James. If by this you mean all for whose salvation it was sufficient, I answer, There is not. But if you mean all for whose salvation it was intended, I answer, There is.

Peter. You consider the PRINCIPAL DESIGN of our Lord's atonement to be the manifestation of God's hatred to sin, in order to render the exercise of mercy consistent with justice: but though this idea is supposed, yet it is far from being the first, the most prominent, the characteristic idea of our Lord's death the grand idea suggested to an enlightened mind by the atonement of Christ, is not God's hatred to sin, but his love to sinners.

James. I hope we shall none of us pretend to be more enlightened than the apostle Paul, and I am mistaken if he does not suggest the idea against which you militate. He represents God as setting forth his Son as a propitiation to declare or DEMON

STRATE HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS IN TRE REMISSION OF SINS*. It is marvellous to me that I should be suspected of holding up God's hatred of sin to the disparagement of his love to sinners, when the former is supposed to have been manifested to prepare the way for the latter. Were I to say, the PRINCIPAL DESIGN of David in restoring Absalom at the instance of Joab, rather than by sending for him himself, was, that even in pardoning the young man he might show some displeasure against his sin, and save his own honour as the head of a family and of a nation, I should not be far from the truth. Yet I might be told, The grand, the prominent, the characteristic idea suggested by the king's consent, was love; for his "soul longed to go forth to Absalom." Love to Absalom doubtless

* Rom. iii. 25.

accounts for David's desiring his return: but love to righteousness accounts for his desiring it in that particular manner. So if the question were, Why did God give his Son to die for sinners, rather than leave them to perish in their sins? The answer would be, Because he loved them. But if the question be, Why did he give his Son to be an atonement for sinners, rather than save them without one? The answer would be, Because he loved righteousness, and hated iffiquity.

Peter. On the principle I oppose, the love of God in applying the atonement is much greater than in giving his Son to be an atonement, since the latter is mere general benevolence; but the former is particutar and effectual.

James. You should rather have said, the love of God is greater in giving his Son to be a sacrifice in respect of those for whose salvation it was his pleasure to make it effectual, than in merely giving him, as he is said to have done, to some who never received him*. If there, was a particularity of design in the gift of Christ, it cannot be ascribed merely to general benevolence. And so far as it is so, we have no right to depreciate it on account of its not issuing in the salvation of sinners in general. It was no diminution to the love of God to Israel in bringing them out of Egypt, that the great body of them transgressed and perished in the wildernesst: nor could it be truly said that the bringing of Caleb and Joshua into the land of promise was a greater expression of love than that which had been bestowed upon them, and the whole body of their cotemporaries, in liberating them from the Egyptian yoke. And let me intreat you to consider whether your principles would not furnish,

an apology for the unbelieving Israelites. There was little or no love in God's delivering us, unless he intended withal to prevent our sinning against him, and actually to bring us to the good land: but there was no good land for us- -Would to God we had died in Egypt! To this, however, an apostle would answer, "They could not enter in because of unbelief." And as this language was written for the warning of professing christians, whose inclination to relinquish the gospel resembled that of their fathers to return into Egypt, we are warranted to conclude from it that though the salvation of the saved be entirely of grace, yet the failure of others will be ascribed to themselves. They shall not have the consolation to say, 'Our salvation was a natural impossibility:' or, if they were to utter such language, they would be repelled by scripture and conscience, which unite in declaring, They could not enter in because of unbelief.

Peter. I remember an old non-conformist minister says, "If any man be found to believe Christ's satisfaction sufficient to justify him for whom it was never paid, he is bound to believe an untruth. God will never make it any man's duty to rest for salvation on that blood that was never shed for him, or that satisfaction that was never made for him."

James. This reasoning of the old non-conformist may, for aught I know, be just on his principles; but it is not so on mine. If satisfaction was made on the principle of debtor and creditor, and that which was paid was just of sufficient value to liquidate a given number of sins, and to redeem a given number of sinners, and no more; it should seem that it could not be the duty of any but the elect, nor theirs till it was

* Heb. iii. 19.

:

revealed to them that they were of the elect, to rely upon it for wherefore should we set our eyes on that which is not? But if there be such a fulness in the satisfaction of Christ as is sufficient for the salvation of the whole world, were the whole world to believe in him; and if the particularity of redemption lie only in the purpose or sovereign pleasure of God to render it effectual to some rather than others, no such consequence will follow or if it do, it will also follow, that divine predestination and human accountableness are utterly inconsistent, and therefore that we must either relinquish the former in favour of Arminianism, or give up the latter to the Antinomians.-But though the ideas of my much-respected brother on the subject of redemption, cannot be very different from those of his old non-conformist, yet I should not have supposed he would have adopted his reasoning as

his own.

Peter. Why not?

James. Because it is your avowed persuasion, that sinners AS SINNERS are invited to believe in Christ for salvation. Thus you have interpreted the invitations in Isai. lv. 1-7. and various others; carefully and justly guarding against the notion of their being addressed to renewed, or as some call them, sensible sinners. Thus also you interpret 2 Cor. v. 20. of God's beseeching sinners by the ministry of the word to be reconciled to him. But your old friend would tell you that God will never invite a sinner to rest for salvation on that blood that was never shed for hirn, or on that satisfaction that was never made for him. I should have thought too, after all that you have said of the warrant which sinners as sinners have to believe in Christ, you would not have denied it to be their duty, nor have adopted a mode

of reasoning which, if followed up to its legitimate consequences, will compel you to maintain either the possibility of knowing our election before we believe in Christ, or that in our first reliance on his rightousness for acceptance with God we are guilty of presumption.

John. I conceive, my dear brethren, that you have each said as much on these subjects as is likely to be for edification. Permit me after having heard, and candidly attended to all that has passed between you, to assure you both of my esteem, and to declare that, in my opinion, the difference between you ought not to prevent your feeling towards and treating each other as brethren. You are agreed in all the great doctrines of the gospel; as the necessity of an atonement, the ground of acceptance with God, salvation. by grace only, &c. &c.: and with respect to particular redemption, you both admit the thing, and I would hope both hold it in a way consistent with the practice of the primitive ministers; or if it be not altogether so, that you will re-consider the subject when you are by yourselves. The greater part of those things, wherein you seem to differ, may be owing either to a difference in the manner of expressing yourselves, or to the affixing of consequences to a principle which yet are unperceived by him that holds it. I do not accuse either of you with doing so intentionally but principles and their consequences are so suddenly associated in the mind, that when we hear a person avow the former, we can scarcely forbear immediately attributing to him the latter. If a principle be proposed to us for acceptance, it is right to weigh the consequences: but when forming our judgment of the person who holds it, we should attach nothing to him but what he perceives and avows. If by ah

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