630 PART m. Ch. Vn. — satisfaction of CHRIST.
trine of a true expiatory sacrifice for sin, of a real satisfaction of justice by means of the vicarious punishment of sin, is the doctrine of the Scriptures, as well of the Old Testament as of the New. This is all we contend for, and all we care for. If God teaches this, men may teach what they please.
Moral Objections.
Another class of objections to the Scriptural doctrine of satisfac- tion, which may be called philosophical, although not of the specu- lative kind, are those which are founded on certain assumed moral axioms. It is said to be self-evident that the innocent cannot be guilty ; and if not guilty he cannot be punished, for punishment is the judicial infliction of evil on account of guilt. As the Church doctrine, while maintaining the perfect sinlessness of Christ, teaches that He bore the guilt of sin, and therefore was regarded and treated as a sinner, that doctrine assumes both an impossibility and an act of injustice. It assumes that God regards things as they are not. He regards the innocent as guilty. This is an impossibility. And if possible for Him to treat the innocent as guilty, it would be an act of gross injustice. On this class of objections it may be re- marked, —
1. That they avail nothing against the plain declaration of the Scriptures. If the Bible teaches that the innocent may bear the guilt of the actual transgressor ; that He may endure the penalty incurred in his place, then it is in vain to say that this cannot be done.
2. If it be said that these moral objections I'ender it necessary to explain these representations of Scripture as figurative, or as anthropomorphic modes of expression, as when God is said to have eyes, to stand, or to walk, then the reply is that these representa- tions are so didactic, are so repeated, and are so inwrought into the whole system of Scriptural doctrine, that they leave us no alter- native but to receive them as the truths of God, or to reject the Bible as his word.
3. Rejecting the Bible does not help the matter. We cannot 1 eject the facts of providence. Where is the propriety of saying that the innocent cannot justly suffer for the guilty, when we see that they actually do thus suffer continually, and everywhere since the world began ? There is no moral principle asserted in the Bible, which is not carried out in providence. God says He will visit the iniquities of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation of those that hate Him. And so He does,