from committing the like crime, which end could not be answered by inflicting it upon an innocent person; that on the contrary it would rather tend to encourage crimes than prevent them, if persons were allowed to suffer punishment for the guilty, and hereby to enable them to escape justice. Such would be the light, in which such an offer would be viewed in a court of justice. And can God approve and accept of the punishment of the innocent for the guilty, as calculated to promote in the best manner the ends of justice, when men reject it as tending to defeat those ends? Will inflicting the punishments of Hell due to sinners upon his innocent son convince men of the evil of sin, or deter them from the practice of it?

Where a man knows that by a particular conduct of his he may expose a friend to pain, he may be restrained from doing that, which he knows would be the cause of suffering to one that is dear to him. But when a friend has endured, several hundred years ago, all that he can suffer on my account (as is supposed to be the case with respect to Christ), and no fresh sins that I can commit can add to the number or weight of his sufferings, I can feel my. self under no restraint from tenderness to that friend; for I can do him no further injury. Nay, it would relieve me from no small obstacle to my transgressions, which I find lying in my way at present, if I could be assured that the future punishment annexed to my sins, and about which I am so alarmed,

is already borne by another, and that, let me do whatever I may be inclined to do, I cannot add to his burden; for I now perceive that I can sin at free cost, without doing any injury to myself, or my friend Christ Jesus. As to God, his justice is already satisfied by the sufferings of his son, for whatever sinners have done, or may do. Thus we find, that this scheme, which is held up to our admiration as a model of wisdom for preventing crimes, appears, in fact, to afford the greatest encouragement to the commission of them, and, instead of exalting the divine justice in our estimation, tends to degrade it.

The idea which it gives of the divine Being is that of a furious man, who, having received an injury, is about to punish the offender, but a friend interposing to prevent the execution of the design, he is induced to forego the pleasure of reeking his vengeance on the guilty, on condition of being allowed to pour forth his wrath upon the head of this friend.

But it should be remembered that the justice of God is not a blind principle, which seizes and punishes whatever offers itself, but that it is a modification of benevolence, and has nothing in view except the happiness of individuals, or of society, inflicting punishments only where they are necessary, to prevent the repetition of actions which may prove injurious to the persons who commit them, or to mankind in general. But where men repent of their

ill conduct and reform it, there is evidently no occasion for the exercise of justice; for the ends of justice are already attained in another manner. To punish a penitent would be to inflict evil where it was not wanted, and could answer no useful purpose. To do this cannot exalt our opinion of the Almighty, or recommend him to our esteem. On the contrary, it would lead us to regard him as actuated by revenge, which must sink and degrade his character; while forgiveness has something in it that is noble and generous, which attracts the affection of every one.

There are many persons who can by no means think that God has, in a proper sense, accepted of the death of Christ in lieu of that of all men, having no idea of the possibility of transferring guilt, and consequently of transferring punishment, who yet think, that the death of Christ serves to show the divine displeasure at sin in such a manner, as that it would not have been expedient to pardon any sin without it. But the divine displeasure against sin is sufficiently manifested by the expensive means which he has employed to reform men from it, and especially by the evils which he inflicts upon those who still remain unreformed. If those who persist in a sinful course expose themselves to many evils here, and to losses in a future state, which it is impossible to estimate, these are sufficient marks of the divine pleasure, and enough to deter all wise men from pursuing a like conduct.

There are others who find themselves obliged to give up the idea of Christ dying as a sacrifice for sin, or in our stead, who say, nevertheless, that God forgives the sins of men for the sake of the merits, or at the intercession of Christ, and that this appears to be analogous to the divine conduct in other respects; as God is said to show favour to some on the account of others, and especially to have separated the Israelites on account of their relation to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their posterity plead the merit of these their religious ancestors in their prayers. God is also represented as ready to forgive the people of Sodom at the intercession of Abraham, provided there were so many righteous persons found in the place.

It is not denied, that it may be consistent with the maxims of the divine government to show favour to some persons on account of others, to whom they bear a near relation: it is a wise maxim in human governments; because we are, in many cases, as much concerned for others as for ourselves, and therefore a favour to a man's children and posterity may be the proper reward of his own merit, and also answer other ends of a reward, by being a motive to other persons to behave well.

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But favours bestowed in this manner were temporal and national kind, and related to the pos, session of the land of Canaan, or to being delivered from certain national calamities, and not to the pos session of Heaven, or deliverance from future mis

sery. Individuals are never assured that all their sins would be forgiven them on account of the merit of their ancestors, although God is represented as forgiving bodies of men in particular cases on this principle. Nor in public national affairs did a regard to it extend far; for, whenever the Jews incurred actual guilt, they were always punished, like other people, and by no means spared on account of their relation to Abraham. Nay, they are often said to be more severely punished for not im proving their privileges as his descendants.

Had Sodom been spared at the intercession of Abraham, and for the sake of ten righteous persons found in it, would that have implied that every individual in that corrupt city was brought into a state of acceptance with God, and qualified for entering upon future happiness? Or is it not rather evident, that the whole benefit of his or their merit would have extended no further than to deliver them from certain temporal judgments, and would have had no relation to future punishments?

In like manner it may be admitted, that Christ, by his great merit in dying for the benefit of mankind, may have obtained from God the honour and privilege of conferring upon the Gentiles the blessings of the Gospel, and of hereby removing the marks of divine displeasure, under which they before laboured; but this is a very different thing from what is pleaded for by the advocates for the atonement, who maintain, that every sin is pardoned, and