fied in a most striking manner. Baur (^VersJkniingS' khre) gives a clear, and, in the main, fair account of the Grotian theorj^ of atonement, from a tran.-^l ition of part of which, by the Rev. L. Swain, in the Biblio- theca Sacra for April, 1852, we extract the following: "Tlie fundamental error of the Socinian view was found by Grotius to be this : that Socinus regarded God in the work of redemption as holding the place mere!}' of a creditor, or master, whose simple will was a sufficient discharge from the existing obligation. But, as we have in the subject before us to deal with punishment and the remission of punishment, God can- not be looked upon as a creditor, or an injured partj', since the act of inflicting punishment does not belong to an injured party as such. The right to punish is not one of the rights of an absolute master or of a cred- itor, these being merely personal in their character ; it is the right of a ruler only. Hence God must be con- sidered as a ruler, and the right to punish belongs to the ruler as such, since it exists, not for the punisher's sake, but for the commonwealth, to maintain its order, and to promote the puljlic good. The act of atone- ment itself is defined in general as a judicial act, in accordance with which one person is punished in order that another may be freed from punishment, or as an act of dispensation, hy wliich the binding force of an existing law is suspended in respect to certain persons or things. The first question to be asked, therefore, is, whether such a dispensation or relaxing is possible in respect to the law of punishment. Grotius does not hesitate to answer this question in the affirmative, on the ground that all positive laws are relaxable. The threat of punishment in Gen. ii, 17, contains in it-' self, therefore, the implied right to dispense with the infliction of that punishment, and that, too, without supposing any essential change in God himself, since a law in relation to God and the divine will is not something having an internal force and authorit}' of its own (nichts Inneres), but is merely an operation or effect of the divine will. The objection that none but the guilty person himself can receive the punishment which is due to his crime is answered by the distinc- tion that although every sinner, as such, does, in ac- cordance with the very idea of sin, deserve punish- ment, still it is not a matter of absolute necessity that this punishment should be actually inflicted. As, therefore, the remission of punishment is a thing which is not in its own nature impossible, it must be left to the circumstances of each particular case to decide how far such remission shall really be admitted. If the authoritj' of law is not to be dangerouslj- weakened, it should be admitted onlj' in cases of the greatest exi- gency. Such a case clearl}^ is that which is offered in the ver}'^ instance which we are now contemplating, where, by the actual infliction of the punishment, the entire race of man becomes devoted to death ; and as, on the one side, the possilnlity of the remission of pun- ishment cannot be denied, so, on the other, it cannot be shown to be absolutely unjust that one person should be punished for another's sin. The essential thing in punishment is that it should be inflicted in consequence of sin, not that it should be inflicted upon the person who committed the sin. If, now, it admits of no doubt that a superior may properh' inflict upon a subject, as the punishment of another's sin, what- ever he might properly inflict upon him irrespectively of another's sin, then ma}' God, without incurring the charge of injustice, permit Christ to suffer and die for the sins of men. This course, then, being in itself a permissible one, the only question is wh}' God actual- ly determined to adopt it. As the Scripture says that Christ suffered and died for our sins, we are to infer that God purposed not to forgive sins so numerous and so great without a striking penal example, in order to show his displeasure at sin by some act which should in strictest propriety be termed a penal act. And be- sides this inward reason, lying in the very nature of
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tlic Deit}', and called in Scripture the wrath of God, there was the additional consideration that the less sin is punished the more lightly it will be rcicarded. Pru- dence itself, therefore, must lead tlie Deity to exact the punishment, especialh' where such punishment has been expressly threatened beforehand. Thus, in the penal example furnished by the death of Christ, there is exhibited at once the divine grace and the divine severity, the hatred of God against sin and his care for the maintenance of the law. And this is the mode of relaxing the laws which jurists themselves pronounce the best, viz. by commutation or compensation ; be- cause thereby the least injury is done to the authorit}' of the law, and the design with which the law was made is effectually secured, as when one who is charged with the delivery of a thing is free from his liability on paj'ing its full value ; for the same thing and the same value are terms very nearly related. Such a commutation may take place not only with respect to things, but also with respect to persons, where it can be done without injury to another.