Page images
PDF
EPUB

they are saved as sinners, for the whole gospel system proceeds on the ground that those for whose benefit it was instituted, are sinners. "For the son of man is come to save that which was lost." Now as infants can be saved by him only on the ground that they are fallen and sinful beings, it follows that, if they are not by nature corrupt and sinful, they must be lost; hence, to deny the doctrine of inherited depravity, is to deny the whole infant race all interest in the blood of the lamb, exclude them from the gospel plan of salvation, and consign them to a fate, over which the darkness of uncertainty hangs as black as the brow of eternal night. Our souls shudder at the thought! What! shall our infants, who have had an earlier exit from earth, find no home in heaven? No saviour in the person of Jesus Christ? And shall they have no part in the song of the redeemed? To deny the sinfulness of human nature, then, is to deny that Christ died for infants; and hence, it is to deny them salvation through his blood and exclude them forever from the ranks of the redeemed; and to suppose that infants are not saved by Jesus Christ, is so slanderous on the character of our heavenly Father, and would so detract from the work and kingdom of the Messiah, that it cannot be deserving a serious refutation. Our opponents must either admit the sinfulness of human nature, or deny that infants have any interest in the Saviour of the human family, and we venture that but few, if any, will be found of sufficient hardihood openly to avow the latter. VIII. In conclusion, on the subject of depravity, we appeal to the experience of all the good, who have resolved on living conformably to the strict piety and pure morals inculcated by our holy religion, and ask, if they have not found foes within, as well as without? If their disordered and scattered affections, so difficult to control and concentrate in the one supreme object, God; if their unholy passions so difficult to restrain and correct, which, at touch kindle into forbidden anger, and settle into deliberate and hateful revenge, or melt into compliance with the most low and debasing indulgencies, do not teach that the soul to which such affections and passions belong, is a fallen and corrupt spirit? This appeal may have but little influence with the abandoned, who have never attempted to subdue their unholy propensities, who have

yielded to the current of evil without resistance; but he, who has ever made an attempt at the pure religion of the gospel, will feel its force.

While the life of the christian is a warfare, a warfare not with the world and satan only, but with the affections and passons which are the attributes of his own soul, a warfare with the elements of his own nature, he will carry with him an ever present evidence of the corruption of human nature; an evidence that will last until the victory is complete and he finds himself wholly redeemed from the ruins of the fall.

CHAPTER III.
Atonement.

HAVING in the preceding chapter considered the fallen state of the human family, we propose now to treat of their redemption by Jesus Christ. The doctrine of atonement has been referred to in arguments and remarks which have preceded; but we purpose to devote the present chapter to a more full consideration of this very important subject. The doctrine of a vicarious atonement, has a very important bearing on the controversy to which these pages are devoted; for if it can be shown, that the sufferings of Jesus Christ were a vicarious sacrifice for sinners, by virtue of which, and by which only, they can be restored to the divine favour and image, or be made holy and happy, two consequences will follow, fatal to the whole theory of modern universalism.

1. If sinners can be saved only through the merits of Christ's death, it must follow, that if such atonement had not been made, offenders must have been lost forever; and hence, that the proper penalty of the law or punishment of sin, is an endless curse.

2. It must follow on the above principles, that if it can be proved that sinners can, and do, forfeit the benefits of the atonement by a non-compliance with the conditions on which the gospel offers salvation, and consequently endure the punishment from which the death of Christ was intended to save them, they will still be lost as fully and endlessly as they would have been had Christ never died for their redemption.

To avoid these consequences, modern universalists deny the doctrine of a vicarious atonement, made by Jesus Christ, and maintain that his mission into this world, sufferings and death, were not intended to reconcile God to men, nor to render their salvation consistent with the claims of justice and the maintenance of the authority of the divine administration, but simply to reconcile sinners to God; winning their hearts by a display of divine love, and by bringing to view, through the gospel, the goodness and glories of the divine character. The above, we believe to be a correct statement of the opinion generally held by universalists on the subject of the atonement, as the following extracts will show. Mr. Hosea Ballou objects to the doctrine of a vicarious atonement, on the ground that it is improper for the innocent to suffer for the guilty. While treating upon this subject, he says: "We wish to inquire into the propriety of an innocent person's suffering for one who is guilty. It is scripture, reason and good law, never to condemn the innocent in order to exculpate the delinquent." Treatise on Atonement, page 74. Mr. B. says again, puge 121. "God's love is antecedent to our love to him, which refutes the notion of God's receiving the atonement." The author, in stating his own views of atonement, page 120 says: "Atonement and reconciliation are the same, reconciliation is the renewal of love, and love is the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. It is by the force and power of the law of love in Christ, that the soul is delivered from the government of the law of sin. The process of this deliverance is the work of atonement. The power which causes us to hate sin and love holiness, is the power of Christ, whereby atonement is made." Nearly the same sentiment is advanced by Mr. Pitt Morse, a late author, who has published a small volume of sermons, in reply to "Lectures on Universalism, by Joel Parker." On page 45 and 46 Mr. Morse remarks: "Let it be distinctly understood, that universalists do not contend that Christ saves men from the curse of the law, in any other way than by delivering them from their sins. He" (Mr. Parker) "probably understood the atonement according to the sense in which it is usually explained, viz. the satisfying divine justice by Jesus Christ giving himself a ransom for us, undergoing the penalty due our

sins, and thereby releasing us from that punishment which God might justly inflict upon us. But we (universalists) do not so understand the atonement. It is generally taught that God receives the atonement. It is something received by man. What can it be? Atonement is reconciliation to God." The above extracts, are calculated in some respects, to give a false view of the commonly received doctrine of atonement; yet they fully answer the purpose for which they are here intended, viz: to shew that universalists do not believe in the merits of Christ, as the ground of the sinner's hope; that they reject in full the doctrine of atonement, as generally believ ed. In opposition to the views contained in these extracts, we maintain that Christ suffered and died in the place of sinners; in a manner to deliver them from the punishment due their sins, and that the merits of his death, as our atoning sacrifice, is the ground, and the only ground of our restoration to holiness and happiness. We will now proceed to the proof of our views on this subject.

1. The necessity of a vicarious atonement, may be urg ed in proof of the doctrine itself. That God does save sinners in some way, by restoring them to holiness and happiness, will not be denied, especially by universalists. It being admitted on all hands that God does save sinners, it follows that he saves them by, or without, atonement; hence, if it can be shown to be inconsistent with the principles of the divine administration to save transgressors without satisfaction on their part, which is out of their power to make for themselves, the fair inference will be that Christ, by his mediation, has made the necessary atonement for them; since no one will contend that there is any other mediator between God and men, save the man Christ Jesus, "who gave himself a ransom for all." The main points to be considered in this argument, are, the nature and penalty of the divine law, the impossibility that any law should provide for the remission of its own penalty, and the absurdity of supposing that God can pardon transgression by mere prerogative without an atonement, consistently with the moral government which he bas established over his creatures.

That we are under some law to our Creator, will not be denied by any. "If we deny the existence of a divine law

obligatory upon man," says Mr. Watson, "we must deny that the world is under divine government; for government without rule or law is a solecism." The law, by which we should be governed, is the will of our Creator. When God brings any rational being into existence, such being must be under obligation to the hand that made him, and as every power is the work of the Creator, nothing short of the employment of the whole, in accordance with his will, can requite the claim of the divine author.

Taking this view, we see that no rational being can exist without law to God, which law commences with the commencement of our rational existence, and continues through the whole extent of our being-while life, and thought, and being, last. That God has made known his will to us in the scriptures, and that men have violated that will, universalists will not be willing openly to deny. We will then enquire into the nature and extent of the penalty of this violated law. The penalty of God's law is death. Death was the penal sanction of the first precept given to man. Gen. iii. 17. "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Ezek. xviii. 20. "The soul that sinneth it shall die." Rom. vi. 23. "The wages of sin is death." Rom. viii. 6. "To be carnally minded is death." James i. 15. "Sin when finished bringeth forth death." Now, death, whether natural or moral, must be in its own nature endless. What is death? It is the negation of life, the absence of that life to which it stands opposed. If death is made to consist in moral depravity, it is the negation of that holiness, that conformity to the divine will and likeness, which constitutes moral or spiritual life. If death is made to consist in the dissolution of the body, it is the negation of those vital energies which constitute animal life. When a person dies morally or naturally, it is the principle or power of the opposite life that is overcome; life becomes extinct and death reigns. Now when a person is dead, on this principle, self-resuscitation is utterly impossible, life has become extinct and nothing but death reigns and pervades the whole system; hence death left to the tendency of its own nature must hold on to its subjects with an eternal grasp, unless it be said that death can produce life, or that inertia can produce animation; for as there is nothing but death

« PreviousContinue »