Imatges de pàgina
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shall endeavour to show that the atonement of Christ is ne

cessary.

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 toward the remission of iniquity; such a supposition goes to divest him entirely o grace or sovereignty in the exercise of forgiveness. Neither was it possible that the offenders against his moral government could, by any thing 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 favour. The necessity of which we speak is not of this nature. It is a relative necessity 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 unde niable 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 honour 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 Law giver of the moral universe, is unspeakably great; it is infinite. Sin is a dishonour done to this great Lord God; a direct insult offered to the majesty of the skies; and, if par doned 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 honour 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, in order to 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. (Deut. xxxii. 4. Exod. xxxiv. 6. 1 Sam. xv. 29. Tit. i. 2.) 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. (Gal. iii. 10. Ezek. xviii. 4. Rom. vi. 23. Is. iii. 11. Exod. xxxiv. 7.) 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 who was “made a curse for us," who "tasted death for every one" of the redeemed, and whose substitutionary satisfaction is rendered necessary by the faithfulness of God to his own word.

More distinctly still, if possible, does this necessity appear from the divine holiness. The Lord our God is holy. He is free from every vestige of moral pollution; he delights in whatever is pure; he hates whatever is of an opposite character. Now, sin is opposed to the holiness of God; it is essentially impure, filthy, abominable. It follows that it is the object of his supreme detestation; he is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity. But how can this be made to appear, without the punishment of sin? It is not enough that a penalty be annexed to transgression, that a threat be appended to the violation of his law; if the penalty is not inflicted, if the threat is not executed, there is still room left to suppose that sin is not the abominable thing that was supposed; the blasphemous thought may nevertheless spring up in the bosom of moral creatures, that God, after all, approves of sin, and secretly connives at the commission of it. To vindicate the holiness of the divine character, the penalty annexed to disobedience must be executed. But its being executed on the transgressor is incompatible with the transgressor's being forgiven. To the pardon of sin, then, consistently with the purity of God, the punishment must fall on the sinner's substitute. In other words, the divine holiness proclaims the necessity of Christ's atonement. Thus, and thus alone, can the sinner be saved without sin being palliated, or the perfect moral purity of the Holy One being sullied.

To these add the requirements of divine justice. Justice consists in giving to every one his due-in rendering to every being what is right. It is much the same as equity or rectitude, and is an essential and unchangeable perfection of the divine nature. Of justice there are supposed to be four kinds :-general, commutative, distributive, and vindictive. The two last apply to our present subject. Distributive justice consists in giving every one his due, treating all according to their desert, acting toward the subjects of law agreeably to the terms of law. This requires that sin be punished according to its desert. The evil of sin is infinite. It must, therefore, receive an infinite punishment-infinite either in nature or in duration, A punishment which is infinite in nature cannot be borne by a finite creature; punishment infinite in duration is exclusive of all possible pardon; whence it fol

lows, that if sin is to be punished agreeably to its desert, and yet sinners saved, it must meet this punishment in the person of one who can sustain an infliction which is infinite in nature; that is to say, the distributive justice of God renders necessary an atonement.

This is still more apparent from the vindictive or retribu tive justice of God. That opposition of the divine nature to sin, which leads to the annexation of a penalty to the breach of his law, the execution of which penalty is referable to dis tributive justice, is called the vindictive or retributive justice of God. The opposition of God's law to sin, is just the opposition of his nature to sin; his nature, not his will, is the ultimate standard of morality. His determination to punish sin is not voluntary, but necessary. He does not annex a punishment to sin because he wills to do so, but because his nature requires it. If the whole of such procedure could be resolved into mere volition, then it is not only supposable that God might not have determined to punish sin, but, which is blasphemous, that he might have determined to reward it. This is not more clearly deducible from the nature of a being of perfect moral excellence, than plainly taught in scripture. He will by no means clear the guilty. The Lord is a jealous God, he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee. God is angry with the wicked every day. The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? Our God is a consuming fire. (Exod. xxxiv. 7. Josh. xxiv. 19. Psal. v. 4; vii. 11. Nah. i. 2, 6. Rom. iii. 5. Heb. xii. 29.) We may confidently appeal to every unprejudiced mind whether such descriptions as these do not fully bear us out in the view we have taken of God's retributive justice. And if this view is correct, sin cannot gu unpunished; it cannot be pardoned without a satisfaction; God cannot but take vengeance on iniquity: to do otherwise would be to violate the perfection of his nature. Just he is, and just he ever must be; and there is only one way, that of an atoning sacrifice, by which he can be at once "a JUST God and a SAVIOUR. :" It is to no purpose to tell us that such language as we have quoted from the word of God is figurative, that it can never be understood as ascribing passions to God. This we fully admit; but if wrath in God is not an agitating passion, so much the worse for our opponents. It is a settled purpose or determination to oppose and to punish

sin. Had it been a passion, it might have been supposed to cool, and, in process of time, to die away altogether; but being the fixed necessary opposition of his nature to evil, it is as incapable of change as the divine character itself.

We might even urge the goodness of God in proof of the necessity of Christ's atonement. This is the view of the Divine Being to which the enemies of the doctrine incessantly appeal. His goodness prompts him to consult the happiness and welfare of his creatures, especially his moral and intelligent creatures. It is the tendency of sin to destroy all happiness, and inflict all possible misery. Natural evil is the invariable effect of moral evil. It was sin that expelled angels from the abodes of bliss; that introduced sorrow and suffering and gloom into this lower world; and that lit up those flames of Tophet which are to inflict never-dying torment on the wicked in a future state of being. Does not goodness say, then, that every thing should be done to check the progress and hinder the effects of such wide spreading evil? And is this to be done by inflicting on it its merited punishment, or by suffering it to pass unnoticed and to operate unrestrained? Every man's reason must answer this question. Sin, to be put down, requires to be punished. It is not by pardoning it without satisfaction that it is ever to be prevented from spreading wretchedness and woe among every rank of God's moral creation. Mercy, not less than justice, demands, in order to pardon, that some one shall" drink the cup of wine of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God." "Justice is but goodness directed by wisdom.-(Stillingfleet.) II. The atonement of Christ was rendered necessary by the nature of God's moral government.

That God has placed moral creatures under a law or moral constitution, which is designed to promote the glory of the Lawgiver and the good of his subjects will, it is presumed, be fully admitted. To the accomplishment of these purposes, it must also be admitted, that this moral constitution requires to be upheld and obeyed, and every thing done to prevent its violation. So far, all is clear, and can admit of no dispute. It merits consideration whether the notion of pardon without atonement be not directly subversive of the object in question, and destructive of the very principles of moral legislation. It supposes a violation of the very letter of the law. The law says, "The soul that sinneth it shall die;" but the theory in question says, the soul that sinneth shall not die. law says, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the law to do them;" but, according to the supposed theory, not every one, nay, not any one,

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