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    sent to many Sunday-schools in the Urn * tarian connexion . The plan comprised the publication of a monthly work for the entertainment and instruction of the young . I shall be happy to forward a prospectus of the proposed society to M . S ., or to any other friend of education , who will apply to me , ( if by letter post-paid , ) at No . 88 , Paul's Street , near Finsbury Square . JOHN MARDON .

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    Questions on the Atonement . ' To the Editor . ¦ ' Sir , There are , I acknowledge , certain rational grounds on which the doctrine of atonement , as held by Trinitarians , may be very speciously disputed ; but it must be admitted that their error derives much countenance from the language of Scripture , in describing Christ as

    bearing . sin , putting away sin , redeeming from itiiquity , cleansing , purifying , making peace , &c , through the blood of his cross . The question is one upon which I have lately much deliberated ; and whilst on the one hand I do not read the word of God as a kind of scrapbook , compiled for the purpose of labelling the creeds and opinions of sects ; or as a volume of statutes to be inforced

    by the authority of the few , who affect to be furnished therefrom with the powers of prescribing to others how much they must believe as " essential to salvation ; " on the other hand I consider it to contain a revelation in the

    truest sense of the word ; in all respects adapted to the necessities , capacities , and best interests of man , and to be used by him in the exercise of that intellectual talent which its Divine Author has given him . In the spirit of candour and sincere inquiry after truth , I beg to propose to the correspondents of the Repository the following queries , an answer to which may possibly give a decisive turn to a mind now balanced

    little beyond an equipoise in favour of the Unitarian view of the subject . 1 st . As far as I understand the mode of reasoning used by Unitarians against the doctrine of satisfaction for sin , they lay it down as a valid proposition that to reckon or consider an innocent person to be guilty , in any sense , would be " a counterfeit of justice , " a collusion far beneath the character of God : ergo , Jesus could not suffer in the place of others , as legally a sinner , though with-

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    out sin . Now let us reverse this pro * position : To , reckon or consider a guilty person to be innocent or righteous , would be collusion , &c . ; ergo , no man who is a sinner can be accounted just or righteous . How then , I would ask , can the assertions be true , that they who believe are justified , that their sins are covered , that to them the Lord \ x \\\ not

    impute sin , Ram . iv . 7 , 8 ; that " it ' ia God that justifieth , " &c > Rom . via . 33 , 34 ? The persons spoken of in these scriptures were , without dispute , actually and really guilty ; how then , leaving out the doctrine of satisfaction by Christ , can they be said , to be acquitted , and so free from charge that an apostle challenges the world to condemn them ? Clemency frees from punishment , but

    does not make the subject of it just To suppose that God accounts a man righteous while he is really sinful , without reference to an equivalent , is not this to represent his conduct as altogether repugnant to those just principles of distinguishing right from wrong , reality from deception , which he has implanted in the bosom of his creatures ?

    2 df The sufferings of Christ were of a nature not so much to affect his body as his mind , and of such a degree , that so far from realizing the consolations imparted to his followers under the torments of persecution and martyrdom , he exclaims in great mental embarrassment , and in the bitterness of his anguish , " I

    have a baptism to be baptized with , and how am I straitened till it be accomplished ! " "Now is my soul troubled , and what shall I say ? " "My soul is exceeding sorrowful , even unto death . " " My God , my God , why hast thou forsaken me ? " How can all this be accounted for on the consideration of his

    merely suffering as a martyr r 3 d . Since it appears by ^ the language of Jesus above quoted , and also by other scriptures , ( as Is . liii . 10 ; 2 Cor . v . 21 ; Heb . ii . 10 , ) that his sufferings were inflicted by Jehovah , his Father , how can they be viewed otherwise than as penal

    or vicarious ? If it would be uryust to punish an innocent person for the guilty , how is it consistent with God ' s justice to " bruise" his Son , who was holy and without sin , unless on the supposition that he was a substitute for others , seeing that in any other view it would , in every other sense , be an unmerited infliction ? 4 th . If it is a great act of mercy in God to pardon the rebellious and the un-

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    Occasional Correspondence . £ 45

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1828, page 345, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2560/page/57/