ry to secure
the ends of government; and, supposing sin to exist, it would have its
object, even if there were only one accountable creature in the universe.

The object of public or administrative justice is quite different. It
inflicts punishment, not because it is deserved, but in order to prevent
transgression, and to secure the general good, by securing the ends of
wise and good government. In the moral government of God, one of the
highest objects of this kind of justice, or, if you please, of this phase
or manifestation of the divine justice, is to secure in the hearts of its
subjects a cordial approbation of the principles according to which they
are governed. This is indispensable to the very existence of moral
government. The dominion of force, or of power, may be maintained, in many
cases, notwithstanding the aversion of those who are subject to it; but it
is impossible to govern the heart by love while it disapproves and hates
the principles to which it is required to submit, or the character of the
ruler by whom those principles are enforced.

Now, it is very true, that Christ has made a satisfaction to divine
justice. This is frequently asserted; but it is seldom considered, we
apprehend, with any very great degree of distinctness, in what sense the
term justice should always be understood in this proposition. It cannot
properly refer to the retributive justice of God. This requires the
punishment of the offender, and of no one else. It accepts of no
substitute. And hence, it is impossible to conceive that it can be
satisfied, except by the punishment of the offender himself. The object of
this sort of justice, as I have said, is personal guilt; and hence, as our
Saviour did not become personally guilty, when he assumed our place and
consented to die for us, so it is impossible to conceive that he became
liable to the infliction of the retributive justice of God. And we suppose
it is this idea, at which the Socinian vaguely and obscurely aims, when he
says, that the justice of God requires the punishment of the transgressor
alone; and that it is absurd to suppose it can be satisfied by the
substitution of the innocent in his stead. He denies the whole doctrine of
satisfaction, because he sees and feels that it is not true according to
one meaning of the terms in which it is expressed.

In truth and in deed, the sinner is just as guilty after the atonement as
he was before; and he is just as obnoxious to t