those demands are answered, and yet remain of full force against the sinner, would amount to the height of absurdity. But how does Christ fulfil the law, independent of saving its transgressors? The believer in endless punishment answers, By taking to himself the demands of endless punishment, and so pacifying the wrath of God against the sinner. This answer we prove unscriptural by the following passages: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God .sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." "God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." "The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." "But love ye your enemies, and do good and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest. For ke is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful." "For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." In the first of these passages we find, that instead of the Son's coming to appease the wrath of the Father, God so loved the word that he sent him. In the next, we find God commended his love toward sinners in the death of Christ; not that his wrath was appeased by his death. His love toward sinners must be anterior to the death of Christ to be commended by it to mankind. When we are assured, the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works, do we need argument to prove that he is not filled with wrath toward all, but ever disposed to tender mercy? If he be kind to the unthankful, and to the evil, where is the unmerciful wrath, which the law exhibits in him, and which the Savior appeases? And besides, if Christ came down from heaven, not to do his own will, but the will of his Father, and the will of the Father is infinite wrath toward the sinner, instead of appeasing his Father's wrath, does he not make himself an agent to pour it in full force upon the devoted head of the sinner? But to do this, we see he is not seeking nor saving that which is lost; he is not the Savior of all men, specially of those that believe. We are expressly told that love is the fulfilling of the law. It is not then to be expected that the law would require for its fulfilment any thing different from this divine principle. Nor does it appear rational that it would accept a proxy who should perform its requirements for another. If the law require me to love the Lord, and my neighbor, how can it accept the love of another in my stead, and suffer me to continue in disobedience? This must plainly be the case, if it accept a proxy. When we learn that love is the fulfilling of the law, it is easy to be seen what is the work of our Savior in his important labor. It must be to give to every transgressor its own principle, which is love, enabling him to fulfil its voice. When the law says, love thy neighbor and he obeys, then the law is fulfilled respecting him. To him is Christ the end of the law for righteousness. Christ makes the law perfect in him by implanting its principles within him. This is the new covenant, mentioned in Jeremiah xxxi. 31, 32, 33, 34. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; (which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord ;) but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquities, and will remember their sin no more." In this new covenant it is observable, the law is to be written in the hearts of those who have trans gressed the law. This law is the law of love; and this is the fulfilling of the law. When Christ came, not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it, he came to write its principles in the hearts of the transgressors of the law. This is magnifying it, and making it honorable.. It will now easily be seen that the salvation of all the transgressors of the law is necessary to a complete fulfilment of the law. A salvation of all the transgressors of the law is the salvation of all men; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. When a father requires obedience of his children, can the obedience of a part of them, wholly fulfil his command? No more can the obedience of a part of mankind, fulfil the law, which requires the obedience of all. By the same rule the obedience of one who is appointed to reconcile the disobedient children, never can be accepted in the room of the chil dren. If he have failed in the work of reconciliation, he has but performed what was required of him. His faithfulness caunot be imputed to the children, so as to answer the demands of the father against them. If they be forever disobedient, not all the blood of bulls or of goats, the ashes of an heifer, or the sacrifice of an innocent son, can so magnify his word and make it honorable, as to have it said he commanded, and, by them, was ever obeyed. The law, then, in being magnified, is to have the honor of being obeyed, which is the greatest honor that could be possibly con ferred upon it. It preaches to all mankind, "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself;" and when love which is the fulfilling of the law is written in every heart, then its preaching will prove effectual, and the law itself exceedingly magnified. But if there be a single individual among those that are under the law that never reseives this principle of love, but continues eternally unreconciled, as much as a jot or tittle certainly passes from the law without fulfilment. It forever calls in vain to that individual, to love the Lord and his neighbor, without having the honor of ever being obey. ed. But Christ has promised, that not a jot or tittle shall pass till the whole is fulfilled. In arguing for the salvation of the whole, we argue for the salvation of each individual, as necessary to a complete fulfilment of the law. It is plain from the words of Christ, that if the fulfilment of the law respect one individual of the race of Adam, it equally respects the whole. It is equally as plain from the words of St. Paul, that it does respect mankind, or he never would have said, "He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." The conclusion, then, of the salvation of all sinners, is rendered as indisputable as the words of Christ and his apostles. To many it is as indisputable, although to others, it may not appear so. A subject that appears the most |