.ven.

is paid nothing remains to forgive. To talk of forgiveness after full payment is made is ridiculous. If sinners be acquited only on the ground of Christ's having made full payment of all the demands of justice on them, there can be no such thing as the free forgiveness of sins. If all the penalties due to the sinner were inflicted on Christ, no penalty is remitted, and where no penalty is remitted nothing is forgiOne writer in defence of satisfaction (quoted in the preceding chapter) is ingenuous enough to acknowledge, that, on the ground of that doctrine, in a strict and proper sense the infinite God doth not forgive sin.' But if this be true the Most High, is no longer A God pardoning iniquity, transgression and sin; there is not forgiveness with him; forgivenesses belong not to him. What shall we do in this case shall we give up every thing we read in the scriptures concerning pardon and forgiveness that we may retain the unscriptural notion of satisfaction? No, we will let that notion go, however orthodox it may be esteemed, and cleave to the orthodoxy of the Prophets and Apostles, believing that God will freely pardon the penitent sinner, that he is ever ready to forgive, and rejoicing that he hath forgiven us all trespasses.

11. It is no where said, in the sacred writings, that God pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by transgression, because he hath received satisfaction on behalf of the sinner; yet this should have been said, if he forgive sinners only on the ground of his being first satisfied, by a righteous person's bearing all the

penalties incurred by them in their place and stead but it is said that he pardoneth iniquity, transgression, and sin, because he delighteth in mercy. If it be on account of the pleasure he taketh in the exercise of mercy that he forgives, it cannot be on ac-count of his wrath being atoned, and his justice satisfied, by the sufferings of an innocent person.

12. Sinners are no where, in the sacred oracles, encouraged to expect pardon from God on the ground of his having received satisfaction on their behalf; yet this is the only ground on which they should be encouraged to look for pardon, if what the advocates for satisfaction contend for be true, and this is the ground on which they encourage sinners to expect salvation; but the scriptures assure us that the pe nitent sinner shall be forgiven,-that whoso confess eth and forsaketh his sins shall find mercy,-that if the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and return unto the LORD, he will have mercy upon him, and abundantly pardon, without adding one word about satisfaction being first necessary.

13. Jesus Christ taught the doctrine of forgiveness of sins, and illustrated it by parables; but he gave no intimation that a substitute was necessary to pay the debts of sinners, or satisfy for their sins, before they could be forgiven. Take, for instance, the parable of the two debtors. Luke vii. 41, 42, There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty : and when they had nothing to pay he frankly forgave

them both. Here was a fit occasion for Christ to have introduced a surety as paying the debt, and no doubt he would have done it had it been illustrative of God's method of saving sinners. An advocate for the popular notion of atonement would not have failed to insist on the necessity of the debt being paid before justice could suffer it to be cancelled, that as the debtor could not pay it himself some other person must pay it for him; but Christ gave not the least intimation that a surety was necessary to pay the debt, or that any payment was required, indeed what he said proves that the debt was cancelled without being paid; he made the consideration which led to the cancelling of it to be, not the payment of its amount by a sponsor, but the inability of the debtor to pay any thing: this was his method of illustrating the way in which God forgives sins, and saves sinners. In another parable (Matt. xviii. 23-35,) he represented forgiveness as bestowed in consideration of penitence and prayer, and that if any thing prevent the sinner, who supplicates for it, receiving the remission of sins, it is his not acting in a proper disposition to others. In the whole account, Christ dropped not one word respecting either debtor, or creditor, supposing a third person must pay the debt before it could be forgiven; but throughout he represented it either as cancelled without payment, or as still standing against the principal. Hence it is clear Jesus Christ gave no countenance to the popular notion of atonement, but taught an opposite doctrine. If the doctrine of sa

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tisfaction be true, it must be the most important article in the affair of forgiveness, and such I believe its advocates esteem it; but, were this the case, it would be very strange that Christ should be totally silent respecting this most important article when expressly illustrating the way of forgiveness. This argument is strengthened by the remembrance that when Jesus said, he had power on earth to forgive sins, he gave not the least intimation that he had bought and must pay for that power; which would be the fact on the supposition of satisfaction; for, if no sin could be forgiven unless its punishment was borne, he must have bought and paid for the power of forgiving it by bearing that punishment.

14. The law of God has been placed in a false light by the belief of the doctrine of satisfaction. Hence the divine law has been represented as requiring of us what is impracticable, as being a mere covenant of works, as knowing nothing of mercy; and it has been said, that no man since Adam, except Christ, ever did or could keep it, and that it would be dishonored if a sinner were pardoned without an innocent victim's first suffering its penalties. On these points I will animadvert.

By the phrase, the Law, as it is generally used by the sacred writers, I understand, that code, or dispensation, which was given to Israel, during the ministry of Moses. This law was not in being until it was given at Mount Sinai, it was given by Moses; John i. 17, consequently, its penalties could not attach to those who lived before it was given; for it

cannot reasonably be supposed that God will judge his creatures by an er post facto law. The law and its penalties could never belong to any but those to whom it was given; for it would be charging God foolishly to suppose he would subject his creatures to the penalties of a law which he never gave them, but of which they were unavoidably ignorant. The law was never given to the Gentiles, but to the people of Israel only: Paul said the Gentiles had not the law; Rom. ii. 14, and that what things soever the law said, it said to them who were under it, Chap. iii. 19, meaning the Jews. Christ did not extend the law beyond the jewish nation: he did not commission his Apostles to carry it to the Gentiles : he sent the gospel, not the law, to be preached to all nations. The law was superseded by the full introduction of the gospel: by the more perfect code, or dispensation, which Christ introduced: so Paul contended (Gal. iii. 24, 25.) that the law was a school-master unto Christ; but that after faith, or the truth of the gospel, is come, we are no longer under the law: hence it is clear that the ministration of the law terminated when the ministration of the gospel was fully introduced. It follows that whatever curses the law denounced, whatever penalties were incurred by the breach of it, they did not attach to the Gentiles who had not the law, they cannot belong to those who live under the gospel, for the ministration of the law extends not to them; it also follows, that Christ could not bear the curse of the law for us Gentiles who were never under it,