17. It seems strange that any person can cherish the thought for a moment that the Infinite Father would require a sacrificial offering for the trifling act of eating a little fruit, and require no atonement for the infinitely greater sin of murdering "his only-begotten son." Another monstrous absurdity!
18. The advocates of the atonement tell us that man stands toward his Creator in the relation of a debtor; and the atonement cancels the debt. To be sure! How does it do it? We will illustrate: A man says to his neighbor, "I owe you a thousand dollars; but I won't pay it."—"Very well," says the creditor, "I will tell you what I will do: I will forgive the debt by seizing on my own son, strip him of all he has, and then put him to death. The claims of justice will then be satisfied." A monstrous idea of justice!
19. The Jewish and Chaldean law of atonement required the offender to place his hand on the head of the beast while being consumed in sacrifice; and this was accepted as an atonement for his transgressions. Such a conception is both senseless and demoralizing. He was thereby taught that he would escape the legitimate consequences of his crime. And the Christian atonement is no better. The sin-atoning offering of Christ furnishes an open door through which the sinner escapes the just punishment of law. It is at least a partial liquidation of his sins. When one being is punished for another, this is, to the latter, an immunity from punishment; and the ends of justice are thus completely thwarted, and the moral law broken and trampled under foot. If a culprit were sentenced to the penalty of death for murder, and the punishment of another man were accepted in his stead, every court in the civilized world would decide that two wrongs were committed,—the punishment of the innocent, and the pardon of the guilty. Such doctrines are repugnant to ali ideas of justice, and are most certainly demoralizing.
20. The wrong-doer should be taught that he is just as guilty, and just as certain of punishment for his crime, as if all the Gods in heaven were put to death to atone for his sin; the penalty being inseparable from the act.
21. What would be thought of the government that should punish the law-maker instead of the law-breaker? This is exactly what the atonement amounts to; so that the law-maker falls a victim to the penalty of his own laws. It is God the law-maker dying for man the law-breaker. Such ideas and such doctrines are monstrous, and completely overthrow every principle of civil jurisprudence.
22. A God who could resort to such desperate expedients to appease his anger, and satisfy the demands of justice, is not a God, but merely an imaginary being which was conjured up in an age of ignorance and superstition. The belief in such a God is, nevertheless, demoralizing.
We will here relate an anecdote, showing that such ideas of the Supreme Being are repulsive even to the unenlightened heathen: In Smith's "Gulf of Guinea" it is stated, that, as a Christian missionary was presenting the doctrine of the Christian religion to Pepples, King of Bonny, and told him that God gave his only-begotten son to die for us,—to be put to death for our sins,—the king stopped him by saying, "Do you think me a fool to believe such palaver as that,—that God would kill his own son to please himself; get mad at man, and then kill his own son, instead of killing him? Never! never can I believe such fool palaver as that, It is a big fool lie." "I tried," says the missionary, "to impress upon his mind that nothing would satisfy divine justice but such a sacrifice; but he cut me short by exclaiming, 'That will do; that will do: I have got enough of such fool palaver.'" Quite a sensible "heathen" was King Pepples.