ART. VI.-REVIEW OF ERSKINE ON THE GOSPEL.

The Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel: in Three Essays. By TнOMAS ERSKINE, Esq. Advocate. Author of "Remarks on the Internal Evidence for the Truth of Revealed Religion." From the second Edinburg edition. Boston: published by Crocker & Brewster. NewYork: J. Leavitt. 1828. pp. 249, 12mo.

One leading principle, which lies at the foundation of the work before us is this: that the gospel is the annunciation of the fact that men are already, freely and universally, pardoned for the sake of Christ. The principle is stated by the writer in the following passages taken indifferently from various parts of the volume.

It appears to me that the testimony of the bible is, that sinners ARE pardoned for Christ's sake. p. 49.

Pardon is entirely irrespective of all the varieties of human character; it belongs to man as a sinner. p. 63.

Pardon is proclaimed freely and universally, it is perfectly gratuitous,— it is unconditional and unlimited. p. 14.

It does not mean that they are pardoned on account of their faith or by their faith; no, its meaning is far different; it means that they are pardoned already, before they thought of it, etc. p. 53.

The arguments on which Mr. E. chiefly relies for the truth of the principle now stated, are founded (so far as we can ascertain their real foundation in the loose and immethodical form of these essays) on the gratuity of salvation and the nature of faith.

In his view, salvation cannot be the free and unpurchased gift of God, if it be suspended on faith or on any condition whatever to be performed by man. There is no labored argument on this point, but it is assumed throughout as an axiom in which he and his readers are to acquiesce, and to which it is sufficient to reduce his reasonings.

The nature of faith, too, the author thinks forbids the idea that pardon should be dispensed in consequence of it, and involves the fact that a universal pardon already exists as the foundation of faith. For how, he would ask, can I believe in a pardon which has no existence previous to my belief? Must not my faith in such a case be without any real foundation? But the author shall speak for himself.

If the pardon does not exist until he believes, and immediately exist when he believes, surely his belief has something to do in making it. It

is in vain to tell him that faith does not make it but only receives it. For he may ask, where is it then before faith receives it? If my faith only receives it, it must have been in existence before my faith. p. 128.

If the gospel does not in itself contain my pardon, how can my belief of the gospel be a receiving of pardon? p. 129.

Suppose for a moment that the friend, instead of simply relating to him the fact of his father's forgiveness, had put the whole history into the form under which the gospel is very often preached:-suppose he had said to him, your father has forgiven you, if you believe in my testimony of his forgiveness; but if you cannot do this, there is no forgiveness for yo One can easily imagine the perplexity into which the son would be thrown by such an announcement. It would appear to him as if the truth of a past fact depended on the state of his feeling with regard to it. It would be impossible for him to believe, because his informant actually told him that his belief of the pardon must precede the existence of the pardon. pp. 24, 28.

The other essential principle of this treatise is the following; that a belief in the existence of pardon produces that holy love to God and holy communion with him, which is in itself the real salvation and happiness of the soul.

The use of faith, then, is not to remove the penalty or to make the pardon better, but to give the pardon a moral influence by which it may heal the spiritual diseases of the heart. p. 26.

And the main argument on which the author relies for the support of this principle, and which he frequently repeats in the course of the treatise, is this; that the apprehension of the pardon of sin is in the very nature of things necessary to the existence of any holy affection in rebellious creatures towards their Supreme Lawgiver and Judge.

It is impossible that such a love as this can exist in a heart that feels the weight of unpardoned sin, and that regards God as an offended govern or and condemning judge. An assurance of forgiveness must precede confidence; and what love can there be without confidence? p. 29.

This is the very office of faith, in his estimation, and the ground on which it becomes necessary to salvation. For salvation is in his view the union of the soul to the Creator in holy affection.

In these fundamental principles we have presented to our readers the principal scope and contents of the volume, though, as they would doubtless suppose, the author has, in his illustrations, pursued them into various ramifications of thought; such as the foundation for religion existing in the relation of the creature to the Creator, the direct scriptural evidences of the principles he asserts, the agreement of them with a few public formularies of faith, the advantages with

which they are attended, and their consistency with what may appear to be irreconcilable passages of scripture.

The intention of Mr. E. in these Essays doubtless is to set forth the atonement as a free and unconditional gift of divine mercy bestowed alike on the whole world, and to make it stand out in the christian system with prominence as a thing entirely separate from and independent of the faith of any sinner in it, or the holy character impressed by it on any believer; the affecting exhibition of divine love, which in the order es of time and nature precedes both faith and holiness, and which stands related to the one as its immediate and highest object, and to the other as its originating and commanding motive. And had he gone forward to accomplish this design without introducing the idea of pardon into his statement of the atonement, we should certainly have acquiesced in the structure and bearing of the whole performance. For that the death of Christ has the efficacy of an atonement for the whole world of sinners as sinners, that no condition on the part of man either of believing in it, relying on it, or contemplating it with the changed feelings of penitence and love, is at all requisite to render it in any higher or fuller sense an adequate atonement for any or each than it is in itself, and as accepted of God in behalf of the world, is, we fully believe, not only truth, but the grand truth of revelation, the very truth of all truths the annunciation of which gives to revelation the character of a gospel from the blessed God, and brings to the heart of man the concentrated appeals of divine wrath and

mercy.

And that Mr. E. with his original and independent mind, was warping off from that theological view of the atonement which restricts it to the elect and to believers as such, and that he was turning with cordiality to the freeness and universality with which the christian propitiation is in the scriptures set before a world of sinners, (even the unworthiest among them,) for their acceptance, is apparent from the spirit which is breathed on every page. He would condemn "that theological edifice in which faith as an act of man's mind occupies the place which the atonement of Christ holds in the bible edifice."

But the great point in which we think he has erred, is that of bringing into his statement of the atonement the idea of an actual pardon of mankind.

The atonement is in itself the pardon, and is unaffected by man's belief or unbelief. p. 49.

The pardon of the Gospel, then, is in effect a declaration on the part of

God, to every individual sinner in the whole world, that his holy compas sion embraces him, and that the blood of Jesus Christ has atoned for his sins. p. 46.

The real question is, what is the efficacy of the death of Christ in relation to the government of God over men? Has it, in the scriptural sense of pardon, applied the gift to a world, or to any in the world? Or has it merely protected and sustained the authority of God in forbearing punishment and in going forward to acts of forgiving mercy? If it has done the latter, if it has rendered it possible for God as a righteous ruler to forgive mankind, then it is a full atonement for sinthe provision of which being altogether free, universal, and unconditional, exhibits in God a disposition and readiness to forgive, on which the guiltiest may penitently rely for pardon, and an irreconcilable hatred to sin on which the holiest may ever look with deepening reverence.

This is all which Mr. E. needed for his purpose. And had he taken this view of the atonement, he might easily have discriminated between it and pardon, and have seen how, while the former is not, the latter is, and should, be conditional. For though the death of Christ, independently of the faith of any man in it, is that which may take the place of penalty in God's government over the world, and sustain his authority, yet that government is still to be continued with man. There is every reason which originally existed, and others which have arisen from the introduction of this very measure, why he should still keep the place of lawgiver, and why in that station he should demand from the rebellious a cordial submission before he makes over to any, a deed of free forgiveness and hearty reconciliation. Now this cordiality and complacence of the lawgiver towards those who repent of their sin and flee for succor to his pardoning mercy in Christ, involves in our view actual pardon, and in the above sense it is conditionated, and by moral necessity must be, on the faith and repentance of the

sinner.

But by introducing the term pardon into the definition of a universal atonement, he has not made the discrimination to which we have alluded, and has fallen into great indistinctness in various parts of his treatise, and into what we deem errors in doctrine and interpretation. For instance; the free, unconditional and universal atonement for sin which is announced in the gospel, is on one page represented as pardon conferred on all men, whether they have ever thought of it or not (p. 53;) on another, it is that which they may receive or reject, and for the reception or rejection of which they are held

accountable. (p. 130.) In one part of his reasonings, he is in effect merely showing that the atonement exhibits benevolence and compassion in God towards all men; and then, as if necessary to such a conclusion, in another he is laboring hard as an interpreter, and against the current, to show that the passages of scripture which speak of the actual reconciliation of God with believers, do not conditionate it at all on faith or any holy disposition attendant on faith.

We know indeed that Mr. E. formally denies the existence of any thing on the part of God towards man like an act of pardon or justification; and that his theory resolves all that is said in the scriptures of pardon into the forgiving disposition of God towards all men, and of justification into a mental apprehension of that already existing fact, which is received by believing. The parts of this theory may perhaps consist with each other, yet when brought into comparison with the representations of the scriptures we think it false, in not discriminating, as they do, between the forgiving disposition of God, manifested in providing a sufficient atonement for all mankind, and in offering a reconciliation to all on its basis, and the actual forgiveness conferred on those who penitently accept the propitiation; and false also in substituting for this, a distinction unknown in the scriptures between the pardon of all and the justification of believers; pardon, justification, reconciliation, being obviously equivalent terms in the scriptures; or at least so far equivalent as that pardon can never be separated from the rest and made to precede faith and to apply to all mankind. Rom. iv. 6-8. Nor can we resolve, as this theory does, into so slight a difference as that of the disbelief or belief of an already granted pardon, those impressive descriptions given in the scriptures of men as being under condemnation or justified, as being under the wrath of God or in the enjoyment of his favor, as related to feelings so extremely diverse on the part of their Creator.

There are two views of christianity which must be deeply impressed upon the minds of all who attentively peruse these Essays, and to which, when qualified as they must be by the views we have already expressed, we subscribe with the whole heart, viz. that it is the grand object of christianity to bring the character of man into harmony with that of God; and that christianity is a scheme of restoration equally adapted in its broad provision to the case of all mankind.

With regard to the first of these positions we must include in it more than is done by the author. For while he every where insists that there is no salvation of the soul distinct from

holy love to God, and very justly exalts good works immense