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But the various judgments which God has poured upon those nations who have incurred his displeasure is sufficient to answer the above objection. The destruction of the old world by water, and the cities of the plains by fire-the awful calamities with which he visited the Jewish people when they forsook his worship-the curse under which the earth now groansthe judgment poured upon thousands of blasphemers, Sabbath breakers, and other heaven daring sinners in this life, as well as the wailings of the lost in the dungeons of eternal night, all tell, in the most emphatic language, that God is not reconciled to sinners while out of Christ, and if God must change in order to be reconciled, then man may give up all hope of ever gaining the favor of God, and retire in hopeless despair to the dismal shades of endless night, for God can never change.

But it is not true that God cannot now be unreconciled to man, although he was once reconciled. To show this, we will take an illustration. Suppose the government of the United States sends a man of war to cruise against pirates-I ask, is not the government reconciled to her crew when she sends them out? All must answer yes, or she would not have sent them. Suppose, still farther, that after some months this crew turn pirates, and themselves plunder every vessel which they meet, not sparing the property and lives of our own citizens. I now ask, is the government reconciled to these men now that they have deserted her service, plundered her property, and murdered her citizens? All will answer no, and justify the government in pursuing and destroying these guilty murderers. But has the government changed? No. She is still the same government, pursuing the same onward course; but she stands in a new relation to these supposed individuals, in other words, she was once reconciled but is now unreconciled, while, at the same time, she has not changed, but remains the same. But if an earthly government

can be reconciled and then become unreconciled without changing, why may not God, although once reconciled, now become unreconciled, or stand in a different relation to man from that in which he stood when man first awoke to conscious being, without being charged with mutability or change.

Another objection made by Unitarians "to this doctrine of reconciliation may be easily answered. When we speak of the necessity of Christ's atonement, in order to man's forgiveness, we are told, that we represent the Deity as implacable; when we rebut that by showing that it was his very placability, his boundless and ineffable love to men, which sent his Son into the world to die for the sins of mankind, they rejoin, with their leaders, Socinus and Crellius, that then God was reconciled before he sent his Son, and that, therefore, Christ did not die to reconcile GOD to us." The answer plainly is, that in this objection, they either mean that God had, from the placability and compassion of his nature, determined to be reconciled to offenders upon the sending his Son, or that he was actually reconciled when our Lord was sent. The first is what we contend for, and is in no wise inconsistent with the submission of our Lord to death, since that was in pursuance of the merciful appointment and decree of the Father; and the necessary medium by which this placability of God could honorably and consistently show itself in actual reconciliation, or the pardon of sin. That God was not actually reconciled to man, that is, that he did not forgive our offences, independent of the death of Christ, is clear, for then sin would have been forgiven before it was committed, and remission of sins could not have been preached in the name of Christ, nor could a ministry of reconciliation have been committed to the Apostles. The reconciliation of God to man is, throughout, a conditional one, and, as in all conditional processes of this kind, it has three stages. The first is when the party offended is disposed to ad

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mit of terms of agreement, which, in God, is matter of pure grace and favor; the second is when he declares his acceptance of the mediation of a third person, and that he is so satisfied with what he hath done in order to it, that he appoints it to be announced to the offender, that if the breach continues, the fault lies wholly upon himself; the third is when the offender accepts of the terms of agreement which are offered to him, submits, and is received into favor. Thus,' says Bishop Stillingfleet, upon the death and sufferings of Christ, God declares that he is so satisfied with what Christ hath done and suffered in order to the reconciliation between himself and us, that he now publishes remission of sins to the world, upon those terms which the Mediator hath declared by his own doctrine and the Apostles he sent to preach it. But because remission of sins doth not immediately follow upon the death of Christ, without any supposition of any act on our part, therefore the state of favor doth commence from the performance of the conditions which are required of us.' Whoever considers these obvious distinctions will have an ample answer to the above objection.". Watson.

V. "The doctrine of a vicarious atonement is fully confirmed by those scriptures which speak of Jesus Christ as a redeemer, and man as being redeemed by him.

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"Matt. xx. 28 and Mark x. 45. came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.'

"1 Tim. ii. 6. 6 Who gave himself a ransom for all.' The English word ransom contained in the above quotations is thus defined by Dr. Webster.

"RANSOM, n. 1. The money or price paid for the redemption of a prisoner or slave, or for goods captured by an enemy. 2. Release from captivity, bondage, or the possession of an enemy. 3. In law, a sum paid for the pardon of some great offence and the

discharge of the offender; or a fine paid in lieu of corporeal punishment. 4. In scripture, the price paid for a forfeited life, or for delivering or release from capital punishment. 5. The price paid for procuring the pardon of sins and the redemption of the sinner from punishment.'est when put de

"RANSOM, v. t. 1. To redeem from captivity or punishment by paying an equivalent, 2. To redeem from the possession of an enemy by paying a price deemed equivalent. 3. In scripture, to redeem from the bondage of sin, and from the punishment to which sinners are subjected by the divine law. 4. To rescue, to deliver.

"If then Christ gave himself a ransom for many,' 'for all,' in the above sense, there is no room for farther controversy. The texts above quoted teach that Christ has ransomed sinners from the bondage of sin and the punishment to which they are subjected by the divine law, by paying his life a price for theirs.

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"It may then be asked, if the word ransom is a proper translation of the original Greek.

"The word which the Evangelist employs, rendered ransom by our translators, is lutron, which is thus defined in the Greek and English Lexicons: Lutron, ransom, redemption, atonement, price of deliverance. The word which the apostle uses in the above text is antilutron, and is thus defined: Antilutron, (from anti, inturn, and lutron, a ransom,) the price of redemption, ransom.'

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"It is clear then that Christ has ransomed us by giving his life a ransom for ours.

"This view is farther supported by those scriptures, which express the same sentiment by the terms redeem, redemption, &c.

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"Rom. iii. 24. Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.' 1. Cor. i. 30. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who, of God, is made unto us redemption.' Gal. iv. 45. God

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sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.' Tit. ii. 14. 'Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity.' Heb. ix. 15. And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressors that were under the first testament, that they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.'

It is clear, from these texts, that Christ has redeemed us, that he is the Redeemer and we the redeemed. We ask, then, what is it to redeem, or what is redemption? So far as the English word is concerned there can be hardly room for dispute.

"The word redeem Dr. Webster defines as follows: "REDEEM, v. t. 1. To purchase back; to ransom; to liberate or rescue from captivity or bondage, or from any obligation, or liability to suffer or to be forfeited, by paying an equivalent. 2. To repurchase what has been sold; to regain possession of a thing alienated, by repaying the value of it,' &c. With this corresponds his definition of the word redemption, which he defines thus: REDEMPTION, n., repurchase of captured goods or persons; the act of procuring the deliverance of persons or things from the possession of captors by the payment of an equivalent. *** In theology, the ransom or deliverance of sinners from the bondage of sin and the penalties of God's violated law by the atonement of Christ.' Indeed, these terms are so well understood that it can hardly be necessary to produce authority to establish their meaning; and yet, if Christ has redeemed us in this sense, the controversy is ended in plain English, and the doctrine of vicarious atonement is established. Now that it is in this sense that Christ has redeemed us, appears from the following considerations:

1. "These English terms well the original Greek.

express the sense of

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