But we would here put a question which arises naturally out of our present thesis. It is this: Was Christ judged, bruised and forsaken on the cross--did God visit His only begotten and well beloved Son with the full weight of His righteous wrath against sin--and shall impenitent sinners escape? We solemnly press this question on all whom it may concern. Men talk of its being inconsistent with the idea of divine goodness, tenderness and compassion that God should send any of His creatures to hell. We reply, Who is to be the judge? Is man competent to decide as to what is morally fitting for God to do? And further, we ask, What is to be the standard of judgment? Anything that human reason can grasp? Assuredly not. What then? _The cross on which the Son of God died, the Just for the unjust_--this, and this only, is the great standard by which to judge the question as to sin's desert. Who can harken to that bitter cry emanating from the broken heart of the Son of God, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" and question the eternal punishment of all who die in their sins? Talk of tenderness, goodness, and compassion! Where do these shine out most brightly and blessedly? Surely in "the great commission" which publishes full and free forgiveness of sins to every creature under heaven. But would it be just, or good, or compassionate, to suffer the rejecter of Christ to escape? If we would see the goodness, kindness, mercy and deep compassion of God, we must look at the cross. "He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all." "It pleased Jehovah to bruise Him. He hath put Him to grief." "He hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
But if men reject all this, and go on in their sins, in their rebellion, in their infidel reasonings and impious speculations--what then? If men maintain that suffering for sin is not necessary, and that there is another and a better way of disposing of the matter--what then? Our Lord declared in the ears of His apostles that "it was necessary that Christ should suffer"--that there was no other way possible by which the great question could be settled. Whom are we to believe? Was the death of Christ gratuitous? Was His heart broken for nothing? Was the Cross a work of supererogation? Did Jehovah bruise His Son and put Him to grief for an end which might be gained some other way?
How monstrous are the reasonings, or rather the ravings, of infidelity! Infidel doctors begin by throwing overboard the word of God--that peerless and perfect revelation; and then, when they have deprived us of our divine guide, with singular audacity, they present themselves before us, and undertake to point out for us a more excellent way; and when we inquire what that way is, we are met by a thousand and one fine-spun theories, no two of which agree in anything save in shutting out God and His Word.
True, they talk plausibly about a God; but it is a God of their own imagination--one who will connive at sin--who will allow them to indulge in their lusts, and passions, and pleasures, and then take them to a heaven of which they really know nothing. They talk of mercy, and kindness, and goodness; but they reject the only channel through which these can flow, namely, the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. They speak not of righteousness, holiness, truth, and judgment to come. They would fain have us to believe that God put Himself to needless cost in delivering up His Son. They would ignore that marvelous transaction which stands alone in the entire history of the ways of God--the atoning death of His Son. In one word, the grand object of the devil, in all the skeptical, rationalistic and infidel theories that have ever been propounded in this world, is to shut out completely the word of God, the Christ of God, and God Himself.
We solemnly call upon all our readers, specially our young friends, to ponder this. It is our deep and thorough conviction that the harboring of a single infidel suggestion is the first step on that inclined plane which leads straight down to the dark and terrible abyss of atheism--down to the blackness of darkness forever.