SATISFACTION* to the honour and justice of the divine government in pardoning and saving sinners. In other words, it has effected a perfect RECONCILIATION and harmony between two apparently incompatible principles; on the one hand, the equity and wisdom of God's moral legislation, in all the propriety of requirement, and the veracity of denunciation; and, on the other, the exercise of his benevolence, in rescuing from ruin, and restoring to holiness and happiness those of mankind whom, out of a principle of sovereign and absolute grace, (not indeed arbitrarily, but for reasons infinitely weighty, though not revealed to mortals,) he may judge proper thus to bless.

That some instances of sin, though only between fellow-creatures, have a real and proper desert of suffering as a penalty, few can so violate the dictates of reason and moral feeling, as to deny. In the universal estimation and the ordinary language of men, acts of deep and malicious injury, of enormous cruelty, perfidy, and ingratitude, call for condign punishment. If we were considerate and impartial enough to extend our views to the whole moral universe, including in a due manner its glorious and infinite Sovereign, we should be convinced that HIS claims on the entire affection and devoted obedience of his rational creatures are infinitely superior to those of an earthly parent, friend, or benefactor, under any conceivable circumstances that a violation of those claims has a proportionate criminality; and that, on the principles

* Supplementary Note XVI.

:

of equal justice, every such violation deserves an adequate punishment. On the question, what punishment is adequate, can any one be so bold as to deny that God alone is the perfect, competent, and unex ceptionable Judge? And if, in his accredited revelation, he has informed us of the result of that unimpeachable judgment, is it wise, or safe, or pious, for us to entertain a different opinion? The scriptures are full of solemn declarations of God's punitive justice. He has both affirmed the claim of eternal righteousness, and declared his resolution to carry it into execution. "Wilt thou, forsooth, condemn the JUST MIGHTY ONE? According to a man's work, will he render unto him and according to the ways of a man shall it befal him. Woe unto the wicked! Ill to him! For the retribution of his works shall be done to him. The judgment of God is righteous, and according to truth. He is righteous in taking vengeVengeance is mine; I will repay; saith the Lord. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."* He will treat sin, and deal with sinners, as they deserve; but not beyond the measure of their desert. "Justice and judgment," not blind passion, are the foundation of his throne." The most cursory reader of the divine word, must be aware how much and how strongly it speaks of the deep, fixed, unalterable, and infinitely terrible DISPLEASURE of the great Jehovah against sin. The most vehement expressions are borrowed from the affections, actions,

ance.

*

* Job xxxiv. 17, partly Dr. Mason Good's Transl. ver. 11. Is. iii. 11. Rom. i. 32. ii. 2. iii. 5. Heb. x. 30.

and language of mankind, to set before us this allimportant idea. We are assured, in the most awakening terms, of the anger, the indignation, the wrath, the fury, of God against sin and sinners. Every one must admit that this is the language of condescension to the weakness of human conceptions, under the necessary circumstances of a primitive language, when men had not proceeded to the invention of more abstract and philosophical terms; and that it must be understood in a manner congruous with the perfection of the Divine Nature. No agitations or emotions, no mutability of knowledge or will, can be for a moment admitted. A careful survey of the whole testimony of the Scriptures, in this view, will shew us that the design of these awfully sublime expressions is to represent to us God's necessary and infinite abhorrence of moral evil; and his determination to give all suitable evidences or expressions of that abhorrence. Those expressions must be public, or they would not answer the end of vindicating the divine righteousness: and they must be of such a kind, and enforced to such a degree, as shall be adequate to all the purposes of divine wisdom. But it is evident that, of the measure which shall constitute adequacy, God alone can judge, and fix it with the perfection of rectitude.

That sin, then, should be punished according to its desert, the supremacy, holiness, justice, and veracity, of the Most High absolutely require. But how can it be consistent with those perfections to punish the innocent-Unquestionably it would be wrong to punish the innocent, as innocent, and irrespectively of

any relative or compensative arrangement by which the party, though personally blameless, might suffer to the advantage of the whole case in judgment, and without ultimate injury to himself or to any. If such an instance as included these conditions could be found, the objection would in that case be disarmed. What parent would not undergo the severest labours, difficulties, and sufferings, to save a dear child from calamity or death ?-And, even with regard to the affairs of the present life, the all-wise dominion of Providence not infrequently exhibits instances of individuals plunged into extreme distress and acute sufferings, in consequence of faults, in the commission of which they had no share and still more commonly and extensively, are men, even to a remote posterity, benefited by the virtues of others, to which they have not contributed in the smallest degree. Though such cases fall infinitely short of a parallelism to the grand instance of Redemption by the Sacrifice of Christ, yet they serve to shew that the notion of moral substitution has its foundation in the constitutions of nature, as fixed by their Almighty Author.

But, before any person can reasonably reject the doctrine of a moral satisfaction, by the sufferings and death of the spotless Sacrifice, in order that the immunity and happiness of the guilty may consist with the legislative honour and the judicial veracity of God; it behoves him to weigh well the absolute peculiarity of the case, and to consider it in its own proper and singular circumstances. Is he perfectly acquainted with all the reasons which determine the Being who is

infinite in wisdom, equity, and benevolence, to punish sin? And be it ever remembered, that, in his most sacred word, that Being has proclaimed this determination. Is the objector aware of all the ends which God proposes, in conducting this department of his holy government? Has he been admitted into the eternal counsels? Is he prepared to shew that those ends and purposes may not be attained, equally well, or unspeakably better, by the method of a vicarious interposition, than by leaving the righteous vengeance to fall where it is personally due ?* May not the holiness, wisdom and truth of the Eternal Sovereign be preserved inviolate, his rectoral honour maintained in untarnished lustre, and his law shewn to be supremely just and good ;-may not sin be held up in its true colours, to the abhorrence and execration of the universe; may not every desirable effect be produced on the mind of the pardoned and restored sinner :—in fine, may not all the ends and designs of justice, wisdom, and mercy, known to mortals or unknown, be accomplished in this way, WITH INFINITE ADVANTAGE?

If still this method of grace be rejected, the condition of sinful man assumes a fearful form. Either the actual offender must undertake to meet the

* The reader will find these suggestions most admirably enforced in Maclaurin's Essay on Prejudices against the Gospel. That excellent author was the brother of the great mathematician, Colin Maclaurin, and possessed a mind of similar acuteness and vigour. A series of solid and accurate reasonings on this subject is also in President Edwards's Posthumous Remarks on Important Theological Controversies; Chap. VI. Works, vol. viii. Leeds ed.

E