. Regeneration and sanctification by, 508. Gift of, by Father and Son, 521, 524. INDEX. 537 Hooker, description by, of the law, 10. Hope, mankind placed on basis of, before doomings of Gen. 3:16-19, 333. Mean ing of Paul's words "we are saved by hope," 334. Illustrative quotations from Schlegel, Cicero, and Seneca, 334. Horace, opening lines of his Ars Poetica, 253. Howe, on Trinity, reference to, 141. Idea, of right, the law not given as an, and not the, 5, 9- All men have the, of ethical justice, and of the due and debt of moral love, 18. Noun, action, commonly understood after, of right or wrong, 22. No law or obligation in an, 26, 28. Law distinguished from all, connected with it, 29. Image, Christ the, of God, 172. Man made in the, of God, 171-2. Saints con formed to the, of Christ, 210. Imperative, the law comes to each as an, or mandate, 3, 5, 6. Obligation to obey imposed by the, 5, 6. The law, the legislation of God in each one by its, 8, 9. The, imposes an obligation of justice, to whom, etc., 6, 12, 13. Each becomes a moral actor by first issuance of the, 13. No, comes as an idea, 29. What an, is not, 106-7. Can enjoin nothing in God's mind as due to sinners on any ground of justice, 305. Must have issued an, in it to exercise mercy to them, 313.319- Imposition, of hands on heads of sacrificed animals, by offerers, 269-71 — by High Priest, 364-6, 377. Imputation, in true sense, justification by, 509-10. Incarnation, reality and necessity of, 161. Notion of, of ApoUmaris; a worse recent one, 161-4. Scriptural teachings concerning, 164-6. Purpose of, 166, 184-8. See under Christ. Device of, 231. Incomprehensibility , 128-30. Infidels, reject evidence, etc., of Divine retributions in this world, 6r. Know nothing of the mode of God's existence, unless from Scripture; ascribe what has come to them from it to their reason; and mistake its functions, 133-6. Their notion of God's love for man of no weight against Scripture, and the only evidence of it they can have, 150-3. Predicament of theistic deniers of revelation, 144-8. Of those who admit only parts of Scripture, 153-4. Their skepticism, what no evidence of, 318. No middle place between Christianity and atheism or agnosticism, 321. Intelligence, effect on the, of obedience, 34. Also, of a wrong radical choice, 36. Interests, sujjreme of God and all others, 45, 56. Natural consequences no exjjres- sion of the, of God and His loyal society, 49. God has no right of counsel nor liberty against the. of Himself and that society, 84-7. If he pardons for mere repentance, would proclaim the, etc., trifles, 99. If should not punish, would make nothing of the, of Himself, etc., 114. Retributive justice guards the, etc., 227, 231. Justice in the law binds together the reciprocal, etc., 462. ^®~Mostly, the words, rights, dues, interests and concerns stand together. Judgment, final, natural consequenceism conflicts with, 62-3. Justice, obligations of ethical, 6. An intrinsic quality of the law, 8, 12, ig. How mankind have always essentially accorded with Cicero's definition of, 18. Market and courts express this quality of, in the law, as moral reason teaches, 18, 19. In principle, is universal, if to one, 19, 20. Moral love the only rad ical ethical, 27, 107-10. Quality of, in the law makes it the eternal social bond oi intelligent universe, 26-31. God can neither make, nor injustice by will, 30. Estimate of, by mankind, and sumiuum jus a perversion of, 31-3. Principle of retributive, same as of ethical, 46-7. Debt of penal suffering due to God from sinners solely by, in the law, 47-9. Administering rewards and punishments equally, 54-5. No quality of, in natural consequences, 55-8. If no demand for retributive punishment, etc., an atonement impossible, 76. Dis tributive, the measure, public, the end of retributive punishment, 80. God has no right of counsel or liberty against, 84-5. Retributive, must be exactly according to desert, 88. Ethical, as stated by Theodore Parker, and remarks on, 96-7. Results, if the. of the law be not maintained, 244-5. Demand of retributive, against sinners, God's wrath, provisionally suspended by expia- 538 INDEX. tion, 246-7. No real, in God's or any moral nature, etc., if Bushnell's notion of propitiation true, 249-53. Relation of demand of, and of that of mercy, 221-4. If no sin, no demand for retributive, nor dictate to mercy, but ethical, would enshrine the world, 224. Thus both retributive, and mercy occasioned by sin, 224-6. Scriptural teaching of the relation between them, and that fighting the former is also the latter, 228-9. Atonement must accord with, and meet retributive, 229-31. Redemption from demands of, the only gate of forgiveness, 281. Atonement a measure of ethical, to God, etc., and a sub stitution for retributive, against human sinners, 286. Question of the atone ment one of the morality of God, because one of His, 293-5. If no, as retrib utive, no, as ethical, 298. Value and potency of Christ's sufferings to meet demands of, 299. Whether an obligation to act mercy when consistent with, 312-13. No creature could meet demands of, against sinners, 461. This demand of, the only possible necessity for Christ's sufferings, etc., 472. His atonement, as related to God's, 473. Public, according to Govern mental theory of atonement, 475-7. Is an invented, 478. What real public, is, and punishment according to demands of, 480-4. Justification, in relation to the, of the law, 497. Why Christ called "the righteous" as fulfilling all, 498, 359. According to so-called Moral View of the atonement, God's love void of, etc., 513-5. According to it, the demands of, no obstacle to be overcome by His love,5i5, 517-9. That view extinguishes all motives from, 522-4. Justification, includes much beyond forgiveness, 494-6. A forensic or judicial act of God for its objects, 493. Whole matter of, shown, 493-510. In proper sense, imputation, included in, 50S-10. The atonement a basis of justice for, 345. Mistake, that Rom. 5:12-19 relates only to, 346. No, according to Moral View of atonement, 522. Kant, on the conception of straight, 22. His catagorical imperative no law, 106. Distinction between reason as speculative and as moral maintained by, 27. Kendrick, quoted, 390-4. Kling, dissent from on II. Cor. 5:21, 402. Landis, R. W., shows bodily death not penal, 331. Lange, references to, 203, 214, 208, 340, 342, 436, 434, 447, 364, 366, 430, 357. Law, of God, source of, and not an idea, 1. In all moral natures, 2. Character istics of, 3-8. Hooker on, 10. Postulates respecting, 12-18. Reason, as legislative, gives the, as the sole rule of moral action, 21, 29. Why the, is the intertying bond of moral beings, 28. No, before government, and is not properly relational, but social, 28. What truly, and confirmations that justice is an intrinsic quality of, 29-31. A wild conceit that the, is automatic, 39-40, 64, 70, III. End of the, 4, 44, 45. As but one, so but one moral government, 68. Only motives of the, to obedience, 75. In men essentially the, declared in Scriptures, 106. Imperative of the, what not, 106-7. What correct psy chology and Scripture teach concerning the, 107-10. Is a unit, and purely social, 218. Interbinds all moral beings into one society with God in and over it, 219. How modified towards human sinners, 219-21. A kind of schisim in, 221-22. God must act by and administer the, 225. Not created nor changeable by will of God, 479. With justice left out, would not be moral, 497. Conception of, if retributory justice is denied, 517. Love, moral, the matter of the law, 2. In what, consists, 3, 224. Is concrete and social, 5. What involves towards every one of right character, etc., 6. What, is to those who have forfeited rights to it, and to some sentient creatures, 7. To whom enjoined by the law, 13-4. In full measure to any always perfectly obedient, as to Christ, 14-7. In modified measures to all renewed to obedi ence, and the rights it creates, 14-5. In a more modified sense to exercisers ol natural affection, and to benefactors, from objects of either, 15-7. All pos sible, due to God, 17-8. Must be just, to all having a right or rights to it, 19, 20. Rendering, the only real ethical justice to such, 27. Not owed not due to any, if justice not an intrinsic quality of the law, 29, 30. Rendering, to God and others is paying Him and them their due, etc., 44. End of, and of justice in the law the same, 46. Refusing to God and men the, due them ' INDEX. S39 creates a correlative due to them of retributive suffering, 47-8. What essen tially, is not, 64-6, 513. Scriptural teachings concerning, 107-8. The only radical virtue, 109-10. By whom owed, to whom due, and what true of con trary moral action, 114. A unit towards every ever-obedient one, 218-9. How divided towards human sinners, 219-22. How God's mercy to sinners differs from His love to the ever-obedient, 222. What towards men, if they had never sinned, 224-6. In itself not vicarious, 270-3. Obligation to love moral natures as such always assumed and affirmed among men, 317. What so-called Moral View of atonement makes of God's, 513-6. Of any, known only by its manifestations, 515. Effect of view named of His, on all essential truths and facts, 517-22. How this view affects motives against sin and to obedience — to repentance and faith, 522-4. Lowth, his rendering first half of Is. 53:4, 407. Of, beginning of v. 7, 418. Man, only law of development and progress in, in sin, 145-8. Is of two essences, 133. A body without a soul not a, 161-3. God's creation of, 1 7 1 -3 . Why God created,foreknowing all that would be true of him, 170-3, 174-184. Difference between aigels and, 169, 178, 179. Kevstone order of creation, I7I-3- Magee, reference to m Work of, "On Atonement and Sacrifice," 361, 362, 367, 368, 37o, 373. 374. 375. 378 twice, 383, 399, 408, 409 twice, 410 twice, 420, 422, 427. 435- Martineau, James, quoted, 78. Maurice, 383. Mediatorship, of Christ, 232-5, 205, 299, 301, 393, 398, 499. Mercy, God's only love towards sinners, 7, 14, 221-2, 313. Impossible, if natural consequences of moral action its only retributions, 56. Plan and execution of redemption necessarily mere, and grace, 92. Against nature of, if the Spirit does not exert all the power He consistently can, 192-3. As impartial as jus tice, 194, 199. God's disposition of, alike to save all, 195. The love due to the ever-obedient modified to, towards sinners, 243, 222-4. Substitution gives full flow to abundance of God's, towards sinners, 207, 246, 255-6. No dictate to, after the end of probation, 221. Not properly an attribute of God, but occasioned towards sinners by their sin, 223-9. Subordinate to, and restricted by, demand of retributive justice, 227. The atonement was from God's, not to make Him merciful, 235. Both Father and Son acted from, to man in making the atonement, 269, 311. Was made from opulence of God's, to meet the only occasion for one, etc., 273. All mankind alike objects, of, 279. The atonement for all, or would not accord with the nature of, and this defined, 281. Why providing it ineffable, to man, 289. How justice and, were wedded by the atonement, 290-1. The atonement at once the Keystone of the arch, etc., and the channel for theriver of God's, to mankind, 298-300. Defined; its aim restricted, and not social as justice is. 305. From pure, that God forgives, etc., 509. What the so-called Moral View makes of His, 519. Merit, ideas of, and of demerit relative, 88-90. Of Christ's obedience through life infinite, 504-10. Milton, John, lines from his Comus, 43. Reference to his Par. Lost, Book III., near beginning, 82. Lines from same Book, 205-16, 258. Lines from Book IX., 782, 784, 247. Also 1000-1004, 327. Also 1130, 1131, 328. Reference to his last two Books of Par. Lost, Samson Agonistes, lines 667-709, 335. Par. Lost, Book X., lines 824-27, 336. Miracles, God's interventions and manifestations must largely consist in and in volve, 149-50, 157, 166. Moll, on Heb. 9:11-15 — ransom-price of Christ's blood, 452. On Christ's exalta tion, 387. Mistake of, 257. On Heb. 2:7, 178. Morgan, Prof. John, his views on the atonement rejected, 403. Morality, impossible, if justice, both ethical and retributive, is denied, 76. If obedience not a good in itself, and sin not an evil in itself, can be no, 90. Of God, 293, 460-2. Moral action, that required by the law, and what, 2, 3. Is concrete and social, 5. Prudence may or may not be, 72. Two kinds of, and of desert created by 540 INDEX. them, 89. Merit or demerit of, pertains to actors, 90. Instinctive or natural love not, 115. Inscrutable power of will in moral beings to arbitrate their own, 196-7. Greatest provisions possible made to bring men to change their wrong for right, 287. Moral society and system, questions concerning the law and these identical, 2. Justice in the law makes it the eternal basis of the, 28, 462. Moral beings created to be a, 74, 182. God necessarily included Himself in, 93. He must punish sinners, or practically war against the universal, 1 14. In creating moral beings, God assumed obligations to govern them according to the law and the. 115. Where the, is founded, 116. Facts demonstrative of a universal, with God in and over it, 158, 310. God can deal with none regardless of His and their relations to all in the, 159. Penal suffering for the great social end of the, 221. Sin positive injustice lo the, including God, 225. To exer cise mercy without satisfying justice would destroy the entire, 227. God responsible to His own and all conscience in the entire, to govern is in per fect ethical justice, 229. Value and efficiency of Christ's sufferings to secure the ends of justice and mercy to God and the, 263. All sinners alike related to God and the, 279. All sinners out of and in conflict with the, 285. God bound by every principle of the, to be Ruler, 490. If so-cr.lled Moral View of atonement true, God's love is regardless of the, 513. If this View true, mercy no mover of God to fulfill demands of ethical justice to the, 520. Nothing in view named consistent with the law and the uni versal, 525-6. Moral beings or natures, when become moral actors or agents, 13. How only denied that men are, or that God is a, 18. All tendencies of moral action, from social nature of, 44. The qualities of, essential to their being such, 69, 70. God could not create, without natural freedom of will, etc., 81. The nature, not the relations of, the ground of their mutual obligations, etc., 88. God's moral government founded in all, 93. For Him to create, the highest kind of moral action, and why, 1 15. Rational alone are, and how God made man a, 136. Applications of the law to, numerous and various as their rela tions, 119. The redeemed of mankind will outrank all others, 307. Motives, sanctions of the law its, to obedience and against sin. 52. 74-5. Natural consequences too imbecile as, to be sanctions, 52. If these the only retribu tions, are incomparably less, to obedience and against sin, than positive ones would be, 57. God bound to make the, to the one and against the other the weightiest possible, 58. Could not make greater, than He has, 59. Without the atonement, no, under the law to bring sinners to repentance, 98. Men cannot act morally without, 78, 96. No, in natural consequences to bring to repentance, etc., 123-4. A limitation of probation a radical and chief, to bring to repentance, 126. If no revelation, God has placed no, before sin ners to bring to repentance, 144-8. The, embodied in Scripture, the weight iest possible, 122, 287. Nine positions showing the weightiest conceivable, to induce men to abandon, etc., iSS. Agency of Spirit to bring wills to yield to the, before them, 192-3. Knowledge of the atonement a mighty, in itself, 184. Natural freedom to begin and continue right choice in view of, 339. Typical sacrifices supplied pious Isiaelites with inspiring, etc , 3S1. How so- called Moral View of atonement affects motives, 292. Mysteries, being and substance impenetrable, to man and all finite minds, 128- 9. The being and mode of existence of God, etc., are, but this no reaso/i for not believing them, 130 or 13S. Miiller, Julius, on difference between punishment and discipline, referied to, 61. Napoleon, saying of, that God is always on side of strongest battalions, 32. A'agelsbaili, his comment on Is. 53:9 referred to, 419. Reference to, 420. Mistake of, same as Hengstcnberg's, on sabhal in Is. 53:11, 422. Naturalism, notion of automatic law, 40, 53, 74. Necestitv, moral, for a moral system in the moral nature of man, 49. On God to inflict punishment on sinners, whence, 83. The, on God to do this, one ol moral nature, 88 Notion that He can pardon for mere repentance denies the for an atonement, etc., 100. Absolute, for the mission and atonement ol INDEX. 541 Christ in order to save men, 114. Denial of a moral, excluding God from dealing with sinners personally, regardless of the universal society, prepos terous, 158. Noetus, notion of, that God is impassible, 300. Non-resistants, God and all good beings such, if must enter into sympathy with and go to cost for all sinners without limits, ioi, 238, 488, 492, 513. Obedience, to God's law alone constitutes right character, 2, 14. Is true moral love 10 God and all, 13. What, disobedience what, and natural consequences of each, 34-7. Both radically to God, 49. All, social, and disobedience anti social, 1 10. Of Christ in no sense an atonement, but He made His in, to God, 445, 283. His, no more for Himself than His atoning sufferings and death, but for mankind, 503-4. Value and merit of His, 505. Obligation, how imposed, and ground of, 5,6. Of ethical justice, what; one rad ical, many specific; and distinct to mercy and benevolence, 6. No, of justice on God to any sinner, but on sinners reciprocally, 7. Each knows himself under an, of justice to render moral love to every other, as his due, etc., 13- 4. Statements respecting. 14-20. On God lo punish human sinners, or to provide an atonement for them, 49, 115. Demand for just punishment of sinners puts an infinite, on God, to comply with it, or etc., 292, 294. He must have felt an infinite, on Him to provide a substitution, 310-11. Whether is an, to exercise mercy when consistent with justice, 312. What maintaining jus tice is maintaining, to do, 462. God Ruler by an infinite, 491, 513-4- An invented justice, law, and government coilld lay no, on any to obey, 517-9. Olshausen, labored in vain to set aside Tholuck's view of John 1:29 against adverb away, 430. On huper, 436. Omnipotence, none made holy by, at death, 104. Power exerted on men by the Spirit not physical, 192. Omniscience, God's, natural, eternal, and independent of His will, 189. Causes nothing, 190. The basis of His special acts of election and predestination, etc., 202-4. Ooslerzee, Van, on meaning of huper in Titus 2:14, 450. His comment on I. Tim. 2:6 referred to, 468. ' Outram, references to, 361, 366,370. Owen, referred to, 409. Pardon, see Forgiveness. Parker, Theodore, quoted, 96. Passover, why omitted in examining Levitical Sacrifices, 383. Paul, character of his Epistle to the Romans, 107, 217. His showing of the mean ing of Gen. 2:17, 351. Found Greek verb 6mai6a, etc., adapted to express the full restoration of believers to harmony with justice of the law, 493. Peace-offerings, mode and purpose of, 376. Had an expiatory character, 377-8. Pearson on Creed, referred to, 166. Penalty, the punishment lor sin demanded by the justice of the law, 84, 91, 249; and often. Person, a human, 132-3. Reason constitutes a, and Latin origin of, of no impor tance, 136. Three, in Godhead, 130-49. Perversion, of moral nature, from Adam, 170, 336-8, 340. Plienomena, only, not substance perceived, 128-30. Difference between mind and matter, how shown by, 129, 133. How each knows himself not of one, but of two substances or essences, 133. Philosophers, of Greece and Rome, views of ablest and best on origin, etc., of the law, in note, 9-1 1. Held justice the sum of all virtue, 35. Plans, of creation and redemption, 173-8, 181-2. Best required God to create angels and men He knew would be lost, 175, 178-80. What included in, of the redemptive measure, 184-6, 190-1. Both, entirely of Himself, 198. His omniscience underlay both, 201-2. His mercy towards man, purpose, election, and predestination all embraced in His, of redemption, 204. Plato, reference to, in note, 11. Pope, lines from, 109. 452 INDEX. Posterity, of Adam, his relation to; and his trial-action really theirs, 336-44. Prayer, relation of notion of natural consequences to, and to thanksgiving, 524- Predestination, not antecedent to and independent of the redemptive measure, 194-5, 199, 204-8. In what consists, passages teaching, and its ends, 206. Not first, but last in the order of God's plan of redemption, and Augustine's notion of, groundless, 207. Meaning of in Rom. 8:29, 30 shown, 208-11. Preexistence, of souls, notion of, referred to, 181. Presignifications, of conscience, 39. See Conscience. Presumption, none valid against doctrine of the Trinity, 132-3. Nor against any doctrine of Christianity, 148 9. Priest, office of, Aaronic in Levitical Law, 379. Typical of Christ as, 379, 383. Number of times Christ called a, and a High, in Epistle to Hebrews, 386. Was a, after order of Melchizedek, 388 Anti-type of Levitical, 395-6. Probation, man on a gracious, during this life, 7, 76. Limited by law of habit, 36. Notion of an indefinite, after death, 66. God cannot execute full retributive punishment till after, ends, 72-3, 102-3. Even a semblance of, impos sible, if God changes character of sinners by omnipotence, 104. No, after death for any who die in their sins, 122-7. Of mankind, first pair alone could have had a legal, 180. The, of their descendants only a gracious one, etc., 180-1. Christ to go through another representative legal, for the race, 185. Question of salvation determined by each during his, under light he has, 190. All who exhaust their, in sin, etc., punished as they deserve, 199. Substitutional sufferings of Christ secured the gracious, for all, etc., 259, 282. Because, continues through life, conditions also do, 286-8. No, without freedom of will, 338-9. All have a fair, 343. Both Adam and Christ had a legal, 505. Progress, no law of, in man, in a moral and religious sense, since Adam fell, 146-7. Propitiation, of God, is by expiation, and defined, 237. Why Christ's sufferings, etc., is a, of God towards human sinneis, 246-8. Any imagined, without expiation, a prodigious conceit, 248-9. Is self-contradictory and absurd, 250-3. Of God towards human sinners is His reconciliation to them, 254-7. Is the effect of expiation, and how Christ is the, 445-7. Punishment, sin creates desert of, from God, 15,46. Sense of desert of, pervades minds of sinners, 36. Sense of guilt causes fear of, 41. Additional proofs that positive, is the only real retribution, 43. What conscience affirms that sinners deserve, 46-7. As rewarding, so punishing must be social, 49. How God has revealed to all that He will administer, 59. Scriptures throng with teachings that He will, 60. Often inflicted in this world, 61. Absurd that God must not inflict retributive, because love forbids, 66. Ethical jus tice to God and all good beings demands, positive, of sinners, 76. Retributive, never disciplinary, but penal, and its end, 80, 87. Duration of, 82-4. What impossible, if justice does not demand retributive, of sinners, 76-7. Fur ther reasons why God must inflict exact, on all sinneis, unless, etc., 93-4. No one can deserve reward or, for the personal action of another, 264. What the, of sinners is to secure, 269-70. Christ not punished for sins of men, but voluntarily'equivalently suffered their, in their stead, 290. What made the demand for their just, 291-3. To bear sin, iniquity, etc., is to suf fer its, 407-13. That Christ's bearing iniquity and sin in Is. 53:11, 12, means bearing the, of, shown, 421-2. The atonement could be for sins only to rescue from necessity of suffering the, deserved by them, 460. Neither our Lord nor Apostles believed natural consequences of sin its, 494. If sin deserves no positive, from God, what follows, 521-2. In all Scripture, no intimation that, has any limit of duration, 527. Purpose, of God, Scripture concerning, 204. Relation of, to election and predes tination, 204-8. Meaning of in Rom. 8:28, 209. Different one in Rom. 9:11, 211-15. Race, human, consciously sinneis, 144. A Saviour must be one of the, 169. Angels not, men are u, and relation of Adam to, 169, 178. The human, the con summate order of moral beings, 170-3. The Eternal Son inserted by incar nation into our, 173. Alternative respecting the creation of our, 176. Peril of all in a, why gieater than of beings created separately, 179. Whether INDEX. 543 just, etc., in God to create our, so constituted and related to Adam, 180-4. Ransom, use and meaning of the term, 427, 449-454, 467, 471. Raphelius, on huper, quoted by Magee and Crawford, 435, 438. Reason, moral or practical, the law in and from, 1. Imposes obligation by its imperative of the law, 5, 6. Is both speculative and moral; and its functions as moral, 12. Two of, as moral, legislative and judicial, 21-3. According to, as judicial, what true of the terms right and wrong, when related to action, 22. Distinction between, as speculative and as moral, a very old one, 27. What, gives as each, 27, 29. Moral, deposed from sovereignty by sin, 35. Disobedience obscures the light and sight of, as moral, 36, 69, 144. God bound by mandate of His own moral, etc., 75. Created all moral natures with His law in and from their moral, 69, 93. As speculative, affirms difference between mind and matter, 135. Functions of, as moral, especially respecting religious and moral truths and facts, 135-6. Only by the addi tion of, to a creature that it becomes a person, 136. No contradiction of, in doctrine of the Trinity, 148-9. Can know nothing about the real love of God or of any being by, 15 1-3. Of Adam controller of all his susceptibilities and powers, 327. Not after his sin, 328. Reconciliation, ol God to man, same as His propitiation towards them, and source of men's to Him, 254-7. Absurd that the atonement was to reconcile sinners to God, not Him to them, 262-3. (See Propitiation.) Redemption, plan of, devised by God, 198. Based on His omniscience, 202. By blood and death of Christ, and meaning of the term, 393. Meaning of, in Rom. 3:24, 25, 447. In four other passages, 449-52. Reformers, why denied any obligation on God to provide an atonement, 303. Regeneration, subjects of, the only children of God, 117. No, except under agency of the Holy Spirit, 191-7, 256, 285, 293, 206. His operation on the mind in effecting, 200, 206. Distinct trom justification and sanctification, 508. Not done by Christ, nor by His manifestation of love, obedience, or atonement, in any sinner, 524. Remission, of sins, same as forgiveness, and what it does, 493-4. Is only on ground of the atonement, 497. Implied and included in justification, 508-10. Remorse, sense of guilt often fills the mind with, 36. Produced by conscience in sinners, and not retributive, 39, 41. Repentance, in what consists, 97. Why no, if no redemptive measure, 97-9, 191- 2. Would be no reparation for evil of sin, if could be acted, 99, 100. No, in Hades, 124. Spirit operates to bring sinners to, but their will determines their yielding to Him or not, 191-201. Representative, thus a substitute, Christ a, of mankind, 169, 246. Adam neces sarily, of his posterity, 169, 180, 343. Christ their, by incarnation, 235. Suf fered and died for them as their, 259, 263, 267-9. Did so as, for all alike as sin ners, 194, 282, 284-5, 299. 3'5- Had a perfect right to become their, 288-9. The second head and, of the race, 343. Was their, by agreement with the Father, 444. Essential point in doctrine of atonement that He was the, of mankind, 500, 503-9. Resurrection, what true of bodies of the righteous at the, 186 Why their death gain on account of the, 331. Of bodies of all men conflicts with notion that bodily death is any part of" the penalty of sin, 355 Retributions, what not, and what are, 38-9. Always recognized and attested by mankind, 39. What conscience presignifies respecting, 42. Social, from God demanded by nature of the law, etc., 44. Exactly according to actual deserts as seen by God, 54, 75-6, 84. What conscience and Scripture always point to and attest as, 73, 120. Passages which teach that future will be for "the deeds done in the body," 120-1, 124. If no positive, God can exercise no mercy in forgiving sin, 229. This life not one of, 272. Of reward and pun ishment essential to a moral system, 291. All motives from justice and posi tive, extinguished by so-called Moral View, 522-4. Revelation, inspired, teaching of, concerning the Law, 3. Man, without, incompetent to know the mode of God's existence, 133-4. With the Christian, men have better knowledge of God than heathen ever had, 135-6. What true, if Scriptures are an, 139. Denial of Trinity is, and leads to, denial of Scriptures as an, 143. Predicament of Theists who deny them as 544 INDEX. an, 144. Of those having only a maimed belief in them as an, 153. What a, must be fronted against, 149. Was given for no ends that imposture could aim at, and for what, 149-50. Without, God's providential courses dark riddles, 152. Reward, of Christ for His obedience till death, 423, 506. Right, see Idea and Law. When, both natural and moral, of one are perfect, 14. Natural and moral, of whom to love of God and others are modified, 15. True "idea of," 22-5. (See under Bushnell, on idea of.) When, identical with, and when differs from just, 27. Objects of the love required by the law have a natural, to it, 30. All guilty of sin have forfeited their, to the love of God, 46, 83. Justice is rendering to all who have, according to them, 47. The, of Father and Son, to act their parts in redemption absolute, 288-90. Righteousness, obedience to the law, and why so called, 20. Of God, Rom. 1:17, what not, and what is, 501-4. Justification on the ground of this, 504-8. Sacrifices by Levitical Law, and of heathen from earliest times, all offered as expiatory, 239. Origin of, 239-41. Originated by God, 366-70. When, 370- 3. Adamic, expiatory, 373-6. Peace-offerings and all sacrifices of the Levitical, expiatory, 376-9. Burnt, offered by whom, etc.; and among heathen before and after Christ came, 375. All animal, typical of Christ and His atoning death, 379. Sanctions, of the law, what, 52, 74-5. Natural consequences, why not, 53-5, 72. Are momentous motives, during probation, to obedience and against sin, 74-6. Sanctification, election is to, as well as to, etc., 206-10. Is by Holy Spirit, 508. Schaff, on Rom. 5:16, as to meaning of rkmiu.ua , 344. His estimate of Paul and his Epistle to tlie Romans, 217. On the aorist in Rom. 5:12, 340. On meaning of "world" in John 3-16, 465. Notes of, in Lange's Comm. on Romans, on the Greek verb and words from iusri, 501. Schlegel, William von, quoted, 334. Selfishness, not self-love, and defined, 4. When men sin, Ihey know their end that of, 4. Against any is injustice, and, in principle, is against all, 19, 20. If God and others have no right to moral love, can be no, nor injustice against them, 30. Has a Titanic progeny of special outbreaks, 48, 94. All sin is, and repentance is turning from, to moral love, 97. The law has no motives to bring sinners to renounce their, 98. Urgencies to, through childhood and youth, and confirming them in, 309-10. To deny the social-moral character of the law and of moral natures makes even, impossible, 182. Selzvyn, Rev. William, D. D . on Septuagint translation of the Old Testament used in the New, 401. Seneca, on hope of immortality, quoted, 334. Sensibility, allied to moral reason when imposing obligation and in conscience, t2, 69. God a moral being of infinite, 17,246, 301, 312. Sin enthrones, in the place of moral reason, 35. Of conscience blunted and often well-nigh paralyzed, 36. An essential attribute of a moral nature, 38, 69. During the novitiate of moral beings, is extremely susceptible, 58, 179. It no expiation, propitiation relates simply to God's, 248. The impulse in God's, to provide an atonement, the deepest feeling ever in it, 230. Adam's, without perverted susceptibilities till he sinned, 327. His sin exasperated the, of his conscience, and reason lost control of it, 328. A new heart involves the. 508 Emotional love a pro duct of sympathetic, 513. Self-recovery, from sin, impossible, 82, 145. Septuagint, referred to, and its relation to the Greek of the N. T. set forth, 309- 403- Shakcspcarc, quoted, 515, 518. Shedd, reference to his History of Doctrines, 166. Sin, violation of the law, 2. End of, opposite that of obedience, and known by its conscious actor, 4. What forfeited by, 5, 6, 13, 15, 20, 28,35, 4°. 4*>> 51, 53, 58- Does not change essential nature, and is disobedience, 15. Is injus tice to all moral beings. 19. Way of, a down grade by the law of habit, 36. Enormities of, indurate the sensibility of conscience. 41. Natural conse quences of, no expression of social evil and injury of, 53. How is like an INDEX. 545 appalling epidemic or contagion, 58. Is the supreme monstrosity of the uni verse, 81-2. An evil in itself, 88. What it does respecting God, 93, 97-8, 337. Is anti-social, injustice and wrong against the universal society, no. Meaning of Christ's appearing the second time without, 396. Septuagint uses the term, 144 times to mean sin-offering, 399-403. Used by Paul in same sense, II. Cor. 5;2i, 402. Meaning of bearing sin, 407-432. Sin-offering, 361-4. Why two goats for a, on day of great annual sacrifice, 377-8. Skepticism, no evidence of superiority of mind in any respect, etc., 318. Social, the law and the nature of moral beings are, 5, 19, 28, 49, 56, 57. (See Law.) Son of God, teachings of the Scripture concerning the, 130-2. (See Incarnation.) Purposes for which He became incarnate, 166-8. Entire part of, in redemp tive measure, included in the eternal plan, 184-6. Eternal agreement between, and the Father as to their parts in the redemptive measure, 288-9. Had a perfect right to become, do, and suffer all he did, 288-9. Soul, of Adam, as created, 326-7. Effects in, of his sin, 328-9. Sovereignty of God, what true of, as related to man's freedom, 194-5. In what consists, 197-9. Nothing in, inconsistent with the moral system, nor with man's freedom, 200-1. Spencer, notion of, as to animal sacrifices in Levitical Law, 369. Stuart, Prof. Moses, quoted, 428. Substitution, alternative of retribution for sinners, 81, 83, 97, 29 rovisional for all, to be made actual for all who comply with the conditions, 244-5, 259, 280. Animal sacrifices of Levitical Law, instead of the penal suffering and death of its violators, 258, 377. What the, of Christ conditionally saves sinners from, 265. Condition of the actual application of the, to any, and what true, if Christ's not simply provisional for all, 280, 284-6. Forgiveness makes His, actual, but not absolute till the end of probation, 286. Absurdity of objections to His, for mankind, 295. Is "formal and literal" no more than all acts and measures of administration must be, 296. What His suffering in making the, need not exceed, 299. What Is. 53:4-12 shows respecting the, of the servant of God for the deserved punishment of men, 407-27. Huper means benefit by, 434-58. Necessity for, in order to human salvation, 439-44 Redemption by, 449-52. Ransom a, 449-54. Christs's sufferings and death could be for no other purpose than a, 462. Provisional for all men, 465-8, 471-4- Suffering, punitive, retributive, due to God and the universal society from all sin ners, 40-9. The naturally demanded substitute for the love required by the law, when refused, etc., 48. Debt of, owed to God, etc., for wrong and injury done to them, 85. They have a right to the, of sinners, 246, 219. Of Christ instead of the, of sinners, 248, 305, Of Christ equivalent, but not equal in quantity to the, of all human sinners, 267. End of His, same as of the, deserved by them, 265. Why His, so brief, equivalent to the deserved, of all, 268-9. He, tne Representative Substitute of all in His, 269, 284-5. His, necessary to retrieve men from necessity of, 295, 315- Why His, inflicted by will of His Father, 299. Moral value and potency of His, far greater than of the, of all men, and vast saving of, to moral beings, 300. Of penal retribution not till after bodily death, 330. Rom. 8:17-39 involves whole philosophy of necessity for and uses of, in this life, 331-5. Authors quoted on, 334-5. Supererogation, impossible for man, or even God, 316. Susceptibility, amazing, of moral natures to influence of each other, 44 Of no two the same to natural consequences of their morai action, 51. Of Eve and of children, etc., to temptation, 309-10 Syllogism, of anti-Trinitarians, and of Trinitarians, 138. Symbols, the need and use of, 354-5. Cannot, in all respects, represent their antitypes, 381. Sympathy, nothing moral in merely emotional, sentimental love from, 63-4. Immoral to act from, alone respecting sinners, 247. Suffering of mere, with others not vicarious, 270-3. Swedenborg, his notion of a Trinity of essentials, 168. 546 INDEX. Taylor, N. W., his view of sin, 89-91. Tendencies, of both right and wrong action whence, 44. Natural consequences no expression of the contagious influence and terrible, of sin, 53, 75. Of sin to infect others with ever-extending propagation, 58. Tennyson, reference to, 309. Theology, the bane of, 43, 320. Founding morality and, on the sensibility, 64. The basis of all true moral philosophy and, what, 501. Clamor for a new, and what the old, is, 512-3. The Church neither needs, nor will have a new, and why, 529. Tholuck, on meaning of huper, 436. His view of John 1 129 same as ours, 430. Tischendorf, on meaning of huper, 438. Townsend, quoted by Bloomfield on John 1 :29, on Scriptural doctrine of the atone ment, 432. Traducianism, why true, and objections answered, 322-5. Trench, quotation from, regarding Christ's sufferings, groundless, 468-71. Trinity, see God; and Cook, Joseph. Trespass or Guilt-offering, how different from sin-offering, etc., 364-6. Tyler, quotations from his Theology of the Greek Poets in note, 8. Same work referred to, 59. Universe, of moral beings, drawn and divided by two opposite ends, 4. The rational, interbound into one society with God at its head, 5. God had an eternal plan of the, etc., 173-8. What the plan was, etc., 175. Either the best, or the only one possible, 177, 179, 182. Included the Church, 186-8. Universalism, no support for, in Rom. 5:19, 349. Utilitarianism, the law not a rule of, 107. Valkenarius, on Greek expression " to die for any one," 435. Also, on huper, 438. Value, etc., of sufferings and death of Christ, 244-5, 267. 269, 296, 299, 317, 505. Vicarious, true sense of, 141, 266. The love of God not, and when action required by the law is, 170-1. Prophets, Christ and Apostles did not teach that love is, in its nature, 274-8. (See under Bushnell.) Warburton, many places in his "Divine Legation of Moses" show the common belief of the heathen in future punishment, referred to in note, 59. Washburn, translator of Van Oosterzee's I. Timothy, notion of, that Christ's sub stitution was subjective, 434. Quotes Trench to support the groundless posi tion, 468. Williams, Rev. J. M., reference to, 162. Will, moral beings have power of, to determine or arbitrate their own choices, etc., 12. The actor of sin, and condition of, in sin, 35. Power over it of the law of habit, 35-6. An essential attribute of moral nature, 38. (See Choice.) Moral love essentially intelligent action of the, 63-4. Without motives, the, cannot act, 98, 122-3. Moral beings can by their own, plunge into sin, but never extricate themselves from it, 145. Is self-determining in view of mo tives, etc., 198. Man's, the determiner of all his choices, 200. Spirit's agency never breaks over the shore-bound of the freedom of man's, 201. Adam's, as he was created, 327. Winer, on meaning of huper, 435, 438. Wisdom, vicarious suffering a measure of, and of occasion, 271. Wordsworth, reference to his "Excursion" respecting the benefits of affliction, 335- Zaleucas, substitution by, of his eye for one of his son's, rejected as an illustration of Christ's substitution, 272. YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 01409 5930