Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 3.djvu/192

44 "moral impressions" beyond the word of Scripture. Observe too he says "the life and death," excluding the proper idea of Atonement, which lies in the death of Christ, and so tending to resolve it into a Manifestation.

how unspeakably bold; when God says he does punish the sinner, not indeed for the sake of evil, but as a just and holy God!

Here is the same assumption which was just now instanced from the writings of Mr. Scott, of Aston Sandford, that God cannot inflict punishment except for the sake of a greater good, or, (as Mr. A. himself has expressed it just before) "because the welfare of his government requires" it, which is an altogether gratuitous statement.

Again:

observe, not by an expiation, but by the repentance of the offender in consequence of the "moral impression" attendant on the "Manifestation" of Christ's death,—

The necessity of punishment is (according to Mr. A.) the well being of the Universe: and the virtue of the great sacrifice is, not expiation, atonement in God's sight, but the moral effect of Christ's death on those who believe in it. So again, in a passage lately quoted for another purpose: