aked your vengeance upon the innocent one?" Justice
and mercy both draw a veil over their faces and respond through the
advocates of this system of things, "Without controversy, great is the
mystery of godliness." The poor skeptic of common sense retires
muttering to himself something like this, "Well, if such is the mystery
of godliness, I pray that I may never fall into her hands."

Just now he is accosted by a preacher, who says to him, "Look there
upon that Roman cross. Don't you see that sinless one? He is spotless,
pure and lovely. He never sinned, neither was guile found in His mouth,
yet He was accounted guilty of all the sins of the whole human family,
at least He suffered the full penalty enacted against all the sins of
all the race, and satisfied justice." Common-sense skeptic says: "Who
required that? Who counted him guilty of the whole? Who?" The preacher
responds, "God and His justice--yes, His justice." Justice, you know,
had to be satisfied, for God Himself could not forgive a man until the
debt was paid. Do you see? Common-sense skeptic turns away disgusted,
and as he walks off he is heard to say, "Farewell, _to all of you_!"

Who can blame men who never heard any thing better for being
unbelievers? When Jehovah proclaimed His name, He said "The Lord, the
Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness
and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, _forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin_." This must be admitted by all intelligent
Christians. Mercy was never stultified. There was in all the
dispensations of God's providence free and unstultified mercy. The
infinite One was never unable to forgive sins; neither was He laid under
the necessity of punishing the innocent in the room of the guilty. No,
He never did it. His justice never required it, and it is too mean to
ascribe it to Him. His laws in all the dispensations were conditional,
contained merciful provisions. Now, let us "fear God and keep His
commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."

The great thought of pardon through the abundant goodness of God runs
through all the ages, but substitution, in the sense of vicarious
punishment, does not. It is not taught even in connection with dying
animals, for the "blood of animals could not take away sins." Again, the
soul that sinneth it shall die, but animals were not sinning souls, so
that scrap of revealed law could not be honored in the death of a goat.

There is not