mitted without the soul being saved. The salvation of the soul supposes deliverance from other evils, and the possession of other qualities, to which, after all, the virtue of an atoning sacrifice may be indispensable. ““ Were we even to concede,” says Dr. Smith, with much acuteness and force, " that the Deity could remit the positive punishment of sin, by a determination of his gracious will; yet this would not effect the salvation of the sinner. This measure of gracious will (the supposition of which, however, I by no means think tenable) would be merely the forbearing from certain positive acts of righteous power, merely waiving a right, merely declining to effectuate that which, speaking analogically, as the Scriptures so often do, would be an insulated act in the procedure of the blessed God, alien from the ordinary tendency and character of his government, and which he would not execute without the greatest reluctance, " his strange work.” But under a very different respect, in moral consideration, would come the arbitrary taking away of the natural and necessary consequences of sin. These are not inflictions ; but they are events and states of things which follow of themselves, according to the general constitutions of the universe, the laws of intellectual and moral nature; constitutions and laws which are essential to the harmony and well-being of God's entire world. To intercept this course of things, which infinite wisdom and goodness have established, to prevent these effects from ensuing, when their proper causes have already occurred, is not a case of forbearing to act; it is the exact reverse, it is a case of acting. It would be an interference of the Deity to suspend the operation of his own laws, to cut off the connection between the cause and the effect, to change the course of nature ; it would be to work a miracle."*

We have thus endeavored to state with fairness, and to examine with candor, the principal objections to the doctrine under review. If they have been, as we

Let us

hope, satisfactorily refuted, an additional and impor-
tant step of advancement has been made. We now
not only see what atonement means, but are convinced
that there exists no antecedent improbability that such
an expedient should be introduced into the moral econ-
omy of God. No such antecedent improbability can
be urged, either on the ground of reason or of the
nature of salvation. We cannot, therefore, but bewail
that deep depravity of man's understanding and will,
which is manifested in his failing to perceive, or, per-
ceiving it, refusing to admit the doctrine before us.
Great indeed are the pride and presumption of human
reason, which starts its little cavils against the great
truths of revelation. We have need to be on our guard
against the influence of objections which spring from
a state of moral corruption common to all.
distrust ourselves, and, while we pity such as are led
astray by gross and fatal errors, let us seek to enjoy
the promised guidance of Him whose prerogative it is
to lead into all truth. It belongs to God to bring good
out of evil; and, although the existence of objections
to divine truth is in itself to be deplored, the goodness
and wisdom can never be too much admired which
render this very evil a means of ultimate good. By
leading to investigate the truth with greater care, by
tending to quicken the understanding, by rousing to a
more zealous defence of what is valuable, by produ-
cing stronger attachment to that for which we have
had as it were to fight, and by inducing a firmer con-
fidence in the truth itself as having stood the trial of
the most searching scrutiny, the objections themselves
may be turned to a profitable account. And how truly
thankful ought those to be, who have been kept from
error and established in the truth as it is in Jesus. If
those who have escaped the temptations of the world
through lust bave reason to be grateful, those who
have escaped the temptations of error through the
prevalence of heretical opinion, have no less cause of
gratitude. That mental error is safe and innocent, is
much the same as saying that truth is a thing of no
value; and neither the one sentiment nor the other

1

can be held by those who have seriously pondered the import of those awful words—that they all might be damned who believed not the truth. And if error is in any case unsase, and truth in any case valuable, it must be in a matter of such vital importance as that now under discussion.

SECTION III.

NECESSITY OF CHRIST'S ATONEMENT.

The remarks at the conclusion of last section, on the objection that an atonement is unnecessary, are merely negative. They are designed to prove only that it cannot be shown to be unnecessary, without going the length of positively maintaining its necessity. We now advance a step higher, and shall endeavor to show that the atonement of Christ is necessary.

It cannot surely be requisite here to do more than remind the reader of the sense in which the term necessity is used. It is employed, not in an absolute, but relative sense. It is not supposed that the Deity was obliged, either by the perfections of his nature, or by the claims of his creatures, to furnish an atonement in order to the pardon of sin.-- There was nothing in his own character that rendered it absolutely imperative to take any steps whatever towards the remission of iniquity ; such a supposition goes to divest him entirely of grace or sovereignty in the exercise of forgiveness. Neither was it possible that the offenders against his moral government could, by anything they were capable of performing, lay him under an obligation to furnish them with a legal ground of deliverance from sin; this goes to invest a guilty creature with the power of controlling the divine Lawgiver, as well

as to deprive the glorious provision of infinite mercy for the salvation of man of all claims to the character of free unmerited favor. The necessity of which we speak is not of this nature. It is a relative necessity

a that is affirmed with respect to Christ's atonement, a necessity springing from God's antecedent purpose to save sinners from the wrath to come, arising solely out of his own free purpose, determination, or promise. Having resolved that sin shall be pardoned, it becomes necessary that an atonement shall be made. The necessity, in one word, is not natural, but moral.

The moral necessity of an atonement supposes three things, all of which are understood as distinctly admitted in the subsequent reasoning. It supposes that man is a moral creature, the subject of a holy, just, and righteous law, which attaches eternal punishment to the violation of it :-It supposes that man has broken this law and become obnoxious to the punishment threatened :-It supposes, in fine, that God has determined to deliver some at least of such violators from the legal consequences of their transgression. These assumptions, it will not be expected, we should wait to prove. They are all understood as admitted by those with whom we are contending, and no advantage is taken of our opponents, when they are taken for granted. The first is involved in man's nature as a moral being : the second rests on the broad undeniable fact of the fall: the third is supposed in all reasoning about salvation. Let these admissions, then, be kept distinctly in view--let it be understood that God has determined to save guilty men from the punishment due to their sins; and we ask no more as a basis on which to construct our proof of the necessity of Christ's atonement.

I. The perfections of God rendered an atonement necessary to the remission of sin.

This might be argued even from the honor or majesty of God. His dignity as Creator of the ends of the earth, Preserver of man and beast, Lord of heaven and earth, and Lawgiver of the moral universe, is unspeakably great ; it is infinite. Sin is a dishonor done to this great Lord God; a direct insult offered to the majesty of the skies; and, if pardoned without satisfaction, it is as much as to say that God may be insulted with impunity; that to offer the highest affront to the Great Supreme, to bid open defiance to infinite excellency, exposes to no hazard, involves no forfeiture of safety. What is this, but to unhinge the whole moral constitution of things, and to hold out a temptation to universal revolt ? For if God may be insulted with impunity once, it may be oftener, it may be at all times; there can never be any infallible inducement to honor him; but license is proclaimed to all to treat him with sovereign and perpetual contempt. If such revolting consequences as these are to be reprobated and rejected with abhorrence, as they must be by all who have any remains of a moral sense, it follows, that, 10 the pardon of every sin, satisfaction must be given to the insulted majesty of God by an atonement.

The truth of Deity does not less imperatively call for such a provision. He is a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. He is abundant in goodness and truth. The strength of Israel will not

. lie. He is a God that cannot lie. * Now, let what God has spoken with regard to sin be here remembered. He has said—“Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the law to do them the soul that sinneth it shall die—the wages of sin is death-woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him--the Lord will by no means clear the guilty." + These are the true sayings of God. His veracity and faithfulness require that they be fulfilled. But if sin is pardoned without a satisfaction, fulfilled they are not ;

-the violation of the law is not cursed ; death is not the wages of sin ; it is not ill with the wicked ; God does clear the guilty! And what is this but to impeach the truth of God--to make God a liar? Nor is there any way of reconciling such expressions with the fact of man's forgiveness, but by referring to him

a