"But, Sir, you will admit that it may be true, though you do not believe it?"
"Why, yes; my scepticism does not prove it false, any more than your faith proves it true."
"Now, let me suppose for a moment that it is true—in what an awful dilemma are you placed! Be candid. Are you convinced, by an unbiassed and dispassionate investigation of the evidences of Christianity, that the system is false?"
"Why, no; I have never examined them; and for this reason, I have never thought it worth while; because I cannot reconcile your doctrine of the atonement with the dictates of reason."
"But, suppose the fact of the atonement be established by proper, valid evidence, will your inability to reconcile it with the dictates of reason be any logical argument against it?"
"Most certainly it will, unless you require me to believe what I can neither understand nor comprehend; and, allow me to ask, what practical effect can be produced by the admission of any doctrine or supposed fact which is incomprehensible?"
"You believe in the existence of God; and that belief induces you to pay him homage; but can you comprehend the nature of his essence, or the modus of his existence?"
He was silent; I continued, "We have positive proof that the tides of the ocean are acted on by the moon. This is a fact, which nautical science compels us to believe; and the belief does operate on human conduct; but can you understand how its influence does act? But, waiving the introduction of other facts, which may be made to tell with crushing force against your proposition, that what is incomprehensible cannot put forth any practical power, may I be permitted to ask, what other specific objections you have to advance against the doctrine of the atonement, which is so distinctly and repeatedly brought forward by the writers of the Scriptures?"
"I have several; first, I cannot admit that the death of an innocent person can be accepted as an atonement for the sins of the guilty, without a gross violation of the laws of immutable justice. If I take for granted, what your Scriptures assert to be the case, that man is a sinner, and consequently under a sentence of condemnation, does not immutable justice require that he should stand responsible for his actions; how, then, can he transfer this responsibility to another, without disturbing the established law of moral order?"
"He does not make the transfer, he merely accepts it; the transfer is made in his behalf, by the authority of the supreme legislator; and Jesus Christ, to whom the transfer is made, willingly takes upon himself the moral responsibility of human crime and guilt."