honour as the head of a family, it would not supersede the necessity of pardon being sought by the offender, and freely bestowed by the offended.

The reason of this difference is easily perceived. Debts are transferrable; but crimes are not. A third person may cancel the one; but he can only obliterate the effects of the other; the desert of the criminal remains. The debtor is accountable to his creditor as a private individual, who has power to accept of a surety, or if he please, to remit the whole, without any satisfaction. In the one case he would be just ; in the other merciful: but no place is afforded by either of them for the combination of justice and mercy in the same proceeding. The criminal, on the other hand, is amenable to the magistrate, or to the head of a family, as a public person, and who, especially if the offence be capital, cannot remit the punishment without invading law and justice, nor in the ordinary discharge of his office, admit of a third person to stand in his place. In extraordinary cases, however, extraordina ry expedients are resorted to. A satisfaction may be made to law and justice, as to the spirit of them, while the letter is dispensed with. The well-known story of Zaleucus, the Grecian law giver, who consented to lose one of his eyes to spare one of his son's eyes, who by transgressing the law had subjected himself to the loss of both, is an example. Here, as far as it

went, justice and mercy mere combined in the same act: and had the satisfaction been much fuller than it was, so full that the authority of the law, instead of being weakened, should have been abundantly magnified and honoured, still it had been perfectly consistent with free forgiveness.

Finally: In the case of the debtor, satisfaction being once accepted, justice requires his complete discharge but in that of the criminal, where satisfaction is made to the wounded honour of the law, and the authority of the lawgiver, justice, though it admits of his discharge, yet no otherwise requires it than as it may have been matter of promise to the substitute.

I do not mean to say that cases of this sort afford a competent representation of redemption by Christ.That is a work which not only ranks with extraordinary interpositions, but which has no parallel: it is a work of God, which leaves all the petty concerns of mortals infinitely behind it. All that comparisons can do, is to give us some idea of the principle on which it proceeds.

If the following passage in our admired Milton were considered as the language of the law of innocence, it would be inaccurate

He with his whole posterity must die:
Die he, or justice must; unless for him
Some other able, and as willing, pay
The rigid satisfaction, death for death."

Abstractly considered, this is true; but it is not expressive of what was the revealed law of innocence.— The law made no such condition, or provision; nor was it indifferent to the lawgiver who should suffer, the sinner, or another on his behalf. The language of the law to the transgressor was not thou shalt die, or some one on thy behalf; but simply thou shalt die: and had it literally taken its course, every child of man must have perished. The sufferings of Christ in our stead, therefore, are not a punishment inflicted in the

ordinary course of distributive justice; but an extraor dinary interposition of infinite wisdom and love: not contrary to, but rather above the law, deviating from the letter, but more than preserving the spirit of it.Such, brethren, as well as I am able to explain them, are my views of the substitution of Christ.

Peter. The objection of our so stating the substitution of Christ, as to leave no room for the free pardon of sin, has been often made by those who avowedly reject his satisfaction; but for any who really consider his death as an atonement for sin, and as essential to the ground of a sinner's hope, to employ the objection against us, is very extraordinary, and must, I presume, proceed from inadvertency.

James. If it be so, I do not perceive it. The grounds of the objection have been stated as clearly and as fully as I am able to state them.

John. What are your ideas, brother James, with respect to the persons for whom Christ died as a substitute? Do you consider them as the elect only, or mankind in general?

James. Were I asked concerning the gospel when it is introduced into a country, For whom was it sent ? If I had respect only to the revealed will of God, I should answer, It is sent for men, not as elect, or nonelect, but as sinners. It is written and preached, "that they might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that believing they might have life through his name." But if I had respect to the appointment of God, with regard to its application, I should say, If the divine conduct in this instance accord with what it has been in other instances, he hath visited that country to "take out of them à people for his name."

In like manner, concerning the death of Christ, if I speak of it irrespective of the purpose of the Father

and the Son as to the objects who should be saved by it; referring merely to what it is in itself sufficient for, and declared in the gospel to be adapted to, I should think I answered the question in a scriptural way in saying, It was for sinners, as sinners. But if I have respect to the purpose of the Father in giv ,ing his Son to die, and to the design of Christ in laying down his life, I should answer, It was for his elect only.

In the first of these views, I find the apostles and primitive ministers (leaving the consideration of God's secret purpose as a matter belonging to himself, not to, them) addressing themselves to sinners without distinction, and holding forth the sacrifice of Christ as a ground of faith to all men. On this principle, the servants sent forth to bid guests to the marriage-supper, were directed to invite them, saying, “Come, FOR all things are ready." On this principle the ambassadors of Christ besought sinners to be reconciled to God: FOR, said they, "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

In the last view, I find the apostles ascribing to the purpose and discriminating grace of God all their success-" As many as were ordained to eternal life believed"-teaching believers also to ascribe every thing that they were, or hoped to be, to the same cause ; addressing them as having been before the foundation of the world, beloved and chosen of God; the children or sons, whom it was the design of Christ in becoming incarnate to bring to glory; the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood, and for which he gave himself, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it

to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.

If the substitution of Christ consist in his dying for, or instead of others, that they should not die, this, as comprehending the designed end to be answered by his death, is strictly applicable to none but the elect: for whatever ground there is for sinners as sinners to believe and be saved, it never was the purpose or design of Christ to impart faith to any other than those who were given him of the Father. He therefore did not die with the intent that any others should not die.

Whether I can perfectly reconcile these statements with each other, or not, I embrace them as being both plainly taught in the scriptures. I confess, however, I do not at present perceive their inconsistency. If F be not greatly mistaken, what apparent contradiction may attend them, arises chiefly from that which has been already mentioned, namely, the considering of Christ's substitution as an affair between a creditor and a debtor, or carrying the metaphor to an extreme. In that view the sufferings of Christ would require to be exactly proportioned to the nature and number of the sins which were laid upon him; and if more sinners had been saved, or those who are saved had been greater sinners than they are, he must have borne a proportionable increase of suffering. To correspond with pecuniary satisfactions this must undoubtedly be the case. I do not know that any writer has so stated things; but am persuaded that such ideas are at the bottom of a large part of the reasonings on that side of the subject.

In atonement, or satisfaction for crime, things do not proceed on this calculating principle. It is true there was a designation of the sacrifices offered up by Heze