and ever has done. Are we so confident in ourselves as to deny that there is a just God who governs the world, rather than admit that the innocent may rightfully bear the iniquity of the guilty ? In teachino" the doctrine of legal substitution, of the transfer of ffuilt from the transgressor to the innocent, of the satisfaction of justice by vicarious punishment, the Bible asserts and assumes no moral principle which does not underlie all the providential deal- ings of God with mdividuals or with nations.
4. Men constantly deceive themselves by postulating as moral axioms what are nothing more than the forms in which their feel- ings or peculiar opinions find expression. To one man it is an axiom that a holy God cannot permit sin, or a benevolent God allow his creatures to be miserable ; and he, therefore, infers either that there is no God, or that He cannot control the acts of free agents. To another it is self-evidently true that a free act can- not be certain, and therefore that there can be no foreordination, or foreknowledge, or prediction of the occux'rence of such acts. To another, it is self-evident that a merciful God cannot permit any portion of his rational creatures to remain forever under the dominion of sin and suffering. There would be no end of con- troversy, and no security for any truth whatever, if the strong l^ersonal convictions of individual minds be allowed to determine what is, or what is not true, what the Bible may, and what it may not, be allowed to teach. It must be admitted, however, that there are moral intuitions, founded on the constitution of our nature, and constituting a primary revelation of the nature of God, which no external revelation can possibly contradict. The authority of these intuitive truths is assumed or fully recognized in the Bible itself. They have, however, their criteria. They cannot be enlarged or diminished. No man can add to, or de- tract from, their number. Those criteria are, (1.) They are all recognized in the Scriptures themselves. (2.) They are univer- sally admitted as true by all rational minds. (3.) They cannot be denied. No effort of the will, and no sophistry of the under- standing can destroy their authority over the reason and con- science.
5. It is very evident that the principle that " the innocent can- not justly be punished for the guilty," cannot stand the appHcation of the above-mentioned criteria. So far from being recognized in the Bible, it is contrary to its plainest declarations and facts. So far from being universally received among men as true, it has never been received at all as part of the common faith of mankind. The
532 PART in. Ch. VII. — satisfaction of CHRIST.
substitution of the innocent for the guilty, of victims for transgres- sors in sacrifice, of one for many ; the idea of expiation by vicarious punishment, has been famiUar to the human mind in all ages. It has been admitted not only as possible, but as rational, and recog- nized as indicating the only method by which sinful men can be reconciled to a just and holy God. It is not, therefore, to be ad- mitted that it conflicts with any intuition of the reason or of the conscience ; on the contrary it is congenial with both. It is no doubt frequently the case that opposition to this doctrine arises from a misapprehension of the terms in which it is expressed. By guilt many insist on meaning personal criminality and ill desert ; and by punisiiment evil inflicted on the ground of such personal demerit. In these senses of the words the doctrine of satisfaction and vica- rious punishment would indeed involve an impossibility. Moral character cannot be transferred. The Remonstrants were risht in saying that one man cannot be good with another's goodness, any more than he can be white with another's whiteness. And if pun- ishment means evil inflicted on the ground of personal demerit, then it is a contradiction to say that the innocent can be punished. But if guilt expresses only the relation of sin to justice, and is the obligation under which the siimer is placed to satisfy its demands, then there is nothing in the nature of things, nothing in the moral nature of man, nothing in the nature of God as revealed either in his providence or in his word, which forbids the idea that this obli- gation may on adequate grounds be transferred from one to an- other, or assumed by one in the place of others.
To the head of objections founded on assumed moral axioms belong those urged by a large class of modern, and especially of German theologians. These theologians have their peculiar views of the nature of God, of his relation to the world, and of anthro- pology in all its branches, which underlie and determine all their theological doctrines. It is denied that Schleiermacher founded a school ; but it is certain that he introduced a method of theologi- zing, and advocated principles, which have determined the charac- ter of the theology of a large class of men, not only in Germany, but also in England and America : Twesten, Nitsch, Liicke, Ois- hausen, Ullmann, Lange, Liebner, and even Ebrard in Germany ; and Morell and Maurice in England, belong to this class of writers. In this country what is known as the " Mercersburg Theology " is the product of the same principles. Everything which distinguishes that theology from the theology of the Reformed Church, comes from the introduction of these new German speculative principles.