our misery, and determined on the salvation of sinners, by a method at once safe for them, and glorious to God.

As this method was devised, so it was revealed, by Infinite Wisdom; and consequently nothing in relation to its true nature and blessed effects can be known, but what the sacred scriptures have taught. To the scriptures, then, must be our appeal in every dispute on this all-important subject. What they teach it behoves us carefully to inquire and cordially to believe; always remembering that philosophical speculations on matters of pure revelation, are apt to mislead. If Jehovah is pleased to conceal any thing from us, it is vain for man to attempt to discover it." Secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed, belong unto us and to our children for ever."

Two theories on the subject of the atonement are advocated by members of the Presbyterian church. The one is the definite, the other the indefinite scheme. The advocates of the former have been denomi

nated The Old School, and the advocates of the latter The New School.

In the course of the letters which I am writing to you, my design is, to institute a comparison between the two theories-A short statement of each will facilitate the accomplishment of this design.

The friends of the definite plan believe, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in execution of his engagements with his eternal Father in the covenant of redemption, came into the world in the fulness of time; that having assumed our nature into a personal union with his Divine nature, he appeared in the world as the Saviour of sinful men. They believe that the immaculate Redeemer was made under the law, and consequently subject to its penal demands, as well as to its preceptive requisitions; that he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; and that the whole of his sufferings, from the beginning to the close of his spotless life, constituted that all-sufficient sacrifice which he offered for sin. They believe that Jesus Christ, as the

substitute of his people, was charged with their sins, and bore the punishment of them, and thus made a full and complete satisfaction to Divine justice for all who shall ever believe on him; and that this atonement will eventually be applied to all for whom, in the intention of the Divine Redeemer, it was made: or, in other words, to all to whom the wise and holy God has, in his adorable sovereignty, been pleased to decree its application.

They believe, moreover, that, in making an atonement or satisfaction for the sins of all who were given to him by the Father to be redeemed, the Lord Jesus Christ did offer a sacrifice or make an atonement, sufficient, in its intrinsic value, to expiate the sins of the whole world; that this infinite. worth necessarily arose from the nature of his work, and the infinite dignity of his Divine person; and that, if it had been the pleasure of God to apply it to every individual, the whole human race would have been saved by its immeasurable worth.

On the ground of the infinite value of

the atonement, they further believe that the offer of salvation can be consistently and sincerely made to all who hear the gospel accompanied with the gracious and divine assurance, that whosoever believeth shall be saved; and enforced by the solemn and alarming denunciation-that he who believes not, but wilfully rejects the overtures of mercy, will increase his guilt and aggravate his damnation.

Such are the views of the Old School; views that were entertained by the illustrious leaders in the glorious Reformation; views embodied in the creeds of almost all the Protestant churches, that flourished immediately after that grand epoch in the history of the Christian church.

The views of the friends of the indefinite plan are different. They do not believe that Jesus Christ, in the great transaction of dying for the redemption of the world, was charged with the sins of his people, or bore the punishment due to them, or endured the penalty of the law. They assert, that he suffered for sin in ge

neral; that by his sufferings a display was made of the evil of sin, and an exhibition of Divine justice; that his sufferings were designed to be a substitute for our sufferings, and in this way were vicarious, but not as being the sufferings of one who took the sinner's place. In this, say they, consisted the atonement: and thus the obstacle to the salvation of our sinful race being removed, God can now exercise his sovereign mercy, and apply the benefits of the atonement to whom he pleases; and as it was not made for one man more than for another, the offers of salvation can be freely made to all mankind without distinction.

They deny that the Redeemer made a plenary satisfaction for the sins of believers; because such a satisfaction would in their view be incompatible with the grace that reigns in the salvation of sinners. Yet some admit a satisfaction to what they choose to denominate public justice; but at the same time they contend, this was no satisfaction to Jehovah's distributive justice, or to the penal demands of his holy and