"moral impressions" beyond the word of Scripture. Observe too he says "the life and death," excluding the proper idea of Atonement, which lies in the death of Christ, and so tending to resolve it into a Manifestation.
"God never could have wished to punish you for the sake of doing evil;"
how unspeakably bold; when God says he does punish the sinner, not indeed for the sake of evil, but as a just and holy God!
"and all the good which He could have accomplished by it, is already effected in another and a better way." p. 179[1].
Here is the same assumption which was just now instanced from the writings of Mr. Scott, of Aston Sandford, that God cannot inflict punishment except for the sake of a greater good, or, (as Mr. A. himself has expressed it just before) "because the welfare of his government requires" it, which is an altogether gratuitous statement.
Again:
"A knowledge of the death of Christ, with the explanation of it given in the Scriptures, touches men's hearts, it shows the nature and tendencies of sin, it produces fear of God's displeasure, and resolution to return to duty; and thus produces effects by which justice is satisfied,"—
observe, not by an expiation, but by the repentance of the offender in consequence of the "moral impression" attendant on the "Manifestation" of Christ's death,—
"and the authority of the law sustained far better in fact, than it would be by the severest punishment of the guilty sinner." p. 174.
"Look at the moral effect of this great sacrifice, and feel that it takes off all the necessity of punishment, and all the burden of your guilt." p. 190.
The necessity of punishment is (according to Mr. A.) the well being of the Universe: and the virtue of the great sacrifice is, not expiation, atonement in God's sight, but the moral effect of Christ's death on those who believe in it. So again, in a passage lately quoted for another purpose:
"It is by Jesus Christ that we have access to the Father. This vivid exhibition of His character, this personification of His moral attributes, opens to us the way." p. 40.
- ↑ Vide also p. 173.
