ANIMADVERSIONS OF A CALVINIST ON

CALVINISTIC WRITERS.

THE following observations were intended to accompany a brief review of a work on "The Atonement of the Lamb," by the Rev. Peter Carmichael of Penpont, which appeared in our last number. From want of space, they had to be delayed; and are now given in this separate form, and nearly as originally written. They refer to some things which we think liable to objection, even in authors generally orthodox, and who take the Calvinistic side:

First, It appears to be the general practice, to discuss and prove the Necessity of the atonement, before considering its Nature. Not only is this the order followed by Mr Carmichael, in the work alluded to, but, so far as we are aware, by the generality of evangelical writers on the subject. Now, this seems bad arrangement; it is manifestly illogical; it is an inverting of the natural order, and must perplex both the writer and the reader. How can we see the necessity of any thing, without some correct idea of what it is? And to the atonement of the Lamb, this applies particularly. It can only be seen to be necessary, when understood. Were it a thing, about the nature of which all are agreed, or which there is no difficulty in comprehending, we might proceed to prove the necessity of it, without any previous reference to its nature. But it is not so; it is the very opposite : different opinions are held regarding it, and not only so, but egregious errors. Some give one explanation of it, and some another. It is called by one party a mere display, or manifestation of God's opposition to sin, and, accordingly, a vindication of only his public justice. By others, it is represented as a general remedy, rendering the salvation of all possible, but securing salvation to none. The strictly Calvinistic, again, regard it as a real and proper satisfaction for sin, and such a satisfaction as actually secures the reconciliation of all its objects to God, and the ultimate bringing of them to glory; and there are various other views of it entertained; so that the character and history of it are rather an additional argument for explaining it, before speaking of its necessity. It may be described as necessary, in very brief and general terms, previous to discussing its nature; but in order to a particular discussion of its necessity, some account of the nature of it is indispensable. You cannot prove it to be necessary, indeed, to the vindication of the divine character, and particularly of the divine justice, without bringing the nature of it specifically into view. The justice of God renders it necessary, just because it is a thing of that nature which justice has a right to demand, and with which it cannot dispense. On this point, however, we do not enlarge, but leave it to the consideration of our readers, and especially of any among them who may find themselves called to write upon the subject of our Lord's work.

Secondly, It is a fault in many sound writers on the atonement, that they speak of Christ's work in the room of his people as if it were a mere satisfaction for sin. This remark applies particularly to Mr Car

M

แ

michael himself. He declares that the death of the Lamb in the room of sinners, was the payment of their debt of obedience, and their debt of suffering, and, consequently, a real and proper satisfaction to the retributive justice of God." He thus seems to resolve both Christ's obedience and suffering into the endurance of the law's penalty; and the generality of Calvinistic authors express themselves often in similar terms. But the Saviour's obedience and suffering comprehended more than the endurance of the law's penalty. What did Christ, in becoming the Redeemer of perishing men, engage to do? He engaged to do all that they were bound to, as under the broken covenant of works. He is accordingly styled the Second Adam. When Adam failed, he took Adam's place, undertaking to do the work which, to law and justice, Adam, as our covenant head, was due. But this work was not merely atonement, or satisfaction to offended justice for sin. One grand part of it was, obedience to the laws precepts. This was the condition of the covenant of works, and the ground on which, according to that covenant, not only Adam himself, but his posterity, were to have obtained eternal life. Christ, therefore, had to afford this obedience, as the fulfilment of the condition of the old covenant. His atonement and obedience are two distinct things. The former was necessary to satisfy offended justice, for the sins of those who were to be saved; and the latter to procure for them a title to heaven. Deliverance from death, is the fruit of the one, and God's favour and immortality, the fruit of the other. This is not only the doctrine of Scripture, which represents Christ as obeying the law, as well as enduring its penalty, and declares that it became him to fulfil all righteousness, but of the most orthodox and eminent divines. It was the doctrine of all the " Marrow men," and of the "Founders of the Secession," and particularly of the Erskines, whose praise is in all the Churches, and than whom few ever preached the gospel more scripturally, or with greater success. How clearly is it expressed in the following questions and answers, on the topic of the covenant of grace, by the elder of these celebrated authors: Why was righteousness of life, or perfect conformity to the law, necessary, as a conditionary article in the covenant? Because Adam, as a public head, having failed in his obedience, there could be no entering into life for him, or any of his natural seed, without keeping the commandments by the surety." "How came satisfaction for sin to be a conditionary article in the new covenant? Because the covenant of works being broken, and the penalty thereof incurred, the holiness, justice, and veracity of God, insisted, that without shedding of blood, there should be no remission." Though, therefore, the expressions, the blood of Christ, the death of Christ, and the atonement, may be sometimes employed in Scripture, as including both his obedience and satisfaction, yet the two things must not be confounded; and though it may be warrantable for ministers, both in writing and preaching, when their meaning cannot be mistaken, to use occasionally the expression atonement in this comprehensive sense, or in the way of putting a part for the whole; they ought certainly to be careful never so to speak or write, as to make it be supposed, that what Christ did as our substitute, had

nothing in it but satisfaction for sin. Not guarding against this, must tend to propagate the errors which Mr Carmichael and others are so anxious to check; for it is a leading view of the New Theologians, that, in order to the sinner's salvation, nothing more than mere atonement was necessary. Even Dr Payne, who does not go the length of some of them, but holds by the system of the late Dr Wardlaw, will admit of nothing in the Saviour's work but atonement. He is puzzled, he confesses, to know what to make of Christ's obedience, but declares that he thinks it should be thrown into the matter of the atonement, because it was honouring to the law. This sentiment with regard to the matter of our Lord's work, lies greatly, indeed, at the foundation of the whole of the new view system. Ought not the friends of truth, therefore, to be cautious against using phraseology that would seem to countenance it? Did we hear oftener, from both the pulpit and the press, about Christ's "substitutionary work," his "doing and dying," his "obedience unto death," his "law-magnifying, justicesatisfying, and surety-righteousness," his delivering of his people from the law as a covenant, in both its "commanding and condemning power," and so forth, we would have more ground of confidence as to the maintenance of sound doctrine, and the reformation and prosperity of the Church.

Thirdly,-Some, generally considered sound on the atonement, define it as "infinitely sufficient, but limited in its destination." They mean that, intrinsically considered, it is sufficient for the salvation of all, but intended for only those who shall be saved. They have a horror of what they call "the exact equivalent scheme," and think this scheme of all-sufficiency, with limited destination, more scriptural, and less liable to objection. There can be no doubt, that the Saviour's work is infinitely sufficient, and that no more than what he did would have been required, though God had intended to save every human being; but still, the expression limited destination, even accompanied with that of infinite sufficiency, does not bring out properly and fully its character. Christ's righteousness was the work of a surety, and, in the strictest sense, as we have already seen, substitutionary. But neither substitution nor suretyship is implied necessarily in limited destination. A person may be destined, or appointed to perform certain work for the benefit of others, and also be perfectly qualified, and yet not sustain the character of their surety. The Morisonian maintains, that Christ was destined to die for the sins of the whole human race, but denies that he died as the surety of any. This new coined expression, as descriptive of our Lord's work, reminds one very much of the expression "purposed efficacy," employed in the United Secession Church, during the heat of the controversy in that body; and "purposed efficacy" has been regarded as approximating extremely near to Dr Wardlaw's view, of the atonement being for all, but limited in its application; so that there is a danger, by deviating from old orthodox phraseology, of sliding into universal atonement altogether. But why so much dread of Christ's work for his people being denominated an equivalent? We are disposed to think, that it was only an equivalent that could serve the end for which his work

was required. What is an equivalent? It is a thing equal in value to what it is an equivalent for. But was not the work of the Redeemer in our room thus an equivalent? Had it not in it value sufficient to satisfy every claim of either law or justice? Was not his obedience perfect obedience, and his satisfaction perfect satisfaction? If he obeyed and suffered as our surety, indeed his obedience and death must have been an equivalent. We do not plead, as Morisonians insinuate against us, that the Saviour, in working out his suretyrighteousness, bore exactly "stripe for stripe," and performed duty for duty. We would number neither the duties nor the stripes. His divine dignity rendered unnecessary all such particularity. One stripe endured by him, had more atoning virtue in it, than ten thousand stripes endured by the sinner. But we know that his obedience unto death was the full and accepted discharge of the debt, which to a Holy God his people were due. We know that it was a price, which not only ransomed them from sin and wrath, but purchased for them everlasting life. They are not their own, but bought with a price, and heaven is their purchased possession. Mr Carmichael has no such horror at an equivalent. He does not hesitate to call Christ's work the full payment of what we owed to law and justice. Justice, he declares, refused to grant us either relaxation or release, till we had paid the uttermost farthing. The following passage, quoted by him from an author he does not name, gives no symptom of shrinking from the doctrine of an equivalent: "The pain was his, that the ease and rest might be yours; the stripes his, that the healing balm might be yours; the condemnation his, that the justification might be yours; the reproach and shame his, that the honour and glory might be yours; the curse his, that the blessing might be yours; the death his, that the life might be yours. He groaned, that you might triumph; he mourned, that you might rejoice; his heart was heavy for a time, that yours might be glad for ever."

Fourthly, The sentiments of the present "new view" party are often incorrectly expressed. We meet with "refutations "of Morisonianism, in which the Morisonians are represented as teaching and reviving the old doctrine of universal redemption. Those who write thus of them misunderstand them. They hold the atonement to be universal, but repudiate universal redemption. Their sentiment on this point is, that in the work of Christ there is no redemption at all, and that what is called redemption in Scripture, means always deliverance, or salvation. We maintain, that the term, as employed in the Sacred Oracles, has a twofold acceptation, signifying sometimes the price of salvation, and sometimes salvation itself. But the former acceptation of it they absolutely refuse, knowing that, to admit it, would upset their entire scheme. Prove that the Saviour's work is redemption in the sense of price, and you bring the whole system of the new theology to the ground. Nor is it much more correct to represent the Morisonians as holding that Christ died for all men. They generally get credit for maintaining this opinion. They even take credit for it themselves. There is nothing they assert more strongly, than that Christ's death was for all. But when their real

view on that point is ascertained, it turns out that they deny his dying, in the Scripture sense, for any. The term for, in those passages in which Christ is said to die for men, signifies in the room, or stead of, and intimates that his death was the punishment of their sins, and, in connection with his obedience, the price of their salvation. But no Morisonian will grant that Christ died thus for all men, or for any man. They deny that his death was really in the room and stead of men, and, accordingly, that it secured for them any saving blessing, either pardon, or peace, or holiness, or heaven. By dying for men, they mean, dying to make such a display of God's opposition to sin, as would render it consistent in him, as a moral governor, to save them, and thus make their salvation possible. There is no such doctrine concerning the death of Christ taught in Scripture; nor could dying to make the salvation of men merely possible, be, with any propriety, called dying for them. But what proves the absurdity of their view, that Christ's death was meant to be such a display of God's opposition to sin, as would render the salvation of men possible, is their denying that he died under imputed guilt. If he bore not, even by imputation, the guilt of the sinner, how could the inflicting of death upon him be a display of opposition to sin? Would it not have been rather a display of opposition to holiness. Instead of producing confidence in God, which the death of Christ was intended to do, it would have been enough to have destroyed confidence in him, and to have filled with alarm the very angels around the throne. The advocates of the new views, in fine, are misrepresented, when they are described as maintaining that Christ removed legal obstacles out of the way of our salvation. For this they frequently get credit, but they do so without ground. If Christ was not so under the law as to be our surety and substitute, obeying its precepts, and enduring its penalty in our room, how could he remove for us legal obstacles? Let those, therefore, who would either describe the new theology, or refute it, be careful to form correct apprehensions of it on these points; and let such sentiments contained in it, be a warning against embracing it. If Christ's death has no redemption in it-if it be only a mere display, and has removed no legal obstacle out of the sinner's way to heaven-it can be little ground of comfort to the soul.

Finally, Calvinistic writers might avail themselves more of arguments in favour of Calvinism, drawn from the views of their opponents. There are parts of the new theology which lead to such conclusions, as ought at once to satisfy every reflecting mind that it is a system founded in error. Take, for example, the point of human ability. There is nothing that Morisonians repeat oftener, or hold more tenaciously, than that men can do all that God requires of them, without the aid of supernatural grace. Mr Morison, in his pamphlet on the "Extent of the atonement," declares that man is "perfectly able, independently of the Spirit's influences, to do all that God requires him to do." Again he says, "God asks no man to do any more than he has given him strength to perform. Every man is responsible, simply according to the measure of his ability;" and many other such statements does he make, affirming, in the strongest terms, that men can believe in