own, nor ther is the Greek word, translated sin, nor the God, whoord answering to it, ever taken in such a sense. 3. "the Apostle has attributed this act to God; it says, who made him to be sin; but he certainly did h he cause the Jews and others to esteem Christ a wicked one. On the contrary, by a voice from heaven, and by paracles, he did all that was proper to prove to all men xis innocence. Farther, St. Paul places 'sin' and righteousness' in opposition to each other-we are made the righteousness of God,' that is, are justified and freed from Divine punishment; but in order to this, Christ was made sin,' or bore our punishment. There is also another antithesis in the Apostle's words-God made him who knew no sin, and consequently deserved no punishment, to be sin; that is, it pleased him that he should be punished; but Christ was innocent, not only according to human laws, but according to the law of God; the antithesis, therefore, requires us to understand that he bore the penalty of the law, and that he bore it in our stead."-Watson.

1 Pet. iii. 18: For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but quickened by the Spirit.?

1. "This text declares that Christ suffered for sins.

2. "It was was not his own sins for which he suffered, for he was without sin, but he suffered the just for the unjust,' his sufferings were, therefore, vicarious.

3. "The object of his sufferings was that he might bring us to God; his sufferings, therefore, must have been necessary in order to our salvation.

4. "To show that the salvation of sinners depends upon the merits of Christ's death, and not upon the influence of his example and truth, revealed in his gospel aside from his death, the Apostle refers the whole te his passion: He suffered for sin, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh.'

"Heb, ix. 28; So Christ was once offered to bear

the sins of many. Chapter ii. 9: But we see Jesus, &c., that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.' This class of texts might be multiplied to almost any extent, but it is unnecessary to add, enough has been produced to show, beyond dispute, that Christ did suffer for sinners, and that he suffered and died by Divine appointment on the part of the Father, and as a free-will offering on his own part. The death of Christ, then, must have been an atonement for sinners, essential to their salvation, or it would never have been voluntarily endured by himself or sanctioned by the Father."-Lee.

II. "The death of Christ is expressly represented in the New Testament as penal, which it could not be in any other way than by his taking our place, and suffer ing in our stead. This is manifest from Gallatians iii, 13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse [an execration] for us, for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.' The passage in Moses, to which Paul refers, is Deut. xxi. 22, 23: 'If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and be put to death, and they hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day, for he that is hanged is accursed of God, that thy land be not defiled.' This infamy was only inflicted upon great offenders, and was designed to show the light in which the person thus exposed was viewed by God-he was a curse or execration. On this the remarks of Grotius are most forcible and conclusive.-'Socinus says, that to be an execration means to be under the punishment of execration, which is true. For cursed every where denotes punishment proceeding from the sanction of law: 2 Pet. ii. 14; Mark xxv. 41. Socinus also admits that the cross of Christ was this curse; his cross, therefore, had the nature of punishment, which is what we maintain. Perhaps Socinus allows that the cross of Christ was a punishment, because Pilate, as a judge,

inflicted it; but this does not come up to the intention of the Apostle; for, in order to prove that Christ was made obnoxious to punishment, he cites Moses, who expressly asserts, that whoever hangs on a tree, according to the Divine law, is accursed of God, consequently, in the words of the Apostle, who cites this place of Moses, and refers it to Christ, we must supply the same circumstance, accursed of God, as if it had said Christ was made accursed of God, or obnoxious to the highest and most ignominious punishment for us, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, &c. For when the Apostles speak of the sufferings of Christ in reference to our good, they do not regard the acts of men in them, but the act of God."'".

III. This doctrine may also be argued from those passages of Holy Scripture which represent the death of Christ as a propitiation for our sins. For, "to propitiate is to appease, to atone, to turn away the wrath of an offended person. In the case before us, the wrath turned away is the wrath of God; the person making the propitiation is Christ; the propitiating offering or sacrifice is his blood. All this is expressed in most explicit terms in the following passages: 1 John ii. 2: And he is the propitiation for our sins." 1 John iv. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God; but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' Rom. iii. 25: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood."

Unitarians have no way of evading the force of these passages, but by denying the existence of wrath in God. This they do in hopes "of proving that propitiation, in a proper sense, cannot be the doctrine of Scripture, whatever may be the force of the terms which the sacred writers employ. In order to give plausibility to their statement, they pervert and caricature the opinion of the orthodox, and argue as though it formed a part of the doctrine of Christ's propitiation and oblation for sin, that God is naturally an implacable and vengeful

being, only made placable and disposed to show mercy by satisfaction being made to his displeasure through our Lord's sufferings and death. This is as contrary to Scripture as it is to the opinions of all sober persons who hold the doctrine of Christ's atonement. God is Love; but it is not necessary, in order to support this truth, to assume that he is nothing else. He has, as we have seen other attributes, which harmonize with this and with each other, though, assuredly, that harmony cannot be exhibited by any who deny the propitiation for sin made by the death of Christ. Their system, therefore, obliges them to deny the existence of some of the attributes of God, or to explain them away.

"It is sufficient to show that there is not only no implacability in God, but a most tender and placable affection toward the sinning human race itself, that the Son of God, by whom the propitiation was made, was the free gift of the Father to us. This is the most eminent proof of his love, that for our sakes, and that mercy might be extended to us, 'he spared not his own Son; but delivered him up freely for us all.' Thus he is the fountain and first moving cause of that scheme of recovery and salvation which the incarnation and death of our Lord brought into full and efficient operation. The question, indeed, is not whether God is love, or whether he is of a placable nature; in that we are agreed; but it is, whether GoD is holy and just ; whether we, his creatures, are under law or not; whether this law has any penalty, and whether GoD, in his rectoral character, is bound to execute and uphold that law." "These are points which no one can deny; and as the justice of God is punitive, (for if it is not punitive, his laws are a dead letter,) then is there wrath in God; then is God angry with the wicked; then is man, as a sinner, obnoxious to this anger; and so a propitiation becomes necessary to turn it away from him. Nor are these terms unscriptural; they are used in the

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New Testament as emphatically as in the old, though in a special sense, a revelation of the mercy of God to man. John the Baptist declares, that, if any man believeth not on the Son of God, the wrath of God abideth upon him.' St. Paul declares, that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.' The day of judgment is, with reference to the ungodly, said to be the day of wrath; God is called a consuming fire;' and as such, is the object of reverence and godly fear.' Nor is this his displeasure light; and the consequences of it a trifling and temporary inconvenience. When we only regard the consequences which have followed sin in society, from the earliest ages, and in every part of the world, and add to these the many direct and fearful inflictions of punishment which have proceeded from the Judge of the whole earth,' to use the language of Scripture, our flesh may well tremble because of his judgments.' But when we look at the future state of the wicked, as it is represented in Scripture, though expressed generally, and surrounded as it is with the mys tery of a world, and a condition of being, unknown to us in the present state, all evils which history has crowded into the lot of man, appear insignificant in comparison to banishment from God-separation from the good-public condemnation torment of spirit-'weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth'everlasting destruction everlasting fire. Let men talk ever so much, and eloquently, of the pure benevolence of God, they cannot abolish the facts recorded in the history of human suffering in this world as the effect of transgression; nor can they discharge these fearful comminations from the pages of the Book of GOD. They cannot be criticised away; and if it is Jesus who saved us from this wrath to come,' that is, from those effects of the wrath of God which are to come, then, but for him, we should have been liable to them. That principle in God, from which such effects follow, the Scriptures call

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