This vast sum was made up of all the woes due through eternity to the whole human race, or, as some said, to the elect.

Christ on the cross bore this punishment himself and thereby took it away: thus God is enabled to forgive without violating justice .-- But I early encountered unanswerable difficulty on this theory, as to the question, whether Christ had borne the punishment of _all_ or of _some_ only.

If of all, is it not unjust to inflict any of it on any?
If of the elect only, what gospel have you to preach?
for then you cannot tell sinners that God has provided a Saviour for them; for you do not know whether those whom you address are elect.

Finding no way out of this, I abandoned the fundamental idea of _compensation in quantity_, as untenable; and rested in the vaguer notion, that God signally showed his abhorrence of sin, by laying tremendous misery on the Saviour who was to bear away sin.
I have already narrated, how at Oxford I was embarrassed as to the forensic propriety of transferring punishment at all.

This however I received as matter of authority, and rested much on the wonderful exhibition made of the evil of sin, when _such_ a being could be subjected to preternatural suffering as a vicarious sinbearer.