died for all sins without distinction." This objection is grounded on an assumption, which we do not admit. It is indeed expressly contrary to scripture. On the great day of annual atonement, the goat is said to bear all the iniquities of the children of Israel. Sacrifices are elsewhere said to be offered up not for those sins only, which are committed through error, but for those which are committed willing

and פעל חמא אשם פשע ly, and which are expressed by

similar words. And though the priest is said to have suffered for the errors (ayvanatwv) of the people, yet it does not follow that wilful sins are excluded; for the word ayvonua which signifies properly an error of the mind, is used to denote every kind of sin, because every sin proceeds from an error of the mind. Hence wicked men are called fools avonto. The Septuagint renders yWD and DN by the Greek word ay, and these Hebrew words signify wickedness and rebellion. For some aggravated crimes, such as murder,idolatry, adultery, &c. we do not read of any sacrifices having been particularly instituted; God determined to punish them by the sword of the civil magistrate, with capital punishment; and those who sinned thus had no need of this remedy, as their death was a satisfaction to the public. Yet we are no where told that the priests, when offering up sacrifices for the rest of the people, might not pray for the pardon of the sins of those very persons who were condemned to death. In no other way could sacrifices be offered up for them, for as they were to die immediately, they could not be made partakers of that ceremonial purity which entitled the Jewish worshipper to approach the altar.

Again, we argue for the doctrine of the atonement, from our reconciliation with God, which Christ by his death has procured for us. Since that reconciliation supposes the making

up of the breach, which sin had produced between God and his creatures, this could not be effected without the removal of a twofold barrier, by a satisfaction. On the part of God, his justice must be satisfied, and on the part of man, the + Heb. ix. 6, 7.

Lev. xvi. 21, 22.

guilt of sin must be removed by suffering the punishment due to it. The apostle Paul, every where, teaches us that Christ procured for us such a reconciliation.*

The substance of the objections which our opponents offer against this argument is, that "this reconciliation is effected by our conversion to God, and not at all by appeasing the divine wrath, because God is not said to be reconciled to us, but we to God; nay, that he is said to procure for us this reconciliation, which is not the part of an enemy but of a friend." This capital error of our opponents is refuted by many powerful arguments. 1. The scriptures speak of a double enmity and reconciliation, not only on the part of man who by sin is become a hater of God, an enemy in his mind by wicked works but also on the part of God, by his wrath which is revealed from heaven against all iniquity. Hence men are by nature children of wrath.|| God is said to be of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.¶ "He hates all workers of iniquity.** Now as there is an alienation on both sides, so there must be on each side a reconciliationon the part of God, by a turning away of his wrath-on the part of man, by a conversion to God, all which the apostle clearly teaches, 2 Cor. v. 18, 19. In consequence of God's reconciling us to himself, through Christ, Paul shews that the apostles in the name of Christ exhorted sinners to be reconciled to God. 2. If reconciliation were nothing else, but conversion, then it should rather be said to proceed from Christ's holy life, than from his bloody death. On this ground no reason can be offered why the apostle should propose sanctification as the end of our reconciliation,†† for nothing can be the medium and end of itself. This would be to say that the end of reconciliation was reconciliation. 3. It is such a reconciliation as is effected by not imputing to us our sins, on account of their having been imputed to Christ, who was made sin for us,‡‡ a reconciliation effect

ed by the substitution of Christ in our place, that he might die for us; as we collect from the comparison instituted between him, and the man who would dare to die for a good man, which evinces a proper satisfaction, not a simple conversion. 4. This reconciliation is effected, " by making peace through the blood of his cross," and by an atoning sacrifice aros. All these denote not mere conversion; but primarily, the appeasing of the divine wrath, which was effected by the death of a victim.

Though the scriptures commonly speak of our being reconciled to God, rather than of God's being reconciled to us, because those who offend have need to be reconciled to him who is offended; yet this, so far from excluding the reconciliation of God to us, includes it; because there can be no offence, unless justice is injured, and this injury must be repaired before God can reconcile men to himself, and admit them to hold communion with him. God's procuring this reconciliation for us, is no evidence that he has not been angry with us, or that he was at peace and in a state of friendship with us. It only proves that God moved towards us, with a love of benevolence, decreed to procure for us a reconciliation, with which he was well pleased, and through which he was reconcileable to us, while at the same time he could not but be offended with our sins, and with us as sinners, and could have no communion with us.

In vain it is plead by our opponents that," Christ is said to be our propitiation, and expiatory sacrifice; not that he may reconcile an angry God to us, but that he may testify that God is already well pleased, and by no means angry with us. "The blood of Christ was not shed to prove the remission of sin, but to obtain it, as was the case in the propitiatory sacrifices under the Old Testament dispensation; otherwise, there was no need that Christ should die, and shed his blood, when the truth of the remission could be as well attested by his life and doctrine. Nor because the covering of the ark is improperly and declaratively called

* Rom. v. 7. † Col. i. 20. § 1 Joh. ii. 2.

op, or an expiation, because by it God declared his benevolence towards his people; are we thence to infer that it was of the same nature with the expiation made by Christ. The making of expiation, is attributed to Christ not so much passively, as actively, and in the strictest sense of the word. What was only typically and symbolically shadowed forth in the mercy seat, and by the sprinkling of the blood of victims, Christ hath truly and properly effected by the shedding of his blood, by which he made a real atonement for sin. Again, though the application and fruit of this atonement, is imparted to us through the medium of his continual intercession for us in heaven, yet we may not hence infer that he has made it in heaven only. The passage in Heb. ii. 17, does not relate to this; for it is not there said that he makes reconciliation for the sins of the people in heaven, but only that he must be made like unto his brethren in all things, that he may be a faithful high priest, in things pertaining to God, and in this character make reconciliation, which he had done by his death, and suffering; all which is intimated in the following verse.

The doctrine of the atonement is also confirmed by the nature and circumstances of Christ's sufferings, as well as by the kind of death which he suffered; in all which we have every thing requisite to a full and perfect satisfaction. Let us consider the essence, and kind of the punishment. The death which he endured, was not a common death; it was not an ordinary, but a violent, a most bitter death, inflicted in the manner of a punishment—a death inflicted by a sword which the justice of God commanded to be drawn against him; "awake, O sword against the man that is my fellow; smite the shepherd,”—a death in which he endured the greatest possible ignominy, and in which the most acute pains tortured his most holy body. Was this all? No. His soul was seized with the most appaling terrors, and deepest sorrows, with such fear and poignant woes, that an angel was sent to minister comfort to him. Sweat flowed from every pore of his body like great drops of blood, and "he offered up prayers and supplications, with strong cry

ing and tears to him who was able to save him."* With a voice of deepest sadness, he complained that he was forsaken by God the Father, though not by a dissolution of the union, nor by withdrawing a participation of holiness, nor by withholding his supporting power, yet by withholding from him the beatific vision, by suspending the joyful fruition of full felicity. How shall we find an adequate cause for all these sufferings in a perfectly holy person, unless by admitting that avenging justice demanded from Christ a full atonement for our sins? In order to evade the doctrine of the atonement, shall we say that Christ was of more feeble mind, and possessed less heroic firmness, than innumerable martyrs, who have suffered the same most painful death of the cross, nay if possible in excruciating torments more intolerable, and all with unshaken fortitude, with the greatest alacrity, and without any indications of grief or terror? Such blasphemy shocks the ears of the Christian. Though the time of Christ's sufferings was but finite in duration, yet in consequence of the dignity of the sufferer it was equal in value to infinite duration of torment. The law indeed demands that the person who sins shall suffer, but the gospel, through the fatherly kindness of God, declares it meet that there shall be a substitution--that it suffices to punish sin, and let the sinner go free.

By the atonement we have an astonishing display of the divine mercy, which is so great that God spared not his own Son, that he might spare us. The atonement asserts the claims of justice, which, that it might remain unimpeachable, demanded even the blood of the Son of God. The atonement gloriously exhibits the divine wisdom, which found out an admirable plan, of reconciling mercy with justice, and untied a knot which otherwise could never have been loosed, a plan, by which the conscience of the traitor-man, alarmed with a penetrating sense of sin, judgment, and malediction, is rendered peaceful and serene. Take away the atonement, and what becomes of the truth of God, which so uniformly

* Heb. v. 7.