product of the divine will, but the uncreated essence of cmarrer God himself? This uncreated essence is, as we have in- By sisted above, the absolute norm of all spiritual laws. But this divine nature never expresses itself outwardly except through the acts of the divine will. This will, and not the ‘nature of things,” makes and executes the moral law of the universe. That God rewards and punishes, and that he holds forth before men the pros- pect of future rewards and punishments for present con- duct, is taught too clearly and universally in Scripture to need proof here. ‘The idea that the punishment of sin is only its natural consequences, and that remission is merely deliverance from the natural operations of moral evil in the soul, as freedom from the pain of a _ burn can be allayed only by allaying the inflammation, is so repugnant to Scripture and to common sense as to need no refutation. The expulsion of our first parents + from Paradise; the deluge; raining fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah ; the death of the first-born of the Egyptians; all the plagues brought on Pharaoh ; drought, famine, pestilence, threatened as the punishment of the Hebrews, were not the natural consequences of sin, but positive punitive inflictions. Indeed, almost all the judgments threatened in the Bible are of that char- acter.”* ‘‘'Taking vengeance” for sin is everywhere set forth as the personal, deliberate, vocitional act of a right- eous. moral governor (Deut. xxxii. 35; Ps. cxlix. 7; Rom. ui. 5, xii. 19). At his second coming, Christ is to be “revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking ven- geance on them that know not God, and that obey not ' the gospel” (2 Thess. i. 7, 8). This taking vengeance is a personal act executed for a purpose, at such times, and under such conditions, and in such modes as best serve the purpose intended.
* Princeton Review, April 1866.
CHAPTER Vv.
66 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
That this world is not a scene of rewards and punish- ments; that sin may be forgiven entirely previous to, and as the condition of, the work of sanctification ; and that a sin long past and repented of, if not punished in the past, will continue to demand punishment through all the future, are facts established by the teaching of Scripture as clearly as by the universal experience of the race. “It is not true that sanctification and remission
are ever confounded; nor are they related as cause and
effect. The two things are distinct in their nature, and are always distinguished in the Bible and the common sense of men. There neither is nor can be any sanctifica- tion, or destruction of the power of sin in the soul, until there has been antecedent remission of the penalty. Paul teaches clearly, in the sixth and seventh chapters of his Epistle to the Romans, that so long as the sinner
is under condemnation, he brings forth fruit unto death ; —
that it is not until he is delivered from condemnation, by the body or sacrifice of Christ, that he brings forth fruit unto God.” *
That God does not do all he can to remedy sin when it has once entered upon his domain, is a fact as promi- nent in the history of the different races and families of men as the great stars are on the face of the sky. The blessed Saviour said, “I thank thee, O Father, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matt. xi. 25). That God, over and above being just, is also abundantly merciful, the Christian Church has always recognized as gratefully as Dr. Young. To us, certainly, he has been always good as well as just. But it is impossible that he should be unjust, and, as I showed above, justice is as essentially involved in the infliction of the penalty as it is in the imposition of the precept. God
* Princeton Review, April 1866.
IMMUTABILITY OF THE LAW. 67
cannot be unjust, and it would be unjust not to punish sin. Sin can be expurgated, as a subjective condition of the soul, only by sanctification; but its penalty, which is always eternal death, can be removed only by expiation—that is, by punishment endured either per- sonally or vicariously. For the proof of these posi- tions, and consequently for the refutation of those assumed by Young, I refer the reader to the entire argument of this book.
CHAPTER Vi
2a a’ gq UT if the law is immutable, and if its demands
VI.
Man’s Natural relation to the divine law.
CHAPTER VI.
THE THREEFOLD RELATION WHICH MORAL AGENTS SUSTAIN TO THE
DIVINE LAW.
are personal, how can the legal relations of one person be assumed by another, and all his legal obligations be vicariously discharged
by the substitute instead of the principal? In order to throw ght upon this question, I propose the following considerations. Turretin* well noted the fact that the relations which men sustain to the law may be diseri- minated under three heads—the natural, federal, and penal relations :—