7. And no father, cherishing a proper regard and love for his son, could have required him to be, or consented to have him, put to death in a cruel manner; for the claims of mercy and paternal affection are as imperative as justice.
8. To put an intelligent and innocent being to death for any purpose is a violation of the moral law, and as great a sin as that for which he died. Hecatombs of victims can not atone for the infraction of the moral law which is engraven upon our souls.
9. If it were necessary for Christ to be put to death, then Judas is entitled to one-half the merit of it for inaugurating the act, as it could not have taken place without his aid; and no one who took part in it should be censured, but praised.
10. It is evident, that, if everybody had been Quakers, no atonement would have been made, as their religion is opposed to bloodshed.
11. The atonement is either one God putting another to death, or God putting himself to death to appease his own wrath; but both assumptions are monstrous absurdities, which no person distinguished for science or reason can indorse.
12. Anger and murder are the two principal features in the doctrine of the atonement; and both are repugnant to our moral sense and feelings of refinement, and indicate a barbarous and heathen origin.
13. The atonement punishes the innocent for the guilty; which is a double or twofold crime, and a reversal of the spirit of justice. If a father should catch four of his children steeling, and the fifth one standing by and remonstrating against the act, and should seize on the innocent one and administer a severe flagellation, he would commit a double crime: 1st, that of punishing an innocent child; 2d, that of exonerating and encouraging the four guilty children in the commission of crime. The atonement involves the same principle.
14. No person with true moral manhood would consent to be saved on any such terms; but would prefer to suffer for his own sins, rather than let an innocent being suffer for them. And the man who would accept salvation upon such terms must be a sneak and a coward, with a soul not worth saving.
15. Who that possesses any sense of justice would want to swim through blood to get to the heavenly mansion? I want neither animals, men, nor Gods murdered to save my soul.
16. If there is any virtue in the atonement in the way of expiating crime, then there is now another atonement demanded by the principles of moral justice to cancel the sin committed by the first atonement,—that of murdering an innocent being, "in whose mouth was no guile;" and then another atonement to wipe out the sin of this atonement, and so on. And thus it would be atonement after atonement, murder after murder, ad infinitum. What shocking consequences and absurdities are involved in this ancient heathen superstition!