in obedience and sufferings. This is the commercial atonement-the commercial redemption which degrades the Gospel, and fetters its ministers; which sums up the worth of a stupendous and moral transaction by arithmetic, and, with its span, limits what is infinite.

They who take this view of the atonement call it, indeed, infinite; but infinite it cannot be in the sense of unmeasurable or unlimited. The number of the elect is certainly limited, and accordingly, the sufferings of the blessed Redeemer might have been more or less, and therefore, not infinite."

I have hinted that I do not consider an infinite intensity of suffering essential to the sufficiency of the atonement. My hand trembles lest I should write a single word or syllable that would convey a low idea of the greatness of Christ's sufferings. The sufferings of Christ were indeed infinite, not simply in intensity of agony, but as they were the sufferings of a Person of infinite dignity and worth. Probably, the sufferings of some martyrs may have exceeded his, as far as the mere infliction of pain is concerned. Even the sufferings of the damned spirits are not infinite, except in duration. In reading the accounts of the sufferings of Christ we cannot avoid the supposition that they might have been greater, or they might have been less, without affecting the reality or the sufficiency of the atonement.

There

might have been more or fewer thorns in his crown; the scourges might have been more or fewer in number, or administered with more or less energy, without adding to the sufficiency of his satisfaction or diminishing from it.

The design of atonement is to answer the same end in the administration of government as the punishment of the offender. The end of a government in awarding punishment is not simply to give pain to the offender, but, by giving a demonstration of the government's abhorrence of the crime, to deter others from committing it. This is precisely the design of an atonement. As the infliction of pain is not indispensably

necessary to the design of punishment, neither is it necessary to the design of the atonement.

The scriptures never ascribe the efficacy of an atonement to the intensity of sufferings. In the Jewish sacrifices there is a recognition of a proportion between the costliness of the sacrifice, and the rank of the offender, as the sin of one priest required the same atonement as the sins of all the people. In such recognition there is no trace of any proportion between the magnitude of the offence, and the degree of the victim's sufferings; or between the intensity of the sufferings and the sufficiency and extent of the atonement so effected. Take a case. A family, in a given year, having no children, would present their lamb for a sacrifice; and it bled and died. Annually for ten or twenty years, they offered a "lamb for the family:" but in that time the number of sinners, and the number of sins in the family had greatly increased, possibly in aggravation as well as in number; yet the lamb of atonement was not put into greater torture than in the first year. Take another case. The people of Israel, in a given year, might be greater in population, and might have committed nationally some greater enormities than at any previous time; yet on the great day of atonement for the whole congregation, the sacrificial victim was not to die a more excruciating death than on former occasions.

When scripture and analogy are opposed to such a principle of proportion, we can have no solid grounds for applying it to the death of Christ, or for measuring the extent of his atonement by the intensity of his sufferings. The number of the saved, and the degrees of the sufferings of Christ, are the only things connected with the atonement that we can suppose to be capable of being greater or less, more or fewer. And these, we have seen, are not indispensably necessary either to the reality or the sufficiency of the atonement. We cannot suppose that the atonement would have been less real and extensive had the articles of the crown of thorns and the scourges been left out of the list of his suffer

ings, nor that the atonement would have been more extensive and efficacious had his body while hanging in agony been pierced with a thousand spears. The sufficiency and the extensive aspect of the atonement would be the same even if not one soul were saved, and the greatness of his merit is no more to be measured by the number of the saved, than the demerit of Adam's sin is by the number of mankind.

All the elements essential to an atonement are utterly incapable of increase or diminution. Let us think: Could the Son of God have had more or less dignity of person than he actually had? Could he have been more

or less nearly related to the offender, that is, more or less incarnate, than he really was? Could his moral worth and active obedience to the law have been more or less perfect than it was? Could the voluntariness of his substitution have been increased or diminished? Could his mediation have been instituted with more or less authority and approbation than it was? These elements are, even in thought, incapable of being more or less. They are infinite, unlimited, unmeasurable. They are immutable, and are as unaffected by the number of the objects which they benefit, as the light of the sun is by the multitude of objects which it unfolds.

Not only all the elements, but all the effects of the atonement, with the mere exception of the number of the saved, are likewise incapable of variableness, increase, or diminution. Let us think again; could the divine perfections have been more or less vindicated and glorified than they were? Could the evil of sin have been more or less powerfully demonstrated than it was? Could God's determination to defend his law have been more or less proved than it was? That is, would a less atonement have done these things sufficiently: or would a greater atonement have done them efficiently? I trow not.

The honors conferred on the person of the Redeemer are among the effects of the atonement. These also, with the exception of the number of the saved, are in

capable of being more or less than they are.

The Son

of God could not have been more or less suitable and able to be an advocate and a judge than he is. To say, the greater the number there will be in heaven, the more honor there would be to the Savior, is true; but it is true only by giving another meaning to the word honor. The honor of the Savior is the same and unalterable, but this sentiment only means that, in the supposed case, there would be a greater ascription of honor to him, but it forgets that it is an honor already due, and already rising from his atonement, even if such a number were not there to ascribe it. Daily accessions to the church and to heaven do not give honor to the atonement, they only own and ascribe to it the dignity and the work which they have already found in it.

The gradations of gracious reward and heavenly glory among the saints made perfect are never traced to the capableness of the atonement being more or less; but to the personal exercise of moral agency in faithful services for God. It is "he that soweth sparingly that shall reap also sparingly, and it is he which soweth bountifully that shall reap also bountifully." Such considerations persuade me that the atonement would not have been greater or less had the agonies of Christ been more or less; and, therefore, that the sufficiency and extent of the atonement do not at all depend upon the degree or intensity of his sufferings.

This view of the atonement does not destroy the propriety and necessity of the sufferings of Christ. It might be asked, if the value and the sufficiency of the atonement arise from the dignity, worth, and voluntariness of the person of Christ, and not from the degrees of his sufferings, then, what was the necessity of his sufferings to such a degree as he did suffer, and where is the propriety of the scriptures so constantly referring us to his cross and sufferings?

It should be remembered that the atonement is not a measure of law, but of prerogative and grace. Had the atonement been a measure of law, it would have been

under the direction of pure equity; but as it is a measure of grace, it is, like all such measures, under the direction of infinite wisdom. This infinite wisdom arranged the time and period in which the atonement was to be effected; and, no doubt, the same wisdom ordered and regulated the degree of sufferings and humiliation which were to be endured in its execution. There is no incongruity in supposing, that had infinite wisdom seen fit, the time of atonement might have been otherwise; nor is there any absurdity or impiety in supposing also, that the degree of humiliation and suffering might have been otherwise.

We cannot tell all the reasons of the divine government for annexing such a penalty to the law, or for executing such a punishment on offenders. But we are not afraid to assert, that the humiliation of the Son of God to assume, on account of sin, the nature of man and the form of a servant, was, even without personal sufferings, an event of such unfathomable degradation, as to appear more calculated to secure those ends of government, than the degradation of the whole human race under the penalty to all eternity. Therefore, when we stand on the shore of the great atonement, and pose ourselves with questions, and weary ourselves with guesses, as to why he was wounded for our transgressions, and why he was bruised for our iniquities, infinite wisdom only says, "IT BECAME HIM for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings."

The perfection of infinite wisdom demands our implicit confidence, and gives us an assurance that if the sufferings of the blessed Mediator might, for all the ends of atonement, have been of less intensity, they would have been so arranged. We think, however, that right reason and analogy point out to us a propriety and a congruity in an atonement being as much like the threatened punishment as might be consistent with the