mors, quæ omnibus mortibus, quas singuli pro suis peccatis meruerant, non æquivaluisset."

It is obvious that the objections presented in the above extracts arise from confounding pecuniary with judicial or legal satisfaction. There is an analogy between them, and, therefore, on the ground of that analogy it is right to say that Christ assumed and paid our debts. The analogy consists, first, in the effect produced, namely, the certain deliverance of those for whom the satisfaction is made; secondly, that a real equivalent is paid; and, thirdly, that in both cases justice requires that the liberation of the obligee should take place. But, as we have already seen, the two kinds of satisfaction differ, first, in that in penal satisfaction the demand is not for any specific degree or kind of suffering; secondly, that while the value of pecuniary satisfaction is independent entirely of the person by whom the payment is made, in the other case everything depends on the dignity of him by whom the satisfaction is rendered; and, thirdly, that the benefits of a penal satisfaction are conferred according to the terms or conditions of the covenant in pursuance of which it is offered and accepted.

The principle that a thing avails for whatever God chooses to take it, which is the foundation of the doctrine that Christ's work was not a satisfaction in virtue of its intrinsic worth but only by the gracious acceptance of God, cannot be true. For,

1. It amounts to saying that there is no truth in anything. God may (if such language may be pardoned) take anything for anything; a whole for a part, or a part for the whole; truth for error, or error for truth; right for wrong, or wrong for right; the blood of a goat for the blood of the Eternal Son of God. This is impossible. The nature of God is immutable, - immutable reason, truth, and goodness; and his nature determines his will and his judgments. Therefore it is impossible that He should take that to be satisfaction which is not really such.

2. The principle in question involves the denial of the necessity of the work of Christ. It is inconceivable that God should send his only begotten Son into the world to suffer and die if the same end could have been accomplished in any other way. If every man could atone for his own sins, or one man for the sins of the whole world, then Christ is dead in vain.

3. If this doctrine be true then it is not true that it is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. If every creatum oblatum tantum valet, pro quanto Deus acceptat,

then why might not the Old Testament sacrifices have sufficed to take away sin? What rendered them inefficacious was their own inherent worthlessness. And what renders the satisfaction of Christ effectual is its own inherent value.

4. The Scriptures teach the necessity of the death of Christ, not only by implication, but also by direct assertion. In Galatians ii. 21, the Apostle says, "If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." This means that if the righteousness necessary for the salvation of men could have been secured in any other way the whole work of Christ is a 'matter of supererogation, an unnecessary expenditure of what was beyond all price. Still more explicit is his language in Galatians iii. 21: "If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." It is here asserted that if any other method could have availed to save sinners it would have been adopted. Our Lord, in Luke xxiv. 26, asks, “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things?" There was an obligation, or necessity, which demanded his sufferings if the salvation of sinners was to be accomplished. The Apostle again, in Hebrews ii. 10, says, "It became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." There was a necessity for the sufferings of Christ, and that necessity was not merely governmental, nor for the accumulating moral power over the sinner's heart, but it arose out of the nature of God. It became Him. It was consonant with his perfections and character, which is the highest conceivable kind of necessity.

5. What the Scriptures teach of the justice of God leads to the same conclusion. Justice is a form of moral excellence. It belongs to the nature of God. It demands the punishment of sin. If sin be pardoned it can be pardoned in consistency with the divine justice only on the ground of a forensic penal satisfaction. Therefore the Apostle says (Romans iii. 25), that God sent forth Christ as a propitiation through faith in his blood, in order that God might be just in justifying the ungodly.

6. The Scriptures, in representing the gift of Christ as the highest conceivable exhibition of the divine love, do thereby teach, first, that the end to be accomplished was worthy of the sacrifice ; and, secondly, that the sacrifice was necessary to the attainment of the end. If the end could have been otherwise attained there would have been no exhibition of love in the gift of Christ for its accomplishment.

7. All that the Bible teaches of the truth of God; of the immutability of the law; of the necessity of faith; of the uselessness and worthlessness of all other sacrifices for sin; and of the impossibility of salvation except through the work of the incarnate Son of God, precludes the idea that his satisfaction was not necessary to our salvation, or that any other means could have accomplished the object. And if thus absolutely necessary, it must be that nothing else has worth enough to satisfy the demands of God's law. It is the language and spirit of the whole Bible, and of every believing heart in relation to Christ that his "blood alone has power sufficient to atone."

§ 4. Satisfaction rendered to Justice.

The second point involved in the Scriptural doctrine concerning the satisfaction of Christ is, that it was a satisfaction to the justice of God. This is asserted in all the Confessions above cited. And by justice is not meant simply general rectitude or rightness of character and action; nor simply rectoral justice, which consists in a due regard to the rights and interests of subjects in relation to rulers; much less does it mean commutative justice or honesty. It is admitted that the Hebrew word 7, the Greek díkalos, the Latin justus, the English just or righteous, and their cognates, are used in all these senses both in Scripture and in ordinary life. But they are also used to express the idea of distributive or retributive justice; that form of moral excellence which demands the righteous. distribution of rewards and punishments which renders it certain, under the government of God, that obedience will be rewarded and sin punished. This is also properly called, especially in its relation to sin, vindicatory justice, because it vindicates and maintains the right. Vindicatory and vindictive, in the ordinary sense of this latter term, are not synonymous. It is a common mistake or misrepresentation to confound these two words, and to represent those who ascribe to God the attribute of vindicatory justice as regarding Him as a vindictive being, thirsting for revenge. There is as much difference between the words and the ideas they express as there is between a righteous judge and a malicious murderer. The question then is, Does the attribute of vindicatory justice belong to God? Does his infinite moral excellence require that sin should be punished on account of its own inherent demerit, irrespective of the good effects which may flow from such punishment? Or is justice what Leibnitz defines it to be, "Benevolence guided by wisdom." It is admitted that the work of Christ was in some

sense a satisfaction; that it satisfied in some way the exigencies of the case, or the conditions necessary to the salvation of man. It is further, at least generally, admitted that it was in some sense a satisfaction of justice. This being the case, everything depends on what is meant by justice. If justice is "benevolence guided by wisdom," or a benevolent disposition on the part of a ruler to sustain his authority as a means of promoting the happiness of his kingdom, then the work of Christ is one thing. It may be simply a means of reformation, or of moral impression. But if justice is that perfection of the divine nature which renders it necessary that the righteous be rewarded and the wicked punished, then the work of Christ must be a satisfaction of justice in that sense of the term. The question, therefore, concerning "the nature of the atonement" depends on the question whether there is in God such an attribute as distributive or vindicatory justice. This question has already been discussed when treating of the attributes of God. All that is necessary here is a brief recapitulation of the arguments there presented,

1. We ascribe intelligence, knowledge, power, holiness, goodness, and truth to God, (a.) Because these are perfections which belong to our own nature, and must of necessity belong to Him in whose image we were created. (b.) Because these attributes are all manifested in his works. (c.) Because they are all revealed in his Word. On the same grounds we ascribe to God justice; that is, the moral excellence which determines Him to punish sin and reward righteousness. The argument in this case is not only of the same kind, but of the same cogency. We are just as conscious of a sense of justice as we are of intelligence or of power. This consciousness belongs to man as man, to all men in all ages and under all circumstances. It must, therefore, belong to the original constitution of their nature. Consequently it is as certain that God is just, in the ordinary sense of that word, as that He is intelligent or holy.

2. The Spirit of God in convincing a man of sin convinces him of guilt as well as of pollution. That is, He convinces him of his desert of punishment. But a sense of a desert of punishment is a conviction that we ought to be punished; and this is of necessity attended with the persuasion that, under the righteous government of God, the punishment of sin is inevitable and necessary. They who sin, the Apostle says, know the righteous judgment of God, that they are worthy of death.

3. The justice of God is revealed in his works, (a.) In the con

stitution of our nature. The connection between sin and misery is so intimate that many have gone to the extreme of teaching that there is no other punishment of sin but its natural effects. This is contrary to fact as well as to Scripture. Nevertheless it is true that to be "carnally minded is death," that is, damnation. There is no help for it. It is vain to say that God will not punish sin when He has made sin and its punishment inseparable. The absence of light is darkness; the absence of life is death; (b.) It is, however, not only in the constitution of our nature, but also in all his works of providence, that God has revealed his purpose to punish sin. The deluge; the destruction of the cities of the plain; the overthrow of Jerusalem and the dispersion and long-continued degradation of the Jewish people; the ruins of Nineveh, of Babylon, of Tyre and Sidon, and of Egypt; and the present condition of many of the nations of the earth, as well as the general administration of the divine government, are proof enough that God is an avenger, that He will in no wise spare the guilty.

4. The Scriptures so constantly and so variously teach that God is just, that it is impossible to present adequately their testimony on the subject. (a.) We have the direct assertions of Scripture. Almost the first words which God spoke to Adam were, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The angels who sinned are reserved in chains unto the judgment of the great day. Death is declared to be the wages, i. e., the proper recompense of sin, which justice demands that it should receive. God is declared to be a consuming fire. Men can no more secure themselves from the punishment of their sins, by their own devices, than they can save themselves from a raging conflagration by a covering of chaff. The penalty of the law is as much a revelation of the nature of God as its precept is. As He cannot, consistently with his perfections, exonerate men from the obligation of obedience, so He cannot allow them to sin with impunity. It is, therefore, declared that He will reward every man according to his works. (b.) All the divinely ordained institutions of religion, whether Patriarchal, Mosaic, or Christian, were founded on the assumption of the justice of God, and were designed to impress that great truth on the minds of men. They take for granted that men are sinners; and that, being sinners, they need expiation for their guilt as well as moral purification, in order to salvation. Sacrifices, therefore, were instituted from the beginning to teach the necessity of expiation and to serve as prophetic types of the only effectual expiation which, in the fulness of time, was to be offered for the sins of men.