and mind to the divine law as it is impossible for him to yield, and that he does not denounce punishment upon them for not being more perfect than it was possible for them to be. But on the other hand, even if frail and sinful creatures had done every thing which it was possible for them to do, with their depraved nature, they still could not expect as pure and elevated a happiness, as if their nature had been unpolluted by sin and they had made important advances in holiness and perfection. This disadvantage, under which they would labour, would still be the consequence of their inherited depravity of nature and of the sin of Adam, who by an act of real guilt, which he might have avoided, entailed a ruined nature on himself, and his posterity. This disadvantage would be the natural punishment of Adam's transgression. But as Christ, the Second Father of the human family ($59), delivered us from the punishment of the disobe-dience of the first father of the race of man, by assuming it himself, and has given us a title to a salvation' which even the best of Adam's sinful posterity would have had no right to expect; we may, even in this respect, say that Christ bore our punishment, the punishment due to the whole human family (John 1: 29. 1 Tim. 2: 6. Heb. 2: 9.); inasmuch as the punishment in which an individual participates, may also be called his punishment ($57. Ill. 1). But as Jesus also liberated us from the punishments of our own personal transgressions, which, though our natural depravity disposed us to commit them, we nevertheless could and ought (§ 56, 57) to have avoided, we can say with truth, in the most rigid sense of the terms, that Jesus bore our sins, was punished in the stead of us guilty sinners, on account of our sins. Is. 53:5-12. 1 Pet. 2:24. 3:18. Gal. 1:4. Rom. 5:6-8.4:25. 1 Cor. 15: 3.

VIII. Subject continued. The punishments which were

removed by the atoning death of Christ, properly belong to the invisible world; they are future punishments (1 Thess. 1: 10), the opposite of which, according to the Scripture representation, is eternal life, the everlasting inheritance. John 3:14-16. Heb. 9: 15.1 Hence, it is not surprising, that the death of Christ did not obviate the temporal consequences of sin. Rom. 8:10, 18-23. Nevertheless, the death of Christ did divest the temporal effects of sin of their punitive disgrace and terror. They are no longer of a punitive nature. The friends of Christ are no longer exposed to any punishment. Rom. 8 : 1, ουδεν κατακριμα τοις εν Χριστον Ιησου there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Death is to them no longer an evidence of the divine displeasure, but is to be regarded by them as the transition of their spirit to real life. Nor are their temporal afflictions to be viewed as judicial dispensations (Rom. 5: 1), but as evidence of the paternal disposition of God (v. 3). Joyful indeed are the prospects which futurity presents to their view. In the sight of God, they are even now citizens of the empire of God, and, as far as their circumstances will admit, are treated as such.

IX. Subject continued. - Heb. 2:14 &c, ίνα απαλλαξῃ τουτους, όσοι φοβῳ θανατου δια παντος του ζην ενοχοι ησαν δουλειας “in order that, by his death, he might deliver those who had been all their life in a slavish fear of death, from that fear."

§ 90.

The atonement is the immediate cause of the remission of sins, and is not dependant on our reformation for its efficacy.

The instructions of Jesus and his apostles, must not be explained so as to mean that the death of Christ may be a motive to induce us to obey his injunctions and fulfil our duties, in short, may be a motive to such a habit of thought and course of conduct as will procure the remission of our sins. Such an explanation is altogether groundless, inasmuch as no such representation of the influence of Christ's death is expressly given in a single text of the New Testament (1). On the contrary, our obligation to piety is derived as a consequence (2) from the antecedent blessing. But this representation, moreover, expressly contradicts the doctrines of Christianity. For the writers of the New Testament declare most explicitly, that the good works of men have not the least meritorious influence in procuring the remission of our sins (3). Nay, so emphatic is the language used by the inspired penmen on this subject, that they declare that if our own works were the meritorious cause of our salvation, then was the death of Christ superfluous. Gal. 2: 21, ει δια νομου δικαιοσυνη, αρα Χριστος δωρεαν απεθανε (4). Moreover, the New Testament teaches us that Christ, by his death, purchased the right of the remission of sins, and eternal felicity for all men (§ 66 &c.), even for those who do not reform, and for those who in this world have not enjoyed the knowledge of a Saviour, and to whom, therefore, the death of Christ could not be a motive to virtue (5).

1

ILLUSTRATIONS.

The atonement is the immediate cause of the remission of our sins. If the writers of the New Testament had regarded the death of Christ merely as a motive to reformation, and that as the cause of remission; they would rather, in this mediate sense, have derived our salvation from the resurrection than from the death of Christ. There is, indeed, a connexion between the death of Jesus and our reformation. It affords us an example of obedience to God, of faith, of patience, of confidence in the divine preservation, and of the most exalted love. It proves to us, moreover, his firm conviction of the truth of his doctrines, and thus affords us a confirmation of them, and a motive to their reception, and a consequent reformation. But it is the resurrection of Jesus, in which we see the happy reward of his obedience unto death, which possesses peculiar power (compare § 83. Ill. 6). This also affords us the most decided evidence of the truth of those views with which Jesus died. Hence, it would have been natural for the writers of the New Testament to represent the resurrection, rather than the death of Jesus, as a motive to reformation, as the mediate cause of remission of sins and of eternal life; especially as the resurrection of Christ necessarily presupposes his death, but his death by no means implies his resurrection. But Jesus and his apostles, when speaking of the ground or cause of pardon and of future blessedness, either mention the death of Christ alone, or they connect the death and resurrection together, but never do they mention the resurrection alone.1

II. Same subject continued-In § 4 of the work just cited in the margin, it is proved that all the passages in the New Testament which belong to this subject, either represent pardon,

1 On the Design of Christ's death, $ 5.

and not reformation, as the immediate object of the death of Christ, or they derived the obligation to reformation and to a christian life from the pardon which the death of Christ procured. To the first class belong the following passages, in which, according to the more correct explanation, pardon, and not a change of life, is represented as the object of Christ's death. 2 Cor. 5:19, θεος ην εν Χριστῳ κοσμον καταλλασσων ἑαυτῳ God was, in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself (comp. v. 18). The clause "not imputing their trespasses unto them" proves the signification of the passage to be "God graciously restored the world to his favour." This interpretation is just as much authorized on philological grounds (Matth. 5:24. 1 Sam. 29:4; see LXX), as the explanation, "God reconciled the affections and dispositions of the world to himself," which is, moreover, not true in fact. In Rom. 5: 10, the words κατηλλαγημεν τῳ θεῳ δια του θανατου του υἱου αυτου-καταλλαγεντες we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, correspond to v. 9, δικαιωθεντες εν τῳ αἱματι αυτου being justified by his blood; and therefore, like the latter words, they refer to pardon, and not to reformation. And in Eph. 2: 16, the same expression αποκαταλλαξη τῳ θεῳ reconcile unto God, is explained by the words "through him we have access unto the Father;" and therefore refers to our restoration to the favour of God, to our pardon.1

In the following passages, reformation is derived from pardon, and consequently represented as a mediate object of the death of Christ. Tit. 2:14, that he might purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. (Comp. v. 11, the grace of God which bringeth salvation, i. e. the saving grace of God hath appeared to all men, teaching &c. Comp. also the words immediately preceding ἵνα λυτρωσηται ἡμας απο πασης