Trinitarians worship the human nature of Christ, it is entirely incorrect. Their views on this point are thus stated by a distinguished writer, to whose representation of this subject every Trinitarian would assent. "Christ," says Francis Turrettin, "is to be worshipped, and to be worshipped as Mediator; but the ground or formal reason of the adoration to be rendered to him is not his human nature, nor his mediatorial office, but solely his divinity, for nothing created can be a proper object of adoration.* Pages 39 and 48, Dr. Channing represents Trinitarianism as teaching that the object of Christ's death was to "quench vindictive wrath in God," "to awaken his mercy," "to open the arms of divine mercy." This is another repetition of a charge made in the Baltimore sermon, where the popular system" is said to convey the idea, that "Christ's death has an influence in making God placable or merciful, in quenching his wrath, in awakening his kindness towards men." In reference to this statement Dr. Wood's observes, in his Letters to Unitarians, that "it is uniformly the sentiment of the Orthodox, that the origin, the grand moving cause of the whole work" of redemption, was the infinite love, benignity, or mercy of God; and that it is purely in consequence of this love, that he appointed a Mediator, and adopted every measure which he saw to be necessary for the salvation of man. The goodness, mercy, or placability of God, considered as an attribute of his character, could then be neither produced nor increased, all the saints of old have practised," and " is one part of that importunity in prayer which Scripture so much recommends." See Watts's Guide to Prayer, chap. i. § 5. Theol. Elenct. Loc. 10. Quest. 14, § 7, 8. which appointed this and "the love of God by the atonement of Christ; as the atonement itself owed its existence wholly to that eternal immutable goodness."* That the statement of Dr. Woods was fully justified will be seen from the following quotations. The Synod of Dort say, that "the death of Christ, and through it, the redemption of man, proceeded from eternal love." The Westminster divines assert that it was "of his mere love and mercy," that God gave his Son and saves his people. Calvin says, "the merit of Christ depends solely on the grace of God, method of salvation for us ;" holds the first place, as the supreme and original cause" of our salvation. President Edwards says, "Wonderful is the love that is manifested in giving Christ to die for us." "Here," says Dr. Bellamy, after referring to the ruin of mankind by sin, "here was an opportunity for infinite and self-moving mercy to exert itself in the most illustrious manner, in designing mercy, in providing a Mediator, and in opening a door for the exercise of much grace to mankind in general, and of special saving mercy in ten thousand thousand instances. There was nothing ab extrafrom without God himself to move and put him on to such a wonderful and glorious enterprise. The motion was wholly from himself, from his self-moving goodness."I Dr. Scott, author of the Commentary on the Bible, says, "The whole design of man's redemption originated in the love of God to the world, even to the apostate race of man." ** "I believe," says Andrew * First edit. p. 85. Larger Catechism, reply to Q. 30. † Articles, chap. ii. || Worka, vol. vii. p. 206. **Comment on John iii. 16. Fuller, it is very common for people, when they speak of vindictive punishment, to mean that kind of punishment which is inflicted from a wrathful disposition, or a disposition to punish for the pleasure of punishing. Now if this be the meaning of our opponents," the Unitarians, when they allege, that according to the Calvinistic system, God is a vindictive being, "we have no dispute with them. We do not suppose the Almighty to punish sinners for the sake of putting them to pain. Neither Scripture nor Calvinism conveys any such idea. Vindictive punishment, as it is here defended, stands opposed to that punishment which is merely corrective; the one is exercised for the good of the party; the other not so, but for the good of the community." This last, he then proceeds to show from Scripture testimony and from the nature and fitness of things, is amiable in God. Again, he says, referring to the Unitarian representation of Calvinism as teaching that the atonement of Christ renders God merciful to men, "Nothing can well be a greater misrepresentation of our sentiments, than this which is constantly given. These writers cannot be ignorant that Calvinists disavow considering the death of Christ as a cause of divine love or goodness. On the contrary, they always maintain that divine love is the cause, the first cause of our salvation, and of the death of Christ to that end. They would not scruple to allow, that God had love enough in his heart to save sinners without the death of his Son, had it been consistent with righteousness; but that, as receiving them to favour without some public expression of displeasure against their sin, would have been a dishonour to his government, and have afforded an encouragement for others to follow their example, the LOVE OF GOD wrought in a way of righteousness, first giving his only begotten Son to become a sacrificè, and thus pouring forth all the fulness of his heart through that appointed medium."* Another misrepresentation of Orthodox views in reference to the atonement found in this discourse is, that they teach that, "the infinite Creator saves the guilty by transferring their punishment to an innocent being," and thus "lays the penalties of vice on the pure and unoffending," pp. 30, 31. Many Orthodox writers have indeed spoken of Christ's "bearing the punishment due to the sins of men," and "suffering the penalty of the law;" and some excellent men have, at times, expressed themselves on this subject in a way which we are by no means disposed to justify. But none who have used this language ever meant that our punishment was literally "transferred" to Christ, and the penalty we had incurred laid upon him; for the penalty and punishment which the Orthodox teach has been incurred by sin is eternal death. But who will believe that any one ever meant to assert that our Lord suffered eternal death? The reader will at once perceive that the language we have quoted from Orthodox writers was used by them in a figurative sense, as when Isaiah says, "He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows," and "the chastisement of our peace was upon him," i. e. his sufferings are a substitute for the penalty we have incurred by sin,-they are a full equivalent for the punishment that was due to those who are forgiven, answering the same *Works, vol. ii. pp. 91, 89. "He bore," says a ends in the divine government. judicious Calvinistic writer, "the punishment due to our sins, or that which, considering the dignity of his person, was equivalent to it," "as I do not believe Jesus was in any sense criminal, I cannot say he was really and properly punished."* And because the mode of expression in question has been too much insisted on by some of their own writers, and has been used as an occasion for misrepresenting their sentiments by impugners of the doctrine of atonement, it is now very generally discarded by the Orthodox, certainly so by nearly all of this class in New England. They now usually express themselves on this topic in some such language as the following ; "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, by being made a curse for us. The law denounces a punishment. This was its curse. delivers us from that punishment, by being made a curse; that is, by suffering an evil, which, so far as the ends of the divine government are concerned, was equivalent to the execution of the curse of the law upon transgressors."+ Christ Again, Dr. Channing represents the Orthodox as regarding the atonement merely as the payment of a debt, and consequently as removing, inasmuch as it was required to remove, no other obstacle to pardon but that which arises from the individual interest of the creditor. "Suppose," says he, when avowedly illustrating their views of this subject, p. 42, "suppose that a creditor, through compassion to certain debtors, should persuade a benevolent and opulent * Fuller's Works, vol. iv. pp. 84, 83. + Wood's Letters to Unitarians, first ed. p. 94. |