For _reason_ can no more tell us what the _guilt_ of sin is, what _hurt_ it does us, how far it _enters_ into, and _alters_ our very nature, what _contrariety to_, and _separation_ from God, it necessarily brings upon us, or what _supernatural_ means are, or are not, necessary to abolish it; our _reason_ can no more tell this, than our _senses_ can tell us, what is the _inward_, and what is the _outward_ light of angels.
Ask reason what _effect_ sin has upon the soul, and it can tell you no more, than if you had asked, what effect the _omnipresence_ of God has upon the soul.
Ask reason, and the nature of things, what is, or ought to be, the _true nature_ of an atonement for sin, how far it is like _paying_ a _debt_, or _healing_ a _wound_, or how far it is different from them? And it can tell you no more, than if you had asked, what is the _true degree_ of power that _preserves_ us in existence, how far it is _like_ that which at first created us, and how far it is _different_ from it.
All these enquiries are, by the nature of things, made impossible to us, so long as we have no light but from our own natural capacities, and we cannot take upon us to be _philosophers_ in these matters, but by deserting our reason, and giving ourselves up to _vision_ and _imagination_.
And we have as much authority from the nature of things, to appeal to _hunger_ and _thirst_, and _sensual pleasure_, to tell us _how_ our souls shall live in the beatific presence of God, as to appeal to our _reason_ and _logic_, to demonstrate how sin is to be _atoned_, or the soul _prepared_, and _purified_, for future happiness.
For God has no more given us our reason to _settle_ the nature of an atonement for sin; or to find out what can, or cannot, take away its guilt, than he has given us _senses_ and _appetites_ to state the nature, or discover the ingredients of future happiness.
And he who rejects the _atonement_ for sins made by the Son of God, as _needless_, because he cannot prove it to be _necessary_, is as extravagant, as he that should deny that God created him by his _only Son_, because he did not remember it. For our memory is as proper a faculty to tell us, whether God at first created us, by his only Son, as our _reason_ is to tell us, whether we ought to be restored to God, with, or without the mediation of Jesus Christ.
When therefore this writer says, _Can any thing be more evident, than that if doing evil be the only cause of God’s displeasure, the ceasing to do evil, must take away that displeasure?_¹
¹ Page 4.
* Just as if he had said, if conversing with a _leper_ has been the only cause of a man’s getting a _leprosy_, must not departing from him, be the removal of the _leprosy_? For if any one, guessing at the _guilt_ of sin, and its _effects_ on the soul, should compare it to a _leprosy_ in the body, he can no more say, that he has reached its _real, internal_ evil, than he, that comparing the happiness of heaven to a crown of glory, can be said to have described its real happiness.
This _writer_ has no occasion to appeal to the nature of things, if he can be thus certain about things, whose nature is not only obscure, but _impossible_ to be known. For it is as impossible for him to know the _guilt_ and _effects_ of sin, as to know the shape of an angel. It is as impossible to know by the mere light of reason, what God’s _displeasure_ at sin is, what _separation_ from sinners it implies, or how it _obliges_ God to deal with them; as to know what the internal essence of God is. Our author therefore has here found the utmost degree of evidence, where it was _impossible_ for him to have the _smallest degree_ of knowledge.
If a man, having _murdered_ twenty of his fellow-creatures, should afterward be sorry for it, and wish that he had a power to bring them to life again, or to create others in their stead, would his ceasing to kill, and wishing he had a power to create others in their stead, put him just in the _same state_ with God, as if he had never murdered a man in his life? But unless this can be said, it cannot be said that repentance is sufficient to put a man in the _same state_, as if he never had sinned.
The writer has two more objections against the atonement for sin, made by Jesus Christ. _First_, as it is an _human sacrifice, which nature itself abhors_: and which was looked upon as the great abomination of idolatrous _Pagan_ worship.
The _cruelty_, _injustice_, and _impiety_, of shedding human blood in the sacrifices of the _Pagans_ is fully granted; but _reason_ cannot thence bring the smallest objections against the sacrifice of Christ.
For how can reason be more disregarded, than in such an argument as this? The _Pagans_ were unjust, cruel, and impious, in offering human blood to their false gods; therefore the true God cannot receive any _human_ sacrifice, or allow any persons to die, as a punishment for sin.