that by which the Father testified. The obedience of Christ was not that by which the Father proved in his own Person that he would punish. The consent of Christ did not show that the Father would inflict evil on sinners without their consent. Nothing answers to these two descriptions but the bare sufferings of Christ. I do not say, the sufferings of-no matter who; but the sufferings of the beloved Son of God. I do not say, sufferings caused by accident or self-inflicted; but sufferings inflicted by the supreme Magistrate of heaven and earth. When we speak of the sufferings of the damned, or the death of a malefactor, we always include the act of the magistrate we do not mean dead sufferings, but sufferings inflicted by way of punishment. It was sufferings inflicted by the Magistrate which were threatened in the divine law, and sufferings inflicted by the Magistrate must come in their room. But because the act of the Magistrate was necessary, to say that sufferings alone did not constitute the matter of atonement, is like saying, for the same reason, that sufferings alone do not constitute the punishment of the damned." (pp. 46, 47.)

"I will now show you from the Scriptures that the thing which was offered for sin, and which came in the room of punishment, and which laid the foundation for pardon, was no other than suffering." (p. 49.)

§ 7. The Atonement consisted in such sufferings as fulfilled the design of punishment.

One fundamental question on this subject is: What is the design of punishment? Some suppose that the sole or the sufficient end of a divinely inflicted punishment is, to satisfy the distributive justice of God as a personal agent. Others suppose that the only sufficient design of this punishment is, to satisfy the desire of God as a Moral Governor for expressing his feelings toward sin, and to uphold by this expression the authority of his law. The second supposition is favored by Dr. Griffin. He teaches that punishment is designed to reveal God's attributes, and thus convince all moral agents that if they sin they shall suffer. This revealing and convincing process maintains the authority of the law. Our author says:

"What end did the death of Christ answer as an atoning sacrifice? It opened the way for the pardon of believers. But why could not believers have been pardoned without it? How did it open the way? I am not answered by being told that it expressed the wisdom and benevolence of God. Until I discover some important end answered by it, I can see no wisdom or benevolence in it, but something very much like a waste of hu

145 man life. What was that end? Do you tell me that the eternal principles of justice required that sin should be punished? But sin was not punished; for innocence suffered and sin escaped. What end was answered by laying this affliction on the innocent? Precisely the same, as respects the support of law, that would have been answered by our punishment. The atonement, we have seen, was a cover for sin, was adapted so to bury sin from view, that it should not be punished. It therefore came exactly in the room of punishment, and ought to answer the same end. When it had done that, it had removed the necessity of punishment, and constituted a complete cover for sin. It might answer that purpose more fully, but we have no right to ascribe to it any other end.

"What end then does punishment answer? The same that was aimed at in attaching the penalty to the law, only in a more intense degree. And what was that? The support of the authority of the law. Without a penalty the law is nothing more than a summary of advice, which every one is at liberty to regard or neglect as he pleases. Did the penalty show God's attachment to the precept? But how? By being set to guard the precept, or to give authority to the law. In this way alone it revealed any thing of God. Whatever of him was shown by bringing forward a sanction to support the authority of a holy and benevolent law, and nothing more, was disclosed by the penalty. The sole end of the penalty then was to support the authority of the law, and to discover as much of God as such an expedient for such a purpose could reveal. The support of law therefore comprehended all other ends, and may be put for the whole. The same end is answered by the execution of the penalty, only in a higher degree. Without the execution it would have been the same as though no penalty had existed. The law would have lost its authority; the reins would have been thrown upon the neck of every passion; anarchy, discord, and misery would have ravaged the abodes of being, and all the happiness which is bottomed on holy order, and all the discoveries of God which are made in a holy and vigorous moral government, would have been lost. This unbounded mischief would have followed a prostration of the authority of the law: that prostration would have followed a proclamation of impunity to transgression: and this proclamation would have been implied in a neglect to execute the penalty. The only way to prevent this infinite mischief, was to proclaim and prove that transgressors should be punished. In this single declaration and proof the whole antidote lay. For whatever else of God was proved, if it did not go to establish this, it could not uphold the authority of the law. If it proved that he was holy, or just, or good, or true, or wise, or attached to his precept, or all these together, it could not support the authority of the law any further than it gave evidence that transgressors should be punished. Nothing of God could be expressed by punishment but what is contained in the single proposition, that he does and will support his righteous law by punishing transgressors. Did it express his holiness, justice, benevolence, and wisdom? But how? VOL. XV. No. 57.

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By showing his determination to uphold the authority of a righteous law, by punishing sin. Besides furnishing motives to obedience, it was intended to set him forth as the object of confidence, complacency, joy, and praise. But how? By showing his inflexible purpose to maintain his holy and benevolent law by adequate punishments. The ultimate end of government, as of all other things, was to exhibit the glory of God, so needful to the happiness of his kingdom, and to secure to him that treatment which was his due, and in which the blessedness of creatures was involved. This was the ultimate end of punishment. But before it could answer this end, it must accomplish an immediate purpose subservient to government and the dominion of holiness. Before it could express the holiness, justice, benevolence, or wisdom of God, or hold him up as an object of confidence, complacency, joy, or praise, it must be fitted to answer an important end subservient to the reign of holy principles. What was that end? The support of the authority of a righteous law by discovering a fixed resolution to punish transgressors. This, then, was the immediate and proper end of punishment. In that punishment I care not how much of God you suppose to be revealed, how much attachment to his law, how much hatred of sin, how much justice, or even truth; you may add more or less of these things; but the whole is expressed in the single proposition that he will support his righteous law by punishing sin. To give proof that he will punish, is certainly disclosing every thing of God which punishment can reveal. The end of punishment then in any given instance, besides pronouncing the subject personally ill-deserving, and being an exercise of justice in that particular case, is merely to uphold the authority of the law by revealing God's determination to punish transgression." (pp. 22-25.)

Having seen, then, that the design of punishment, according to Dr. Griffin, is to maintain the authority of law by revealing the character and purposes of the Lawgiver, we come to another fundamental question on this theme: How does the atonement fulfil this design of law? The fact that it does so, Dr. Griffin repeatedly affirms. "The atonement," he says, "as it stood related to pardon, was adapted to come in the room of punishment, and to answer the same end; and besides removing the curse of abandonment, it had no other use" (pp. 85, 86; see also pp. 15, 28, 87, 173, 214, 215, 216, 354, et al.). With regard to the manner in which the atonement accomplishes this end, he is equally explicit. He does not suppose, as some have done, that the atonement is our punishment transferred to Christ, but rather that it expresses the same great truths which would have been expressed by our actual punishment. He says:

"Precisely the same [as has already been stated to be the design of punishment,] was the end of that which came in the room of punishment and answered its identical purpose. In whatever the atonement consisted, it expressed all that punishment would have expressed, except that the sufferer was personally a sinner; and was all that punishment would have been, except a literal execution of justice. This it could not be. Justice never required the personally innocent to suffer, but the personally guilty; and no plan of substitution or representation, and nothing but a personal identity between Christ and the sinner, rendering him personally a transgressor, could make out an act of literal justice in the infliction of sufferings on him. Equally certain it is, that the sufferings did not pronounce him personally a sinner. These two uses of punishment being separated from the atonement, the only end remaining is, the support of the law by showing God's determination to execute its penalty on transgressors. This was its precise and only end. This answered, it became an expression of amazing wisdom, benevolence, and mercy, and laid a foundation for the most luminous display of all the divine perfections in the application and progress of redemption. But before it could do this it must answer an end properly its own, which therefore is to be considered the immediate and proper end of the atonement; and that was what has already been stated. It made an impression on the universe, stronger than would have been made by the destruction of all Adam's race, that God was determined, notwithstanding his mercy to men, to support the authority of his law by executing its penalty on transgressors. How much was implied in this declaration, I am not concerned to inquire; - how far it 'condemned sin in the flesh,' how far it pronounced transgression to be as hell-deserving as the law had said, how far it asserted the rectitude of the divine government and took the part of the Father against the sins of the world. If it answered any or all of these ends, as it undoubtedly did, it was by giving the Father an opportunity to prove to the universe that he would execute his law on future transgressors. It expressed everything (except that the sufferer was a personal sinner,) that could have been expressed by punishment, or that could be implied in a determination to punish the future transgressors of a holy law. In the expression of punishment or a determination to punish, you may comprehend as much as you please: the same was expressed by the atonement. Say that punishment or a determination to punish proves that God is just, and attached to his law, and believes it good, and is like it himself, and hates sin, and if you please, is a Being of truth; then all these were expressed in that single declaration of the atonement that he would punish sin. Every thing of God which punishment could reveal, was disclosed by an atonement which proved that he would punish. Every end which punishment could answer, (except a literal execution of justice, and an implication of the moral turpitude of the sufferer,) was accomplished by an atonement which proved that God would punish. The whole use then of an atonement which was to answer

the exact purpose of punishment, was to show that God was determined to support his holy law by punishing sin." (pp. 25-27.)

§ 8. The Atonement is the means of a Testimony from God the Father.

The preceding quotations reiterate the idea of Dr. Griffin, that the punishment of the law is a means of the divine. testimony; it reveals the divine character; it makes known the divine purpose: the atonement also is a means of the divine testimony; it unfolds the feelings of God toward sin, and his design to punish it. When he speaks of the atonement as "this august drama," "this stupendous drama," "that awful tragedy," and says: "In the whole exhibition the Son appears either a servant or a vicegerent, till the curtain falls" (see pp. 43, 44), he does not intend to intimate that the atoning act was unsubstantial, or that it developed anything fictitious. He simply means by these incautious phrases, that the sufferings of the cross were, like the sufferings of the lost, manifestations of the divine mind, that "the very end of the atonement was to convince the universe that transgressors should not go unpunished" (p. 78), that "the matter of the atonement was something by which the Father testified that He would punish sin" (p. 46). He says:

"Whatever testimony the obedience of Christ gave, atonement was not made by testimony, but by affording the Father opportunity and means to testify in his own name. A great and glorious testimony was to be sent forth into the universe by means of the atonement, but that testimony was to come from the Father.". "The great question to be decided was whether he would resolutely punish. Who was competent to speak for God and pledge himself for the Most High? It became him who was to answer for the Godhead, to speak for himself. Accordingly he appears the Principal in every part, the Originater and Director of the whole. All is appointed and demanded by his authority, and done in his name, that the testimony may be exclusively his; as the expression of a measure ordered by the master of a house and executed by his servants, is the expression of the master alone. The satisfaction which he demanded as the Protector of the law, was not the testimony of a Servant or Son, but an opportunity to give to the universe with his own arm a great practical proof that he would punish