The question is not whether the scheme of salvation is merely reconcilable with divine love and justice, but how it constitutes the grand proof and manifestation of these attributes, and in general, of the perfections of God. In it he undertakes to shew himself worthy of love, and thus to win our love to himself. Any other means to that end than such as should prove his own worthiness, He could not use. One may confer a benefit on an individual from a thousand various motives, of which one only may be morally right. In event of any of the others having prompted the action, the benefactor may be regarded with gratitude, but then it is either because the motive is mistaken for the nobler one, or the gratitude is a mere reflected selfishness. As an example of the latter sort, the Jews, in the days of the Son of Man upon earth, had a love to God, a zeal for God, founded on their conviction of his partiality for their people. They regarded him as the God of the Jews only, and not also of the Gentiles. Its fruits were, their carrying the Lord to the brow of the hill to destroy him, because he reminded them of Naaman and the widow of Sarepta, as preferred to objects of bounty among their own people; and their endeavouring to tear Paul in pieces when he spake of a commission given him by Jesus to the Gentiles. They were indeed zealous, the apostle bears them witness in the Holy Ghost, and fully believed in God’s sovereign election of their nation. There is yet a zeal like their’s—let us beware of it.
It will not do to represent the Gospel scheme of salvation as not only leaving, but involving, the moral character of God in difficulty; and then to say we can still believe him holy, just, and good notwithstanding. The atonement was designed to prove and establish these attributes: to be the ground of our confidence in them, and of our love to God because of them. We are not to believe in them in spite of the plan of redemption; but, because of the plan of redemption. The words of John, “we love him because he first loved us,” and “herein is the love of God manifested towards us, because he sent his Son into the world that we might live through him,” imply that the believer’s delight in the essential excellence of God (which delight alone is divine love) springs out of the display of that excellence in the cross of Christ. An atonement for all, arising out of love to all, proves that it is indeed justice that inflicts vengeance on the impenitent; not partial, personal hatred, not indifference, not cruelty. A limited atonement, just because it gives no proof that they are beloved—gives no proof that nothing else than justice could have punished them. It gives, on the other hand, no proof that forgiving love has been that which saved the elect, as it is to an arbitrary distinction it teaches them to look as the ultimate cause of their hope. I care not to be told that they acknowledge love in their salvation notwithstanding. I repeat, the redemption is to prove the divine character, not merely to leave us the possibility of believing it.
Finally, This scheme obliges to believe that Jesus has broken the law, and transgression of the law is sin. This he assuredly did, if he loved not all mankind as himself. It is an ignorant answer to say, that for him to break the law was not sin. To break the moral law, and to be a sinner, are not things arbitrarily put together; they are two names for the same thing. It is worse to say he need not keep the law because he was God. The law is the transcript of the character of God: opposition to it is opposition to that character. Made of woman, besides, he was made under the law. All praises of his goodness and moral perfection are so many varied expressions for the completeness with which he kept the law. And oh! indeed, what part of it so peculiarly his own, as to love his neighbour as himself?
I say, therefore, again, to limit the divine love, to limit the atonement, the grand expression of that love, is to limit the love of Christ, and thus to make Christ a sinner. He that hath seen him hath seen the Father. No moral difference surely is so great as that between a breaker and a keeper of the law of love. What a moral difference, then, between the character of a God manifested in the one form and in the other.
APPENDIX.
The following letters are added, because they contain some interesting details of the Lord’s dealings with this our dear brother, which are not contained in the Journal. And the reader will observe, that the last letter is of a later date than the conclusion of the Journal.
Bagdad, Oct. 15th, 1831.
The Lord has just raised me up from a typhus fever, which, for the last month, has been pressing a little hard on my strength, but more on my spirits. The loss of my dearest Mary was so deeply felt by my poor desolate heart, that, at times, I bore up with difficulty; but the Lord shewed me that my sorrow was so selfish, so earthly, so unworthy of his love, and poured in besides such hopes and prospects as to my future work, that sustained and comforted me.