"" not at all arduous; a sacritic of invenite
provided; - soch purposes.
quently as old

34

were from cernity, Scons

as jus his

THOUGHTS ON THE

Faith would be an arduous task-it claims affi

nity, not with particular, but with general re

But justice demption; nor do I think the legitimacy of this may suffer claim can be easily refuted.

will; ustice.

reach othing

conde to ipilude themselves; whist mary may
or whom the
As is the sin, so must be the suffering to pro-
sarah pitiate. If enough have been endured for the
wag par- redemption of all men, nothing has been en-
trensarly
dured exclusively for some: our blessed Lord
must therefore have suffered for the world for
which we are told he did not pray; which was
never given to him by the Father: and yet,
though the payment be general and ample, it
is in numberless instances a ransom without re-
lease: the surety and the sinner suffer for the
same crime; but how such a procedure can be
made to harmonize with the wisdom, the justice,

Was surety of

those who
persevere in
unbelief K. and the goodness of God, has never yet been
the righussion

of the saire

fice?

If their an Belief

told. If the sufferings of our blessed Lord were
not regulated by the number to be saved, I
think particular redemption, and the doctrines
connected with it, cannot be successfully de-
fended.

this shows the That the substitutionary sufferings of Christ sufficiency of his sacrifice for their salvation; for f no provision has been hade for such, it can be pocrime to reject the offer of this, it seems cruel to offer it. but if it be a cannot

were of infinite value is readily allowed; and so
they would have been had he expired on the
cross for the redemption of one sinner only.
Every sin, objectively considered, has infinite
demerit; and therefore he that shall sustain the
penalty with a view to rescue the offender from
perdition, must pay a price equal to the guilt.
But surely it cannot be imagined that, in saving
one sinner, the sufferings of our Lord would
have been equally intense with those he actually
underwent in redeeming the many millions that
shall finally be saved; nor that they would have
corresponded with the very affecting account
the scriptures give of his agony in the Garden,
and of his excruciating anguish on the cross!

If this be granted, as I think it must, it follows of course, that the augmentation of these sufferings must have arisen from an accession of more guilt than could have been charged on any single delinquent; for the punishment cannot in justice exceed the crime for which it is inflicted; and if, for the redemption of more souls than one, a greater degree of punishment was requisite, these sufferings must necessarily have increased

# If every sin has infinite demarch & the value sufferings was infinite, all necessity of greater intensity of sufferings was excludes, let the circum

stands be what

they

may.

in exactly the same ratio with the numbers to be saved.

We little know, says Bishop Brown, What the weight of the divine anger is: should it exert itself against any one of us for the least of our sins, who could bear it? and what then must the weight of that anger be, which was

laid on the sins of the whole world, when the "For sin is wrath of God was to display itself all at once, not to be inter in one single person, for all the wickedness of kreted as the whole race of Adam? Especially if we con"condition of ceive that the sufferings of Christ were to bear redemption; a proportion to the punishment and misery conbut as an equent to the guilt and demerit of all mankind.' of salvation His Lordship's views, as to the extent of redemption, are, you will perceive, not in unison with mine: I quote him merely to show that, with reference to the quantum of suffering, his observations are grounded on the principle on which I reason.

to all

'It is reasonable to suppose, says Mr. Lawrence Butterworth, that the redemption price paid should bear an exact proportion to the

+o this errour evidently springs from too close
regard fand
and fraid to common ideas of debit & redit.

number of persons redeemed, and to the guilt and punishment from which they are redeemed; or else it cannot be considered as a legal redemption. Redemption is either valid or invalid: if it be valid, then it will answer for the persons redeemed by it to their deliverance from curse and condemnation: or else divine justice might be charged with injustice in exacting a debt first from the surety, and then from the principal. A conduct of this nature, in com mon life, would be looked upon as cruel and unjust; but shall not the judge of all the earth do right? If it be invalid, then it will answer no good end to any one, and must be in vain.'

The completeness of Christ's satisfaction, observes Dr. Bates, is grounded on the degrees of his sufferings. There was no defect in the payment he made. We owed a debt of blood to the law, and his life was offered up as a sacrifice: otherwise the law had remained in its full vigour, and justice had been unsatisfied. That a divine person hath suffered our punishment, is properly the reason of our redemption. Ast it is not the quality of the surety that releases

D

The pun

the debtor from prison, but the payment which he makes in his name.'

That there will be degrees of punishment in the future world is allowed on all hands. Every man will be rewarded according to his works. For, as Bishop Hopkins justly remarks,' though all sins are not alike heinous, nor shall be equally punished, yet they are alike mortal and condemned by the law.' He that suffers most, must therefore be considered as having contracted a larger degree of guilt than the man who suffers less. This is strictly conformable to the rules of distributive justice. Now for these different degrees of punishment how can we account, but on the supposition that the infinitely wise God, who alone is competent to estimate the turpitude of moral evil, will, in his righteous judgment, apportion the sufferings of the sinner to the demerit of his crime. On this subject, however, there is no need to speak hypothetically: that every work will be brought into judgment, and every transgression and disobedience receive a just recompense of reward, is the language of scripture. jinners.

ishment will

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