not at all the unchangeable demands of personal holi-
ness, but simply those conditions upon which God’s
favours are to be shown. And hence, unlike the natural relation, the federal is neither intrinsic, perpetual, nor inseparable from the person concerned. Although, of course, it is ultimately founded upon the essential right- eousness of the divine nature, yet all the variable condi- tions of the probationary period and test are evidently largely dependent upon the divine sovereignty, and the relation itself ceases as soon as the trial is closed, either
by the grant of the reward or the infliction of the
penalty ; and, if God pleases, the whole relation may be
sustained by a substitute, and its obligations discharged vicariously, as was the case in the instances of Adam and
of Christ.
8. The penal relation to the law is that which instantly Man’s supervenes when the law is violated. As shown above, ae the penalty is an essential element of the law, expressing 10°
the essential attitude in which absolute righteousness law. stands to transgression, just as the preceptive element of the law expresses the attitude in which that rightecus- ness stands to the moral condition and action of the sub- ject. Whenever, therefore, the law is violated by dis- obedience, the penalty instantly supervenes, and continues for ever until it is fully exhausted in strict rigour of absolute justice.
It is consequently obvious that the penal and federal relations to the law are naturally mutually exclusive. The instant a moral agent incurs the penalty, his federal relation to the law necessarily terminates, because the end of that relation—that is, his confirmation in a holy character—has definitely failed. Adam was created under
CHAPTER MLe
‘72 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
—-
the natural and the federal relations to the law. When | he sinned he continued under the natural, and passed from —
the federal to the penal, where his non-elect descendants remain for all eternity. And it is just here that with respect to the elect the infinitely gracious mediation of Christ intervenes. If it were not for the sovereign super- vention of a gracious upon a purely legal economy, they would of course be left, with the rest of mankind, to the
just consequences of their sin. ‘Their probation having
been abused, the promised confirmation in holy character having been forfeited, nothing but the penalty remains. But in behalf of the elect Christ comes as the second Adam, and assumes and graciously continues their federal relation to the law just at the point at which Adam failed. If he undertakes their case, there is a need be that he assume both their obligations to obedience, which was the original condition of their being raised to a stable equilibrium of moral character and receiving the adop- tion of sons, and their obligations to penal sufferings incurred by their disobedience. The law in its natural relation of course remains binding on them as before, while they are for ever released from all obligation to obey it as a condition of life, and are confirmed in an immutable stability both of character and happiness, through the vicarious discharge of all their original ob- hgations by their Substitute.
When we say that Christ as our Substitute assumed our law-place, the specific thing that we mean is, that he became the federal head of the elect under the Covenant of Redemption, which provided for his assuming in rela- tion to them all the conditions of the violated Covenant of Works. The federal headship of Christ presupposes the federal headship of Adam. The latter is the neces- sary basis for the former, and the work and position of the former can be understood only when it is brought in
RELATION TO THE MORAL LAW. 73
mental perspective into its true relation to the latter, cmarrmr: The solution of the question as to the true nature of the — federal headship of Adam becomes, therefore, an essen-
tial element as to the nature of the Atonement. The apostle declares that the principles upon which sin and misery came upon the race through Adam are identical with those upon which righteousness and blessedness come upon the elect through Christ. No man can en- tertain faise views as to the former without perverting
his faith as to the latter. Hence I venture to ask the patience of the reader while I enter upon a digression from
the strict line of Scriptural proof bearing directly upon
the nature of the Atonement, to consider the question, Whether the Scriptures really teach that in the Covenant
of Works Adam in a strict sense represented all his descendants, and hence that the sin and misery of that estate into which they are born are the penal conse- quences of Adam’s public sin ?
OMAPTER VII.
Admitted | §
facts of man’s birth into an inevi- table con- dition of sin and misery.
CHAPTER VIL.