A. I not only suppose it, but it now appears to me to have been absolutely impossible.

O. Upon what grounds?

A. Because he could not be accepted.

O. Why?

A. You know that being innocent he could not be charged with others" guilt to accept of him, therefore, as a substitute, in your own language, would be "to set reason and common sense, not to speak of law and justice, at utter defiance."

O. I see what misleads you. You speak of the death of Christ as if it had been a human transaction; whereas we are to regard it as altogether divine and supernatural; therefore reason and common sense and human law and justice have nothing to do with it..

A. No! Are we to adopt Tertullian's creed and say, "Credo quia impossibile"? Are we to ascribe a line of procedure to the Almighty, at which even the human mind, when divested of prejudice, revolts, and spurns as absurd?

0. Your idea is neither new nor well-founded. In the days of St Paul the very same subject was unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness, and yet it contained demonstrations both of the power and wisdom of God..

A. But how are we to judge of this, if you exclude reason and common sense?

O. Reason and common sense are not otherwise excluded than as they are incapable of comprehending the mysteries of God; or, as St. Paul denominates the doctrine of Christ crucified, "the wisdom of God in a mystery." You certainly will allow the Deity to be incomprehensible. You recollect that fine strain of representation on this subject by the author of the book of Job: "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? Deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." Can you wonder, then, if his procedure should not be level in every respect to the comprehension of finite intelligences, especially to a being of such limited capacity as man? Recollect, I pray you, the statement of St. Paul, "Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness."

A. But while the incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature is readily acknowledged, and also the incomprehensibility of his works in many respects, this furnishes no substantial reason why his moral procedure, as revealed to man, should be equally incomprehensible.

66

..O. No! I think it does. Were man able to comprehend even the moral procedure of the Almighty, he must be possessed of an intelligence approaching to divine. Very differently, however, did prophets and apostles regard this subject. "My thoughts," saith the Lord in the Prophecies of Isaiah, are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." "O the depth," says St. Paul, "of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" His judgments and his ways you will allow to be moral procedure, and that too as it regards man. A. Why then am I called upon to believe a doctrine as revealed, and to act upon it, if that doctrine be incomprehensible?

O. You believe a thousand things equally incomprehensible: nay, it is

beyond your power to doubt them. For instance, you never would call in question the intimate connexion between your mind and body; but can you comprehend the nature of that connexion? You know that by a simple volition you can put your body in motion, but can you explain how it is that by this volition you can move even a single joint? How absurd then were your conduct, were you to sit down in inaction, till you could sufficiently comprehend how you live and move! You cannot comprehend how the tree gradually becomes loaded with beautiful and delicious fruit, but would you on that account refuse to partake of it? Equally unreasonable would your conduct be were you to refuse the benefits of Christ's death because you cannot comprehend the principles on which it was deemed necessary for their procurement.

A. This reasoning is analogical. Do you recollect how you characterized such reasoning?

O. Though this reasoning be analogical, it is for the purpose of illustration alone, and not to mislead your judgment.

A. If this doctrine then, that Jesus, though innocent, died for the guilty, be as you state, incomprehensible, upon what grounds can I believe it as a rational being?

O. Upon the very strongest grounds, which I shall presently state: but permit me in the meantime to observe, that we live in a world of incomprehensibilities. It is but little that we do know. Our knowledge is chiefly confined to facts. Now amongst these facts is that most important of all, of Christ having "died the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God."

A. That is the matter to be proved. Where are your proofs ?

O. They are found in abundance in that testimony which God hath given of his Son; "and if ye receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater."

A. But then those passages to which you will unquestionably refer, must either admit of a different interpretation, or I must give up all pretensions to form any ideas of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood.

O. Now, Sir, do you really presume to regard yourself as a judge qualified to decide on what is right or wrong, true or false?

I

A, Not absolutely; but when a proposition demands my assent, may not be allowed to examine it, and if it evidently appear to be incongruous, may I not reject it as false?

O. But, Sir, your judgment is not infallible. At any rate it were only an act of becoming humility to submit your judgment to the authority of God. A. Sir, permit me to say, that it is my most earnest desire and study to pay the utmost deference to the Divine authority; and were I but convinced that this doctrine, with all its incomprehensibility, really were of divine authority, I would receive it with most cordial and implicit submission. But, Sir, it is a duty which I owe to myself to satisfy my own conscience. It is a duty which is enjoined in Scripture "to prove all things, and to be ready always to give an answer to every man that shall ask me a REASON of the hope that is in me." To do this I must employ my reason, and therefore must judge of that interpretation which is assigned to particular passages of Scripture. Now, if I find that in the Scripture the ultimate destination of man is made to depend on the nature of his actions, the numerous quotations in support of which I need not now parade to you, surely I may regard the doctrine of Jesus Christ dying in the room,

of the guilty as not only at variance with these, but as a doctrine in itself, to speak mildly, not agreeable to reason.

O. Then how is it possible for you to account for the whole Christian dispensation, which is founded entirely on the death of Christ as the substi tute of sinners, or to explain those passages which represent it as such, and which occupy so large a portion of the New Testament?

A. Bring forward some of these passages.

O. Isaiah, in his prophetical capacity, says, "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all." And St. Peter says, speaking of Jesus Christ, "who his ownself bare our sins in his own body on the tree.”

A. Now here, Sir, you must permit me to apply your own principles. The representation in these quotations is metaphorical. Iniquities or sins are represented as a load or burden, and the metaphor is sufficiently appropriate in one respect, but only in reference to the guilty; I say in one respect, because a metaphor is not applicable to the subject it represents in all its qualities, or in all the circumstances in which it may be viewed. A load or burden may be taken up, or laid down, or transferred from one to another; but guilt is personal and in its own nature intransferrable. To lay upon one the iniquities of another is therefore neither intelligible in point of language, nor possible in point of fact. All texts of Scripture, then, which represent sins or iniquities under the figure of a burden, or any other figure implying the possibility of transferrence, if so interpreted, carry the figure far beyond its legitimate and intelligible import.

O. But though sin be in its own nature intransferrable, Jesus Christ might be said to bear our sins, and to have them laid on him, when he endured the punishment of them.

A. Now, Sir, I must appeal to your candour. How often have you yourself in the most decided manner averred it to be a principle ALTOGETHER INCONTROVERTIBLE, that where there was no guilt, there could be no pu

nishment?

O. Sir, I own to you, and I have all along assumed, that the substitution of Jesus Christ for sinners is a doctrine that is incomprehensible. It is a mystery of God, but not on that account irrational. In short, it is a doctrine that is ABOVE REASON, BUT NOT CONTRARY TO REASON.

A. Now do me the favour to define your terms, and let me distinctly understand what you mean by above reason and contrary to reason.

O. When a doctrine in Scripture is proposed, the truth and manner of which the reason cannot comprehend, then I say that that doctrine is above reason; and were it possible that a doctrine in Scripture could be comprehended, or actually is comprehended, to be absolutely false or impossible, then I say that that doctrine is contrary to reason. Or in other words, a proposition is above reason when we do not comprehend how it is realized, and contrary to reason when we do positively comprehend that it cannot be realized. For instance, so long as a person may be ignorant of mathematics, the forty-seventh proposition of the first book of Euclid, though in itself demonstrably true, yet would be above his reason, but any proposition contradictory to an axiom or first principle would be contrary to reason.

A. Pray tell me further what is it in a proposition which renders it false, or impossible?

O. A proposition is false or impossible when the ideas which it contains do not coalesce. This may take place either on account of the immediate opposition and inconsistency of the ideas themselves, mutually excluding

each other, as in a contradiction, or because of their inconsistency with some other established truth, with which they do not comport.

A. Now, Sir, I am so well pleased with your definition and distinction, that I am ready to rest the question entirely upon what you have now stated. You then maintain that the acceptance of Jesus Christ as a substitute for the guilty is a doctrine which is true, although with regard to its truth and manner it be incomprehensible, by which you mean that it is above reason. Is this a fair statement of your meaning?

O. It is.

A. Now, on the contrary, I maintain that the said doctrine is contrary to reason, because I DO COMPREHEND IT to be false or impossible, both on account of the ideas of it not coalescing among themselves, and of their opposition to other truths which are firmly established. The proposition then at issue is this, Is the acceptance of Jesus Christ as the substitute of the guilty above reason, or contrary to reason?

O. It is in vain to enter on any discussion, because the doctrine, being acknowledged to be incomprehensible and above reason, cannot be submitted to its test, but rests on Divine authority, and therefore may be received as indisputably true, being a matter of faith, but not of reason.

A. I would observe, that it appears incomprehensible or above reason in no other sense than an absurd proposition is incomprehensible or above reason. Suppose it were announced to you in a writing claiming divine authority, that two and two make five, or that a part is greater than the whole these propositions you might pronounce to be incomprehensible; but the mind will not rest here, but reject them at once as false or impossible. If, therefore, I can shew that the doctrine under discussion is equally false and impossible, it is incumbent on you either to expose the fallacy of my reasoning, or to acknowledge its validity. I conceive it then to be contrary to reason that God should accede to a procedure inconsistent with the perfection of his nature. If his violated law requires satisfaction for the support of its dignity, that satisfaction neither can be given by, nor accepted from, an innocent individual, because justice requires that the innocent be protected, and the guilty alone be punished. Were the innocent to suffer for the guilty, this would be, according to your own representation, to satisfy the law with the shadow without the substance-with the figure without the subject which it represents-with a mockery of justice-with a counterfeit of punishment. Though Jesus Christ should have voluntarily proposed to die, this makes no alteration, because where there is no guilt, there can be no punishment-neither can he be supposed to take the guilt upon himself, because guilt in its own nature is intransferrable.

O. How then is it said that "God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin"? If in this there could be no transferrence of guilt, there was at least an imputation, for he was considered and declared as guilty.

A. Now, Sir, I call upon you to mark in your statement a proposition contrary to reason—not above it, because as a reasonable being you cannot do otherwise than comprehend it to be both false and impossible. Your doctrine, then, supposes Jesus Christ guilty of the sins of mankind by imputation, but not in reality-that is to say, that he was guilty of those very sins of which at the same time he was innocent. Now, to maintain such a doctrine is to contradict a first principle, it is to contradict the axiom, "that it is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be, at the same time." But what, I pray you, is imputation? The very term denotes uncertainty, if

not falsehood. Both in its use and etymology, it implies the exercise of the imagination, or of a vague and indiscriminating mind, thinking or supposing certain qualities to belong to a person, which he either may or may not possess. But, in the case of Jesus Christ, imputation assumes a very different aspect; for here there is violence done, and that wilfully, to the consciousness of truth. Guilt is imputed to him in the consciousness of his innocence. Through ignorance or malevolence, one man may impute guilt to another who may be innocent; but you represent God as imputing guilt to his Son, and the Son as voluntarily imputing it to himself, and all this in the consciousness of innocence; just as if God could be capable of colluding with his Son to impose upon the world falsehood for truth.

O. Sir, you horrify me.

A. Where is the wonder, seeing that you dare to impute to the Author of all perfection, a procedure akin to the machinations of the infernal spirit? O. Sir, I protest against your unhallowed assertions. The doctrine I maintain has been that of the Church, with little exception, from its commencement till the present day.

A. But when it has been impugned, how has it been defended? Only by an appeal to authorities, not to principles; to assertions, not to proofs. Permit me to notice to you a late author, who says, that "in defending this doctrine, it is necessary to state it in such a manner, that it shall not appear irrational or unjust." Well, how does HE state it? I shall read to you his words. After asserting that the doctrine had been completely vindicated, and a solution afforded to every objection, by some of the greatest masters of reason, from Grotius down to the present Archbishop of Dublin inclusive, and professing to avail himself of all this host of assistance, he says,-" In the substitution of Jesus Christ, according to the Catholic opinion, there is a translation of the guilt of the sinners to him; by which is not meant that he who was innocent became a sinner, but that what he suffered was on account of sin. To perceive the reason for adopting this expression, you must carry in your minds a precise notion of the three words, sin, guilt, and punishment. Sin is the violation of law, guilt is the desert of punishment which succeeds this violation, and punishment is the suffering in consequence of this desert. When you separate suffering from guilt, it ceases to be punishment, and becomes mere calamity or affliction: and although the Almighty may be conceived by his sovereign dominion to have the right of laying any measure of suffering upon any being, yet suffering, even when inflicted by Heaven, unless it is connected with guilt, does not attain the ends of punishment. In order, therefore, that the sufferings of the Son of God might be such as became the Lawgiver of the universe to inflict, it was necessary that the sufferer should be considered and declared as taking upon him that obligation to punishment which the human race had incurred by their sins. THEN HIS SUFFERINGS BECAME punishment, not indeed deserved by sins of his own, but due to him as bearing the sins of others." After the discussion which has already taken place, it is not necessary by any analysis to point out the incongruities, the fallacies, and, I may even add, the disingenuousness, contained in this remarkable passage. It may, however, be regarded, notwithstanding its ambiguous and contradictory phraseology, not only as one of the latest, but as the best statement of the doctrine which can be given. It has been given, too, by a person of distinguished talents and learning, lately at the head of a Scottish university, and long the eloquent leader of the councils of the Scottish Church; and it affords an instance that