entirely at the disposal of his Creator; and it would be presumptuous in him to offer to the Almighty to suffer the punishment of another man's sins, for every man has to bear his own iniquity, and every man may know, that if God were to enter into judgment with him, this is a load more than sufficient for him.

When you turn to human judgments, you will find nothing exactly similar to what is called a satisfaction for sin by the sufferings of Christ; and a little attention will satisfy you that the dissimilarity is not accidental, but is founded on the nature of things. In those cases in which the penalty incurred by breach of contract is a sum of money, or a prestation that may be performed by any one, he who pays the sum, or does the service for the person originally bound, undergoes what may properly be called vicarious punishment; but he cannot be said to make satisfaction, because he does the very thing which was required, and the liberation of the pannel becomes, in consequence, of such substitution, a matter of right, not of favour. In those cases in which the penalty incurred is a punishment that attaches to the person of the pannel, as imprisonment, banishment, stripes, or death, human law does not admit of substitution, because in all such cases there cannot be that concurrence of the acceptance of the lawgiver, and the valid consent of the substitute, without which substitution is illegal. Corporal chastisement and imprisonment for a limited time are intended not only as examples to others, but as a method of reforming the vices of the criminal,-they are a medicine which must be administered, not to another, but to the patient. Perpetual imprisonment, banishment, and death, are inflicted upon those whom the law considers as incorrigible; and besides being examples, are intended to prevent the danger of any further harm being done to the community by the persons who are thus punished. But if another were punished in their stead, the danger would still exist; at least it is impossible for human government to judge how far the lesson administered by the punishment of another would correct the vice of those who deserved to have suffered it.

There was a circumstance in the practice of ancient nations, which may appear to furnish an exception to these remarks; for it is known that, in the intercourse of states, hostages were often given as a security that a treaty should be fulfilled; and that in private causes, persons called arrivo pledged their own lives for the lives of those who had been convicted of a capital crime. If the nation did not fulfil the contract, the hostage was put to death;-if the criminal did not appear, the surety was executed. But there are two essential points of dissimilarity between these cases and the subject of which we are now speaking. The first is, that neither the nation nor the criminal was liberated by this vicarious suffering. The criminal was amenable to the sentence of the law, whenever he was apprehended, although the arros had suffered; and the nation was considered as having broken the treaty, although it had sacrificed its citizen. And thus in the sufferings inflicted upon hostages and sureties, there was not that translation of guilt by which the punishment of one person takes away the obligation of another to suffer punishment. But the second point of dissimilarity is still more essential. Supposing it had been understood as a part of the law of nations, that the punishment

of a hostage cancelled the obligation of a treaty; supposing it had been part of the criminal jurisprudence of any country, that one subject might be carried forth to execution in place of another who had been condemned to die, still such substitution would have been unjust: it might have expressed the sentiments of those times with regard to vicarious punishment, but it could not have reconciled that punishment with the eternal law of righteousness, because no man is entitled to consent that his life shall be given in place of the life of another. He has power to dispose of his goods and of his labour, in any way that is not contrary to the laws of God, or the regulations of the community under whose protection he lives; but he has not power to dispose of his life, which he received from his Creator, which he is bound to preserve during the pleasure of him who gave it, and of the improvement of which he has to render an account. A man, A man, indeed, is often called to expose his life to danger in the discharge of his duty; and it is not the part either of a man or of a Christian to value life so much as, for the sake of preserving it, to decline doing what he ought to do. But that he may be warranted to make a sacrifice inconsistent with the first law of his nature, the law of self-preservation, it should be clearly marked out to him to be his duty, by circumstances not of his own choosing. It is true also, that the first principles of social union give the rulers of the state a right to call forth the subjects in the most hazardous services, because a nation cannot exist unless it be defended by the members. But if, in consequence of this connexion with the community, a good citizen should not feel himself at liberty to decline when he is sent as an hostage, and if he should be put to death because the nation from which he came did not fulfil the treaty, the illegality of the substitution would only be transferred from the individual who did his duty in obeying, to the community who took the life of a subject, not to defend the state, but to leave the state at liberty to break its faith. To the arriva of the ancients there was not the apology of a public order. Theirs was a private act, proceeding often, it may be, from the most laudable sentiments, but exceeding the powers given to man, and upon that account invalid.

The purpose of this long deduction was to account for what might at first sight appear an objection to the Catholic opinion, that of all the instances commonly alleged as similar, there are none which can properly be called a satisfaction by vicarious punishment; and the amount of the deduction is this: The imperfect knowledge, which every human lawgiver has of the circumstances of the case, disqualifies him from judging how far the ends of punishment may be attained by substitution, so that it is wiser for him to follow the established course of justice which lays the punishment upon the transgressor: and in capital punishments the law of nature forbids substitution; because no warmth of affection, and no apprehension of utility, warrant a man voluntarily to sacrifice that life which is the gift of God to him, merely that another who deserved to die might live. For these reasons I said, that in every thing which seems to approach to a substitution amongst men, there is wanting that concurrence of the acceptance of the lawgiver, and the consent of the substitute, without which substitution is illegal. But these two circumstances meet in

the substitution of Christ; and it is this peculiar concurrence which forms the complete vindication of the Catholic opinion.

Jesus Christ was capable of giving his consent to suffer and to die for the sins of men, because he had that power over his life which a mere man cannot have. Death did not come upon him by the condition of his being; but having existed from all ages in the form of God, he assumed, at a particular season, the fashion of a man, for this very cause that he might suffer and die. All the parts of his sufferings were known to him before he visited this world; he saw the consequences of them both to mankind and to himself; and, with every circumstance fully in his view, he said unto his Father, as it is written in the volume of God's book concerning him, "Lo! I come to do thy will, O God!"* His own words mark most explicitly that he had that power over his life which a mere man has not; "No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again ;" and upon this power, peculiar to Jesus, depends the significancy of that expression which his Apostles use concerning him, "he gave himself for us," i. e. with a valid deliberate consent he acted in all that he suffered as our substitute.

It affords a favourable view of the consistency of the Catholic opinion, that the very same dignity of character, which qualified the substitute to give his consent, implies the strongest reasons for the acceptance of the Lawgiver,-the other circumstance which must concur in order to render vicarious suffering a satisfaction to justice. The support, which the human nature of Jesus received from his divine, enabled him to sustain that wrath which the Lawgiver saw meet to lay upon a person who was bearing the sins of the world. The exalted character of the sufferer exhibited to the rational creation the evil and heinousness of sin, which the Supreme Lawgiver did not choose to forgive without such a substitution; and the love of God to the human race, which led him to accept of the sufferings of a substitute, was illustrated in the most striking manner, by his not sparing for such a purpose a person so dear to him as his own Son.

These grounds of the reasonableness of the Catholic opinion, which we deduce from the character of the substitute, have no necessary connexion with some assertions which occur in many theological books. It has been said, that our sins, being committed against the infinite majesty of Heaven, deserved an infinite punishment; that none but an infinite person could pay an equivalent, and therefore that God could not pardon sin without the sufferings of his Son. This manner of speaking, which pretends to balance one infinite against another, must be unintelligible to finite minds; and as far as it can be understood, it appears to be unjustifiable; because it ill becomes creatures whose sphere of observation is so narrow, and whose faculties are so weak as ours, to say what God could do, or what he could not do. It has also been said, that such was the value of the sufferings of Christ, that one drop of his blood was sufficient to wash away the sins of the world. This is a manner of speaking which appears to be both presumptuous and false; because, under the

semblance of magnifying the Redeemer, it ascribes cruelty and injustice to the Father in the measure of suffering which he laid upon his Son. Neither are we warranted to say, that the purpose of making an atonement for the sins of men contains the whole account of the sufferings of Christ; because there may be in this transaction what the Scriptures call a manifold wisdom to us unsearchable; reasons founded upon relations to other parts of the universe, and upon the general plan of the divine government, which we have not at present the capacity of apprehending. It is of great importance to vindicate the Catholic opinion from that appearance of presumption, which the language of some of its zealous friends has annexed to it. But such language is by no means essential to the statement of this opinion. We do not say what God could have done, or what were all the reasons for his doing what we think the Scriptures tell us he has done but we say, that in the revelation which is given of the dignity of Jesus Christ, we discern both that he was capable of giving consent, and that he is such a substitute as it became the Lawgiver to accept. It appears then to follow, from what has been stated, that when the sins of the penitent are forgiven upon account of the substitution of the sufferings of Christ, the authority of the divine government is as completely vindicated as if transgressors had suffered all the punishment which they deserved; at the same time, the most tender compassion is displayed to the human race, so that the Supreme Lawgiver appears both merciful and just. The harmony with which the divine perfections unite in this scheme, is considered by those who hold the Catholic opinion, as a strong internal evidence, that it is the true interpretation of Scripture. For it has been often said, and it must always be repeated when this subject is discussed, that had the gospel been a simple declaration of forgiveness to all that repent, men would both have felt that a general act of indemnity, so easily pronounced, was an encouragement to sin; and, instead of being deeply impressed with the richness of that grace from which it flowed, might have regarded it as an ordinary exertion of divine goodness, of the same rank with those bounties of Providence which are daily communicated. Whereas the preparation, the solemnity, and the expense, which, according to the Catholic opinion, attended the pronouncing of this act, at once enhances the value, and guards against the abuse of it. When we behold the Son of God descending from heaven, that he might bear our sins in his body on the tree, and the forgiveness of sins preached through the name of a crucified Saviour, we read in the charter which conveys our pardon, that there is a deep malignity in sin, and we learn to adore the kindness and love of God which, at such a price, brought us deliverance. All those declarations of the placability of the divine nature, which the Socinians quote in support of their system, are thus allowed by the Catholic opinion their full force. We say as they do, that the Lord God is merciful and gracious, and ready to forgive; and although we contend that pardon is dispensed only upon account of the sufferings of Christ, yet, far from thinking that the love of God is in this way obscured, we hold that this manner of dispensing pardon is the brightest display of the greatness of the divine mercy. But we claim it as the peculiar advantage of the Catholic opinion, that according to it, the display of

mercy is conjoined with an exhibition of the evil of sin; and when we advance to other parts of the subject, we say further, that the remedy thus procured is dispensed and applied in a manner wisely calculated to give the most effectual check to those abuses, of which so striking an instance of the divine compassion is susceptible.

SECTION II.

We have seen that, from the nature of the thing, nothing exactly similar to vicarious punishment is to be found in the transactions of men with one another. But if vicarious punishment is the foundation of the gospel remedy, that analogy which, from other circumstances, we know to pervade all the dispensations of religion from the beginning of the world, leads us to expect, in the previous intercourse between man and his Creator, some intimation of this method of saving sinners. As soon as we turn our attention to this subject, we are struck with the universal use of sacrifice. A worshipper bringing an animal to be slain at the altar of his God, presents an obvious resemblance, which has been eagerly laid hold of by those who defend the doctrine of pardon by substitution; and yet you will find, that much discussion and an accurate discrimination are necessary, before any sound and clear argument in favour of that doctrine can be warrantably drawn from this general practice. For, in the first place, many of the sacrifices of the heathen were merely eucharistical expressions of gratitude for blessings received, or festivals in honour of the deity worshipped by the sacrifice, at which he was supposed to be present, and in which it was conceived by the vulgar that he partook. Even the votive and propitiatory sacrifices, i. e. those which expressed a wish of the worshipper, and his earnest desire to obtain the favour of the deity, may be considered as only a method of supplication, in which a solemn action accompanied the words that were used; or as a bribe, by which the worshipper, presenting what was most precious in his own sight, solicited the protection of his god.

But, in the second place, although there were sacrifices among the heathen which approached nearer to the notion of a substitution, it is not certain whether they were of divine or of human original. To some the universality and the nature of the practice taken together appear to furnish a strong presumption, or even a clear proof, that it was in the beginning commanded by God; whilst others think, that by attending to the state of the mind under the influence of religious emotions, and to the early mode of speaking by action, a reasonable and natural account can be given of the introduction and progress of sacrifice, without having recourse to the authority of the Creator and there are many to whom it appears a strange method of defending a peculiar doctrine of revelation, to have recourse to a practice, which, although it originated in sentiments dictated to all men by particular situations, and might at first be innocent and expressive, is known to have degenerated in process of time, not, merely into a frivolous service, but into cruel and shocking rites.

I know few subjects upon which more has been written to less