shall so offend: consequently, unless the identically offending party is punished, the law is not met in its claims; and therefore it is that such an act becomes so palpably unjust.

To allege the voluntary submission of the substitute in this transaction does not alter the case, as to its inequitable nature, any more than the ready acquiescence of my upright neighbour would justify me in reputing him as a thief or murderer: nay, it increases the dilemma: for since this willing surrender to evils for the ultimate good of the guilty, is frequently adduced as giving additional lustre to the virtues of his mind and the benignity of his character, then of course to impute the sins of others to him must be so much the more without reason, and therefore the more unjust; unless it be argued, that the better the being, the worse he ought to be treated! On the other hand, I would ask, how can it accord with that purity of nature for which the holy Jesus is so distinguished from his brethren, or with that filial tenacity for his heavenly Father's benevolent purposes which he always manifested, to suppose him volunteering himself for that which must have necessarily led the Father to change his paternal affection into vindictive rigour and unsparing revenge, as according to this notion was really the case? But is it not held, that the claims of this inexorable Lawgiver were insisted on prior to the offer of the victim of his wrath, and that his submission is the consequence of the Father's requisition? This, then, puts the ques

tion in the same state as before considered, inasmuch as it is still an act of injustice to require this voluntary surrender.

But further, if it be just that God should thus impute the sins of the elect to his own Son, and that he should thereby be inevitably liable to their penal consequences, it must be equally just that he should bear the infamy, detestation, and scandalous reproach usually attached to sin: and hence all the epithets and appellations commonly descriptive and characteristic of the disgracefulness of sinners, and by which they are pointed out as objects of execration, by a parity of reasoning are justly applicable to him! For if the ignominious repute can be separated from the sin, so also can the punitive desert; but as the latter is held to be inseparable, so must the former. On the other hand, as the charge of the sins of the offender on Christ, is said justly to exempt the latter from punishment; so it would be unjust to attach to him (the offender) those epithets and appellations so necessarily consequent upon sin. He that can be justly charged with the wickedness of another, must on the same ground be subject to the ill names which such wickedness incurs: thus, for instance, if it be murder, burglary, swindling, forgery, or the like, he would be justly liable to be designated a villain, a knave, &c. Sinners, in scripture, are denominated (according to the nature of their vices, and the degrees of turpitude by which they are distinguished) by various terms of odious loathsomeness;

such as the wicked, the vile, the filthy, abominable, &c. Now if Jesus can be justly chargeable with the sins and wickedness of which such terms are expressive, the conclusion as naturally follows as effect from cause, that he, as the substitute, "standing in the law-place, room and stead of the guilty," becomes the proper and just object of their application. In that case, instead of being called the "just one," the "holy," the

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harmless," the "beloved Son," and other appellations descriptive of his righteous deportment, and his dignified character, by which the Scriptures frequently refer to him, language of an opposite nature would have been most consistent. In a word, if it be a just act to impute sin to him, it would have been equally so to have dealt with and treated him in every respect as the actually guilty, and the real offender!

Again, it is admitted by the advocates of this system, that those of mankind who, as the elect, are interested in such a transaction, are still justly charged with their own sins; for a great part of what they call "the work of the Spirit," consists in "conviction of sin :" and what is conviction but a direct charge of sin? Indeed, there are no phrases so common amongst the orthodox relating to their "experience" and personal feelings, as those by which they would testify their "humble sense" of the justice of such a charge. Now I would ask, then, how it can be just to charge these sins to this supposed substitute,

which are thus admitted to be justly charged to the real offenders? Both acts cannot be just: either the one or the other, therefore, must of necessity be unjust. I might here also add, that according to the popular notion of original sin, viz. that Adam's transgression is imputed to all his posterity, there is an insuperable discrepancy for if it be just that this sin of Adam should be imputed to Christ, it can of course be no act of justice to charge it to those of his race who have existed but subsequently to this transaction, however just it might be to have charged it to the generations preceding it. On the other hand, even for the sake of argument, admitting* the justice of the imputation of original sin to the race succeeding this supposed transaction, then it must have been an act of injustice to have imputed it to Christ.

It may here be objected, that "if it be an act of injustice to impute sins to Christ, then how could it be just that he should suffer as he did?" This objection I once thought a very formidable one; but since I have thoroughly examined the subject, I have found it as light as a feather in the scale, and it is my intention, in its proper place, to meet it with suitable arguments; but

* Although, for the sake of argument, I have here admitted its justice, yet I consider that all the arguments adduced against the doctrine of imputation to Christ are equally applicable to the notion of the imputation of Adam's sin to innocent babes.

at present I shall answer it by proposing a question which, on the side of the satisfactionist, is still more in his way. If Jesus, as the substitute, has become chargeable with the sins of the elect, and as such suffered the penalty, to the utmost, in their stead; and also that by just consequence they are made free from all charge-holy and complete-acquitted and legally exempted from all penal infliction-how can it be just that they should suffer, as many of them have suffered, both as martyrs and as sharing the common lot of human wretchedness, which belongs to the indigent and afflicted? Did not the apostles and primitive disciples suffer even as, yea, as to bodily torture, more than their Master, according to his own prediction ?

The sum of the arguments under this head may be thus expressed: God, the judge of all, is a just God. He has taught men to do justice by rendering to every one his due, and not to treat the innocent as if they were guilty; and has expressed his disapprobation in the strongest terms of a contrary conduct. Therefore he will not do what he thus disapproves and condemns in his accountable creatures. He will judge the world in righteousness, and "render to every man according to his works." To treat the innocent in the same way as the guilty deserve, would not be to render to every man according to his works : but the act in question would be of this nature in the highest degree; and therefore it is impos