as careful and particular as possible in consi dering it. That the law requires the endless punishment of the sinner, is an idea, that upposes the very nature of the law. The law in its nature requires love and obedience. It requires this of the disobedient as well as of the obedient. If it ever cease to require love, sin would then be no longer a transgression. And it must cease to require love, when it requires endless misery; for it cannot require both at the same time, and be consistent with itself. It is argued that sin is infinite. The law therefore, for a single offence, demands endless punishment. But how, after this demand for one offence, can it require love and obedience? Love or obedience is inconsistent with endless misery. All these cannot, there fore, be required by the law at the same time. It is plain, then, that the law which requires love, must change its native voice, to require endless misery.

The idea that the divine law requires the endless misery of the transgressor, leads to another difficulty. It has been before concluded that what the law requires, it must have to be fulfilled. It would consequently follow that if the law require the endless misery of the sinner, that not only the misery must be inflicted, but Christ must be the principal agent by whom it is inflicted; since he came into the world to fulfil the law. Instead therefore of Christ's being the minister of salvation, this makes him the minister of misery. It is

further evident, that the law requiring this misery, would no more admit the salvation of a part than of the wliole. The same rule that might be devised to save a part, would equally apply to the salvation of all; since all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

The most common idea among the different denominatious who believe in the endless mis, ery of the wicked, concerning Christ's fulfilling the law, is, that he by his death appeased the wrath of the Father, which was against the sinner, and answered by proxy, or substitute, the whole demands of the law. Some have said his object in coming into the world was not so much to save mankind, as to magnify God's law and make it honorable. By this we see they consider the magnifying or fulfil ling of the law, and the salvation of sinners, to be two separate and distinct works. This is evidently a very erroneous idea, for the only way in which the law can be fulfilled according to the scripture, is in the salvation of sinners. But if we suppose that Christ by suf ferings only, answered all the demands of the law, how does it appear that these demands are now in full force against the sinner? If it be said the demands are of force only against the sinner, on condition there is no repentance, this condition evidently makes an exception. to Christ's fulfilling the whole law. So on their own ground, it does not appear, Christ answers the whole demands of the law, inde, pendent of the salvation of sinners. To say

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