A Treatise on Atonement, by Hosea Ballou
Hosea Ballou's 1805 work on Universalist theology, edited by Rev. Dan Harper.
Table of Contents.
Return to Part I, chapter 3.
Continue to Part II, chapter 2: Necessity of Atonement.
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Part II, chapter 1: Erroneous Theories of Atonement
In my examinations on this momentous subject, I shall:
First, examine three doctrinal tenets on atonement; from which, I shall beg leave to dissent, and give my reasons therefor.
Secondly, Show the necessity of atonement, and where satisfaction must be made.
Thirdly, Inquire into the personage and character of the Mediator who makes the atonement, and his ability to perform the work.
Fourthly, Of atonement in its nature.
Christian divines, in general, have agreed in supposing sin to be an infinite evil, being a violation of an infinite law, and, therefore, that the law required an infinite sacrifice; short of which no atonement could be made that the transgression of Adam brought the whole human race into the same situation of sin and misery, and subjected them all to the infinite penalty of an infinite law, which they had violated in their parent before they individually existed.
After the above agreement many different roads are taken; and divines of the greatest abilities, and of the first rank among the literati, have drained the last faculty of invention in plodding through the dark regions of metaphysics to bring up a Samuel to explain the solecism of satisfying an infinite dissatisfaction.
The plan of redemption, as held by many, may be reduced to the following compendium. God, from all eternity, foreseeing that man would sin, provided a Mediator for a certain part of his posterity, who should suffer the penalty of the law for them, and that those elect ones, chosen by God from the rest of mankind, will alone be benefited by the atonement; that in order that the sacrifice might be adequate to the crime for which the sinner was condemned to everlasting or endless suffering, God himself assumed a body of flesh and blood, such as the delinquent was constituted in, and suffered the penalty of the law by death, and arose from the dead. By this process, the demand of the law was completely answered, and the debt due to Divine Justice, by the elect, was fully and amply paid. But that this atonement does not affect those who were not elected as objects of mercy, but that they are left to suffer endlessly for what Adam did before they were born. It is true that they are a little cautious about saying that God himself absolutely died! But they say that Christ, who was crucified, was really God himself, which must, in effect, amount to the same thing. And in fact if the Infinite did not suffer death, the whole plan fails, for it is by an infinite sacrifice that they pretend to satisfy an infinite dissatisfaction.
Why the above ideas should ever have been imbibed by men of understanding and study, I can but scarcely satisfy myself; their absurdities are so glaring that it seems next to impossible that men of sobriety and sound judgment should ever imbibe them or avoid seeing them.
I have already sufficiently refuted the idea of an infinite sin, which opens to a plain path in which the mind may run, and run clear of all those perplexities which have served to confuse rather than enlighten mankind.
If sin be not infinite, the dissatisfaction occasioned by sin is not infinite, therefore an infinite sacrifice is not required. But, for the sake of illustration, we will for a moment admit that the doctrine of atonement stands on the ground over which we have just gone. I will state it as it is often stated by those who believe it, which is by the likeness of debt and credit. The sinner owed a debt to Divine Justice which he was unable to discharge; the Divine Being cannot, consistently with his honor, dispense with the pay, but says I must have my due; but as the debtor has not ability to pay the smallest fraction, Divine Wisdom lays a deep concerted mysterious plan for the debt to be discharged. And how was it? Why, for God to pay it himself!
My neighbor owes me a hundred pounds; time of payment comes, and I make a demand for my dues. Says my neighbor, my misfortunes have been such that I am not the possessor of the smallest fraction of property in the world; and as much as I owe you I am worse than nothing. I declare to him, positively, that I will not lose so much as a fraction of the interest, and leave him. A friend calls and asks me how I succeeded in obtaining my dues of my neighbor; I reply, my neighbor is not, nor will he ever be able to pay me any part of my demand. My friend says he is sorry that I should lose my debt. I answer, I shall not lose it. I have very fortunately, in my meditations on the subject, thought of a method by which I can avail myself of the whole to my full satisfaction; and I think it is a method which no person in the world, but myself, could have ever discovered. My friend is curious and impatient to know the mighty secret never before found out. The reader may guess his confusion on my telling him that as I have the sum already by me, I am now going to pay up the obligation before the interest is any larger! This has been called the Gospel plan, which contains the depths of infinite wisdom.
I should be please to see, what I have never seen, professors following such an example in obtaining what the poor widow, the fatherless, and the needy, owe them. But, says the advocate for the plan, a distinction should be made between the persons in the Godhead. It was the second person in the Godhead who paid this infinite debt to the first; therefore it is not altogether like a person paying his own demand. I say, in answer, if the first and second persons in the Godhead are not so essentially one as to make the debts due to one belong equally to the other, and payment also, they are not so essentially one as to be represented by two distinct persons related only by Adam, who are in company in merchandise. But for the sake of carrying the argument still further, I will admit this variety of persons in an infinite, indivisible being! And also the plan of atonement on the principle of the second person's paying the demand to the first. And here it will be necessary to introduce the third person in the Godhead, as it is contended that the third person makes known to the debtor what the creditor determines concerning him. Then the plan of the doctrine may be represented by the following similitude: A owes B the sum of one thousand pounds; the time of payment comes, demand is made. A is not worth a farthing, neither is it in his power to raise a fraction of the money. B immediately commences a process against A, of which C, a friend of A's, being informed, goes to B, asks him how large a demand he holds against A. B informs him, a thousand pounds and interest. And A is worth nothing? asks C. Nothing, answers B. Would you make a deduction of twenty-five per cent. if you could have the money down? asks C. Not the least deduction, answers B. Well, says C, if will have no mercy on the poor and distressed, I will have the pleasure of relieving the debtor alone; counts out the money in full, and receives the obligation of bestow on his friend A. B sends a servant to immediately inform A that he has concluded to forgive him the debt. A is transported at the news, flies to tell his wife and children the tidings of mercy, and all join in praising such heavenly benevolence. C comes in, the same moment, with the obligation in his hand, modestly gives it to A, desiring him to accept it as a token of undissembled friendship. A is confounded, asks C how he came by the obligation. C informs him that he paid every farthing of the money for it, the creditor would not make the least deduction. I leave the reader to judge whether the creditor showed any mercy to the debtor, and whether B's pretensions of favoring A do not wear the appearance of hypocrisy. It is contended by those who hold to this debt and the payment of it, that the salvation of the sinner is by being forgiven; yet they contend that the debt was paid. But how I can forgive a man a debt, and oblige him to pay it, is more that I can see.
Again, admitting the system true, I wish to inquire into the propriety of an innocent person's suffering for one who is guilty. It is Scripture, reason, and good law never to condemn the innocent in order to exculpate the delinquent. Supposing a foreign court sends a person who is old in conspiracies and blood, to America, to lay a deep concerted plan to murder the President of the Union, and a number of the first officers in the Federal government, for purposes mischievous to our political existence; and he should so far succeed as to engage a number in this wicked design, and finally makes the attempt: his plans are discovered by government and detected, but not until numbers have fallen a sacrifice to his mischievous endeavors. The leader of these seditious murderers is taken and condemned to be executed; and the voice of every friend of justice and equity is against the criminal. But what would be the consternation of the good people of the United States on being informed that the good president of the Union, the man whom the people delighted to honor, was executed in the room of this seditious person, and the wicked murderer set at liberty? Is it possible to conceive that there is a single person in the world who would call this a just execution? If it be said that the president freely offered himself in the room of the criminal, it alters not the case in the eye of justice. If an innocent man can justly be put to death because he consents to it willingly, a guilty one may be acquitted because he prefers it. But it is further argued that the authority had power to raise the president from the dead, which done, renders the work just and glorious. I say, in answer, that if the authority had this power, it might as well have executed the real criminal, and raised him from the dead, as to perform this work on one who was not guilty. What is the most shocking of anything in this system of atonement, is the partiality represented in the Almighty; for admitting the plan rational, as it respects those circumstances in which I have shown its absurdity, what can we find in Scripture or reason that justifies such infinite partiality in our Creator? or what can, in the least, serve as evidence to prove him possessed of it? have we not reason to believe our Creator possessed of as much goodness as he has communicated to us? Can we rationally believe that he is wanting in those principles of goodness which he has placed in our understanding? When he saw the whole progeny of Adam in the same situation of sin, no one more guilty than another, why should be propose a plan of mercy for some few of them and disregard the rest? The sacred oracle declares God to be no respecter of persons; if this be true he is not a partial being. Jesus taught the character of God to his disciples by turning their attention to nature, observing the equal distribution of rain and sunshine, on the evil and the good, on the just and on the unjust. Supposing Joseph had dealt out bread plentifully to two of his brethren in Egypt, and had starved the rest to death, would it have looked like impartiality? It is argued that none of them deserved a crumb from Joseph, whom they had sold; and if he pleased to give to one and not to the other, he had a right so to do. Then, I say, he had a right to be partial. I am travelling through a large and extensive wood, and many miles from any inhabitant; I find ten persons who are lost; they have been out of provisions from several days; and having fatigued themselves in wandering from hill to hill, from stream to stream, striving, to the utmost of their minds, bid they wives and children a long farewell, they are waiting for hunger to do its last work! The moment I discover myself to them, with large supplies of wholesome and rich provisions, every eye glistens with unexpected joy; the current of life starts afresh in their veins, and they all advance to meet me on their enfeebled hands and knees, with eagerness to receive the staff of life! I hasten to improve the opportunity of showing my sovereign and goodness; I feed five of them to the full, the other five I neglect. They beg for the smallest crust, which I do not want, but to no effect. Those whom I feed solicit me, every mouthful they eat, to bestow some on their fellow-sufferers, but I refuse. I tell them, however, not to construe my conduct into partiality, but to learn my power and sovereignty by it. The five whom I have fed I assist out of the wood, and leave the rest to their wants. My conduct in the above affair appears so much blacker than my paper is white, I choose rather to leave the reader to make his comments than to write my own.
I inquire still further, did the Almighty know, before he made man that he would become a sinner? Did he know that he would deserve an endless punishment? If the answer be in the negative, it supposed God to be wanting in knowledge, and that he created beings at an infinite risk, as he did not know what would be the consequences. If the question be answered in the positive, it proves that an infinite cruelty existed in God; for unless that was the case he would never have created beings who he knew would be infinitely the losers by their existence.
Those who believe in the system which I am examining, believe in the existence of the devil, whose existence I have refuted in this work. I am willing, however, for the sake of the argument, to admit the existence of their God and devil likewise. But I wish to inquire, which of them is, in reality, the worst being. God, when he created mankind, perfectly knew that some of them would suffer endless torment for their sins; he must, therefore, have intended them for that purpose; and his purpose could not be contrary to his knowledge. The matter then stands thus, God created millions of beings for endless misery, which they could not escape; the devil is desirous of having them miserable, and does all in his power to effect it. Now, reader, judge between these two beings. Had this devil been consulted by the Almighty when he laid the plan of man's final destiny, I cannot conceive him capable of inventing one more eligible to his infernal disposition than this which I am now disputing.
As reason will not consent to the plan of God as described in the foregoing scheme, I will show that Scriptures equally oppose it. It is granted that Jesus Christ died for mankind, as the Scriptures declare; but not in the way in which thousands have believed. But supposing he died instead of the sinner, in the way which I dispute, I still wish to prove that he died for the whole of Adam's posterity as much as he did not any. If Isaiah did not believe that that would be the case, I cannot reconcile his words to his opinion, which I find in chap. liii. ver. 5, 6: "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray: We have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." St. Paul must have been of this opinion when he wrote to Timothy, or his words are note expressive of his belief. (See 1 Tim. ii. 5, 6). "For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time." (1st General Epistle of John ii. 1, 2). "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not, and if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also the sins of the whole world." (Heb. ii. 9). "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, now crowned with glory and honor; that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man." The above Scriptures, with their connections and corresponding passages, as fully prove that Christ dies for all men, as any one thing can be proved from the Bible. Now, as there is not, in all the Scripture, a single hint to the reverse of these passages which I have introduced, it appears strange and unaccountable to me that any person who professes to believe the testimony of the Bible should ever have entertained the idea that what these passages say is false, and that which is not said, in contradiction to what is, is true!
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Continue to Part II, chapter 2: Necessity of Atonement.
Table of Contents.
Paragraphing and some punctuation altered for clarity; section headings (in italics) are editorial. I have maintained much of the original early 19th century spelling, including lack of capitalization for the word "Christian." Thanks to Russell Allen for an early version of this chapter.