phrased thus. "He made him to be liable to punishment for us, who was not conscious of having done wrong, that we might be not liable to punishment through him."

The principles of commercial redemption, and of personal commutation between Christ and the elect, would require the text to be translated thus. "He hath made him to be "meritum pœnæ" for us, who was not "reus culpæ," that we might be "non meriti pœnæ" through him." Indeed, Dr. CRISP, CHAUNCEY, and the author of "GETHSEMANE" have argued, as if the words were to be translated thus, "He hath made him to be reatum culpæ for us, who was not reatus culpæ, that we might be non rei culpæ through him:" that is, He made him to be guilty of our crimes, who was not guilty of crimes, that we might be made not guilty of crime through him.

The translations of these ultra-Calvinists, take for granted, utter and perfect impossibilities. It is no dishonor to God to say that He cannot unmake a transpired event, that He cannot annihilate a fact, that he cannot transfer moral identity. It is utterly impossible to unmake the facts that we are "rei culpa" and "meriti pœnæ," guilty of wrong, and deserving of punishment. It is, however, possible, to make us not "rei pœnæ, liable to punishment, by a measure which will, in public justice, answer the same ends as our punishment. On the other hand, it is perfectly impossible to make the Lamb that was without blemish, to be reatus culpæ, or meritus pœnæ, guilty of wrong, or deserving of punishment; when it is a transpired fact, that he was "without sin." Yet his sufferings are altogether inexplicable except on the principle that he was by a divine institution treated as if he were, like the innocent scape goat, “reus pœnæ," liable to punishment for us. This arrangement could never unmake the fact, that we were guilty of wrong, and deserving of punishment. Nor can our being treated as "non reati pœnæ," not liable to punish

ment for Christ's sake, unmake the fact that "he knew no sin."

Had he been a sinful man, or even of a peccable constitution, there would have been nothing mysterious in his sufferings. But being an innocent member of the divine government, no principle in the moral administration, but the principle of substitution,* will account for his enduring such sufferings.

Unless the sufferings of Christ were vicarious and expiatory, we cannot account for the demeanor of the blessed Redeemer under them. If there be nothing peculiar in the nature and design of Christ's sufferings, there is something unaccountably peculiar in his spirit and temper under them. Before "the hour" of atonement, his character was established for an undaunted firmness, that never shrunk from danger and suffering. But now, when "His hour is come," he shrinks with unutterable distress and anguish from the cup of sufferings. Many men of tender frames, and many too of the more timid sex, have "endured the cross," not only with unflinching fortitude, but also with triumphant bravery. These were sinners, and many of them destitute of religious supports; yet they met their agonies with well-sustained calmness. Here, however, is One suffering, as some say, to give us an example how to

*To meet the common objection, that it is impossible that one should suffer for another, I quote the following passage, from TRUMAN'S Great Propitiation,' a work, every leaf of which is worth the weight of the book in gold.

"God's ways are above our understandings. Shall we say, that is impossible which he said he hath done, because we cannot understand it?

"It is notoriously possible. God's forbidding men to punish one for another, argueth the thing possible. He would not forbid impossible things. The heathen knew it very possible, we may see, by their offering up the fruit of their body, for the sin of their soul.

"It is highly possible that it hath been, and is common amongst men. How common is the translation of punishment from one to another; as in hostages, and men undertaking to bring out the offender, liable to the mulet of the offender; which takes it for granted as a common thing.

"The Papists who scoff at justification by Christ's righteousness and satisfaction as absurd and impossible,-grant it eminently possible, by their proclaiming a justification by the merit and sufferings of saints. St. Francis's wounds' and Becket's blood, yea, the Virgin's milk will justify menand yet some of them make little or nothing of Christ's death."-p. 72-74.

bear pain, and also to confirm the doctrines which he asserted to be true. He is strong in his personal innocence, strong in the love of his Father, and strong in the hope set before him, yet he shrinks from the cup of sorrows, and his bitter cries and tears testify the tremendous tempest that agitated his holy mind, and the inward horror and dismay that racked his heart and soul. The delicate sensitiveness of his holy frame, the pure innocence of his mind, and the high dignity of his person, must have made contact with such sufferings infinitely painful to him. He was set forth as a lustration, as a propitiation for the sins of the world, as a scapegoat led to a wilderness of reproach and suffering. God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. He died numbered among transgressors.

II. Jesus Christ endured his sufferings instead of the sufferings due to the sinner.

In the atonement there is not a substitution of persons only, but also a substitution of sufferings. The Lord Jesus made atonement, not by enduring the sufferings due to us in the curse of the law, but by sustaining other sufferings which had been laid on him by "a commandment received from the Father." I mean to say, that the penal sufferings due to man were suspended by this measure, and another class of sufferings substituted instead of them. Jesus Christ did not suffer the infliction of the idem in the penalty threatened, but the tantundem, the equivalent to that infliction, what would answer the same ends as the literal infliction. I submit the following reasons as proof that our penalty was not inflicted upon Christ:

1. The sufferings of Christ were, both in nature and kind, different from the sufferings due to sinners. The sufferings due to a sinner consist of a painful consciousness of having done wrong-a sense of having offended God-bitter self-reproach for having broken the law of love-and the stormy horrors of a guilty and condemning conscience. In all the various and dreadful forms of Christ's sufferings, there was nothing like this. His

conscience never had a sting. He never felt the hell of self-remorse. He was encompassed with sufferings, as an island in an ocean of anguish, but the waves which dashed and foamed around him, found nothing in him to crumble and destroy.

2. The quantity and the degree of the sufferings of Christ were different from the sufferings due to the sinner. The scriptures never speculate on the intensity of the sufferings of the Adorable Jesus-they merely reveal his sufferings as being a sufficient atonement for sin. The sufferings of Christ were, no doubt, of indescribable intensity, but they had not the same elements of intensity with the torments of perished sinners. The sufferings of lost souls are intense, from a keen sense of the unreasonableness and unjustifiableness of their offence, and from the utter and eternal hopelessness of any relief, extenuation, or diminution of their pain. And these awful sufferings extend to a multitude which no man can number, and, accordingly, would form a dreadful amount of misery. The sufferings of Christ were, after all, the sufferings of ONE human nature, of one of the seed of Abraham. And amid these sufferings, "the glory that should follow" sparkled through the dark tempest of Calvary, and "the joy that was set before him" garnished the margin of his sepulchre. His sufferings were not a punishment. His consciousness of personal rectitude, and his confidence in his Father never forsook him. In the darkest hour of his anguish, his assurance of God's approbation and acceptance was in the highest exercise; "Father," he said, "unto thy hands I commend my spirit." Such elements as these are never found in the curses executed on sinnersnothing can unsting the worm that dieth not, or calm the surges of the lake that burneth for ever and ever.

3. If Christ endured the identical sufferings due to the sinner, His sufferings would not be a satisfaction or an atonement for sin, but a literal execution of the penalty of the law.

If a man give a tooth for a tooth, or an eye for an eye, he gives literally the penalty which the law demanded. If such a payment be called an atonement it is called so improperly, and in a lower sense. If he give something instead of an eye, say money, or land, or any thing else, of equal consideration with the injured person, or the injured government, he would make an atonement, a satisfaction. An atonement is a measure or an expedient that is a satisfaction for the suspension of the threatened penalty. A suspension or a non-execution of the literal threatening is always implied in an atonement. If Christ then endured the real suffering due to the sinner, his sufferings are not of the nature of an atonement, but are a literal infliction of the penalty threatened by the law.

A passage in the Epistle to the Galatians is frequently quoted to prove that the literal curse of the law was inflicted on the person of Christ. I will transcribe the whole passage that it may be under the reader's eye. "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all the things which are written in the book of the law to do them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Gal. iii, 10, 13.

This language of the apostle has been supposed to settle the question that Christ endured the idem, the identical punishment due to the sinner. Before you come to the same conclusion, steep these three thoughts in your mind.

1. How were sinners accursed? By being denounced as transgressors of the law. They are accursed, FOR not continuing in all the things which are written in the law to do them. No one will say that Christ was accursed in this sense.

2. How was Christ accursed? on a tree. He was made a curse by reproach and shame on a cross.

By being hanged being exposed to The reason why