The form in which the principle upon which this objection to our doctrine rests, as entertained by the advocates of the Governmental Theory, is bad enough, but it is much worse as it is pressed by the advocates of the Moral Influence Theory. _/Their sickly sentiments are in obvious contradiction to all the sacred and pro- fane history of God’s providential dealings with men from the beginning until now, to all the moral judg- ments of men, to the principles of all human laws and religions, and to all the revealed principles of the Scrip- tures. That God does not do all within his power to save all men; that all the penal consequences with which he follows sin are not designed to benefit the offender ; that God does punish some sinners eternally, and that eternal punishment cannot be designed to benefit the victims upon whom it is inflicted, are facts absolutely certain, and-unquestionably inconsistent with the funda- mental ‘principles upon which Socinus, Priestley, and Young and Bushnell push their objections to the vener- able faith_of the Church,” Vindictiveness is a miserable
CHAPTER XX:
The ob- jection that our doctrine excludes
grace, dis-
proved.
284 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
vice festering in the heart of a sinful creature, cherished | against a fellow-creature because of a personal injury. — But an inexorable determination to treat all sin accord- ing to its intrinsic ill-desert is a peerless excellence | crowning all the other moral attributes of a wise, right- eous, and benevolent Ruler. :
2. In the same spirit with the last objection, our op- ponents insist that the theory of Satisfaction excludes the element of grace from having any share in the salva- tion of men. Socinus insisted that penal satisfaction and remission or forgiveness mutually exclude each other, If a sin is punished, it is not forgiven; if it is forgiven, it is not punished. This is evidently a miser- able quibble, founded upon that very confusion of per- sons and things that they falsely charge upon us. The sin is never that which is forgiven, but the sinner is forgiven, and the penalty due his sin not executed upon him. As far as the sinner is personally concerned, his forgiveness is no less free, and the remission of the penalty is none the less perfect, because the penalty is executed upon a voluntary Substitute, than if it were sovereignly abrogated altogether.
Our unfriendly critics are very much in the habit of charging us with regarding the Atonement as a mere commercial transaction, and then in their criticisms fall- ing into the same miserable mistake themselves. Thus, they argue that if Christ by his obedience and sufferings fully satisfied all the federal demands of the law in the stead of his people, then there is no grace exercised in the forgiveness of men. They assert that our doctrine puts the Father and the Son in very opposite attitudes in respect to the salvation of mankind. The Father inexorably demands the payment of the uttermost far- thing of the debt due to him, and will relax his claims not one iota in order to spare his helpless creatures or his
OBJECTIONS STATED AND ANSWERED. it DBO
suffering Son. The Son, in order to propitiate the inex- orable Father in behalf of the helpless objects of his displeasure, takes pity upon them and pays their debt with his own blood.
This whole talk foolishly or wilfully confounds a pecuniary with a penal satisfaction. We did not owe God money. God is not vindictive, bent upon fining us for a personal injury. God is infinite in moral per- fection, and must do right. We are sinners, and ought to be punished. The claim terminates not upon the thing done, but upon the person sinning. Vicarious satisfac- tion does not, zpso facto, liberate, but can be admitted, if at all, only as a matter of sovereign grace. Christ is not of a different nature from the Father, but is of one essence, nature, feeling, mind and purpose with him from all eternity. He did not die to make the Father cease to hate us, but was given because ‘‘God so LOVED ‘THE WORLD,” in order to reconcile that infinite love with his infinite justice in their concurrent exercises with re- gard to their common objects—that is, those whom the Father had given the Son. God would of necessity have to sacrifice either his elect, or his Son, or moral principle. It is self-evident that God shows immeasur- ably more grace in saving his elect at the expense of his “BELOVED Son” than he could do either by a sacrifice of moral principle, or, in case it had been possible to
CHAPTER xX.
save us, without any sacrifice at all. No exhibition of