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have been at the expense of providing such an atonement, without a most urgent, indispensable necessity.

But if an atonement for sin was necessary, why was it necessary? Why must the Son of God come down and die, to open a way for the salvation of sinful men? Though these questions have been answered, in part, in the remarks already made, still it may be necessary to give them a more particular consideration. And we answer:

1. An atonement was necessary in order that sinners might be humbled and brought to repentance. It is often insisted, as before remarked, that mere repentance is enough to ensure forgiveness, without an atonement. But, without an atonement, who ever had repented? How much true repentance had been found among men? It is in consequence of the atonement that the Holy Spirit is given, without whose influences no human being had ever given his heart to God. It is in consequence of the atonement, that we are favored with the day and the means of grace.

We do not deny the natural ability of sinful men to repent, or (which is the same) that they can repent if they will. But will they repent, without an atonement? Have they? Where have they? The devils have natural ability to repent, and are under obligations to repent; but they never did, and they never will. And no more would one of the human race ever have repented, had not an atonement been made for us on the cross.

We would not say that no sinner of our race ever came to repentance, without a knowledge of the atonement; though such instances, especially of adult sinners, it is believed, are very rare. It is the preaching of the cross, emphatically, which results in the conversion of souls. It is at the foot of the cross, ordinarily, that the tear of penitence begins to flow. But we do insist and repeat, that, had no atonement been provided, not a soul of our race had ever been brought to repentance. There had been no more true repentance among men on the earth, than there is among the damned in the other world.

But this necessity for the atonement is not, after all, the

most urgent and fundamental. There is a necessity greater than this. We remark, therefore,

2. The atonement of Christ was necessary, to sustain and honor the broken law of God, to vindicate his authority, and satisfy his glorious justice. In carrying into effect his eternal purposes, God has undertaken to be, not only the universal Creator and Disposer, but a moral Governor. He has surrounded himself with intelligent creatures, free, moral, responsible agents, proper subjects of law and government; and he has undertaken to administer a moral government over them. He has undertaken to govern them, not by physical force, but by laws, motives, and moral considerations; by a system of just rewards and punishments. But in order to the success of this vast undertaking, it is obviously necessary for the Supreme Ruler, as it is for any other ruler, to sustain law. He must not suffer his law to be trifled with and trampled on. He must maintain it inviolate, in all its strictness and strength, its authority and purity, or his government of law will be subverted and overthrown.

And here lies the necessity of an adequate atonement, if transgressors of the divine law are to be forgiven and saved. The law can be sustained, by punishing the transgressors as they deserve; by inflicting upon them the threatened penalty. Can it be as fully sustained in any other way? Can any expedient be devised, by which the broken law can be honored, and God's righteous regard for it be displayed, and all the ends of government be secured, as fully, as perfectly, as they would be by inflicting the penalty? Such an expedient (if such an one be possible) would be an atonement, a full and adequate atonement. After such an atonement, God could forgive and save sinners, on such conditions as he was pleased to appoint, and yet not detract one iota from his law. His law would stand as inviolate, and his government as strong, as though the threatened penalty had been executed.

But, without some such expedient, or, in other words, without a sufficient atonement, to pardon and save sinners would be a moral impossibility. It could never be tolerated

under the government of God. It could not consist with the stability and perfection of that government, or even with its continued existence.

At the hazard of repetition, we wish to press this point, and to give it prominence, the necessity of an atonement to honor and sustain law. God's law has been transgressed here on earth, flagrantly transgressed. A whole world of sinners have cast off the authority of their Sovereign, and risen up in arms against him. God does not wish to punish them, or one of them. He has no pleasure in their death. But what can he do? His law must be honored. His holy government must be sustained, or be given up. It can be sustained by the infliction of the penalty on all those who have transgressed. Can it be in any other way? Is any substitute for this terrible infliction possible? Can any sufficient atonement be made? If an atonement can be made, then God may consistently pardon and save sinners. But if not, they must all suffer, or God's law and government must suffer. They must be punished as they deserve, or his holy government must be undermined and subverted.

It is our happiness to know, that, in the infinite wisdom and goodness of God, an expedient of salvation has been devised. An atonement for sinners has been made. It was made in the sufferings and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we deserved to die, he died for us. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. Christ did not come into our world, and die here for nothing. He did not die for a trifle. He would not take upon himself our nature and flesh, and endure all the agonies of the garden and the cross, without a most urgent necessity. We have seen that there was such a necessity for his death, and the grounds or reasons for that necessity we have pretty fully investigated.

Our next inquiry will relate to the nature and efficacy of Christ's atonement. In what did it consist? And how does it avail for our redemption?

1. In what did the atonement of Christ consist? Did it consist in his perfect holiness, his perfect obedience to the divine law? Or in his sufferings and death? Or in both?

As the sufferings and death of Christ were voluntarily submitted to, they may be regarded as constituting a species of obedience; and so they were regarded in the Scriptures. He was "obedient unto death" (Phil. 2:8). But this, which is sometimes called Christ's passive obedience, is not that about which we now inquire. Christ's "obedience unto death" is the same as his voluntary sufferings and death. But the obedience which has been thought by some to enter into the nature of the atonement, and to constitute a part or the whole of it, is his personal obedience to the divine law; or, in other words, his personal holiness.

We are disposed to attach a high importance to the perfect, spotless holiness of the Saviour. It was indispensable to the work of atonement. It was that without which he could have made no atonement. He must be perfectly sinless himself, or he could not make an acceptable offering for the sins of others. "For such an high-priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners; who needeth not daily," like the priests in Israel, "to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people" (Heb. 7: 26). Here, the necessity of the spotless holiness of the Saviour, in order that he might perform the work of atonement, is clearly set forth. Still, in strictness of speech, it can hardly be said that the atonement of Christ consisted at all in his personal obedience, or holiness.

In the first place, Christ's obedience could not meet the chief necessity of an atonement, as before explained. That which is needed, is something to sustain law; something to stand in place of the threatened penalty of the law; something which will answer all the purposes of moral government as well as the execution of the penalty. An expedient of this nature would be an atonement. Anything short of it would not be. Now it is obvious that the perfect holiness of Christ was no substitute for the penalty threatened to transgressors. It was not adapted to be. It could not be. There was need here of suffering. The penalty of the law consists in suffering, and an equivalent, a substitute, must be of the same nature.

A like view of the subject is presented in the typical atonements of the Old Testament. These all prefigured the atonement of Christ, and may be supposed, so far as they go, to prefigure it accurately. Now it was indispensable to the acceptableness of an offering under the law, that the animal offered should be perfect in its kind. It must be without spot or blemish; thus indicating the necessity of the spotless character of Christ. Accordingly, our Saviour is spoken of by Peter as "a Lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Pet. 1:19). Still, the typical atonement did not consist in the spotlessness of the lamb, but in the shedding of its blood. It was the blood, emphatically, that made the atonement. So the atonement of Christ, prefigured by that of the law, must consist in the shedding of his blood.

We have the same view presented in the plain language of Scripture. The utmost stress is laid, everywhere, upon the cross, the blood, the death of Christ, as that in which the expiation, the atonement, properly consists. We hardly need quote passages, after those which have been before given. Christ is said to have been a sacrifice, an offering, an oblation, a propitiation for sin. He is said to have suffered for our sins, to have died for our sins, to have been delivered for our offences, and to have been a curse for us, in his crucifixion. The strongest expressions are used, in different parts of the Bible, to set forth the nature of Christ's atonement, as consisting in his sufferings and death.

And while so great stress is laid on the death of Christ, we find his obedience spoken of in only a few instances; and in most of these, if not all (as the connection shows), the reference is to what has been called his passive obedience, or his obedience unto death. "Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death" (Phil. 2: 8). "Yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered" (Heb. 5:8). "By the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous" (Rom. 5: 19). These are the only passages, perhaps, in which the obedience of Christ is directly spoken of in the Bible. The first two refer, certainly, to his obedience in suffering; and, by the most judicious commen

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