But if philosophy wonders here, (for which we will not blame her,) yet she has no right to scoff. If atonement by the vicarious suffering and death of Christ be a reality, it is one which the book of God only reveals. I fully agree with the naturalists in saying, that the book of nature presents nothing but a blank leaf, in respect to an atonement effected in this manner. Not one syllable can be made out from it, with any certainty. The necessity of some atonement or expiatory offering, has indeed been felt by nearly all the human race, however unenlightened; and acknowledged in the bloody sacrifices which they have offered to the gods whom they worshipped. But the method of it, as proposed in the Gospel, is quite above the discovery of unenlightened or even philosophical reason. The most rigid sect of moralists among the heathen, did not admit that pardoning mercy could with any propriety be extended to those, who had incurred the penalty. which justice demanded. Seneca declares that a wise man does not remit the punishment which he

ought to exact, (De Clementia II. 6. 7). How then could this philosopher, or those who were like him, discover or believe the doctrine of substitution or vicarious suffering by the death of the Son of God? What they never imagined, or what many when it is proposed to them regard as foolishness, God has declared to be the means of salvation. To revelation then we must go for any instruction, with regard to the doctrine of pardoning mercy through the atoning blood of Jesus.

But another view of the subject is necessarily suggested by that which has now been taken. This is, that as philosophy was unable to discover the doctrine of atonement by Christ, so she is equally incompetent to make any valid objections against it. She cannot shew that it is absurd. Could this be done, then we must admit that the doctrine of atonement by vicarious suffering would be incapable of defence; for the human mind, if it be well illuminated, and guided in its researches by candour and a love of truth, cannot receive and accredit that which is absurd. But who does not know that through ignorance, prejudice, and haste, or when influenced by erroneous philosophy, some men may pronounce things to be absurd, which the most acute, sober, and judicious think to be very rational? In regard, however, to the doctrine of substitution, the matter seems to be quite clear. Absurd this doctrine of itself cannot be called; for the wisest and best human governments, as has already been mentioned, often admit the principle, in respect to penalties incurred. But will any one venture on

account of this, to accuse civil rulers of acting irrationally and absurdly? Will any one even venture the assertion, that this principle, prudently and soberly applied, is not the means of evident gain in respect to the great ends which civil government is designed to accomplish? If not, then surely it must be conceded, that infinite power, connected with infinite wisdom and benevolence, can employ substitution in such a way as to promote the important ends of the divine government. Philosophy, most evidently, has it not in her power to disprove this; and therefore has no right to deny the possibility of it; much less to declare that the doctrine is absurd. In short, as she cannot do this, nor disprove the credit due to revelation, it is plain that the matter comes not at all within her jurisdiction.

The question in respect to substitution, then, stands high above the objections which all the efforts of philosophy can raise; equally unaffected by her sophistry at one time, or by her scorn and contumely at another.

It follows from what has been said, that the impossibility of substitution, under the divine government, cannot be established. Nay, I advance farther, and aver that so far from there being any impossibility in the case, it is a matter of fact that substitution was admitted for nearly fifteen centuries, under the Mosaic dispensation; to say nothing of the expiatory sacrifices of the patriarchal age. It was admitted too, under the Mosaic economy, as a type of the substitution or expiatory offering of Christ. Paul has taught us in the most explicit

manner, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, that all the expiatory offerings and sacrifices of the Jews were typical of the great atoning sacrifice by the death of Christ; and that they were originally designed by God to be so. Consequently, when thus authorized, we may draw a comparison from the one, in order to illustrate the other.

The expiatory offerings of the law were not a substitution, I admit, which did of itself procure a remission of the punishment due to the moral turpitude of sin; for it is impossible, as the sacred writer has told us, that the blood of goats and bullocks should take away sin, and tranquillize the conscience wounded by a sense of guilt. It could not remove the apprehension, that divine displeasure might inflict on the offender punishment of a spiritual nature. But still, it is a fact that the blood of goats and bullocks was appointed by God, to be an expiatory offering for certain offences against the Jewish law; while at the same time this very offering was also a type of the sacrifice to be offered by Christ, in order to remove the punishment due to moral turpitude. He who brought a sin or trespass offering, and presented it to the Lord, was exempted from the sentence which the law of Moses pronounced against the external offence that he had committed. The whole nation, as such, were freed from the penalty annexed to certain offences, on the great day of atonement, when the high priest entered the most holy place, and presented the blood of the national offering or victim before Jehovah; not indeed from the punishment of a spiritual nature due to sin, but from

some penalty of an external nature, threatened in the present life. In a word, God as the sovereign legislator and judge of the Jews did, by the exercise of his supreme right, actually appoint sin and trespass offerings as expiatory sacrifices; which being presented agreeably to his appointment were followed by the real remission, on his part, of the penalty due to certain offences, and threatened by the law of Moses. So the apostle himself states the subject. "The blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling those who were defiled, made expiation in respect to external purity," i. e. after the performance of such sacrificial rites, the Jews were regarded and treated, in respect to their external relations, as pure or free from exposure to the penalty threatened by the law of Moses. Heb. u. 13.

The fact just stated cannot be called in question. We have only to open the book of Leviticus, and it is at once exhibited before our eyes.

Here, then, we are presented with a case of substitution; actual substitution by the appointment of God, the supreme legislator and judge of the Jewish nation and of all men; a case in which a beast was slain instead of the criminal being punished who made an offering of it, and who had himself incurred the penalty of the Mosaic law.

But how and why such an expiation as has been described was made by the blood of slain beasts, different persons have endeavoured, and might endeavour, to explain in various ways. I cannot enter at all here, into the discussion of this point Suffice it to say, that all who admit the reasoning in