in the sight of God. All these things the doctrine of satisfaction teacheth. It is left to the candid reader to determine whether a doctrine which dissolves every moral obligation, destroys personal responsibility, and renders personal righteousness unnecessary in order to our acceptance with God, can fail to have a licentious tendency.

Finally. The satisfaction scheme attributes to God what would be deemed vicious and criminal in men. It supposes him to give his creatures a law which none of them could perfectly obey, at least since Adam first sinned; that he notwithstanding condemns and curses them for not perfectly obeying it, and that he would spare sinners only on the ground of the innocent Jesus bearing the penalties of this impracticable law in their place and stead :-that God himself plotted and contrived the death of his beloved Son, who always did those things which pleased him, that he turned all his wrath against him and slew him with his vengeful sword. It makes God unreasonable in his demands; by representing him as requiring what is impracticable, and punishing for the non-performance of it. It describes him as plotting, and spending his eternal thoughts about, what nothing but the wickedness of men could copy out and execute. If the treatment which Christ received at the hands of the Jews, be justly execrated, how much more execrable must it appear to plot and decree all they did, to be the author of what they were only the instruments! how horrible to ascribe such a diabolical plot to the Father of mercies, and

t

Yet this

make him the prime author and agent of all the cruel treatment his Son received! Further, it supposes God to do what is declared an abomination to him, what would be a breach of his own law, i. e. to condemn and slay the innocent. It supposes the infinite Father of mercies to slaughter his own innocent and obedient child. What should we think of that Father, who being full of wrath, and brandishing his sword against those who had offended, because his innocent and obedient Son, from the most virtuous and generous principles, stepped between him and them, should plunge it in his heart, and vent all the fury of his indignation upon him? Would you not shudder at the view of such a character? is the light in which the notion of satisfaction for sins places the divine character. The eternal principles of justice and goodness are invariably the same, at all times, in all places, and in all. beings. That cannot, in the nature of things, be just and good in one being which would be unjust and evil in another. If that could be just and good in God which would be unjust and evil in men he would cease to be a fit object of imitation to his creatures; but the highest point at which a creature can aim is to be like God: in him every thing we, upon the most correct principles, call just, good and excellent must exist in infinite perfection; and every thing that would be unjust and evil in creatures must be alien, and infinitely distant from him: it follows that a doctrine which imputes to the Almighty what would stamp infamy on the character of a frail man cannot be true.

1

In this chapter I have endeavoured to point out the contradictions and absurdities involved in the doctrine of satisfaction, the consequences to which it leads, and to place it before the reader, as represented by its professed advocates, in its various ten dencies, and bearings against reason and scripture. I do not charge the consequences involved in this doctrine upon those who maintain it; I expect they will not admit them; I charge only the doctrine upon them, this they receive as true; and the consequences involved I charge upon the doctrine. I appeal to the unbiased reader whether it do not involve every thing I have charged upon it. I have used no arguments but what I think fair and just ; that either their fairness or force will be admitted by those who are determined, at all events, to retain the notions against which they are directed I do not expect; but I hope they may be thought of some weight by those who are disposed to enquire after truth, who are not afraid to re-examine what they have already believed, and who are willing to attend to evidence on both sides an important question. From the bigotted devotees of a system I expect nothing but censure and reproach; but from the candid and liberal I hope to obtain, at least, a fair hearing. If my arguments be weak and pointless they may be borne with the more patience, there will be the less reason for those who espouse the doctrine I oppose to to be alarmed and angry on the occasion, and it certainly will be the more easy to refute them. If any erson, who thinks the doctrine of satisfaction a

fundamental article of christian faith, can, and will, fairly answer the arguments contained in this chapter, he shall have my thanks, I will lay aside my objections to that doctrine, and quit the ground on which I now stand. Truth is the only object worth pursuing, and let it be followed, on whatever side it may appear, or to wherever it may lead. If the arguments I have constructed should alarm the advocates for the doctrine against which I plead, if they show themselves angry on the occasion, use what means they can to keep persons from attending to and examining what I have said, and load the person who has dared to attack one of their favorite tenets with censure and reproach, I shall consider this as a fresh proof of the vulnerableness of their cause, and conceive that I have made some impres sion on the lines of reputed orthodoxy.

1

-On one point I would add a remark here. I know our opponents will cry out that they do not deny either the mercy of God, or the doctrine of free grace, or the free forgiveness of sins, or the propriety of the prayers of the penitent; but that they steadily maintain these things. It is readily granted that they do not professedly deny, but maintain these things; yet it is contended that their favorite tenet of satisfaction is incompatible with them: this is all that is asserted in the preceding arguments; and, until this can be disproved, their system stands charged with many contradictions, and they with maintaining a doctrine inimical to the system of free grace displayed in the gospel, I

CHAPTER THIR D.

An attempt to account for the rise of the Doctrine of Satisfaction among Christians, and its continuance to the present day.

IT may be asked, if the doctrine of satisfaction be without foundation in scripture, how are we to account for its rise and continuance? To answer this enquiry is the design of the present chapter. It

is

very evident that christianity has for ages been grossly corrupted, both in doctrine and worship: and, as the above doctrine is not only without foundation in the gospel, but opposed to the whole tenor of it, it must be reckoned among the corruptions of christianity. Its rise and continuance may be accounted for on the same general principles.

1. A dereliction of virtue and moral excellence has in all ages been too prevalent; and men have been desirous of finding some succedaneum for personal rectitude and obedience to the will of God. The man habituated to vicious courses, and hackneyed in the ways of sin, cannot easily be brought to think that the safety of his state wholly depends on an entire renovation of heart and life. To believe a dogma is more easy than to make a new heart No