rebel, and lay all that suffering, without any mitigation, upon him, which the rebel deserved to suffer. I presume that no government, except it was formed in the midst of darkness, worse than Egyptian, would do such a deed. There is not a Protestant court in Europe or America, that would punish the innocent in the place of the guilty; nay, there is not a court in the civilized world that would lay a capital punishment, if any punishment, upon an innocent man, in the room and stead of a vile criminal. We do not learn that any such thing was ever practised among the nation of the Jews: to them were committed the oracles of God; but in those oracles we find not a solitary instance, in which that nation, or any other, ever pun'ished an innocent person in the room and stead of the guilty. I see not, therefore, how such an illustration should be thought of, upon any other principle, than taking for granted this scheme of atonement to be correct, and so founding the illustration upon the very thing to be proved. The word of God does not furnish us with a single instance in which any person ever offered to suffer in the room and stead of a criminal, that he might extricate the guilty person from the hands of justice. I believe that if an innocent man should come forward before the seat of justice, and ask the judges if he might be allowed to suffer in the room of a criminal, and so let the criminal go free, that he would be looked upon as in a high state of insanity. And should the judges grant him his request, they would be viewed in the same unhappy situation with the deluded petitioner. And when the innocent man should be brought to the place of ignominious suffering, and the criminal seen walking at Jiberty, the whole multitude of spectators, had they not lost the feelings of men, would view the horrid scene" with amazement and disgust.

It is represented that all the good subjects of the kingdom looked on, and had no thought of any injustice done to him, who suffered all the evil which the

wife deserved. This is begging the question, that is, taking for granted the very thing to be proved.

The probability is, that should such a thing take place as is supposed in the story, all the good subjects of the kingdom would look on, and view the affair, with the utmost consternation and abhorrence, as being in the highest degree unjust, cruel and absurd.

In the author's illustration, he says; they admired the zeal of the good man to maintain the law and government. But it is highly probable, that should such an event take place, that conduct of the good man would be viewed with astonishment, beyond conception, that he should think, that his suffering extreme torture, while the guilty escaped all punishment, should be a way to maintain law and government! Yea, nothing could have a more direct and certain tendency to dissolve law, and to put an end to all good govern

ment.

Should the governments in our land of liberty be so infatuated, as to admit of its being a common thing, for the innocent, and good subjects, to offer to be punished in the room and stead of transgressors; and should the judges be so extremely depraved in their minds, as to allow the innocent thus to suffer, and so let criminals escape the laws; reason teaches, that, in a very short time there would be no law, liberty nor government in the land: all legitimate bodies would be dissolved, the seat of justice, and the whole land would be involved in the utmost confusion, uproar, and disorder. For the truth of this, I appeal to reason, sense, and Scripture.

I believe that no court which had the divine approbation, ever did, or ever can, lay sufferings on an innocent man, for the sake of letting the guilty go free. This, instead of being a good method to maintain law, and secure peace and order in society, would tend to the dissolution of law; and all human peace, order and happiness would come to an end. The author represents the people highly pleased with the conduct of

their king, in his inflicting the penalty of the law on one whom he greatly loved, when he stood in the place of the transgressor. But is not the truth of the case the reverse? Were not the people highly displeased, with the conduct of the king? Surely they could see no propriety, in torturing, next to death, an innocent. person, and the best man in the kingdom, while the guilty were suffered to go free.

And a greater discovery, it is said, was made of the king's displeasure at rebellion, than if the criminal herself had been punished. But the truth is, instead of having this effect upon the minds of the good people of the kingdom, they were astonished at his conduct, and began to think that the king himself had gone over on the side of rebellion: for say they, if he proceed in this way, by punishing the best men in the kingdom in the room and stead of the worst, shortly, all the good people will be put to death, or covered with bruises, and marks of infamy; and in the end the land will be filled with rebels. Again,

Our author supposes that the wife was guilty of rebellion. Perhaps she had headed a powerful party in opposition to her king and country, with a view to dissolve the laws and overthrow the kingdom. Now can the king crush the rebellion, and give the people a high sense of his abhorrence of it, by torturing almost to death, the good man, the husband, while he lets the rebellious wife escape all punishment?

Besides, the punishing of the husband with torment short of death, when the wife according to the law of the kingdom deserved to be punished with death, renders the scheme which it was designed to illustrate, inconsistent with itself.

Furthermore, if it would be consistent for any government to punish the innocent instead of the guilty; then, it would be consistent for the legislature to make a law, that, if any guilty person should obtain an innocent one to take his place, and be punished in his room, the guilty should be freed from punishment: but

doth not every one see that this would put an end to all order in society, and introduce the greatest confusion? It is evident that such a procedure, would, like the laws of Draco, "under a pretence of banishing vice, annihilate society."

It seems, that after the excellent husband had suffered extreme torture, the rebellious wife might escape, and law and government be maintained; and that they were unspeakably more happy in each other than they were before, or would have been, had not all this taken place. But how does this illustrate the Bible doctrine of atonement? How can a rebellious wife be unspeakably happy in a husband, who is strongly attached to a government, which she as strongly abhors?

If the husband's suffering for the wife do not prove a means of converting the wife to the love of order, then, the country, through her erimes, is exposed to another rebellion, and the husband to suffer extreme pain again that she may escape. The objector cannot be consistent, unless he say, that the wife is reduced to a cordial and sincere repentance. But does the atonement of Christ produce such an effect upon sinners? The atonement, aside from the influences of the Divine Spirit, hath no such power over the human heart. Again,

I ask, would it be just in the king to lay that suffering upon the wife which would most certainly terminate in her death, if inflicted upon her when he had accepted of the husband, and laid all that suffering upon him which she deserved? Some doubtless will reply, Her desert of punishment remains the same, as if her husband had not suffered for her. That is true: But, the question is, would it be just in the king to punish the wife with death, for the same crime, for which the husband had suffered in her room? Would her desert of punishment justify the king in laying it upon her under those circumstances?-Even if it would not be inconsistent as it respected her; yet it would most evidently be inconsistent, as it respected the king and his

government. A king ought to be just to himself, as well as to his subjects.

Let the story be applied to the case, for which it was designed as an illustration. And I ask, has Christ suffered in the place of mankind, without any mitigation, all the evil which they deserve to suffer? If so, would it be just in the King of heaven to bring sufferings on those very persons, in whose room and stead Christ had suffered all the evil which they deserved? If the King of heaven has accepted of Christ as a substitute, in the room of sinners, and has laid upon him all the evil which they deserve, would it now be just to punish them also? It appears to me, that it would not; it seems therefore that the substitution scheme lays a broad foundation for universal salvation. I conceive, that from a correct statement of the doctrine of atonement, no such inference can be drawn.

The author, in the illustration of his idea of the atonement, goes upon the supposition, if I understand him, that every transgression of the law, must be punished: that is, if, in the whole moral system, there be ten thousand degrees of criminality, then, there must be ten thousand degrees of suffering. But is this correct? Must suffering always be commensurate with sinning? Must every transgressor be punished according to his crimes in his own person, or in his substitute? It appears to me, not to be necessary, that the degrees of sufferings should be exactly equal to the degrees of trangression. For this would be inconsistent with the idea of pardon; pardon ever supposes the transgressor to be exempted from deserved punishment.

It is a fact, that some men live threescore years and ten, in sin, and then are pardoned, and therefore exempted from all future punishment. Pardon excludes from the moral system infinite evil. What an infinitude of evil will then be excluded from the universe in consequence of the pardon of the sins of those, to whom Christ in the day of judgment will say, Come,