Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/30

26 adjoined to the visible human form, was the same as the Word, of which it is written, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word: all things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth," John i. 1, 3, 14.

The work of redemption did not, as is too generally supposed, consist in the Son's offering himself as a sacrifice in the room of mankind, with a view to appease the wrath of the Father, to satisfy his vindictive justice, and thereby to atone for the sins of the world: for in the first place, there is no such odious passion as wrath in the Divine Being, nor is he possessed of any such attribute as vindictive justice; and in the next place, it is contrary to every principle of justice, both human and divine, that the innocent should suffer for the crimes of the guilty. But redemption, being a work purely divine, consisted in the actual subjugation of the powers of darkness, in the orderly arrangement of the heavens, and in the consequent foundation of a new spiritual church on earth.

A process of this nature and description, when conducted by a divine power, may well be supposed to have the effect of "bruising the head of the serpent," according to the first prediction and promise after the fall of man, that is, of destroying the dominion of self-love and the love of the world in the human mind. But how could any vicarious sacrifice atonement, or pacification of supposed wrath in the Deity, by one not at all concerned in the offences of the disobedient, produce any change of state in the guilty and impenitent? And without a change of state, how can an unregenerate person be qualified