effect upon others as the essential objects to be attained. !See Punishment. But, in the case in hand, these ex- ternal and disinterested observers can consist only of the angels and inhabitants of other worlds, inasmuch as our own race is wholly included in the culprit himself. Of the moral constitution or even existence of the latter of these two classes of presumed spectators we have ab- solutely no knowledge, nor any reason to suppose that they could become informed of the transaction. Of the. former we know but little more, and that little leads us to the belief that they have already passed their proba- tion, and are therefore incapable of being influenced by example, while the interest which they take in the scene is that of intense satisfaction at its progress and con- summation. All objectors are thus removed, and the substitution is ratified by common consent.
We have assumed that man's demurral to this pro- cedure is silenced by the fact of his being himself the convict. Yet a prisoner may be imagined to have a right to protest against another's taking his place as ac- cused or condemned. This, however, he can only be allowed in court to do when he confesses his crime, and demands to bear its penalty in person. Both these i^riv- ilegcs. if such they can be called, arc reserved to him by the silu'ine under consideration. Nay, he is required to iiKike ((infession before he can avail himself of the ben- eliis of Christ's mediation, and that with a sincerity and fidiiess which admit of no retraction; and he is at last compelled to undergo the penalty himself unless he vol- untarily and actively apply for the exem|ition offered him. These provisions are the saving clauses of the [ ness would have been nn^hsx, and that in two most vital bill of amnesty, and by virtue of them the vicarious re- respects : it would so fidly have exhausted the penalty dcmption receives its final approvjil.
(■2.) Nevertheless the sinner realizes a partial effect of the atonement unconditionally, in the respite from
wise the sum of its sins. Christ therefore did not need to make an infinite atonement, but only an adequate or commensurate one. His expiation was sufficient, not because it was made by his divine nature — for that was by hypothesis incapable and incompetent — but because it contained such a degree of merit, in view of its com- pleteness and the exalted character of the offerer, that the divine Being coidd consistently accept it in Hut of the actual obedience of the race represented, and thus remit the jienalty due them. In the next place, an ab- solute equality or identity of retribution was impuxsible in the remedial scheme. The supposition that Jesus endured — whether during his whole lifetime, or in the brief agonies of the garden and the cross — the sum total of the torments tliat will be and that would have been experienced by the eternally damned, is simply prepos- terous. Not only had he no opportunity for this, but he was not capable of it, either jjhysically or spiritually. His bodily pain was such, indeed, as to take his life, but other men have known as great, if not greater. His mental anguish, especially the hiding of his Father's face, was so intense as to literally break his heart ; but it cannot have been the same, either in character, extent, or continuance, as the everlasting pangs of conscious guilt. All that was practicable, in him as a sidjstitute for man, was to undergo an ordeal as similar in kind and degree as his pure human nature would admit. In this sense he drank the bitter cup of atonement to its very dregs, but it was not the identical draught intend- ed for mankind. Tinallv, such an absolute vicarious-
punishment till the close of his earthly career.
But for
for all ])t)ssible or foreseen lumian transgression as to render the personal punishment of any offender there- after impossible, because unjust ; and it would have been no gain or saving of suffering on the whole, but a mere
this the whole race had been cut off in embryo at the shifting of a specific load from the shoulders of one be- first transgression. Hence there is an opportunity for ing to those of another. No larger average of happi- the exercise of the remedial or curative as well as pre- | ness could have resulted, nor any greater glory redound- ventive influence of that penal retribution, which is tem- ed to God. Such an atonement woidd have defeated porarily suspended and may be wholly averted from instead of furthering the main design of its merciful himself. The only problem here arising is, How can Projector. It would have been fatal to all the advan- impunity be alloAved without encouraging viceV or rath- j tages seen above to be secured by Christ's mediation, er, to state it more radically. How can the criminal go See Vicvisiois Sii'Feuing.
scot-free and yet be reformed'? It has of late years | Mediator, a ncrson who intervenes between two only been discovered in families, schools, armies, and diplomacy that pardon is often the best discipline; but ^^^.^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^
God knew long ago the true philosophy of the preven- ^^^^^^^^ j,, ^^^^^ remarkable passage (Job ix,33) which is tion of crime. The spectacle of another suffering the \ re„acred in the Aulh. Vers. '• Neither is there any d(i;is-