resolved into any other principle whatsoever ; it is in- trinsic in sin without reference to any other principle. (1.) This is involved in every awakened sinner’s con- sciousness of his own demerit. Ps. li. 4: ‘‘I have done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.” In its higher degrees this feeling rises into remorse, and can be allayed only by expiation. Thus many murderers have had no rest until they have given themselves up to the law, when they have experienced instant relief. And millions of souls have found peace in the application of the blood of Jesus to their wounded consciences. (2.) All men judge thus of the sins of others. The con- sciences of all good men are gratified when the just penalty of the law is executed upon the offender, and outraged when he escapes. (3.) This principle is wit- nessed to by all the sacrificial rites common to all ancient religions, by the penances in some form universal even in modern times, by all penal laws, and by the synonyms for guilt, punishment, justice, &c., common to all lan- guages. (4.) It is self-evident, that to inflict an unjust punishment is itself a crime, no matter how benevolent the motive which prompts it, nor how good the effect which follows it. It is no less self-evident that it is the justice of the punishment so deserved which renders its effect on the community good, and not its effect on the community which renders it just. To hang a man for the good. of the community is both a crime and a blunder, unless the hanging is justified by the ill-desert of the man. In that case his ill-desert is seen by all the community to be the real reason of the hanging. (5.) That the Bible teaches the same doctrine has been shown above,
CHAPTER IV. Punish- ment of sin intrin- sically right, and essential to the moral per- fection of God.
CHAPTER Iv.
Grace ne- cessarily a matter
' of sove-
reign choice— Justice free, but not op- tional.
54. THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
In answer to the foregoing, it is claimed that benevo- lence is as essential an element of the divine nature as is holy abhorrence of sin. It is asked why the sentiment of justice must, in the case of the elect, be gratified by punishing their sins in Christ, whereas in the case of the lost the sentiment of benevolence remains ungratified ? Why must one sentiment take precedence of the other ?
Nothing can be gained here by refinements of the speculative intellect. The Scriptures, the moral sense, and the common judgment of mankind are our only courts of appeal. Access to them is simple, and their answer certain. The infinite moral perfection of. God stands affected as benevolence to all his creatures, con- sidered simply as sentient beings. Without any change in itself, its relations only being changed, it is mercy in respect to all miserable creatures. Just so, itself un- changed, it stands affected to all guilty creatures as GRACE. Now it is self-evident that every exercise of grace must be optional. Itisa matter of free will But, on the other hand, holy hatred of sin, and the treatment of sin as that which ought to be punished, is not optional with God. He cannot do otherwise than right, and he cannot exercise grace otherwise than as a matter of sovereign discretion. This is self-evident. There is nothing contradictory here. In the case of the reprobate, God punishes sin in the sinner, and he declines to exer- cise that grace which never can be a matter of right, but must ever be a matter of choice. And toward the guilty, benevolence has no existence except in the form of grace. In the case of the elect, on the other hand, God exer- cised both the grace and the justice. The grace, in freely saving the sinner in spite of his want of merit ; and the justice, in the self-assumption of the penalty and its satisfaction in the person of his Son.
E —a ‘ Se
CHAPTER V.
THE CHURCH DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT PROVED FROM THE FACT THAT THE DIVINE LAW IS ABSOLUTELY IMMUTABLE.
= gm TE second testimony as to the nature of the Me ms redemptive work of Christ which I will ad-
a Ve duce is derived from the absolute wmmuta- bility of the divine law. I propose to show— (a) that God’s law is absolutely immutable; (6) that the penalty is an essential part of the law; (c) that as a matter of fact, Christ came to fulfil the law in our place, and not to relax its demands in accommodation to our lowered capacity.
1. The law of God is absolutely immutable. Grotius, the eminent jurisconsult and theologian of Holland, in
the first half of the seventeenth century, was the first to }