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'  £V(rcU4^. 


The  Atonement. 


BY  THE 

EEV.  ARCHIBALD  ALEXANDER  HODGE,  D.D., 

PROFESSOR    OP    DIDACTIC,    HISTORICAL   AND    POLEMICAL    THEOLOGY,   TH 

THE    WESTERN   THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY, 

AT    ALLEGHENY,    PA. 


PHILABELPHIA: 
PRESBYTERIAN  BOARD  OF  PUBLICATION, 

No    821   CHESTNUT  STREET. 


6 


Hi 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Cong- ess,  in  tho  year  1867,  Ij 

THE   TRUSTEES   CF  THI 

PRESBYTERIAN  BOARD  OF  PUBLICATION, 

In  the  Clerk's  Ofl3ce  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States,  for  the  Eastern 
District  of  Pennsylvania. 


Westcott   *   Thomsow, 
Stereotypers,  Philada. 


CONTENTS 


PART    I. 

THE   NATURE   OF   THE    ATONEMENT. 

CHAPTER  I.  PAOB 

INTKODUCTORV. 

Vital  importance  of  the  doctrine — General  aj;rocnicnt  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  in  all  ages — Danger  of  Ration:i!isni,  and  its  preva- 
lence in  the  present  age — All  error  partial  truth — Systems  of 
doctrine  unavoidaVjle — All  controversy  upon  tlie  suliject  is  to  be 
determined  by  a  sim})]e  appeal  to  Scripture — Objections  to  the 
evidence  upon  which  a  doctrine  rests  to  be  frankly  considered,  but 
all  rationalistic  objections  to  the  plain  teachings  of  inspiration 
inadmissible — The  plan  of  the  following  treatise  briefly  stated...     13 

CPIAPTER  II. 

STATEMENT   OF    DOCTRINE. 

The  attitude  of  God,  of  the  individual  sinner,  and  of  the  moral 
universe  in  relation  to  the  Atonement  severally  considered — The 
Orthodox  doctrine  shown  to  be  comprehensive  and  consistent,  and 
the  Moral  Influence  and  Governmental  Hypothesis  shown  to  be 
partial  and  inconsistent — The  elements  of  the  Orthodox  Doctrine 
stated  in  respect  to  its  Motive,  its  Nature,  and  its  Effects 25 

CHAPTER  III. 

DEFIXITIOU     OP    TERMS,    AND     SPECIFICATION     OF    THE    PRINCIPAL    POINTS 
INVOLVED   IN    THE   ORTHODOX    DOCTRINE    OP    THE    ATONEMENT. 

Necessity  of  technical  terms,  and  need  of  acurate  definitions — 
Atonement  and  Satisfaction — The  difference  between  a  penal 
and  a  jiecuniari/  satisfaction — Penalty  and  distinction  between 
Calamities,  Chastisements  and  Penal  Evils — Meaning  of  the 
terms  Substitution  and  Vicarious — Expiation  and  Propitiation 
— Impetration  and  Application — Redemption  and  Atonement — 
Meritum  and  Satisfactio,  or  the  distinction  between  actice  and 
jfdnuve  obedience — The  principal  points  involved  in  the  doctrine 
stated 32 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  ultimate  MOTIVES  OF  ALL  GOD's  ACTS  ARE  IN  HIMSELF;  AND  THE 
immutable  perfections  of  THE  DIVINE  NATURE  DEMAND  THE  PUN- 
ISHMENT  OP    SIN. 

The  ultiraate  motives  of  all  G  -d's   actions  are  in   himself  proved — 

3 


«  CONTENTS. 

mi         n  •  ^•^'^" 

The  Scriptures  predicate  holiness  of  the  divine  nature  as  well  as 
of  the  divine  will — They  as^scrt  that  God  hates  sin,  and  regards 
it  as  intrinsically  worthy  of  jtuni^luiient — The  ditfcrcnt  answers 
to  the  question,  Why  does  God  punish  sin?  considered — The  hy- 
pothesis that  Disinterested  IJenevolence  is  the  whole  of  Virtue, 
disproved — The  punishment  of  sin  intrinsically  right,  and  essen- 
tial to  the  moral  perfection  of  God — Justice  voluntary,  but  not 
optional — Grace  necessarily  a  matter  of  sovereign  choice 48 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE   CHURCH    DOCTRINE    OP     THE   ATONEMENT   PROVED     FROM     THE    FACT 
THAT   THE    DIVINE    LAW   IS    ABSOLUTELY   IMMUTABLE. 

The  divine  law  shown  to  be  immutable — Dr.  Fiske's  admissions — The 
law  ceremonial  and  moral — The  Penalty  shown  to  be  an  essential 
part  of  law — The  admissions  and  inconsistencies  of  Fiske  and 
Barnes — The  sufferings  of  Christ  shown  not  to  have  been  a  "  sub- 
stitute for  the  penalty,"  to  have  been  not  identical  with  the  suffer- 
ings demanded  of  his  people  in  j)erson,  considered  as  suffering, 
but  precisely  identical  considered  as  penalty — Scripture  teaches 
that  Christ  came  with  the  design  of  fulfilling,  not  relaxing  the 
law — The  position  of  Dr.  John  Young  as  to  the  nature  of  moral 
law,  and  its  penalty  stated  and  refuted 58 

CHAPTER  Vr. 

THE    THREE-FOLD    RELATION     WHICH    MORAL     AGENTS     SUSTAIN     TO     THE 
DIVINE    LAW. 

The  distinction  between  the  Natural,  Federal  and  Penal  relations 
which  men  sustain  to  the  divine  law  stated  and  applied 72 

CHAPTER  Vir. 

ADAM  WAS,  IN  THE  STRICT  SENSE  OP  THE  AVOUDS,  THE  FEDERAL  REP- 
RESENTATIVE OP  THE  race;  and  THE  ANTENATAL  FORFEITURE,  OP 
WHICH  EACH  OF  HIS  DESCENDANTS  IS  SUBJECT,  IS  THE  PENAL  CON- 
SEQUENCE   OF     HIS    PUBLIC    SIN. 

The  admitted  facts  of  man's  birth  into  an  inevitable  condition  of 
sin  and  misery  stated— The  Orthodox  and  the  Rationalist  agreed 
that  God  could  not  bring  the  new-born  soul  into  such  a  condition, 
unless  his  natural  rights  had  been  justly  forfeited  before  birth — The 
two  questions  thence  arise,  why  God  allows  such  a  curse  to  be 
transmitted,  and  now  .it  is  transmitted — I.  The  attemjjted  solu- 
tions which  deny  that  man  is  subject  to  a  just  antenatal  forfeiture 
— The  Manichajan  doctrine  of  the  absolute  impreventability  of  sin 
— Pantheistic  hypothesis  that  sin  is  a  necessary  incident  to  moral 
development— The  New  England  Root  Theory  and  Placa>us'  doc- 
trine— Mediate  and  Comcqucnt  /inputat ion  sUitcd  and  refuted — 11. 
The  attempted  solutions  which  admit  antenatal  forfeiture — Theory 
of  pre-existence  is  maintained  by  Dr.  E.  Eeeeher  and  Julius  Miiller 
stated  and  refuted — The  Realistic  theory  of  our  oneness  with  Adam, 
as  advocated  by  Drs.  Raird  and  Hhedd,  stated,  proved  not  to  have 
been  the  doctrine  of  the  men  who  wrote  the  Creeds  of  the  Reformed 
Churches,  and  not  to  be  true — The  Doctrine  of  President  Edwards 
— The  aeveral  points  i-.volvcd  in  the  true  dc?trine>  1st,  As  to  the 


CONTENTS.  O 

PAQl 

imputation  of  guilt,  and  2(1,  As  to  the  origir  ation  of  moral  corrup- 
tion in  each  now-horn  soul,  stated,  and  the  whole  proved  from 
Scripture,  and  the  consent  of  Churches 78 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

CHRIST  WAS,  IN  THE  STRICT  JKWISH  SKNSE  OF  THE  TERM,  A  SACRIFICE. 
THE  JEWISH  SACKIKICES  WERE  STRICTLY  PIACULAR,  AND  THEY  WERE 
TYPICAL    OP    THE    SACRIFICE    OF    OUR    LORD. 

Heads  of  argument  stated — I.  The  divine  origin  of  Sacrifices  proved 
— The  primitive  Sacrifices  were  piacular — The  principle  estab- 
lished by  the  common  consent  of  mankind — II.  That  the  Jewish 
Sacrifices  were  strictly  piacuhir,  the  doctrine  of  the  entire  Christian 
Church — The  opinions  of  IJUhr.  ^lauriee,  Jowett,  Bushnell  and 
Young — The  ditiercnt  kinds  of  Sacrifice — The  Orthodox  doctrine 
proved  (a)  from  the  occasions  upon  which  the  sacrifices  were  of- 
fered, (6)  The  qualifications  and  sacrificial  designations  of  the 
victims,  ((■)  Tlic  ritual  of  the  sacrifice,  (</)  from  their  declared 
eiTccts,  and  (<»)  from  the  testimony  of  the  inspired  prophets,  and 
of  ancient  heathens,  Jews  and  Christians — III.  The  Sacrifices  of 
the  law  were  typical  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ — This  proved  from 
the  words  of  Christ — from  the  fact  that  the  Old  Testament  sacri- 
fices are  declared  to  he  shadows,  tfec,  of  which  Christis  the  substance, 
and  from  the  fact  the  .Scriptures  explicitly  assert  that  Christ  saves 
his  people  by  being  oirercd  as  a  sacrifice  for  them 122 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THE    ORTHODOX   DOCTRINE    PROVED    BY    THE  FACT  THAT  CHRIST   EFFECTED 
SALVATION    BY    ACTING    AS    THE    HIGH    PRIEST    OF    HIS    PEOPLE. 

The  position  assumed  by  the  advocates  of  the  Moral  Theory  as  to 
the  nature  of  Christ's  Priesthood  stated — The  same  as  to  the 
advocates  of  the  Govermental  Theory — I.  The  Priest  was  or- 
dained to  act  in  behalf  of  man  in  those  things  which  bear  vpon 
God — That  the  effect  of  his  work  primarily  terminates  upon  God, 
proved  from  Scripture — II.  The  work  of  the  priest  secured  the 
salvation,  not  the  salvability,  of  those  for  whom  he  acted,  and  he 
acted  as  the  representative  of  certain  persons  definitely — III. 
That  Christ  was  a  real  and  not  a  metaphorical  priest,  proved 
from  Scripture — The  inferences  from  these  positions  deduced 150 

CHAPTER  X. 

Christ's  sufferings  were  strictly  and  definitely  vicarious. 
Bushnell's  perversion  of  the  phrase  Vicarious  illustrated  and  dis- 
proved— The  true  relation  of  the  words.  Vicarious.  Substitute, 
Representative  and  Mediator,  stated — Barnes'  definition  of  a 
substitute  accepted  as  true — That  Christ  is  in  the  strict  sense  the 
Substitute  of  his  people  and  his  sufferings  vicarious,  proved — 
Barnes'  inconsistency  exposed 161 

CHAPTER  XL 

THE  orthodox  DOCTRINE    PROVED    FROM  THE  FACT  THAT  THE  SCRIPTURES 
DECLARE    THAT    OUR    SINS    WERE    LAID    UPON    CHRIST. 

Passages  which  assert  the  fact  cited — Different  senses  of  the  word 
''  sin"  in  Scripture — The  scriptural  usage  of  the  phrase  ''  to  im- 


COXTENTS. 

PAOI 

pute  sin,"  explained  and  illustrated  and  proved — The  doctrine 
guarded  from  abuse,  and  the  inifsrepresentations  of  adversaries 
rebuked — The  u.-^age  of  the  phrase,  "  bear  sin  or  iniquity,"  both 
in  the  Old  and  in  the  New  Testament,  illustrated  and  proved — 
Bushuell's  extravagant  assertions  exposed 169 


CHAPTER  XII. 

TffE   ORTHODOX    DOCTRINE  OF   THE    ATONEMENT    PROVED  BY  THE   CHARAC- 
TER OF  THE  EFFECTS  WHICH    ARE  ATTRIBUTED   TO   IT   IN    SCRIPTURE. 

I.  The  effect  of  Christ's  death  as  it  respects  God— The  classical  and 
New  Testament  usage  of  the  Tphrase  KaraWaTcreiv  stated  and  proved 
— The  classical  and  New  Testament  usage  of  the  phrase  iXaaKcirdai 
stated  and  proved — The  Biblical  usage  of  1DD  explained — II.  The 
eflFect  of  Christ's  death  as  it  respects  the  guilt  of  sin— The  objec- 
tions of  Young  answered — The  Atonement  shown  to  be  the  effect 
and  not  the  cause  of  God's  love  for  his  people — The  Orthodox 
doctrine  shown  not  to  involve  Trithcism — III.  The  effect  of 
Christ's  death  as  it  respects  the  sinner  himself — The  Biblical 
usage  of  the  terms  dyopa^eiv,  Xnrpdo),  \vrpov  explained — This 
language  proved  not  to  imply  that  the  Atonement  was  a  commer- 
cial transaction — This  usage  establishes  the  Orthodox  doctrine — 
The  Scriptures  combine  various  modes  of  conceiving  of  the  Atone- 
ment in  the  same  passages,  and  thus  define  the  sjiecies  as  well  as 
the  genus  of  the  Atonement  as  definitely  as  any  one  of  the  Creeds.  179 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  TRUE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT  PROVED  BY  THE  NATURE  OP 
TUK  UNION  WHICH  THE  SCRIPTURES  ASSERT  SUBSISTS  BETWEEN  CHRIST 
AND    HIS   PEOPLE. 

The  common  oVjjcction  that  vicarious  punishment  is  unjust  consid- 
ered— I.  The  fact  that  Christ  and  his  people  are  one  proved  from 
Scripture — The  substance  of  all  that  is  revealed  as  to  the  nature 
of  this  union  stated — II.  The  fact  of  this  union,  as  thus  proved 
from  Scripture,  shown  to  be  consistent  only  with  the  Orthodox 
doctrine  of  the  nature  of  the  Atonement 198 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  ORTHODOX  DOCTRINE,  AS  TO  THE  NATURE  OP  THE  ATONEMENT, 
PKOVKD  FROM  WHAT  THE  SCRIPTURES  TEACH  AS  TO  THE  NATURE 
AND    GROt;NDS    OF    JUSTIFICATION. 

I.  Justification  proved  to  be  a,  forensic  act  of  God  as  Judge,  and  thus 
shown  to  stand  in  irreconcilable  opposition  to  the  Moral  Influence 
Theory  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Atonement — The  arguments  of  Dr. 
John  Young  answered — II.  The  view  of  Justification  correspond- 
ing to  the  Governmental  Tbeory  of  the  Atonement  stated — The 
true  doctrine,  viz.  that  Justification  is  not  mere  pardon,  that  it  is 
a  Judicial  and  not  a  Sovereign  act,  and  that  its  ground  is  the  per- 
fect righteousness  of  Christ  imputed  to  the  believer,  stated  and 
proved 212 


CONTENTS.  7 

CHAPTER  XV.  PAOE 

TOE  ORTHODOX  DOCTRINE,  AS  TO  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT, 
PROVED  KKOM  THE  TEACHINGS  OB"  SCRIPTURE  AS  TO  THE  NATURE 
AND   OFFICE    OF    FAITH. 

That  faith  includes  trust  proved— That  faith  iu  or  oriC'hrist  as  the 
sole  condition  of  salvation  is  the  go.^pel  preached  by  the  ApOf;tles, 
proved — That  tliis  fact  is  i)erffctl.v  consistent  with  the  Orthodox 
view  of  (he  Atonement,  but  utterly  irreconcilable  with  either  the 
Goverumeutal  or  the  Moral  Theory,  shown 228 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  ORTHODOX  DOCTRINE,  AS  TO  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMRNT, 
PROVED  FROM  'VHAT  THE  SCRIPTURES  TEACH  AS  TO  ITS  ABSOLUTE 
NECESSITY    IN   ORDER   TO    THE    SALVATION    OF    SINNERS. 

Different  oj)inions  as  to  the  ground  of  the  necessity  of  the  Atone- 
ment, stated — The  bearing  of  this  question  upon  the  question  as 
to  the  NATURE  of  the  Atonement — The  true  ground  of  the  neces- 
sity of  the  Atonement  stated  and  proved 234 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE   NATUTtE   OF    THE     ATONEMENT    DETERMINED    BY    WHAT    THE    SCRIPTURES 
TEACH    AS    TO   ITS    PEUFECTION. 

I.  That  the  Atonement  of  Christ  is  intrinsically  perfect  in  its  law- 
fultilling  and  justice-satisfying  value — Different  views  stated  and 
conip:ired — The  true  doctrine  stated  and  proved — II.  That  the 
atoning  work  of  Christ  is  perfect  and  complete  in  the  sense  of 
infallibly  securing  its  own  application  to  all  of  those  for  whom  it 
was  designed— This  point  proved  (a)  in  opposition  to  the  Komish 
doctrine  of  the  merit  of  good  works  and  the  efficacy  of  penance, 
(b)  in  ojiposition  to  the  Protestant  advocates  of  an  indefinite 
Atoneuieut 249 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE    SATISFACTION    RENDERED   BY   CHRIST    PROVED    TO   EMBRACE    HIS   AC- 
TIVE   AS    WELL    AS    HIS    PASSIVE    OBEDIENCE. 

Ambiguity  of  the  word  Atonement — The  term  Satisfaction  precise 
and  comprehensive — Defect  of  Symington's  book — That  the  obe- 
dience of  Christ  is  inseparable  from  his  suffering,  proved — General 
ol>jcct  of  chapter  to  prove  that  Clirist's  obedience  as  well  as  his 
sufferings  is  vicarious — Threefold  relation  mankind  sustain  to 
law — Obedience  is  as  absolutely  necessary  in  order  to  the  promise 
of  life  as  is  penal  suffering  in  order  to  the  judicial  reconciliation 
— I.  The  original  covenant  was  accompanied  by  two  sanctions,  a 
promise  conditioned  on  obedience  and  a  penalty — The  two  alterna- 
tive theories  of  justification  stated,  and  the  truth  of  the  Calvinis- 
tic  view  proved — 11.  The  doctrine  contended  for  shown  to  be 
expressly  stated  in  Scripture — III.  Christ's  obedience  shown  to 
have  been  vicarious,  from  the  fact  that  his  person  transcended  the 
the  claims  of  law — IV.  Only  a  perfect  righteousness  can  be  the 
ground  of  justification— V.  The  objec  \on  of  Piscator,  &c.,  refuted.  248 


8  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XIX.  PAQi 

THE  REFORMED  DOCTRINE  AS  TO  THE  NATURE  OP  THE  ATONEMENT 
PROVED  TO  HAVE  BEEN  THE  FAITH  OF  THE  ENTIRE  CHRISTIAN 
CHTRCH    THROIGH    ALL    AGES. 

I.  General  statement  of  the  points  which  the  historical  evidence  to  be 
adduced  arc  claimed  to  prove — II.  The  historical  argument  of  Dr. 
Young  slated  and  refuted,  and  the  testimony  of  writers  from  the 
time  of  the  Apostles  to  the  present  time  adduced,  together  with 
citations  from  the  Creeds  of  the  Greek,  Roman,  Lutheran  and 
Reformed  Churches — III.  The  result  of  this  historical  review 
shown  to  be  that  the  uniform  faith  of  the  entire  Church  has  in- 
cluiled  the  element  of  expiation,  and  consequently  is  inconsistent 
with  either  the  Moral  or  the  Governmental  Theories  of  the  Atone- 
ment   265 

'     CHAPTER  XX. 

THE     PRINCIPAL     OBJECTIONS     TO     THE     CHURCH     DOCTRINE     STATED    AND 
ANSWERED. 

1st.  The  objection  that  our  doctrine  ascribes  vindictiveness  to  God,  dis- 
proved— Show  that  both  theMoraland  the  Governmental  Theories 
resolve  justice  into  benevolence — 2d.  The  objection  of  Socinusand 
others,  that  our  doctrine  excludes  grace,  disproved — 3d.  The  gene- 
ral principle  that  the  demands  of  the  law  are  personal  shown  not 
to  impugn  tlie  truth  of  our  system — 4th.  The  objection  that  Christ 
was  but  a  single  person,  and  his  sufferings  finite  and  of  short  du- 
ration, shown  not  to  have  weight — 5th.  The  Church  doctrine  of 
"  Imputation"  shown  not  to  include  the  absurd  figment  of  the 
"  transfer  of  moral  character" — 6th.  The  objection  that  Christ 
owed  obedience  for  himself,  disproved 301 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE    MORAL     INFLUENCE    AND     THE     GOVERNMENTAL    THEORIES     OP     THE 
/  ATONEMENT. 

I.  Jhe  Moral  Influence  Theory — The  object  of  Christ's  death  de- 
fined by  8ocinus — Statements  to  the  same  effect  by  I5ushnell  and 
Young — The  objections  to  the  Moral  View  are,  1st.  The  moral  in- 
fluence in  question  is  better  effected  by  the  Atonement  when  con- 
ceived of  according  to  the  Orthodox  view — 2d.  The  Moral  Theory 
fails,  as  its  advocates  confess,  to  account  for  the  production  of  tho 
moral  effect — 3d.  Inconsistent  with  true  nature  and  design  of  a 
sacrifice — 4th.  Inconsistent  with  tlie  ai)]ilicati(jn  of  the  work  of 
Christ  to  those  who  died  before  his  advi-iit — oth.  This  doctrine  ia 
condemned  by  its  historical  record — H.  The  Governmental  Theory 
— History  and  statement  of  the  doctrine — Its  superiority  to  Moral 
Theory — Objections  to  this  theory  are,  1st.  The  positive  truth  of 
the  Governmental  Ilyjiothesis  better  taught  by  the  Orthodox  doc- 
trine— 2d.  It  shows  iKj  connection  between  the  death  of  Christ 
and  its  acknowledged  efiects — 3d.  It  is  foun<led  upon  a  false  theor,y 
of  virtue — Jth.  It  represents  the  work  of  Christ  as  an  exhihiilon 
of  principles  not  truly  in  exorcist — 5th.  Inconsistent  with  true 
idea  of  law,  sacrifc'ce,  vicarious  suffering  and  ransom,  Ac — fith.  It 
necessitates  the  ccnclurion  that  the  Atoneunut   was   iudefinite— 


CONTENTS.  9 

FAai 
7th.  It  is  connected  with  the  false  theory  of  co-operative  justifica- 
tion— 8th.  Is  contradicted  hy  the  uniform  faith  of  the  Church^th. 
It  was  not  developed  from  Scripture— lOth,  Its  only  plau:<ible  sup- 
port ifi  its  relation  to  the  figment  of  an  indefinite  Atonement — 
11th.  Its  known  Arniinian  origin  proves  its  inconsistency  with 
Calvinism 315 


PART     II. 


THE   DESIGN   OR   INTENDED   ArPLICATION   OF    THE 
ATONEMENT. 

CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

The  question  as  to  the  design  of  the  Atonement  considered  as  it  is 
involved  in  our  controversy — 1st.  With  the  Arminians — 2d.  With 
the  Calvinistic  Uuiversalists 347 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  TRUE  DOCTRINE  AS    TO   THE   DESIGN  OP  THE  ATONEMENT  ACCURATELY 
STATED. 

The  question  stated  first  negatively  and  then  positively  under 
several  heads 355 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE  QUESTION,  WHAT  IS  THE  TRUE  RELATION  WHICH  THE  PROBLEM  AS 
TO  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT  SUSTAINS  TO  THE  PROBLEM  AS 
TO   ITS    DESIGN,      EXAMINED. 

The  view  as  to  the  Design  of  the  Atonement  entertained  by  the  advo- 
cates of.  1st.  The  Moral  View,  2d.  The  Governmental  Theory.  3d.  The 
strictly  Mercantile  View,  4th.  The  view  of  the  Lutheran  Churches, 
5th.  The  view  of  the  Reformed  Churches  and  of  the  Arminians...  365 

CHAPTER  IV. 

HISTORY   OP    OPINION    AMONG  CALVINISTS  UPON   THE  QUESTION  AS    TO    THE 
DESIGN   OP    THE    ATONEMENT. 

The  use  of  indefinite  language  by  many  strict  Calvinists  explained 
— The  difterent  senses  in  which  the  phrase  "  That  Christ  died 
for  all  men"  has  been  used — The  doctrine  of  Amyraldus  and 
its  reception  by  the  French  Synod — The  doctrine  of  the  Marrow- 
men  as  to  the  general  reference  of  the  Atonement — The  two 
classes  of  the  recent  advocates  of  an  vadefinite  Atonement  con- 
sidered   371 


10  CONTEKTS. 

CHAPTER  V.  PAG« 

THE  QDESTIOXS,  WHAT  WAS  THE  OPINIOX  OP  CALVIN  AS  TO  THE  DE- 
SIU.V  OF  THE  ATONEMENT?  WHAT  IS  THE  STANDARD  OP  CALVINISM? 
AND  WHAT  IS  THE  DOCTUINE  ON  THIS  SUBJECT  OF  THE  WESTMINSTER 
OJNFESSION    AND   CATECHISM  ?    CONSIDERED    AND    ANSWERED. 

The  true  position  of  Calvin  on  this  subject  carefully  shown — Tho 
standard  of  Calvinism  shown,  and  proved  to  admit  only  the  doc- 
trine of  a  definite  Atonement — The  doctrine  of  the  Westminster 
Confession  and  Catechism  demonstrated 387 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    ARGUMENTS   STATED    UPON    WHICH    THE    REFORMED   DOCTRINE    AS   TO 
THE    DESIGN    OF    THE    ATONEMENT    RESTS. 

This  proved — 1st.  From  the  very  nature  of  the  Atonement,  since 
Christ  suffered  as  the  personal  Substitute  of  his  people,  and  his 
work  was  a  satisfaction,  and  he  died  with  the  design  of  actually 
saving  those  for  whom  he  died — 2d.  Christ  purchased  faith  and  re- 
pentance for  his  people — 3d.  He  died  after  half  the  human  race 
were  already  dead — 4th.  He  died  in  execution  of  the  terms  of  an 
eternal  covenant  with  his  Father — 5th.  His  motive  was  the  highest 
personal  love  for  his  own  people — 6th.  His  design  declared  to  be 
the  salvation  of  "  his  sheep,"  the  "  CI  urch,"  &c. — 7th.  Christ's 
work  as  High  Priest  was  one  work,  and  proved  from  the  doctrine 
of  election — Sth.  Our  doctrine  harmonizes  all  the  facts 399 

CHAPTER  VII. 

7 HE  OBJECTIONS  BROUGHT  AGAINST  THE  REFORMED  VIEW  OP  THE 
Di:SlGN  OP  THE  ATONEMENT  STATED,  AND  THE  ANSWER  TO  THEM  IN- 
DICATED. 

It  is  objected  that  our  doctrine  is  inconsistent — 1st.  With  the  general 
oflFer  of  the  Gospel;  answer — 2d.  With  those  passages  which  de- 
clare he  suffered  for  "  all,"  or  "  the  world ;"  answer — 3d.  With  those 
passages  which  speak  of  the  possibility  of  those  dying  for  whom 
Christ  died:  answer 418 


PEEFACE 


•In  the  fall  of  1866  the  senior  Editor  of  the  "Presbyterian 
Banner,"  of  Pittsburg,  asked  the  author  of  this  book  to  write 
a  series  of  articles  on  the  Atonement,  The  reason  assigned  was 
that  our  views  of  the  great  central  doctrines  of  the  gospel  were 
frequently  misrepresented  by  many  outside  of  our  own  com- 
munion, and  that  for  the  instruction  of  our  own  people  a  re- 
statement of  the  venerable  faith  of  the  Reformed  Churches  was 
now  very  much  needed  in  a  form  specifically  adapted  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  present  generation.  Being  in  full  sympathy 
with  the  reasons  given,  I  wrote  the  articles,  which  appeared  be- 
fore the  public  last  winter.  Those  articles  furnish  about  one 
fourth  part  of  the  present  volume,  which  is  now  sent  forth  as  the 
best  contribution  within  my  power  to  the  vindication  of  the 
ancient  faith  of  the  Presbj^terian  Church,  and  of  the  unques- 
tionable and  only  legitimate  interpretation  of  her  standards. 
While  jealously  guarding  the  essential  principles  of  the  Cal- 
vinistic  system,  I  have  designed  to  repel  with  all  my  might  alike 
all  those  positive  heresies  which  attack  it  openly,  and  with  even 
greater  solicitude  that  latitudinarian  indifference  to  exact  concep- 
tions and  careful  statements  of  doctrine  which  tends  secretly,  yet 
not  less  certainly,  to  destroy  the  truth,  and  which  in  the  present 

age  is  our  chief  source  of  danger.     I  would  pray  and  la}x)ur  that 

11 


12  PEEFACE. 

in  gaining  breadth  we  may  not  lose  height,  and  in  gaining  peace 
and  love  we  may  not  lose  purity  and  truth.  With  all  the  very 
obvious  imperfections  of  the  offering,  I  trust  that  the  condescend- 
ing Saviour  will  graciously  accept  it,  and  render  it  an  instrument 
of  blessing  to  his  Church,  to  its  ministry,  and  to  those  hopeful 
candidates  for  its  service  to  whose  education  my  life  is  devoted. 
Allegheny  Citt,  Pa.,  October,  7,  1867. 


The  Atonement 


PART   I. 

.    THE   NATURE   OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 
CHAPTEK    I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

THE  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  is  evidently  the 
central  and  principal  element  of  the  doctrine  of 
Justification,  which  Luther  truly  affirmed  to  be  the 
article  of  a  standing  or  a  falling  Church.  The  truth  of 
this  aphorism  is  obvious,  both  because  this  truth  concerns 
the  foundation  upon  which  our  relations  to  God  as  our 
heavenly  Father,  and  consequently  all  our  present  life 
and  our  future  hopes,  depend,  and  also  because  our  con- 
ception of  this  central  principle  necessarily  determines 
our  conception  of  all  the  other  elements  of  the  entire 
system  of  revealed  truth ;  such  as  the  moral  attributes 
of  God,  the  nature  of  his  Moral  Government,  of  Law, 
Sin  and  Penalty,  the  Person  of  the  God-man,  the  Per- 
son and  Office  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Office  of  Faith, 
and  hence  the  entire  character  of  our  religious  expe- 
rience. 

In  contradiction  of  the  assertion   of  Bushnell,  and 
2  .  13 


14       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

the  vague  impression  of  many  others,  that  no  consistent 
view  as  to  the  nature  of  Christ's  redemptive  work  has 
characterized  the  faith  of  the  Church  in  all  ages,  I  expect 
to  show  in  the  following  chapters  that,  although  the 
Church  did  not  attain  to  a  definite  and  complete  scientific 
statement  of  the  Doctrine  of  Redemption  before  the 
period  of  the  Socinian  controversy  in  the  early  part  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  it  is  nevertheless  a  fact  that  the 
whole  Church,  in  its  historical  divisions  from  the  a})os- 
tolic  age,  and  each  branch  of  it  in  exact  proportion  to  its 
general  orthodoxy,  has  held  essentially  but  one  opinion 
on  this  subject.  On  the  subject  of  the  nature  and  objec- 
tive reference  of  the  redemptive  work  of  Christ  there 
was  no  controversy  between  the  Reformers  and  the 
Church  of  Rome.  All  the  great  national  churches  of 
both  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed  families,  and  all  the 
authoritative  Church  creeds,  are  here,  at  the  very  heart 
of  the  gospel,  at  one.  Even  all  evangelical  Arminians, 
such  as  Arminius  himself,  John  Wesley,  and  Richard 
Watson,  by  a  happy  sacrifice  of  logic,  are  on  this  vital 
question  at  one  with  Calvinists,  and  opposed  to  the  more 
consistent  Pelagianizing  Arminians. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  lesson  of  history  is  none  the 
less  clear,  that  Rationalism,  in  all  its  forms  and  degrees, 
tends  to  pervert  the  testimony  of  Scripture  as  to  the 
nature  of  Redemption,  and  that  erroneous  views  on  this 
subject  are  invariably  connected,  as  cause  or  effect,  with 
erroneous  views  on  every  other  main  principle  of  the 
gospel.  Thus  Socinian  views  as  to  the  Person  of  Christ 
have  always  been  accom])anicd  with  corresponding  views 
as  to  the  nature  of  his  w  )rk.  The  same  is  true  precisely 
of  high  Arianism,  and  again  of  the  semi-pantheistic 


IXTR  )DUCT0IIY.  15 

Monism  of  Sclileiermachor  and  the  American  Mercers- 
berg  tlieolotjcy.  Arminianism  is  distinguislied  by  its 
'v'culiar  soteriology,  corresponding  accurately  to  its  an- 
thropology. Calvinistic  advocates  of  general  redemption, 
whether  of  the  French,  English,  or  American  schools, 
have  always  been  constrained  to  modify  to  a  correspond- 
ing extent  the  common  doctrine  of  all  the  Reformers, 
and  of  all  the  Church  creeds,  as  to  the  nature  of  Re- 
demption and  of  Justification.  The  Pelagianizing  spec- 
ulations of  the  New  England  theologians — as  to  the 
nature  of  sin  and  of  virtue,  the  extent  of  man's  moral 
ruin  in  the  fall,  the  necessity  and  nature  of  Eifectual 
Calling  and  Regeneration — have  in  all  their  varying 
phases  been  accompanied  with  corresponding  theories  of 
the  Atonement,  so  called.  And  every  passing  school  of 
German  Rationalists,  old  or  new,  and  the  ncoplatonizing 
Rationalists  of  the  Broad  Church  school  in  England  and 
America,  are  characterized  by  the  uniformity  of  purpose 
with  which  in  various  methods  they  seek  to  make  void 
the  teaching  of  Scripture  on  this  vital  theme. 

Thus  history  puts  it  beyond  question  that  a  tendency 
to  deny,  or  even  to  abate  or  to  modify,  the  full  truth  on 
this  subject,  is  always  symptomatic  of  a  tendency  toward 
a  total  disintegration  of  the  system  of  revealed  truth. 
And  all  the  indications  of  the  present  time  also  warn  us 
that  the  whole  Church  is  just  now,  in  a  pre-eminent  de- 
gree, exposed  to  this  very  influence  from  many  directions. 
From  the  recent  amazing  advancement  of  the  physical 
sciences,  and  the  corresponding  development  of  the  prac- 
tical arts,  and  the  wide  extension  of  the  secular  interests 
and  activities  of  the  masses  of  mankind,  and  doubtless 
from  many  other  causes  unknown,  the  spirit  of  modern 


16  THE   NATURE   OF   THE   ATONE} lENT. 

philosophy,  whether  intuitional  or  sensational,  is  bey  on  a 
precedent  naturalistic — that  is,  disposed  to  deny  the 
supernatural  as  impossible,  or  to  ignore  it  as  unknow- 
able. The  subtle  spirit  of  this  mode  of  thought  pene- 
trates every  sphere  of  mental  activity,  is  diffused  through 
every  species  of  literature,  and  is  far  more  influential 
over  the  speculations  of  even  truly  religious  minds  than 
many  are  aware  of  It  is  constantly,  by  an  unfelt  pres- 
sure, tending  to  lead  the  theologian  away  from  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  gospel.  This  is  manifested  in  many  essays 
at  a  rational  explanation  of  the  mysteries  of  revelation 
in  conformity  with  the  principles  of  natural  reason  and 
the  analogies  of  human  experiences.  Doctrines  are  first 
formed  to  satisfy  rational  views  of  what  they  ought  to 
be,  and  then  a  reference  is  made  to  the  Bible  to  elicit 
inspired  confirmation  of  truths  otherwise  derived. 

The  t\vo  great  doctrines  just  at  present  most  generally 
brought  into  question,  and  which  have  suffered  most  at 
the  hands  of  liationalistic  criticism,  are  those  concerning 
the  nature  and  extent  of  Biblical  Inspiration,  and  the 
nature  of  the  redemptive  work  of  Christ.  These  natu- 
rally stand  or  fall  together.  For  if  the  inspiration  of 
the  Scriptures  is  plenary,  then  the  Church  doctrine  as  to 
the  nature  of  Redemption  remains  impregnable.  But 
if  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures  may  be  abated,  the 
way  is  open,  of  course,  in  due  proportion,  to  thecries  of 
Redemption  adjusted  to  the  ^' finer  feelings,"  the  "moral 
intuitions,"  and  tne  administrative  experiences  of  man- 
kind. Thus  we  have  in  Broad  Church  literature — so 
widely  circulated  in  the  writings  of  Jowett,  Maurice, 
Stanley,  Dr.  John  Young  of  Edinburgh,  and  the  sermons 
of  Robertson,  and  the  late  elaborate  treatise  on  '^  Vica- 


INTRODUCTORY.  17 

rious  Sacrifice/'  of  Buslmell,  and  else  vhcre — a  re- 
publication in  new  forms  of  that  which  is  in  essence 
nothin<^  else  than  the  old  Socinian  heresy  on  the  Atone- 
ment. A  prominent  Methodist^ minister,  the  Kev.  Dr. 
Steele,  as  quoted  by  the  Watchman  and  RcJIector,  declares, 
concerning-  that  great  evangelical  denomination,  that  the 
old  view  that  Christ  died  to  satisfy  the  justice  of  God  is 
undoubtedly  disappearing  among  them,  and  that  the 
"moral  infiuence,"  or  Socinian  view,  is  generally  taking 
its  place.  And  it  is  notorious  that  the  hybrid  Govern- 
mental Atonement  theory — orthodox  in  whatever  it 
affirms  and  Socinian  in  all  it  denies — has  for  years  been 
the  accepted  doctrine  of  what  is  called  the  New  England 
theology,  and  of  a  large  class  of  theologians  in  Eng- 
land. 

There  are  three  points  to  which  I  wish  to  direct  the 
attention  of  the  reader  in  this  introductory  chapter. 

1.  The  first  is  the  fact,  too  apt  to  be  overlooked  by  eager 
controversialists,  that  all  error,  especially  all  effective  and 
therefore  dangerous  error,  is  partial  truth.  The  human 
mind  was  formed  for  truth,  and  so  constituted  that  only 
truth  can  exert  permanent  influence  upon  it.  But  the 
truth  revealed  in  the  Scriptures  is  so  many-sided  in  its 
aspects,  and  ..o  vast  in  its  relations,  and  our  habits  of 
thought  because  of  sin  are  so  one-sided  and  narrow,  that 
as  a  general  fact,  the  mind  of  any  Church  in  any  single 
age  fails  to  take  in  practically  and  sharj)ly  more  than 
one  side  of  a  truth  at  a  time,  while  other  aspects  and 
relations  are  either  denied  or  neglected.  A  habit  of  un- 
duly exalting  any  subordinate  view  of  the  tiuth  at  the 
expense  of  that  Avhich  is  more  important,  or  of  overlook- 
ing, on  the  other  hand,  some  secondary  aspect  of  it 

2* 


18       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  AIGNEMENT. 

altogether,  is  certain  after  a  time  to  lead  to  a  reactionary 
tendency,  in  which  that  which  has  been  too  much  exalted 
shall  be  brought  low,  and  that  which  has  been  abased 
shall  be  exalted.  Thisjprinciple  is  abundantly  illustrated 
througliout  the  entire  history  of  theological  speculation ; 
as  in  the  ever-repeated  oscillations  between  the  extremes 
of  Sabellianism  and  Tritheism  as  to  the  Trinity,  of 
Eutychianism  and  Nestorianism  as  to  the  Person  of 
Christ,  and  in  the  history  of  speculations  on  the  doc- 
trine of  Redemption.  Every  prominent  heresy  as  to  tlie 
nature  of  the  Atonement,  as  the  reader  will  iind  care- 
fully acknowledged  and  defined  in  the  following  work, 
embraces  and  emphasizes  on  its  positive  side  an  impor- 
tant truth.  The  power,  and  hence  the  danger,  of  the 
heresy  resides  in  that  fact.  But  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
a  heresy,  and  hence  an  evil  to  be  resisted  unto  death, 
because  it  either  puts  a  subordinate  principle  into  the 
place  of  that  which  is  central  and  fundamental,  or  be- 
cause it  puts  one  side  of  the  truth  for  the  whole,  denying 
or  ignoring  all  besides  the  fractional  truth  presented.  It 
is  plainly  the  policy  as  well  as  the  duty  of  the  defenders 
of  the  whole  truth,  not  only  to  acknowledge  the  truth 
held  on  the  side  of  their  opponents,  but  to  vindicate  the 
rights  of  the  perfect  system  as  a  whole,  by  demonstrating 
the  true  position  and  relation  of  the  partial  truth  ad- 
mitted in  the  larger  system  of  truth  denied.  By  these 
means  we  double  the  defences  of  orthodoxy,  by  bringing 
into  contribution  all  that  is  true,  and  therefore  all  that 
is  of  force,  in  the  apologies  of  error. 

2.  The  second  point  is,  that  systems  of  divinity  and 
definite  views  of  doctrine  are  not  a  matter  of  choice,  but 
of  absolute  necessity  to  the  Church,  as  long  as  the  Bible 


INTEODUCTORY.  19 

is  read  with  interest.  This  unquestionable  nccessiiy 
ariscs  from  the  logical  constitution  of  the  human  mind 
to  wliich  the  Christian  revelation  has  been  addressed, 
and  from  the  self-consistent  reason  of  that  infinite  mind 
from  which  the  revelation  lias  originated.  That  all 
trutli  is  one  in  God  and  in  man  is  an  invincil)le  axiom. 
The  man  who  intelligently  denies  this  is  ripe  for  atheism. 
The  human  mind — that'  of  the  individual  and  that  of 
every  community — ever  strives  to  introduce  unity  into  the 
whole  mass  of  its  knowledge.  God's  plans,  purposes, 
administrations — whether  through  nature  or  from  above 
nature,  and  his  revelations,  whether  history  or  prophecy, 
whether  doctrine,  precept  or  promise — must  all  constitute 
one  system,  and  hence,  all  their  parts  must  sustain  a  con- 
sistent relation  to  one  another.  They  cannot  be  conceived 
of  truly  unless  they  are  conceived  of  as  they  are  being 
accurately  defined,  and  understood  in  their  mutual  re- 
lations. 

At  present  there  are  two  absurdly  inconsistent  attacks, 
originating  in  rationalistic  sources,  directed  against  that 
system  of  trutli  which  the  Christian  Church  has  dis- 
cerned in  the  inspired  Scriptures.  The  first  attack  is 
made  upon  the  plea  that  everything  contained  in  a 
supernatural  revelation — being  a  part  of  a  great  self- 
contained  system  of  truth — must  be  forthwith  explained 
and  set  forth,  in  all  its  relations,  in  the  light  of  the 
human  reason.  Some,  arguing  from  analogy,  and 
others  appealing  to  their  own  elementary  intuitions  and 
feelings,  determine  a  priori  what  God  can  do  and  say, 
and  therefore  what  God  does  do  and  say,  thus  using 
the  materials  of  revelation  in  subordination  to  the 
law-o'ivin":    power    of    reason.      The   whole    class   of 


20  THE   NATURE   OF   TII^    A  rONEMEKP. 

errorists  Avith  whom  we  liave  to  do,  draw  their  doctrine 
ill  the  first  instance  from  rational  principles,  and  they 
appeal  to  Scripture  only  to  show  that  it  may  be  quoted 
in  at  least  apparent  conformity  with  what  has  been  pre- 
viously discovered  and  proved  on  other  grounds.  The 
second  attack  appears  in  the  form  of  a  protest  against 
definite  views  of  doctrine,  and  covers  its  real  denial  of 
the  fundamental  articles  of  the  Christian  faith  under 
vague  generalities.  Coleridge,  in  his  Aids  to  Reflection,* 
denies  that  the  Scriptures  reveal  anything  to  us  of 
"  the  efficient  cause  and  condition  of  redemption," 
except  the  bare  fact  that  Christ  has  achieved  it,  and 
affirms  that  all  that  is  revealed  to  us  concerns  the 
^^ effects  of  redemption  in  and  for  the  redeemed"  them- 
selves. Hence  a  large  class  of  theologians  in  England, 
and  a  smaller  but  growing  one  in  America,  are  continu- 
ally pleading  for  the  bare  implicit  recognition  of  the 
Atonement  as  a  fact,  and  protesting  against  all  theories 
of  the  Atonement  whatsoever;  that  is,  against  all  definite 
views  upon  the  subject.f 

This  is  at  once  very  absurd  and  very  dangerous,  and 
none  the  less  dangerous  because  of  its  absurdity.  The 
present,  above  all  other  periods  of  human  history,  is 
intolerant  cf  all  vague,  undetermined  and  loosely-held 
views.  Sharp,  clearly-defined  logic  and  earnest  faith 
will  hold  the  field  at  the  last.  Besides,  these  very  men 
necessarily  violate  their  own   principle,  showing   that 

*  Aphorisms  on  Si)iritual  Religion  Indeed,  Comment  on  Apliorisra 
19. 

f  See  Tracts  for  Priests  and  People,  Tract  III.,  The  Atonement 
as  a  Fact  and  as  a  Theory.  By  the  Rev.  Francis  Garden,  Sub-dean 
of  Her  Majesty's  Chapel  Royal. 


INTRODUCTORY.  21 

practically  it  serves  only  as  a  cover  und«*r  which  their 
hostility  to  the  truth  is  disguised.  It  is  plain  enouj^h 
that  Coleridge  held  and  taught,  under  all  the  cloud  of 
his  mysterious  language,  the  old,  meagre  and  oft-dis- 
carded Moral  Theory  of  the  Atonement.  The  Rev.  Suh- 
dean  Garden,  in  the  Tracts  for  Priests  and  I*eople,  makes 
it  very  plain  that  while  his  professed  object  is  to  main- 
tain the  Atonement  as  a  fact,  while  all  human  theories 
as  to  its  nature  are  alike  rejected,  his  real  interest  in  the 
matter  is  to  reject  the  principle  which  has  been  ahvays 
professed  by  the  Church  in  all  its  branches,  that  the 
direct  and  central  design  and  eflfect  of  Christ's  death  was 
to  propitiate  the  principle  of  justice  in  the  divine  natnre. 
The  same  is  true  in  degree  also  in  the  advocates  of  the 
Governmental  theory.  Its  positions  are  possible  only 
when  vaguely  and  generally  stated.  When  a  strict 
account  is  asked  as  to  what  is  meant  by  "a  substitute  for 
a  penalty,''  or  as  to  the  connection  between  the  non-penal 
sufferings  of  an  innocent  person  and  the  forgiveness  of 
the  unpunished  sins  of  the  guilty  subjects  of  divine 
government,  no  answer  is  made,  and  we  venture  to  assert 
that  upon  their  "^heory  no  answer  is  possible. 

In  answer  to  both  of  these  pleas  of  Rationalism,  we 
affirm  that  Christian  doctrine  has  its  ground  in  the  in- 
spired Scriptures  alone.  These  contain  the  system  of 
divine  truth  as  a  whole,  as  well  as  all  the  separate  ele- 
ments of  that  system.  The  true  system  of  Redemj^tion 
is  in  the  Scriptures,  inseparable  from  the  facts,  just  as 
the  true  theory  of  astronomy  has  been  from  the  creation 
with  the  stars  in  the  sky,  whether  mankind  read  them 
aright  or  not.  The  theologian,  like  the  astronomer,  is 
nothing  more  than  the  interpreter,  wdio  observes  the 


22       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATOXIMENT. 

facts,  -who  gradually  reads  the  system  in  the  facts,  and 
uho  teaches  to  others  precisely  what  he  has  read  in  the 
book,  neither  more  nor  less.  We  believe  that  what  is 
called  the  Satisfaction  theory  of  the  Atonement  is  as  cer- 
tainly and  as  demonstrably  taught  in  the  Scriptures  as  it 
is  in  any  or  in  all  the  creeds  of  the  Reformed  Churches. 
The  teachings  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  with  respect  to  the 
precise  nature  of  the  Atonement,  when  brought  together, 
are,  as  I  show  at  the  close  of  Chapter  XII.,  as  definite 
as  any  statement  which  can  possibly  be  constructed  in 
the  use  of  human  speech.  Let  us  reverently  remember 
the  awful  woe  which  the  Holy  Ghost  denounces  upon  him 
who  either  " shall  add  anything  unto  "  or  ^' shall  take  away^^ 
aught  from  that  which  God  has  revealed  in  the  Scrip- 
tures. Rev.  xxii.  18,  19.  It  is  certainly  as  impious,  and 
perhaps  more  foolish,  to  refuse  to  see  clearly  what  God 
has  revealed  clearly,  as  it  is  to  attempt  to  understand  in 
detail  great  undefined  facts  which  God  has  seen  fit  to 
leave  upon  the  verge  of  our  horizon.  We  hear  of  some 
dapper  preachers  who  claim  that  the  age  has  outgrown 
doctrine.  They  have  advanced  around  the  circle  to 
the  place  from  which  they  started,  and  hope  they  are 
ready  again  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven  like  little 
children,  as  far  as  ignorance  is  concerned.  Let  it  be 
rememljcred  that  systemaiic  theology  has  its  essence  sim- 
ply in  clear  thinking  and  clear  speaking  on  the  subject 
of  that  religion  w^hich  is  revealed  in  the  Scriptures.  A 
man  can  outgrow  systematic  theology,  therefore,  either 
by  ceasing  to  be  clear-headed,  or  by  ceasing  to  be  reli- 
gious, and  in  no  other  way.  I  suppose  some  escapf  in 
their  haste  by  both  ways  at  once. 


INTRODUCTORY.  23 

3.  In  tlie  third  place,  as  to  the  conditions  of  the 
argument,  I  have  to  make  three  preliminary  remarks. 

(1.)  I  insist  that,  as  the  Gospel  is  wholly  a  matter  of 
divine  revelation,  the  answer  to  the  question,  Wliat  did 
Christ  do  on  earth  in  order  to  reconcile  us  to  God?  be 
sought  exclusively  in  a  full  and  fair  induction  from  all 
the  Scriptures  teach  upon  the  subject.  From  a  survey 
of  all  the  matter  revealed  on  the  subject,  what,  in  the 
judgment  of  a  mind  unprejudiced  by  theories,  did  the 
sacred  writers  intend  us  to  believe?  The  result  of  such 
an  examination,  unmodified  by  philosophy  or  secular 
analogies,  is  alone,  we  insist,  the  true  doctrine  of  the  re- 
demptive work  of  Christ. 

(2.)  Reasonable  objections  against  the  evidences  by 
which  a  doctrine  is  established  have  force,  and  should 
be  duly  considered.  But  rational  objections  to  any 
principle  fairly  established  by  the  language  of  Scripture 
have  no  force  whatever,  unless  they  amount  to  a  pa//ja6^e 
corvtradiciion  to  other  principles  certainly  known.  And 
whenever  this  can  be  shown,  the  reasonable  inference  is, 
not  that  the  teachings  of  Scripture  are  to  be  modified  in 
conformity  thereto,  but  that  the  Scriptures  themselves 
are  to  be  rejected  as  false.  Nothing  is  more  senseless 
than  the  attempt  to  modify  the  results  of  the  inspiration 
of  Jehovah  in  conformity  with  human  reason. 

(3.)  The  force  of  the  argument  in  behalf  of  this  or 
any  other  doctrine  does  not  lie  in  special  words  or 
passages,  nor  in  the  several  arguments  regarded  sepa- 
rately. These  are  like  the  sticks  of  the  bundle  which  the 
boy  in  the  fable  broke  one  by  one  with  ease.  The  over- 
whelming dem3nstratIon  lies  in  the  fact  that  all  Scrip- 
ture, both    of    the   Old   and    New   Testaments,    when 


24       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

naturally  interpreted,  is  as  if  the  doctrine  was  true.  The 
number  and  variety  of  converging  lines  are  absolutely 
inconsistent  with  doubt  as  to  the  meaning  intended.  Our 
opponents  are  in  the  habit  of  demanding  that  we  should 
show  that  each  text  in  detail  not  only  may,  but  abso- 
lutely mustj  teach  the  doctrine  we  hold,  and  none  other. 
In  these  tactics  they  have  been  greatly  excelled  by  the 
more  consistent  Socinians,  who,  by  a  like  process,  have 
satisfied  themselves  that  Christ's  2:)roper  divinity  is  not 
taught  in  Scripture. 

I  propose,  then, 

Fird.  To  state  the  Church  doctrine  on  this  subject, 
defining  all  the  points  involved,  and  the  terms  used  in 
the  definitions. 

Seco7id.  To  present  a  summary  of  the  several  depart- 
ments of  the  scriptural  evidence  by  which  the  doctrine 
is  established. 

Third.  To  prove  that  the  true  Church  has  always, 
from  the  days  of  the  apostles  to  the  present,  in  all  its 
branches,  been  in  essential  agreement  as  to  the  essential 
elements  of  the  doctrine,  as  taught  at  large  in  the  con- 
fessions of  the  Reformed  and  Lutheran  Churches. 

Fourth.  To  state  and  answer  the  principal  objections 
made  to  the  doctrine. 

Fifth.  To  state,  compare  and  expose  the  fallacy  of  the 
several  erroneous  views  held  in  opposition  to  the  truth. 

Sixth.  To  state  and  prove  the  common  doctrine  of  the 
Reformed  Churches  as  to  the  design  of  the  Atonement 
with  respect  to  its  objects. 


CHAPTER    II. 

STATEMENT    OF    DOCTRINE. 

IT  may  elucidate  the  statement  of  the  points  involved 
in  the  orthodox  doctrine  as  to  the  nature  of  Christ's 
Redemptive  Work,  which  I  propose  to  give  in  this 
chapter,  if  we  first  take  a  step  backward,  and  attempt  to 
estimate  those  conditions  which  made  that  work  necessary. 
It  is  assumed  that  the  end  to  be  attained  was  to  reconcile 
God  and  man.  What,  then,  were  the  difficulties  to  be 
surmounted?  What  parties  are  to  be  affected  by  the 
introduction  of  such  a  provision  into  the  administration 
of  the  divine  government?  And  how  do  they  severally 
stand  in  relation  to  it  ? 

1.  There  is  God.  It  is  evident  that  whatever  the 
nature  of  God  demands,  as  the  condition  of  this  recon- 
ciliation, must  be  provided.  And  it  is  no  less  evident 
that  the  conditions,  rendered  necessary  by  God's  nature, 
must  take  precedence  of  all  others;  and,  indeed,  since  all 
created  natures  and  relations  are  contingent  upon  God's 
nature,  so  all  other  conditions  of  redemption  whatsoever 
must  be  contingent  upon  the  demands  of  his  nature. 
N^w  we  expect  to  show  (1)  that  the  Scriptures  teach 
that  one  of  the  attributes  of  the  divine  essence  is  abhor- 
rence of  sin  for  its  intrinsic  sinfulness,  both  in  its  aspect 
as  pollution  and    in    its  a>^|M^rl   iis  r/uUf.      It  is  of  the 

3  -  25 


26  THE    NATUllE    OF    THE   ATONEMENT. 

essence  of  his  moral  perfection  lo  forbid  it  and  punish 
it.  (2.)  That  God  has,  from  the  fii-st  enunciation  of  his 
law  to  Adam,  pledged  liis  incorruptible  truth  that  "  the 
soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die." 

2.  There  is  the  sinner  himself  in  a  certain  legal  rela- 
tion, and  with  a  certain  moral  disposition  as  it  respects 
God. 

(1.)  As  to  his  legal  relations,  the  Scriptures  clearly 
teach  that,  at  his  creation,  he  was  put  under  the  equita- 
ble Covenant  of  Works  for  a  certain  probationary  period. 
This  just  constitution  provided  (a)  everlasting  well-being 
on  condition  of  perfect  obedience,  and  (6)  everlasting 
ill-being  on  condition  of  disobedience.  Now,  although 
under  that  covenant  man  failed,  it  is  evident  that,  never- 
theless, both  of  these  conditions  must  be  maintained  in 
their  integrity.  To  relax  them  would  be  to  violate  the 
word  of  God,  to  dishonour  his  law,  and  to  render  his 
promises  and  his  threatenings  alike  unworthy  of  respect. 
The  penalty,  when  once  incurred,  can  be  preserved  in- 
violate only  by  being  executed.  The  promise  of  ever- 
lasting well-being  can  be  truthfully  granted  only  when 
the  condition  of  perfect  obedience  has  been  fulfilled. 
Suffering  a  righteous  penalty  entitles  no  criminal  to  a 
reward;  and  to  offer  eternal  blessedness  to  such,  on  terms 
denied  to  unfallen  Adam  and  to  all  angels,  would  be 
placing  a  premium  on  sin. 

(2.)  As  to  man's  moral  disposition  toward  God,  Scrip- 
ture and  experience  teach  that  it  is  a  condition  alike  of 
conscious  guilt  and  of  alienation,  (a)  It  is  a  condition 
of  conscious  guilt.  Conscience  is  an  indestructible  ele- 
ment of  human  nature.  It  is  God's  incorruptible  witness 
in  the  soul,  in  the  midst  of  all  its  moral  corruption, 


STATEMENT   OF   I^OCTRINE.  27 

judging  of  sin  as  he  jiulges  of  it.  It  is  armed  witli 
the  vindicatory  emotion  of  remorse,  which  demands 
expiation,  and  which  never  can  be  pacified  by  mere  ])ar- 
don.  Pardon  allays  fear;  sanctification  allays  self- 
abhorrence  ;  but  only  expiation  can  appease  remorse. 
(b)  Man's  condition  involves  a  disposition  of  fear,  dis- 
trust, sullen  alienation  as  respects  God.  This  might  all 
be  removed  by  an  exertion  of  new  creative  power.  But 
God  works  upon  man  in  consistency  with  his  nature  as 
a  rational  and  free  agent.  Such  an  exhibition  of  God's 
character  and  disposition  toward  man  must  be  made, 
therefore,  as  shall  tend,  according  to  the  laws  of  man's 
moral  and  emotional  nature,  to  subdue  his  alienation  and 
to  dissipate  his  distrust. 

3.  There  is  the  moral  universe,  embraced  in  one  gene- 
ral system  of  divine  government.  If  sin  is  punished 
in  one  province,  government  is  strengthened  throughout 
the  empire.  On  the  other  hand,  if  law  is  relaxed  and 
sin  pardoned  by  mere  sovereign  prerogative  in  any  one 
province,  the  government  is  just  so  far  forth  dishonoured 
and  weakened  throughout  all  provinces  and  for  all  time. 
Sinful  men,  therefore,  cannot  properly  be  reconciled  to 
God  until  after  provision  has  been  made  to  demonstrate 
to  all  the  subjects  of  God's  government  his  immutable 
determination  to  punish  sin  in  all  cases  without  exception. 

The  orthodox  doctrine  provides  exhaustively  for 
satisfying  all  these  conditions  of  redemption  at  once,  by 
the  one  act  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  in  vicariously  suffering 
the  penalty  of  the  broken  law  as  the  Substitute  of  his 
people.  His  motive  was  infinite  love.  The  precise  thing 
he  did  was  to  suffer  the  penalty  of  the  law  as  the  sub- 
stitute of  his  people.     His  direct  intention  was  to  satis- 


28       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

fy  justice  in  tlieir  behalf,  and  thus  secure,  on  legal 
terms,  their  salvation.  In  doing  this,  he  also  necessarily 
satisiied  the  natural  demand  of  the  sinner's  conscience  for 
expiation,  and  subdued  his  sullen  alienation,  and  re- 
moved his  distrust  of  God,  by  the  supreme  exhibition 
of  divine  love  made  on  the  cross.  At  the  same  time, 
and  by  the  same  means,  he  gave  to  the  whole  moral 
universe  the  highest  conceivable  demonstration  of  God's 
inexorable  determination  to  punish  all  sin,  just  because 
he  did  so  punish  it  even  in  the  person  of  his  Son.  The 
Socinian,  or  Moral  Influence  Theory,  supposes  that  the 
sole  design  and  effect  of  Christ's  sufferings  v/as  to  subdue 
the  wicked  alienation  of  man  by  an  exhibition  of  self- 
sacrificing  love.  It  is  evident  that  this  view  is  not  only 
partial  and  inverted,  making  the  reconciliation  of  man 
to  God  everything,  and  the  reconciliation  of  God  to  man 
nothing,  but  it  is  also  absurd  when  detached  from  the 
central  idea  of  expiation.  Christ's  sufferings  subdue  the 
alienation  of  man  because  they  exhibit  divine  love. 
They  exhibit  divine  love,  because  they  were  endured  as 
the  means  necessary  to  remove  obstacles  otherwise  in- 
superable even  by  God  to  the  exercise  of  favour  to  sinful 
men.  A  tragedy  gotten  up  for  the  transparent  purpose 
of  affecting  our  feelings,  having  no  inherent  principle  or 
necessity  in  itself,  would  disgust  rather  than  conciliate 
enmity. 

The  Governmental  Theory,  however  its  principles 
may  be  disguised  by  vague  and  general  statements, 
essentially  involves  the  assumption  (1)  that  justice  is 
only  a  mode  of  benevolence;  (2)  that  the  penalty  was 
not  executed  on  Christ;  that  his  sufferings  were  not 
necessary  to  satisfy  the  rigour  of  divine  justice;  that,  ou 


STATEMENT     W   DOCTRIXE.  20 

tlio  contrary,  he  suffered  a  substitute  for  the  penalt} ,  as 
an  example  of  pnnisliment  to  counteract  in  the  moral 
univei-sc,  by  exhibiting  God's  determination  to  punish 
sin,  the  evil  effects  that  would  otherwise  ensue  upon  its 
pardon.  It  is  even  more  evident  than  in  the  case  of  the 
Socinian  Theory  that  this  view  is  not  only  partial  and 
invert^,  putting  the  claims  of  the  moral  universe  before 
those  of  God,  but  absurd,  also,  when  detached  from  the 
central  idea  of  expiation,  which  it  was  invented  to 
supersede.  For  how  can  his  sufferings  be  an  example 
of  punishment  unless  Christ  really  suffered  the  penalty 
of  the  law?  How  can  they  demonstrate  God's  deter- 
mination to  punish  sin  unless  sin  was  in  very  deed 
punished  therein?  "^ 

The  orthodox  doctrine  as  to  Redemption  involves 
the  following  points. 

1.  As  to  its  3fotive.  This  was  the  amazino:  love  of 
God  to  his  own  people,  determining  him,  in  perfect 
consistency  with  his  truth  and  justice,  to  assume  him- 
self, in  the  person  of  his  Son,  the  responsibility  of 
bearing  the  penalty  and  satisfying  justice.  The  same 
identical  essence  and  attributes  are  common  to  the  Father 
and  the  Son,  The  justice  demanding  satisfaction,  and 
the  love  prompting  to  the  self-assumption  of  the  penalty, 
are  co-existent  states  of  divine  feeling  and  purpose. 

2.  As  to-  its  Nature.  (1.)  Christ  assumed  the  law- 
place  of  his  people.  He  owed  no  personal  obedience, 
and  he  had  sovereign  right  over  his  own  life  to  dispose 
of  it  as  he  willed.  Prompted  by  the  infinite  love  com- 
mon to  the  Father  and  himself,  he  voluntarily  assumed 
all  of  our  legal  responsibilities.  (2.)  He  obeyed  and 
Buffered  as  our  Substitute,    HLs  sufferings  were  vicarious. 

3* 


30       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

By  his  obedience  and  sufferings  he  discharged  all  our 
obligations  to  the  divine  law,  both  in  its  federal  and 
penal  relations.  His  sufferings  cancelled  the  claims  of 
penal  justice,  and  his  obedience  merited  the  rewards  of 
the  original  covenant  of  life.  (3.)  While  there  was,  of 
course,  no  transfer  of  moral  character,  he  assumed  the 
guilt  (just  obligation  to  punishment)  of  our  sins.  All 
their  shame  and  pollution  remain  ours,  while  all  their 
guUt  (penal  obligation)  was  willingly  assumed  by,  and 
imputed  to  him — i.  c,  charged  to  his  account.  (4.)  He 
did  not  render  a  pecuniary  satisfaction,  and  therefore  did 
not  suffer  the  same  degree  nor  duration,  nor  in  all  re- 
spects the  same  kind  of  sufferings,  which  the  law  would 
have  inflicted  on  the  sinner  in  person.  But  he  did 
suffer  the  very  i^enalty  of  the  law.  That  is,  sin  was 
punished  in  him  in  strict  rigour  of  justice.  His  suffer- 
ings were  no  substitute  for  a  penalty,  but  those  very 
penal  evils  which  rigorous  justice  demanded  of  his 
exalte^l  person  Avhen  he  stood  in  our  place,  as  a  full 
equivalent  for  all  that  was  demanded  of  us.  The  sub- 
stitution of  a  divine  for  a  human  victim  necessarily 
involved  a  change  in  the  quality,  though  none  whatever 
in  the  legal  relations,  of  the  suffering.  (5.)  He  did  not, 
of  course,  suffer  in  his  divine  nature.  But  because  of 
the  infinite  dignity  of  his  person,  his  finite  sufferings 
constitute  an  absolutely  perfect  satisfaction,  sufficient  to 
expiate  the  sins  of  all  men. 

3.  As  to  its  Effect.  (1.)  It  produced  no  change  in 
God,  any  more  than  do  acts  of  creation  and  providence. 
The  efficient  purpose  existed  in  the  divine  mind  from 
eternity.  He  acted  upon  it,  as  if  accoui2^1ished  from  the 
fall  of  Adam.     Tl^e  infuijte  justice  and  the  infinite  loyo 


STATEMENT   OF    DOCTrvINE.  31 

exercised  in  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  were  in  the  divine 
mind  from  tlie  bcfi:innin<ii:.  The  effect  of  the  satisfaction 
was  to  render  possible  the  concurrent  exercise  of  tlie 
justice  and  the  love  in  the  treatment  of  the  same  sinful 
persons.  (2.)  It  expiated  the  guilt  of  sin.  It  fulfilled 
tlu;  demands  of  law.  It  propitiated  justice.  It  recon- 
ciled us  to  God.  (3.)  It  actually  secures  our  salvation, 
and  does  not  simply  put  us  in  a  salvable  state.  Accord- 
ing to  the  terms  of  the  Covenant  of  Grace,  the  impetra- 
tion  of  redemption  by  Christ  is  infallibly  connected  with 
its  application  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  (4.)  Not  being  the 
payment  of  a  pecuniary  debt,  which  ij^so  facto  liberates, 
but  a  vicarious  penal  satisfaction,  it  remains,  as  far  as 
we  are  concerned,  as  a  matter  of  right,  in  the  hands  of 
God  to  grant  its  benefits  to  whom  he  pleases,  when  and 
on  whatsoever  terms  he  pleases.  His  granting  it  in 
any  case  is  an  act  of  sovereign  grace.  But  since  Christ 
acted  by  covenant,  he  has  acquired  by  his  performance 
of  the  stipulated  conditions  a  strictly  legal  title  to  the 
salvation  of  all  for  whom  he  acted.  As  between  God 
and  the  Mediator,  the  claim  in  right  is  perfect.  As 
between  God  and  the  Mediator  and  sinful  man,  it  is  all 
free  and  amazing  grace.  (5.)  Being  the  actual  execution 
in  strict  rigour  of  justice  of  the  unrelaxed  penalty  of  the 
law  in  the  person  of  the  God-man,  it  is  the  most  im- 
pressive exhibition  to  the  moral  universe  conceivable  of 
God's  inexorable  determination  to  punish  all  sin.  (6.) 
Being  an  exhibition  of  amazing  love — of  the  costliest 
self-sacrifice,  overcoming  obstacles  otherwise  insuperable 
to  the  well-being  of  its  objects — it  effects  what  only 
such  love  can ;  it  melts  the  hearts,  subdues  the  rebellion, 
and  dissipates  the  fears  of  sinful  men. 


CHAPTER    III. 

DEFINITION  OF  TERMS,  AND  SPECIFICAIION  OF  THE  PRINCIPAL 
POINTS  INVOLVED  IN  THE  ORTHODOX  DOCTRINE  OF  THE 
ATONEMENT. 

EVERY  science  has  its  tecnnical  terms,  and  much 
depends,  of  course,  upon  tlieir  being  accurately 
understood  and  consistently  used.  There  is,  moreover, 
a  constant  tendency  in  the  language  of  theology — as  is 
the  case  with  all  living  human  speech — to  change,  to 
admit  new  terms,  to  drop  old  ones,  and  to  modify  the 
sense  of  others.  Advocates  of  different  schools  of  theo- 
logical opinions  use  common  terms  in  different  senses, 
and  one  main  cause  of  the  futility  of  theolo^i'ical  con- 
troversy,  and  of  the  irritation  with  which  it  is  accom- 
panied, is  due  to  the  fact  that  they  so  inadequately 
understand  each  other's  speech.  In  order,  therefore,  to 
establisli  a  common  understanding  with  my  readers,  I 
shall  in  this  chapter  define  the  sense  in  which  certain 
terms  are  used  in  the  thcoloo^ical  writino;s  of  the  Re- 
formed  Churches,  and  then  enum(Tate  several  points 
involved  in  the  statement  of  the  orthodox  doctrine  of 
the  Atonement  before  given,  to  which  I  desire  the  atten- 
tion of  my  readers  directed  throughout  the  subsequent 
discussion  of  that  scriptural  evidence  by  which  they 
are  established. 

I.  Atonement.     This  word  has  been  generally  used 

82 


DEFINITION   OF   TERMS.  33 

in  late  years,  both  in  England  and  in  this  country,  to 
express  the  specific  thing  which  Christ  wrought  in  order 
to  our  salvation.  The  old  term  in  use  ever  since  the 
days  of  Anselm,  and  habitually  used  by  all  the  lie- 
formers  in  all  the  creeds  and  great  classical  theological 
writings  of  the  seventeenth  century,  both  Lutheran  and 
Reformed,  was  Satisfaction.  We  prefer  the  old  term 
to  the  new  one  for  the  following  reasons. 

(1.)  The  word  Atonement  is  ambiguous.  It  is  used 
many  times  in  the  Old  Testament  to  translate  the 
Hebrew  worxl  "i£3D  —  to  cover  by  making  expiation.  It 
appears  but  once  in  our  English  New  Testament,  and 
there  (Rom.  v.  11)  as  the  equivalent  of  the  Greek  word 
xarallayijj  reconciliation.  Its  etymology  is  not  known, 
and  is  claimed  by  many  to  be  at-one-ment.  This  the 
Socinians  regard  as  the  full  force  of  the  word,  and  as 
lihus  fully  expressing  the  exact  nature  of  Christ's  work 
— that  is,  a  reconciliation  of  God  and  man.  Thus  the 
word  is  sometimes  understood  to  mean  reconciliation,  and 
sometimes  that  sin-expiating,  God-propitiating  work  by 
which  reconciliation  was  effected.  When  we  say  that 
we  have  "received  the  atonement,"  we  mean  that  we 
have  been  reconciled  to  God.  But  when  it  is  said  that 
Christ,  after  the  analogy  of  the  ancient  sacrifices,  has 
"made  an  atonement  for  us,''  it  means  that  he  has  done 
that  which  secures  our  reconciliation;  i.  e.,  has  satisfied 
all  the  demands  of  law  upon  which  the  favour  and  fel- 
lowship of  God  were  suspended.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  word  Satisfaction  is  not  ambiguous.  It  always  means 
precisely  that  which  Christ  did  in  order  to  save  his  peo- 
l^le,  as  that  work  stands  related  to  the  nature  of  God 
and  to  his  law. 


34       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

(2.)  The  word  Atonement,  moreover,  is  too  limited  in 
its  signification  for  the  purpose  assigned  to  it.  It  does 
not  express  all  that  Scripture  declares  that  Christ  did  in 
order  to  satisfy  all  the  demands  of  God's  law.  It  pro- 
perly signifies  the  expiation  of  sin,  and  nothing  more. 
It  represents  only  that  satisfaction  which  Christ  rendered 
to  the  justice  of  God  in  vicariously  bearing  the  penalty 
due  to  our  sins,  but  it  does  not  include  that  satisfaction 
which  Christ  rendered  in  his  vicarious  obedience  to  tlie 
law  as  a  covenant  of  everlasting  well-being.  The  word 
Satisfaction  naturally  includes  both  of  these,  while  the 
use  of  the  word  Atonement  to  express  the  whole  of 
Christ's  work  has  naturally  led  to  confused  and  defective 
views  as  to  the  nature  of  that  work. 

The  word  Satisfaction  is  neither  ambiguous  nor 
defective.  The  Reformed  Churches  mean  by  its  use  (1) 
that  Christ  fully  satisfied  all  that  the  justice  and  law  oi 
God  required,  on  the  part  of  mankind,  as  the  condition 
of  their  being  admitted  to  divine  favour  and  eternal 
happiness.  (2.)  As  the  demands  of  the  law  upon  sinful 
men  are  both  preceptive  and  penal — the  condition  of 
life  being  "do  this  and  live,"  while  the  penalty  denounced 
upon  disobedience  is, "the  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall  die" 
— it  follows  that  any  work  which  shall  fully  satisfy  the 
demands  of  the  divine  law  in  behalf  of  men  must  in- 
clude (1)  that  obedience  which  the  law  demands  as  the 
condition  of  life,  and  (2)  that  suffering  which  it  demands 
as  the  penalty  of  sin.* 

II.   Tke  Difference  between  a  penal  and  a  pecuniary 
satisfaction.     These  differ  precisely  as  do  crime  and  debt, 
things  and  persons,  and  therefore  the  distinction  is  both 
*  Dr.  Charles  Hodge. 


DEFINITIOX   OF   TERMS.  35 

obvious  and  important.  Many,  who  either  are  incapable 
of  understanding  the  question,  are  ignorant  of  its  history, 
or  who  are  unscrupulous  as  to  the  manner  in  which  they 
conduct  controversy,  are  continually  charging  our  doc- 
trine with  the  folly  of  representing  the  sacrifice  of  Christ 
as  a  purely  commercial  transaction,  in  which  so  much 
was  given  for  so  much,  and  in  which  God  was  in  such  a 
sense  recompensed  for  his  favours  to  us  that  however 
much  gratitude  we  may  owe  to  Christ,  we  owe  on  this 
behalf  none  to  God.  Long  ago  the  doctrine  of  the  Re- 
formed Churches  was  unanswerably  vindicated  from  such 
puerile  charges  by  all  its  most  authoritative  expounders. 
"  Here  the  twofold  solution,  concerning  which  jurists  treat, 
should  be  accurately  distinguished.  The  one,  w^hich  ipso 
facto  liberates  the  debtor  or  criminal  because  that  very 
thing  which  was  owed  is  paid,  whether  it  was  done  by  the 
debtor  or  by  another  in  his  name.  The  other,  which  ipso 
facto  does  riot  liberate,  since  not  at  all  the  very  thing  which 
was  owed,  but  an  equivalent,  is  paid,  Avhich,  although  it 
does  not  thoroughly  and  ipso  facto  discharge  the  obliga- 
tion, yet  having  been  accepted — since  it  might  be  refused 
— is  regarded  as  a  satisfaction.  This  distinction  holds 
between  a  pecuniary  and  a  penal  indebtedness.  For  in 
a  pecuniary  debt  the  payment  of  the  thing  owed  ipso 
facto  liberates  the  debtor  from  all  obligations  whatso- 
ever, because  here  the  point  is  not  who  pays,  but  what  is 
paid.  Hence  the  creditor,  the  payment  being  accepted, 
is  never  said  to  extend  toward  the  debtor  any  indul- 
gence or  remission,  because  he  has  received  all  that  was 
owed  him.  But  the  case  is  different  with  respect  to  a 
penal  debt,  because  in  this  case  the  obligation  respects 
the  person  as  well  as  the  thing;  the  demand  is  upon  the 


6b  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

person  icho  pays  as  well  as  the  tiling  paid;  i.  e.,  that  the 
penalty  should  be  suffered  by  the  person  sinning;  for  aif 
the  law  demands  personal  and  proper  obedience,  so  it 
exacts  personal  enduring  of  the  penalty.  Therefore,  in 
order  that  a  criminal  should  be  absolved — a  vicarioas 
satisfaction  being  rendered  by  another  hand — it  is  neces- 
sary that  there  should  intervene  a  sovereign  act  of  the 
supreme  law-giver,  which,  with  respect  to  the  law,  is 
called  relaxation,  and  with  respect  to  the  debtor  is  called 
remission,  because  the  personal  endurance  of  the  penalty 
is  remitted,  and  a  vicarious  endurance  of  it  is  accepted 
in  its  stead.  Hence  it  clearly  appears  that  in  this  work 
(of  Redemption)  remission  and  satisfaction  are  perfectly 
consistent  with  each  other,  because  there  is  satisfaction 
in  the  endurance  of  the  punishment  which  Christ  bore, 
and  there  is  remission  in  the  acceptance  of  a  vicarious 
victim.  The  satisfaction  respects  Christ,  from  whom 
God  demanded  the  very  same  punishment,  as  to  kind 
of  punishment,  though  not  as  to  the  degree  nor  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  sufferings  which  the  law  denounced  upon 
us.  The  remission  respects  believers,  to  whom  God  re- 
mits the  personal,  while  he  admits  the  vicarious,  punish- 
ment. And  thus  appears  the  admirable  reconciliation 
of  justice  and  mercy — -justice  which  executes  itself  upon 
the  sin,  and  mercy  which  is  exercised  towards  the  sinner. 
Satisfaction  is  rendered  to  the  justice  of  God  by  the 
Sponsor,  and  remission  is  granted  to  us  by  God.''  * 

Hence  pecuniary  satisfaction  differs  from  penal  thus: 

(a.)  In  debt,  the  demand  terminates  upon  the  thing  due. 

In  crime,  the  legal  demand  for  punishment  is  upon  the 

person  of  the  criminal.     (6.)  In  debt,  the  demand  is  for 

*  Tunttin,  Jjotus  XIV.  Quaehlio  10,  l- 


DEFINITION   OF   TERMS.  37 

the  precise  thing  due — the  exact  quid  pro  quo,  and  no- 
thing else.  In  crime,  tlie  demand  is  for  that  kind, 
degree  and  duration  of  suffering  which  the  law — ^.  e., 
absolute  and  omniscient  justice — demands  in  each  specific 
case,  the  person  suffering  and  the  sin  to  be  expiated  both 
being  considered,  (c.)  In  debt,  the  payment  of  the 
thing  due,  by  whomsoever  it  may  be  made,  {j)so  facto 
liberates  the  debtor,  and  instantly  extinguishes  all  the 
claims  of  the  creditor,  and  his  release  of  the  delator  is 
no  matter  of  grace.  In  crime,  a  vicarious  suffering  of 
the  penalty  is  admissible  only  at  the  absolute  discretion 
of  the  sovereign;  remission  is  a  matter  of  grace;  the 
rights  acquired  by  the  vicarious  endurance  of  penalty 
all  accrue  to  the  sponsor;  and  the  claims  of  law  upon 
the  sinner  are  not  ij)so  facto  dissolved  by  such  a  satisfac- 
tion, but  remission  accrues  to  the  designed  beneficiaries 
only  at  such  times  and  on  such  conditions  as  have  been 
determined  by  the  will  of  the  sovereign,  or  agreed  upon 
between  the  sovereign  and  the  sponsor. 

3.  The  significance  of  the  term  Penalty,  and  the 
distinction  between  Calamities,  Chastisements  and 
Penal  Evils.  Calamities  are  sufferings  viewed  with- 
out any  reference  to  a  design  or  purpose  in  their  inflic- 
tion— that  is,  suffering  considered  simply  as  suffering. 
Chastisements  are  sufferings  viewed  as  designed  for  the 
improvement  of  those  who  experience  them.  When 
viewed  as  designed  to  satisfy  the  claims  of  justice  and 
law,  they  are  Penal  Evils.  The  sufferings  of  Christ 
were  not  mere  objectless,  characterless  calamities.  They 
could  not  have  been  chastisements  designed  for  his  per- 
sonal improvement.  They  must  therefore  have  been 
penal  inflictions  vicariously  endunnl.* 
J  *Dr.  Charles  Hodge. 


38       THE  NATUKE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Penalty  is  suffering  exacted  by  the  supreme  law- 
making power  of  the  breakers  of  law.  The  penalty  in 
case  of  any  person  and  in  view  of  any  crime  is  precisely 
that  kind,  degree  and  duration  of  suffering  which  the 
supreme  law-making  power  demands  of  that  person 
under  those  conditions  for  that  crime.  Human  law  is 
necessarily  generalized  in  an  average  adaptation  to 
classes.  But  divine  law  with  infinite  accuracy  adapts 
itself  to  the  absolute  rights  of  each  individual  case  of 
crune  and  of  punishment,  the  penalty  in  each  case  ful- 
filling all  righteousness,  both  as  respects  the  person 
l^unished  and  the  crime  for  which  it  is  inflicted.  We 
say  that  Christ  suffered  the  very  penalty  of  the  law,  not 
because  he  suffered  in  the  least  the  same  kind,  much  less 
the  same  degree,  of  suffering  as  was  penally  due  those 
for  whom  he  acted,  because  that  is  not  at  all  necessary 
to  the  idea  of  penalty.  But  we  say  that  he  suffered  the 
very  penalty  of  the  law,  because  he  suffered  in  our  stead ; 
our  sins  were  punished  in  strict  rigour  of  justice  in  him; 
the  penal  demands  of  the  law  upon  his  people  were  ex- 
tinguished, because  his  sufferings  sustained  precisely  tlie 
same  legal  relations  that  our  sufferings  in  person  would 
have  done;  and  because  he  suffered  precisely  that  kind, 
degree  and  duration  of  suffering  that  absolute  justice 
demanded  of  his  divine  person,  when  found  federally 
responsible  for  the  guilt  of  all  the  sins  of  the  elect.  We 
believe  that  while  the  sufferer  is  substituted,  the  {penalty 
as  penalty,  though  never  as  suffering,  is  identical.  AVe 
are  willing  to  call  it  in  accommodation  a  "substituted 
penalty,"  though  we  believe  the  phrase  inaccurate.  But 
tlic  phrase  insisted  upon  by  the  advocates  of  the  Govern- 
mental Atonement  Theorj^ — viz.,  "a  substitute   for   a 


DEFINITION   OF   TERMS.  39 

penalty" — wc  believe  to  be  absurd.  Sin  is  either  punished 
or  not  punished.  The  penalty  is  either  executed  or  n^- 
niitted.  Justice  is  either  exercised  or  relaxed.  Tlicre 
can  be  no  manifestation  of  i>enal  righteousness  without 
an  exercise  of  penal  justice. 

4.  The  meaning  of  tlie  words  SuRSTiTUTiON  and  Vica- 
rious. These  terms  are  admitted  in  a  loose  sense  even 
by  Socinians,  and  are  paraded  by  Young,  Maurice  and 
Jowctt,  and  very  much  in  the  same  loose,  indifferent 
sense  by  Barnes  and  the  advocates  of  the  Govern- 
mental Atonement  Theory  generally.  When  these 
parties  say  that  Christ  was  substituted  for  us  and  his 
sufferings  are  vicarious,  they  mean  nothing  more  than 
that  he  suffered  in  our  behalf,  for  our  benefit.  We  hold, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  Christ  was  in  a  strict  and  exact 
sense  the  substitute  of  his  people;  i.  6.,  by  divine  ap- 
pointment, and  of  his  own  free  will,  he  assumed  all  our 
legal  responsibilities  and  thus  assumed  our  law-place, 
binding  himself  to  do  in  our  stead  all  that  the  law  de- 
manded of  him  when  he  suffered  the  penalty  due  us, 
and  rendered  the  obedience  upon  which  our  well-being 
was  made  to  depend.  Vicarious  sufferings  and  obedi- 
ence are  penal  inflictions,  and  act^  of  obedience  to  law 
which  are  rendered  in  our  place  or  stead  {vice),  as  well  as 
in  our  behalf  by  our  substitute.  An  alien  goes  to  the 
army  in  the  place  of  a  drafted  subject.  He  is  the  sub- 
stitute of  the  man  in  whose  place  he  goes.  His  labours, 
ins  dangers,  his  wounds  and  his  death  are  vicarious. 

5.  Tlie  distinction  between  the  terms  Expiation  and 
Propitiation.  Both  these  words  represent  the  same 
Greek  word,  DAaxeaOai.  When  construed,  as  it  is  con- 
stantly in  the  classics,  with  zbv  Seov  or  zoh^  Oeou^j  it 


40       TnE  NATUKE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

means  to  propitiate  by  sacrificial  expiation.  In  the  New 
Testament  it  is  construed  with  r«c  (i/i«or/«c,Heb.  ii.  17, 
and  is  properly  translated  to  expiate.  Expiation  removes 
the  reatus  or  guilt  of  sin.  Meatus  is  that  obligation  to 
suffer  the  penalty  which  is  inherent  in  sin.  Sanctifica- 
tion  alone  removes  the  pollution  of  sin.  Propitiation 
removes  the  judicial  displeasure  of  God.  Expiation 
respects  the  bearing  or  effect  which  Satisfaction  has  upon 
sin  or  upon  the  sinner.  Propitiation  has  respect  to  the 
bearing  or  effect  which  Satisfaction  has  upon  God.  Sacri- 
ficial expiation  among  heathens,  Jews  and  Christians  has 
always  been  regarded  as  a  truepfcna  vicaria;  it  is  of  the 
genus  penalty ;  its  specific  difference  is  vicariousness. 
Propitiation,  as  a  theological  term,  means  that  peculiar 
method  of  rendering  placable  w  hich  affects  the  heart  of 
a  Deity,  who  at  the  same  time  hates  the  sin  and  is  deter- 
mined to  punish  it, yet  loves  the  sinner;  and  which  pro- 
ceeds by  means  of  expiation,  or  the  vicarious  suffering 
of  the  penalty  by  a  substituted  victim. 

6.  Impetration  and  Application.  Arminians  and 
the  Calvinistic  advocates  of  a  general  Atonement  are  con- 
stantly insisting  upon  the  distinction  between  the  Impe- 
teation  and  the  xVpplication  of  salvation  by  Christ. 
By  Impetration  they  mean  the  piu*chase,  or  meritorious 
procurement  by  sacrifice,  of  all  of  those  objective  condi- 
tions of  salvation  which  are  offered  to  all  men  in  the 
gospel;  that  is,  salvation  made  available  on  the  condition 
of  faith.  By  Application  they  mean  the  actual  applica- 
tion of  that  salvation  to  individuals  upon  faith.  The 
Impetration  they  hold  to  be  geneml  and  indefinite;  tlie 
Ap})lication  they  believe  to  be  personal,  definite  and 
limited  to  believers.     The  Reformed  Churches,  on  the 


DEFINITION   OF   TRRMS.  41 

other  hand,  tcacli  that  while  the  impetration  of  salva- 
tion is  both  lo<^iailly  and  chronologically  distinguisha1)le 
from  its  application,  nevertheless  in  the  eternal  and 
immutable  design  of  God  the  impetration  is  personal 
and  definite,  and  includes  certainly  and  meritoriously 
the  subsequent  application  to  the  persons  intended ;  for 
"to  ALL /or  whom  Christ  hath  purchased  redemption  he 
doth  cciiainly  and  effectually  apply  and  communicate  the 
sameJ^ 

7.  Redemption  and  Atonement.  The  modern  advo- 
cates of  a  general  Atonement  distinguish  between  the 
words  Redemption  and  Atonement  after  this  manner : 
Atonement  they  confine  to  the  impetration  of  the  objec- 
tive conditions  of  salvation,  which  they  maintain  is  gene- 
ral and  indefinite.  Redemption  they  use  in  a  wider  sense 
as  including  the  actual  personal  application  in  addition 
to  the  general  and  all-sufficient  impetration.  Hence, 
wJiile  they  speak  of  a  general  Atonement,  they  deny  of 
course  that  there  is  a  general  Redemption.  It  must  be 
carefully  noted,  however,  that  this  distinction  was  not 
marked  by  this  usage  of  the  terms  Atonement  and  Re- 
demption by  any  of  the  controversialists,  on  either  side 
of  the  question,  during  the  seventeenth  century,  when  the 
authoritative  standards  of  the  Reformed  Churches  were 
written.  Baxter  used  the  word  Redemption  as  equivalent 
to  Atonement  in  his  work  entitled  "  Universal  Redemp- 
tion of  Mankind  by  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  So  also  the 
Arminian  Dr.  Isaac  Barrow,  in  his  sermons  entitled  "The 
Doctrine  of  Universal  Redemption  Asserted  and  Ex- 
plained." In  the  Westminster  Confession,  let  it  be  re- 
membered, the  word  Redemption  is  used  in  tlie  sense  of 

4* 


42  TF[K    NATURE    OF    THE   ATONEMENT. 

Atonement,  or  the  sacrificial  purchase  of  salvation  for 
tliosc  for  Avhom  it  was  intended.* 

Tliere  is,  however,  unquestionably  a  distinction  to  be 
carefully  observed  between  these  words  in  their  biblical 
usage.  The  precise  biblical  sense  of  Atonement  (oni):) 
— ilaapLO^)  is  the  expiation  of  sin  by  means  of  a  pccna 
vicaria  in  order  to  the  propitiation  of  God.  The  bibli- 
cal usage  with  respect  to  Redemption  (aTzoXoTpwatr^ 
&c.,)  is  more  comprehensive  and  less  definite.  It  signifies 
deliverance  from  loss  or  from  ruin  by  the  payment  for 
us  of  a  ransom  by  our  Substitute.  Hence  it  may  signify 
the  act  of  our  Substitute  in  paying  that  ransom.  Or  it 
may  be  used  to  ex})ress  the  completed  deliverance  itself, 
the  consummation  of  which  is  of  course  future.  To  say 
that  "  Christ  has  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law, 
being  made  a  curse  for  us'^  (Gral.  iii.  13),  is  precisely 
equivalent  to  saying  that  he  lias  made  atonement  for  us. 
But  when  we  speak  of  our  "redemption  drawing  nigh'' 
(Luke  xxi.  28),  of  "the  redemption  of  the  purchased 
possession"  (Eph.  i.  14),  of  "the  redemption  of  our 
body"  (Rom.  viii.  23),  or  of  "the  day  of  redemption" 
(Eph.  iv.  30),  it  is  plain  that  the  word  signifies  the  de- 
liverance of  our  souls  and  bodies,  and  the  attainment  for 
us  of  a  heavenly  inheritance  by  means  of  the  payment 
of  a  ransom  for  us  by  our  Lord — a  deliverance  which, 
although  commenced  now,  will  be  consummated  at  a 
future  day.  Redemption  being  deliverance  by  means 
of  the  substitution  of  a  ransom,  it  follows  that,  althougii 
the  ransom  can  only  be  paid  to  God,  and  to  him  only  as 

*See  Dr.  Cunningham's  Historical  Theology,  vol.  ii.,  p.  327,  and 
Dr.  Henry  B.  Smith,  in  his  edition  of  Hagenbach,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  356, 
357. 


PRINCIPAl.   POINTS   INVOLVED.  43 

the  moral  Governor  of  the  universe,  we  may  still  be  said 
to  be  redeemed  from  all  that  we  are  delivered  from  by 
means  of  the  ransom  })aid  in  the  saerifiee  of  Christ.  Tims 
we  are  said  to  be  redeemed  from  our  "  vain  conversation" 
(1  Pet.  i.  18),  ''from  death''  (Hosea  xiii.  14),  "from  the 
devil"  (Col.  ii.  15;  Ileb.  ii.  14),  from  ''all  iniquity" 
(Titus  ii.  14),  and  "from  the  curse  of  the  law"  (Gal.  iii. 
13,  and  iv.  5),  while  it  is  of  course  not  meant  that  the 
ransom  is  paid  to  the  devil,  or  to  sin,  or  to  death,  or  to 
the  law.  It  is  simply  absurd  to  claim  that  these  differ- 
ent representations  are  inconsistent.  A  captive  is  re- 
deemed by  a  price  paid  only  to  him  that  holds  him  in 
bondage,  but  by  the  same  act  may  be  redeemed  from 
labour,  from  disease,  from  death,  from  the  persecution 
of  his  fellow-captives  and  from  a  slavish  disj^osition.* 

8.  Meritum  and  Satisfactio.  Thomas  Aquinas 
(1274)  first  signalized  the  distinction  between  the  terms 
Meritum  and  Satisfactio.  By  Satisfactio  he  intended 
the  bearing  of  Christ's  work  considered  as  penal  suffer- 
ing, which  satisfies  the  penal  claims  of  law  for  the  demerit 
of  sin.  By  Meritum  he  intended  the  bearing  of  Christ's 
work  considered  as  a  holy  obedience,  fulfilling  all  the 
conditions  of  the  original  covenant  of  life  upon  which 
the  eternal  well-being  of  his  people  were  suspended. 
These  are  in  modern  times  both  embraced  under  the  one 
term  Satisfaction  (which  see  above),  and  the  distinction 
intended  by  Aquinas  is  now  expressed  by  the  terras  active 
and  passive  obedience.  The  whole  earthly  career  of 
Christ,  including  his  death,  was  obedience  in  one  aspect 
and  suffering  in  another.  Inasmuch  as  it  was  suffering, 
it  expiated  the  sins  of  his  people ;  inasmuch  as  it  was 
*  See  the  closing  paragraph  of  Chapter  XII. 


44  THE   XATr  RE  OF    THE   ATONEMEJsT. 

obedience,  It  merited  for  them  the  covenanted  reward  of 
eternal  life. 

Principal  Poixts  Involved.  I  will  now  enumer- 
ate several  points  involved  in  the  orthodox  doctrine 
of  the  Atonement  as  above  stated.  It  follows,  of  course, 
that  every  argument  which  tends  to  establish  either  one 
of  the  principles  involved  in  our  view,  tends  just  so  far 
forth  to  establish  the  trutl^  of  that  view  as  a  whole.  I 
shall  give  a  bare  statement  of  these  principles,  in  order 
to  bring  out  as  fully  as  I  may  the  true  nature  of  the 
question  in  debate,  and  also  in  order  to  enable  the  reader 
to  see  the  intended  bearing  of  all  the  scriptural  testimony 
about  to  be  submitted.  It  is  not  j^roposed  to  offer  proof 
of  each  one  of  these  points  separately;  but  the  reader  is 
requested  to  keep  them  in  mind,  and  to  observe  contin- 
ually whether  the  unforced  language  of  Scripture  is  in 
their  favour  or  the  reverse. 

These  points  are  as  follows. 

(1.)  Did  the  effect  of  the  sacrifices  offered  by  the 
ancient  typical  priests  terminate  upon  the  offerer,  upon 
the  spectators,  or  upon  God  ?  Were  those  priests  ordained 
to  represent  God  before  men,  or  men  before  God?  Was 
Christ  only  a  Medium  through  which  divine  influences 
reached  man,  or  was  he  also  and  fundamentally  the  Medi- 
ator, opening  the  way  for  man  to  return  to  God  in  peace? 

(2.)  Are  the  actions  of  God  determined  by  motives 
and  principles  originating  wholly  in  tha  divine  nature, 
or  may  they  be  j)roperly  referred  to  considerations  origi- 
nating in  the  creation?  We  maintain  the  former  alter- 
native. God's  immutable  nature  demands  the  punishment 
of  sin,  and  therefore  Christ,  when  made  to  occupy  the 
place  of  sinners,  suffered  that  punishment.     The  advo- 


PKINCIPAL  POINTS  INVOLVED.  45 

cates  of  every  other  view  of  the  nature  of  the  Atone- 
ment rrncst  maintain  the  hitter  alternative,  and  refer  the 
sacrifice  of  Christ  U  motives  originating  in  tlie  moral 
condition  and  necessities  either  of  the  individual  sinner 
or  of  the  moral  universe  in  general. 

(3.)  May  all  virtue  be  resolved  into  disinterested 
benevolence,  and  all  sin  into  selfishness?  In  other  words, 
is  there  nothing  else  that  ought  to  be  except  benevolence, 
and  nothing  else  that  ougJit  not  to  be  except  selfishness? 
Is  justice  only  a  form  or  mode  of  benevolence — i.  e.,  does 
God  punish  sin  simply  to  prevent  its  recurrence  or  to 
limit  its  spread,  and  for  the  good  of  the  universe  as  a 
salutary  examj)le?  Is  sin  a  relative  evil  only  because  it 
is  the  invariable  cause  of  suffering  to  the  sinner  and  to 
others?  And  is  it  punished  simply  to  limit  its  influence? 
On  all  these  points,  the  consistent  advocates  of  the 
Governmental  Theory  luust  take  the  affirmative.  On 
the  contrary,  we  affirm  that  there  are  many  virtues 
which  cannot  be  included  under  the  head  of  benevolence, 
and  many  sins  which  cannot  be  reduced  to  the  category 
of  selfishness;  that  virtue  is  that  which  ought  to  be  for 
its  own  sake,  as  an  absolute  end  in  itself,  and  for  no 
reason  beyond ;  that  sin  is  intrinsically  evil,  and  deserves 
punishment  because  of  its  intrinsic  evil,  and  for  no  rea- 
son beyond;  that  divine  justice  is  an  exalted  perfection, 
determining  God  always  to  treat  moral  agents  as  they 
deserve,  and  that  he  punishes  sin  because  this  attribute 
of  justice  demands  that  sin  shall  be  treated  appropriately 
to  its  nature. 

(4.)  Supposing  it  to  be  the  purpose  of  God  to  malvc 
provision  for  the  salvation  of  sinners,  were  the  sufier- 
ings  of  Christ  absolutely  necessary  to  that  end,  rendered 


46       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

SO  by  the  constitution  of  the  divine  nature;  or  was  the 
necessity  for  them  only  contingent  upon  the  optional 
will  of  God  or  upon  the  conditions  of  the  creature? 

(5.)  Wliat  is  the  nature  of  the  divine  law?  Is  it  a 
product  of  the  divine  will,  or  a  transcript  of  the  divine 
nature?  Hence  is  the  law  relaxable  or  immutable?  Is 
penalty  an  essential  or  an  unessential  element  of  the 
law  to  which  it  is  attached? 

(6.)  As  a  matter  of  fact,  is  Christ  represented  in  Scrip- 
ture as  having  come  for  the  purpose  of  fulfilling  the  law, 
or  of  relaxing  it? 

(7.)  Has  God,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  established  such  a 
union  between  Christ  and  believers  that  they  are  legally 
one  with  him :  that  his  death  and  his  life,  his  Father  and 
his  inheritance,  his  standing  and  his  rights,  are  theirs  as 
matters  of  law? 

(8.)  Did  Christ  die  not  only  for  us,  but  in  a  strict 
sense  as  our  Substitidej  in  our  law-place  and  stead  ? 

(9.)  Was  the  guilt  (legal  obligation  to  punishment) 
of  our  sin  imputed  to  Christ  (justly  charged  to  his  ac- 
count), because  of  tliat  legal  oneness  w^liich  the  divine 
will  had  constituted  between  him  and  us? 

(10.)  Thus  bearing  justly  and  legally  the  guilt  of  our 
sin,  did  he  truly  expiate  that  guilt,  and  thus  satisfy 
justice? 

(11.)  Do  the  Scriptures  teach  that  when  the  believer 
is  justified,  the  righteousness  or  rewardableness  of  Christ's 
perfect  obedience  to  the  divine  law  in  our  place  is  justly 
charged  to  our  account;  or  is  Justification  mere  par- 
don? 

(12.)  Do  the  Scriptures  teach  that  the  design  and  efiPect 
of  Christ's  death  is  actually  to  save  those  for  whom  he 


PRINCIPAL    I'OINTS    INVOLVED.  47 

died;  or  was  it  only  to  put  all  men  in  a  salvable  state? 
Did  Redemption  s^rairo  faitli  and  repentance  for  those 
who  are  redeemed;  or  are  all  men  redeemed,  and  then 
left  to  provide  their  OAvn  faith  and  repentance? 

The  central  point  to  be  kept  always  in  view  is  repre- 
sented by  the  question,  Did  Christ  truly  expiate  the,  guilt 
of  our  sinf 

An  examination  of  all  the  scriptural  evidence  sub- 
stantiating this  doctrine  would  occupy  us  with  the  study 
of  iKjarly  every  book  both  of  the  Old  and  the  New  Tes- 
taments; with  an  analysis  of  the  nature  and  relations 
of  every  particular  doctrine  in  the  entire  system  of  re- 
vealed truth;  and  with  a  detailed  examination  of  innu- 
merabLe  words  and  passages.  A  bare  outline  of  this 
argument  is  all  that  will  be  here  attempted.  The  im- 
pression I  wish  to  convey,  in  conformity  with  my  own 
clear  conviction,  is,  not  that  this  or  that  text  must  mean 
what  we  suppose  and  nothing  else,  but  that  the  whole 
of  what  Scripture  says  on  this  subject,  when  brought 
together,  makes  it  impossible  to  doubt  what  the  sacred 
wnters  meant  us  to  believe. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE  ULTIMATE  MOTIVES  OF  ALL  GOD's  ACTS  ARE  IN 
himself;  and  THE  IMMUTABLE  PERFECTIONS  OF  THE 
DIVINE    NATURE   DEMAND    THE   PUNISHMENT    OF    SIN. 

AS  our  first  argument,  we  will  appeal  to  what  the 
Scriptures  teach  concerning  the  nature  of  Gorl  and 
his  principle  of  action.  In  doing  this,  I  shall  attempt 
to  prove  (a)  that  the  scriptural  doctrine  is  that  the  ulti- 
mate motive  and  end  of  all  God's  actions  are  in  himself; 
and  (6)  that  the  intrinsic  and  unchangeable  perfections 
of  the  divine  nature,  lying  back  of  and  determining  the 
divine  will,  determine  him  certainly,  yet  most  freely,  to 
punish  all  sin  because  of  his  essential  holiness  and  its 
essential  demerit. 

I.  Scripture  and  reason  teach  us  that  the  ultimate 
reason  and  motive  of  all  God's  actions  are  within  him- 
self. Since  God  is  infinite,  eternal  and  unchangeable, 
that  which  was  his  first  motive  in  creating  the  universe 
must  ever  continue  to  be  his  ultimate  motive  or  chief 
end  in  every  act  concerned  in  its  preservation  and 
government.  But  God's  first  motive  must  have  been 
just  the  exercise  of  his  own  essential  perfections,  and  in 
their  exercise  the  manifestation  of  their  excellence.  This 
was  the  only  end  which  could  have  been  chosen  by  the 
divine  mind  in  the  beginning,  before  the  existence  of 
48 


THE   DIVINE   NATURE   DEMANDS   PUNISHMENT.    49 

any  other  object.  It  is  also  infinitely  the  highest  end  in 
itself,  and  the  one  which  will  best  secure  the  happiness 
and  exaltation  of  the  creature  himself.  It  is  manifest 
that  a  creature  cannot  be  absolutely  an  end  in  himself, 
but  only  a  means  to  an  end.  And  he  is  the  most  exalted 
when  he  is  made  absolutely  subservient  to  that  end, 
which  is  the  highest  possible  even  to  the  Creator.  ■ 

The  Scriptures  are  very  explicit  on  this  subject.  (1.) 
They  directly  assert  it.  "All  things  were  created  by 
him  and  for  him."  "For  of  him,  and  through  him, 
and  to  him  are  all  things.'^  "  Who  is  over  all,  God  blessed 
for  ever."  "The  Lord  hath  made  all  things  for  himself, 
yea,  even  the  wicked  for  the  day  of  evil."  (2.)  The  Scrip- 
tures always  make  the  glory  of  God  the  proper  ultimate 
end  of  the  creature's  action.  Peter  says  (1  Pet.  iv.  11), 
that  whatsoever  gift  a  man  have,  he  should  exercise  it  to 
the  end  that  God  in  all  things  may  be  glorified  through 
Jesus  Christ.  (3.)  They  show  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
God  always  acts  with  reference  to  that  end  in  all  his 
dealings  with  his  creatures.  Eph.  i.  5,  6 :  We  are  pre- 
destinated "  according  to  the  good  pleasure  of  his  will,  to 
the  praise  of  the  glory  of  his  graceP  Rom.  ix.  22,  23 : 
"What  if  God,  willing  to  show  his  wrath,  and  to  make 
his  power  hnoim,  endured  with  much  long-suffering  the 
vessels  of  wrath  fitted  to  destruction :  and  that  he  might 
make  known  the  riches  of  his  glory  on  the  vessels  of 
mercy,  which  he  had  afore  prepared  unto  glory." 

The  ultimate  motive,  therefore,  for  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ  must  have  been  the  divine  glory,  and  not  the 
effect  intended  to  be  produced  in  the  creature.  But  glory 
is  manifested  excellence.  And  moral  excellence  is  mani- 
fested only  by  being  exercised.     The  infinite  justice  and 


50       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

love  of  God  both  find  their  highest  conceivable  exercise 
in  the  sacrifice  of  his  own  Son  as  the  Substitute  of  guilty 
men. 

II.  The  great  fact  concerning  the  nature  of  God  and 
his  principles  of  action,  which  is  most  certainly  and  con- 
spicuously set  forth  in  Scrij^ture,  is,  that  lie  is  holy. 
AVhen  laying  down  the  law  of  ceremonial  purification, 
he  says  (Lev.  xi.  44),  "  Ye  shall  be  holy ;  for  I  am  holy." 
The  seraphim  which  Isaiah  saw  around  the  throne  in 
the  temple,  and  which  John  saw  in  the  same  relation  in 
heaven  (Isa.  vi.  3;  Rev.  iv.  8),  "rest  not  day  and  night, 
saying.  Holy,  holy,  holy.  Lord  God  Almighty."  This 
best  expresses  the  sum  of  the  results  of  their  insight  into 
his  moral  nature. 

This,  be  it  observed,  is  predicated  of  the  unchangeable 
constitution  of  the  nature  of  God,  and  not  merely  of  the 
divine  will.  (1.)  When  God  commanded  the  Israelites 
to  be  pure,  the  reason  assigned  is  not  "because  I  so  will 
it,"  but,  "for  I  am  holy."  (2.)  If  moral  distinctions 
are  the  mere  product  of  the  divine  will ;  if  they  exist 
only  because  God  wills  them  to  exist,  and  if  they  are 
what  they  are  simply  because  he  wills  them  to  be  so, 
then  the  proposition  that  God  is  holy  conveys  no  mean- 
ing. It  is  only  equivalent  to  saying  that  he  is  as  he 
wills  to  be;  and  would  be  just  as  true  when  asserted  of  a 
wicked  as  of  a  holy  being.  (3.)  Although  God  is  most 
willingly  holy,  yet  holiness  is  with  liim  no  more  optional 
tlian  is  existence.  Hal),  i.  13:  "Thou  art  of  purer  eyes 
than  to  behold  evil,  and  cand  not  look  on  inicpiity."  2 
Tim.  ii.  13:  "He  cannot  deny  himself"  Heb.  vi.  18: 
"In  which  it  was  impossible  for  God  to  lie."  (4.)  Our 
own  elementary   intuitions  give  us  moral  distinctions 


THE   DIVINE   NATURE   DEMANDS   PUNISHMENT.    51 

wliicli  arc  seen  to  be  absolute, eternal  and  necessary.  It 
is  essentially  repugnant  to  their  character  to  conceive 
of  tlieni  in  any  sense  as  contingent.  They  have  their 
noi'in  in  tlie  eternal  and  necessary  nature  of  God. 

8ince  God  is  eternal,  his  modes  of  feeling  and  states 
of  mind  are  as  eternal  as  his  essence.  There  arc  in  him 
none  of  those  successions  of  modes  or  frames,  and  alter- 
nations of  sentiment  and  impulse,  which  characterize  our 
imperfect  moral  condition.  From  eternity  to  eternity 
he  abides  the  same  without  change  of  state  or  affection. 
His  holiness,  therefore,  is  one  infinite  perfection  of  moral 
excellence,  varied  only  in  its  outward  exercises  and 
manifestations,  as  it  operates  upon  different  objects  in 
different  relations. 

Now  the  Scriptures  teach  us  very  plainly  that  this  in- 
finite moral  perfection  or  holiness  of  God  stands  to  sin 
as  immutable  and  eternal  hatred  and  vindicatory  justice ; 
and  this  not  only  in  some  instances  and  in  some  relations, 
but  invariably  and  under  all  possible  conditions.  (1.) 
God  hates  sin.  He  is  said  to  hate  all  the  w^orkers  of  ini- 
quity, and  to  be  angry  wdtli  the  wicked  every  day.  (Ps. 
V.  5,  and  vii.  11.)  Both  the  ways  and  the  thoughts  of 
the  wicked  are  said  to  be  an  ccbomination  to  the  Lord.  This 
is  manifested  with  terrible  energy.  Although  the  heart 
of  God  remains  eternally  as  calm  as  it  is  deep  and  strong, 
the  egress  of  his  wrath  is  terrible.  Nali.  i.  2:  "God  is 
jealous,  and  the  Lord  revengeth;  the  Lord  revengeth 
and  is  furious;  the  Lord  will  take  vengeance  on  his 
adversaries,  and  he  reserveth  wrath  for  his  enemies." 
(2.)  God  treats  sin  as  essential  ill-desert,  as  intrinsically 
meriting  punishment.  Deut.  iv.  24:  "For  the  Lord 
thy  God  is  a  consuming  fire,  even  a  jealous  God."  Deut. 


62       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

xxxii.  35:  "To  lue  belongcth  vengeance  and  recom- 
pense.'^  Isa.  lix.  18:  "According  to  their  deeds,  ac- 
cordingJy  he  will  repayP  Ex.  xxiii.  7 :  "  I  will  not 
justify  the  wicked."  Ezek.  xviii.  4:  "The  soul  that 
sinneth,  it  shall  die."  2  Thess.  i.  6:  "Seeing  it  is  a 
righteous  thing  with  God  to  recompense  tribulation  to 
them  that  trouble  you."  Paul  (Heb.  ii.  2)  says  that 
under  the  old  dispensation  every  transgression  and  dis- 
obedience received  a  just  recompense  of  reward.  Rom. 
i.  32:  "Knowing  the  judgment  of  God,  that  they  which 
commit  such  things  are  icorthy  of  death."  Over  and 
over  again,  the  reason  assigned  for  inflicting  a  penalty  is 
that  the  transgression  is  worthy  of  it  (Dent.  xvii.  6,  and 
xxi.  22,  &c.,  &c.),  and  no  other  reason  is  assigned.  As 
God  hates  sin  because  of  its  intrinsic  hatefulness,  having 
in  itself  the  reason  of  the  hatred  it  excites,  so  he  pun- 
ishes it  because  of  its  intrinsic  demerit,  having  the  reason 
of  its  punishment  in  itself.  Sin  can  no  more  exist  with- 
out punishableness  than  it  can  exist  without  hatefulness. 
As  it  is  inconceivable  that  God  should  in  a  single  in- 
stance fail  to  hate  sin  as  pollution,  so  it  is  inconceivable 
that  he  should  in  a  single  instance  fail  to  punish  it  as 
demerit.  There  has  often  been  forgiveness  for  tlie 
sinner,  but  not  a  single  instance  of  forgiveness  for  the 
sin;  and  the  sinner  is  never  forgiven  except  on  condition 
of  the  condign  punishment  of  the  sin.  Paul  (Heb.  ix. 
22),  in  revicAving  the  old  law,  declared  as  the  sum  of 
the  whole  that  without  the  shedding  of  blood  there  was 
no  remission.  It  was  the  blood  that  made  atonement 
for  the  soul.  Lev.  xvii.  11.  And  in  order  to  the  salva- 
tion of  sinful  men,  it  was  necessary  that  Christ  should 
expiate  sin  by  his  death,  to  the  end  that  God  might  be 


THE   DIVINE   NATURE   DEMANDS   PUNISHMENT.     53 

just  and  tlic  justifier  of  lilm  that  believeth  in  Jesus 
(Rom.  iii.  20);  tliat  is,  to  enable  God  to  pardon  the 
sinner  without  violating  his  own  essential  righteousness, 
which  necessarily  antagonizes  sin. 

To  the  question,  Why  God  punishes  sin,  only  four 
distinct  answers  are  possible.  (1.)  That  all  punishment 
is  design(Kl  for  the  reformation  of  the  offender.  This 
confounds  punishment  with  chastisement,  and  is  a  solu- 
tion obviously  inadmissible  in  the  case  of  the  eternal 
perdition  of  the  reprobate  and  of  the  vicarious  suffer- 
ings of  Christ.  (2.)  That  the  reason  and  necessity  of 
punishment  is  to  be  resolved  into  the  sovereign  good 
pleasure  of  God.  This  position  has  been  held  by  Dr. 
Twisse,  prolocutor  of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  and 
others,  but  is  not  held  by  any  prominent  party  in  these 
days.  (3.)  That  God  punishes  sin  in  order  to  deter  the 
subjects  of  his  moral  government  from  its  commission. 
This  is  a  necessary  corollary  of  the  theory  that  all  virtue 
is  comprehended  in  disinterested  benevolence.  In  that 
view,  justice  is  one  mode  of  benevolence,  prompting 
God  to  punish  the  individual  sinner  for  the  sake  of  the 
the  greater  good  of  the  moral  universe  to  be  secured 
thereby.  (4.)  The  true  view  is,  that  God  is  determined, 
by  the  immutable  holiness  of  his  nature,  to  punish  all 
sin  because  of  its  intrinsic  guilt  or  demerit;  the  effect 
produced  on  the  moral  universe  being  incidental  as  an 
end,  and  dependent  as  a  consequence,  upon  the  essential 
character  of  punishment,  as  that  which  ex])iat(\s  guilt 
and  vindicates  righteousness. 

This  is  the  centre  of  the  question  in  del)ate  between 
ourselves  and  the  advocates  of  the  Governmental  and 
of  the  floral  Theory  of  the  Atonement.  Both  parties 
5* 


54       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATOXEMEXT. 

estimate  it  as  a  moral  question  of  the  utmost  importance, 
and  incapable  of  compromise.  Dr.  N.  AV.  Taylor*  says 
that  to  punish  sin  on  account  of  its  intrinsic  demerit,  or 
for  any  other  purpose  except  the  promotion  of  happiness, 
"is  beyond  the  capacity  of  infernal  malice."  A  recent 
writer  in  the  New  Englander  declares  that  our  doctrine 
represents  Jehovah  as  acting  upon  principles  that  would 
disgrace  the  Jew  Shylock.  So  also  Dr.  J.  Young :  "  That 
wild  and  daring  transcendentalism,  which,  in  a  greater 
or  less  degree,  essentially  affects  evangelical  theology  at 
tlie  present  hour,  is  not  by  any  means  the  most  fatal 
evil.     The  doctrine  of   satisfaction  to  divine  justice  is 

immeasurably  worse  in  its  moral  tendency This, 

beyond  all  comparison,  is  the  deadliest  error."  f  There 
is  indeed  not  room  for  compromise.  AVhat  these  men 
blaspheme,  the  inspired  Scriptures  and  the  Christian 
Church  revere  and  vindicate  as  an  essential  element  of 
that  holiness  which  is  the  crowning  glory  of  our  God. 

1.  Disinterested  benevolence  is  not  the  whole  of  vir- 
tue. (1.)  Some  exercises  of  disinterested  benevolence,  for 
example,  the  natural  parental  affection,  are  purely  instinc- 
tive, and  have  no  positive  moral  character.  (2.)  Some 
exercises  of  disinterested  l^enevolence,  such  as  the  weak 
yielding  of  a  judge  to  sympathy  with  a  guilty  man  or 
his  friends,  are  positively  immoral.  (3.)  There  are  vir- 
tuous priiicii)les  incapable  of  being  resolved  into  disin- 
terested benevolence,  such  as  a  proper  prudential  regard 
for  one's  Dwn  highest  good;  aspiration  and  effort  after 
personal  Gxcellcnce,  holy  abhorrence  of  sin  for  its  own 

*  "Moral  Government  of  God,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  278. 
t  John  Young,  LL.D.,  of  Edinburgh.  "Life  and  Light  of  Men," 
pp.  47G,  477, 


TUK   DIVINE    NATURR    DEMANDS    PUNISH;NrENT.     55 

sake,  and  just  punishment  of  sin  in  order  to  vindicate 
righteousness.  Ps.  xcvii.  10:  "Ye  that  love  tlie  Lord, 
hate  evil."  (4.)  The  idea  of  oughtaess  is  the  essential 
constitutive  idea  of  virtue.  No  possible  analysis  of  the 
idea  of  benevolence  will  give  the  idea  of  moral  obliga- 
tion. Tlds  is  sim})le,  irresolvable,  ultimate.  Oughtness 
is  the  gcmus,  and  benevolence  one  of  the  species  compre- 
hended in  it. 

These  principles  are  admitted  by  some  who  yet  refuse 
to  accept  the  Church  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  as  the 
necessary  consequent.  Barnes*  argues  (a)  that  pun- 
ishment is  not  intended,  and  does  not  even  tend,  to 
secure  the  reformation  of  the  offender ;  (6)  that  the  sole 
end  of  punishment  is  not  to  deter  others  from  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  offence,  and  so  protect  the  community;  (c) 
"that  punishment  is  intended  as  a  proper  expression  of 
what  is  due  to  crime."  "  It  is  inflicted  because  it  is  right 
it  should  be  inflicted.  It  is  inflicted  because  the  offence 
deserves  such  an  expression." 

2.  As  the  essential  and  irresolvable  characteristic  of 
virtue  is  oughtness,  and  of  sin  its  opposite  oughtnotness, 
so  it  is  an  intrinsic  and  immutable  attribute  of  sin  that 
it  oiigJit  to  be  punished.  This  obligation  to  punishment 
is  an  ultimate  fict  of  moral  consciousness;  it  cannot  be 
resolved  into  any  other  principle  whatsoever;  it  is  in- 
trinsic in  sin  without  reference  to  any  other  principle. 
(1.)  This  is  involved  in  every  awakened  sinner's  con- 
sciousness of  his  own  demerit.  Ps.  li.  4:  "I  have  done 
this  evil  in  thy  sight:  that  thou  mightest  be  just  when 
thou  speakest,  and  clear  when  thou  judgest."  In  its 
higher  degrees  this  feeling  rises  into  remorse,  and  can  be 
*  "Atonement,"  pp.  186-202. 


66  THE   NATURE   OF   TPIE   ATONEMENT. 

allayed  only  by  expiation.  Tluis  many  murderers  have 
had  no  rest  until  they  have  given  themselves  up  to  the 
law,  when  they  have  experieneed  instant  relief.  And 
millions  of  souls  have  found  peace  in  the  application  of 
the  blood  of  Jesus  to  their  wounded  consciences.  (2.) 
All  men  judge  thus  of  the  sins  of  others.  The  con- 
sciences of  all  good  men  are  gratified  when  the  just 
penalty  of  the  law  is  executed  upon  the  offender,  and 
outraged  when  he  escapes.  (3.)  This  principle  is  wit- 
nessed to  by  all  the  sacrificial  rites  common  to  all  ancient 
religions,  by  the  penances  in  some  form  universal  even 
in  modern  times,  by  all  penal  laws,  and  by  the  synonyms 
for  guilt,  punishment,  justice,  &c.,  common  to  all  lan- 
guages. (4.)  It  is  self-evident,  that  to  inflict  an  unjust 
punishment  is  itself  a  crime,  no  matter  how  benevolent 
the  motive  which  prompts  it,  nor  how  good  the  effect 
which  follows  it.  It  is  no  less  self-evident  that  it  is  the 
justice  of  the  punishment  so  deserved  which  renders  its 
effect  on  the  community  good,  and  not  its  effect  on  the 
community  which  renders  it  just.  To  hang  a  man  for 
the  good  of  the  community  is  both  a  crime  and  a  blun- 
der, unless  the  hanging  is  justified  by  the  ill-desert  of 
the  man.  In  that  case  his  ill-desert  is  seen  by  all  the 
community  to  be  the  real  reason  of  the  hanging.  (5.) 
That  the  Bible  teaches  the  same  doctrine  has  been  shown 
above. 

In  answer  to  the  foregoing,  it  is  claimed  that  benevo- 
lence is  as  essential  an  element  of  the  divine  nature  as  is 
holy  abhorrence  of  sin.  It  is  asked  why  the  sentiment 
of  justice  miLsty  in  the  case  of  the  elect,  be  gratified  by 
punishing  their  sins  in  Christ,  whereas  in  the  case  of  the 
pp;t  the  sentimoit  of  benevolence  remains  ungratified? 


THE   DIVINE   NATURE   DEMANDS   PUNISHMENT.     57 

Why    must    one    scntiinciit    take    precedence    of    the 
other? 

Nothing  can  be  gahicd  here  by  refinements  of  the 
speculative  intellect.  The  Scriptures,  the  moral  sense, 
and  the  common  judgments  of  mankind  are  our  only 
courts  of  aj)peal.  Access  to  them  is  simple,  and  their 
answer  certain.  The  infinite  moral  perfection  of  God 
stands  affected  as  benevolence  to  all  his  creatures,  con- 
sidered simply  as  sentient  beings.  Without  any  change 
in  itself,  its  relations  only  being  changed,  it  is  mercy  in 
respect  to  all  miserable  creatures.  Just  so,  itself  un- 
changed, it  stands  affected  to  all  guilty  creatures  as 
GRACE.  Now  it  is  self-evident  that  every  exercise  of 
grace  must  be  optional.  It  is  a  matter  of  free  will.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  holy  hatred  of  sin,  and  the  treatment 
of  sin  as  that  which  ought  to  be  punished,  is  not  optional 
with  God.  He  cannot  do  otherwise  than  right,  and  he 
cannot  exercise  grace  otherwise  than  as  a  matter  of 
sovereign  discretion.  This  is  self-evident.  There  is  no- 
thing contradictory  here.  In  the  case  of  the  reprobate, 
God  punishes  sin  in  the  sinner,  and  he  declines  to  exer- 
cise that  grace  which  never  can  be  a  matter  of  right,  but 
must  ever  be  a  matter  of  choice.  And  toward  the  guilty, 
benevolence  has  no  existence  except  in  the  form  of  grace. 
In  the  case  of  the  elect,  on  the  other  hand,  God  exercised 
both  the  grace  and  the  justice.  The  grace,  in  freely 
saving  the  sinner  in  spite  of  his  want  of  merit;  and  the 
jiisticej  in  the  self-assumption  of  the  penalty  and  its  sat- 
isfaction in  the  person  of  his  Son. 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE  CHURCH  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT  PROVED  FROM 
THE  FACT  THAT  THE  DIVINE  LAW  IS  ABSOLUTELY  IM- 
MUTABLE. 

THE  second  testimony  as  to  the  nature  of  the  redemp- 
tive work  of  Christ  which  I  will  adduce  is  derived 
from  the  absolute  immidahiUty  of  the  divine  law.  I  pro- 
pose to  show  {a)  that  God's  law  is  absolutely  immutable ; 
(6)  that  the  penalty  is  an  essential  part  of  the  law;  (c) 
that  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Christ  came  to  fulfil  the  law  in 
our  place,  and  not  to  relax  its  demands  in  accommoda- 
tion to  our  lowered  capacity. 

1.  The  law  of  God  is  absolutely  immutable.  Grotius, 
the  eminent  jurisconsult  and  theologian  of  Holland,  in 
the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  was  the  first  to 
give  a  systematic  exposition  to  what  has  since  been 
known  as  the  Governmental  Theory  of  the  Atonement. 
In  his  great  work — "  Dcfensio  Fidel  Catholicce  De  Satis- 
factione  ChristV^ — he  maintains  that  the  law  of  God  is 
a  product  of  his  will,  and  not  a  transcript  of  anything 
inherent  in  his  immutable  nature.  It  hence  follows  that 
the  law  being  a  simple  creation  of  the  optional  will  of 
tiie  lawgiver,  he  must  inalienably  possess  the  power  at 
all  times  either  to  execute,  or  to  abrogate,  or  to  relax  it 
by  sovereign  prerogative,  as  far  as  his  own  nature  is  con- 
cerned. 

58 


IMMUTABILITY   OF   THE   LAW.  59 

It  is  true,  indeed,  that  in  respect  to  the  conscience  of 
the  creature,  every  precept  is  binding  because  it  is  the 
will  of  God;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  in  respect  to  the 
will  of  God  itself,  it  is  evident,  since  his  will  is  holy, 
and  his  "commandment  holy  and  just  and  good,''  that 
he  wills  the  precept  bccau-se  it  is  intrinsically  right.  If 
this  were  not  so,  there  could  be  no  meaning  in  predicat- 
ing holiness,  either  of  his  will  or  of  his  law.  There 
must  be  an  absolute  standard  of  righteousness.  This 
absolute  standard  is  the  divine  nature.  The  infallible 
judge  of  righteousness  is  the  divine  intelligence.  And 
the  all-perfect  executor  and  rule  of  righteousness  is  the 
divine  will. 

It  is  true,  also,  that  all  duties  spring  out  of  relations, 
and  every  relation  which  a  creature  can  sustain  must  be 
determined  by  the  will  of  the  Creator.  For  instance, 
there  could  have  been  no  law  of  chastity  unless  God  had 
sovereignly  constituted  man  with  a  sexual  nature.  Nor 
could  there  have  been  a  law  forbidding  murder  unless 
man  had  been  made  mortal.  But  the  instant  the  rela- 
tion is  constituted  by  the  divine  will,  the  duty  necessa- 
rily springs  up  out  of  the  relation  from  a  principle 
inherent  in  the  divine  nature.  All  moral  agents  are,  by 
the  very  constitution  of  their  nature,  immutably  bound 
by  all  that  is  morally  good.  The  essence  of  all  that  is 
moral  is,  that  it  ought  to  be.  Every — even  the  least — 
discrepancy  from  all  that  ought  to  be,  even  to  the  utter- 
most, is  of  the  nature  of  sin.  This  of  course  applies  to 
every  part  of  the  moral  law  as  well  as  to  the  whole; 
"  For  whosoever  shall  keep  the  whole  law,  and  yet  offend 
in  one  point,  he  is  guilty  of  all."  James  ii.  10.  All  in- 
volved in  the  preceptive  part  is  commanded  because  it 


60       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

is  intrinsically  right  and  obligatory,  and  the  penalty  is 
attached  because  all  that  is  forbidden  is  intrinsically 
worthy  of  punishment.  The  law  of  God,  therefore,  as 
to  its  essential  principle  of  absolute  moral  perfection, 
which  is  embodied  in  all  positive  statutes  whatsoever,  is 
not  relaxable.  Christ's  declaration  is  that,  "It  is  easier 
for  heaven  and  earth  to  pass  than  one  tittle  of  the  law  to 
fail/'  Luke  xvi.  17.  If  it  be  claimed  that  this  applies 
to  the  ceremonial  law,  may  w^e  not  argue,  a  fortiori ,  that 
it  must  hold  all  the  more  true  of  the  moral  law  ? 

The  Rev.  Daniel  T.  Fiske,  D.D.,  of  Newburyport,  Mass., 
in  his  able  defence  of  the  Governmental  Theory  of  the 
Atonement,  admits*  (a)  that  the  ultimate  end  of  all  God's 
actions  is  within  himself;  and  (6)  that  the  divine  law  com- 
mands that  which  is  intrinsically  good,  and  because  it  is  so, 
and  forbids  that  which  is  intrinsically  evil,  and  because  it 
is  so.  At  the  same  time  he  maintains,  as  the  fundamental 
princij^le  of  his  doctrine,  that  "  law  as  to  its  origin  and 
end  emanates  from  a  divine  purpose  to  promote  by  means 
of  it  the  highest  good  of  the  universe.''  But  this  is  a 
manifest  contradiction.  For  (a)  if  the  ultimate  end  of 
God's  actions  is  in  himself — that  is,  the  manifestation  of 
his  excellence  by  the  exercise  of  his  attributes — ^the  real 
end  and  origin  of  the  law  can  only  be  the  same.  The 
good  of  the  universe,  though  a  true  end,  can  only  be 
subordinate  to  the  former.  And  (6)  if  the  thing  com- 
manded is  intrinsically  right,  then  the  true  reason  for  the 
commandment  is  in  the  nature  of  the  thing  itself,  and 
not  in  its  eifects  upon  the  universe.  But  if  the  real  end 
and  origin  of  the  commandment  is  the  good  to  be  effected 
in  the  universe,  then  not  the  goodness  intrinsic  in  the 

-        \  *  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  April,  1861. 

\ 
\ 


IMMUTABILITY   OF   THE   LAW.  61 

thing  commanded,  but  the  goodness  of  its  consequences, 
is  the  true  reason  of  its  being  commanded. 

The  essential  principles  of  righteousness,  which  are 
embodied  in  all  divine  laws,  consequently  have  their 
ground  in  the  eternal  and  unchangeable  nature  of  God; 
but  of  course  the  forms  in  wliich  the  principles  are  em- 
bodied, varying  endlessly  with  different  times,  circum- 
stances and  conditions  of  moral  creatures,  are  determined 
by  the  infinitely  wise,  and  righteous,  and  absolutely 
scvereign  will  of  God.  Hence  there  is  no  room  for  any 
puzzling  distinctions,  as  far  as  concerns  this  discussion, 
between  the  ceremonial  and  the  moral  law.  To  the 
creature  the  revealed  will  of  God  is  always  an  ultimate 
and  absolute  rule  of  right.  Obedience  is  always  a  moral 
obligation.  Disobedience  to  positive  precepts,  the  rea- 
son of , which  is  withheld,  is  no  less  a  sin  than  disobe- 
dience to  so-called  moral  precepts,  some  of  the  reasons 
of  which  are  known.  The  Mosaic  Institute  may  be 
viewed  in  three  diflPerent  aspects. 

[a.)  As  a  national  and  political  covenant,  whereby, 
under  his  theocratic  government,  the  Israelites  became 
the  people  of  Jehovah  and  he  became  their  God,  and  in 
which  Church  and  State  were  identical. 

(6.)  As  a  systeiji  of  prophetic  symbols  or  types  of 
Christ  and  his  glorious  work  of  sacrifice  and  intercession, 
setting  forth  more  clearly  than  was  previously  done  the 
provisions  of  the  Covenant  of  Grace. 

(c.)  In  another  aspect  it  was  a  legal  covenant,  because 
the  moral  law,  obedience  to  which  was  the  condition  of 
life  in  the  Adamic  covenant,  was  now  prominently  set 
forth  in  the  ten  commandments,  and  made  the  basis  of 
the  new  covenant  of  God  with  his  people.     Even  the 


62       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

ceremonial  system,  in  its  merely  literal  aspect,  and  apart 
from  its  symbolical,  was  also  a  rule  of  works;  for 
"cwi-sed  was  he  that  confirmed  not  all  the  words  of  the 
law  to  do  them."  Deut.  xxvii.  26. 

Hence  it  is,  that  considered  as  commandments,  the  so- 
called  ceremonial  law  was  as  much  moral  as  any  other, 
and  just  as  absolutely  immutable.  Not  one  jot  or  tittle 
of  it  could  pass  away  until  the  entire  righteous  purpose 
of  God  in  it  was  fulfilled.  The  Jews,  at  the  time  of 
Christ,  did  not  make  the  distinction  between  the  ordi- 
nances of  God  as  moral  or  ceremonial,  as  binding  for 
their  own  sakes,  or  as  binding  only  for  God's  sake.  The 
word  law  in  I^aul's  epistles  stands  for  the  entire  genus 
'Olivine  law."  The  law  of  God,  as  a  whole,  condemns 
the  sinner.  Salvation  by  the  law,  as  a  whole,  is  impossi- 
ble. By  the  whole  law  is  the  knowledge  of  sin.  The 
whole  law  is  a  schoolmaster  to  lead  us  to  Christ,  and 
he  is  the  end,  the  complete  fulfilment  of  the  whole  law, 
for  righteousness  to  every  one  that  believeth.  And  the 
law  (ceremonial  as  well  as  moral)  is  in  its  essential  prin- 
cij)les,  and  in  respect  to  the  divine  purpose  in  the  ap- 
pctintment  of  its  variable  forms,  absolutely  immutable. 

2.  The  pcnaUy  is  an  essential  element  of  the  law. 
There  can  exist  no  law,  or  authoritative  rule  of  conduct, 
for  voluntar)'  and  morally  accountable  agents  to  which 
a  penal  sanction  is  not  attached ;  and  the  reason  of  the 
IK'nalty  is  just  as  intrinsic  and  innnutable  as  the  reason 
of  the  precept.  As  we  have  seen  that  the  reason  of  the 
pr('ce])t  is  the  intrinsic  rightness  of  the  thing  commanded, 
so  {\\(\  reason  of  the  penalty  is  the  intrinsic  demerit  of 
the  thing  forbidden.  As  the  chief  end  of  the  precept  is 
the  glory  of  God,  that  is,  the  manifestation  of  his  ex- 


IMMUTABILITY   OF   THE   LAW.  63 

cellcnce  through  tlic  exercise  of  his  attributes  as  they 
are  concerned  in  conunandino:,  so  the  chief  end  of  the 
penalty  is  his  glory  through  the  exercise  of  his  attri- 
butes as  they  are  concerned  in  punishing.  As  the  moral 
principle  involved  in  every  precept  cannot  be  com})ro- 
luised,  so  the  divine  judgment  of  the  ill-desert  of  sin 
involved  in  all  penalty  cannot  be  relaxed.  The  precept 
and  the  penalty  alike  express  the  infallible  judgment  of 
the  divine  intelligence,  on  a  question  of  moral  obligation 
founded  on  the  divine  nature. 

Fiske  admits  that  the  penalty  is  an  essential  part 
of  the  law,  and  he  defines  it  as  ^^suifering  to  be  inflicted 
by  the  lawgiver  upon  the  sinner,  proportionate  to  the 
degree  of  his  sinfulness,  and  to  express  the  lawgiver's 
hatred  of  sin  and  estimate  of  its  intrinsic  ill-desert.'^  At 
the  same  time  he  maintains  tha,t  the  ultimate  end  of  God 
in  ordaining  or  in  executing  the  penalty,  is  the  good  of 
the  universe,  and  that  its  ^'sole  value  is  its  efficacy  to 
enforce  the  law  and  maintain  its  authority,  and  so  ulti- 
mately help  promote  the  great  benevolent  end  of  moral 
government."  This  also  is  plainly  self-contradictory. 
If  the  penalty  expresses  God's  judgment  of  the  inirinsiG 
ill-desert  of  sin,  then  the  reason  of  punishment  is  the 
penalty  itself,  as  an  expression  of  immutable  moral  obli- 
gation. But  if  the  sole  value  of  the  penalty  is  to  enforce 
law,  and  thus  benefit  the  universe,  it  is  plain  that  the 
ill-desert  of  sin  is  not  intrinsic  or  moral,  but  that  it 
simply  is  a  matter  of  policy  resulting  from  the  charac- 
ter of  its  consequences. 

Barnes*  defines  punishment  or  penalty  as  "evil  in- 
flicted by  the  lawgiver,  or  under  his  direction,  to  show 
*<' Atonement,"  p.  39. 


64      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

his  sense  of  the  vahie  of  the  law,  or  of  the  evil  of  vio- 
latini,^  the  law."  But  he  also  msists  that  Christ  did  not 
sullL-r  tlie  penalty  of  the  law;  that  sin  was  not  truly 
punished,  nor  punitive  justice  truly  exercised  in  his 
death.  "  That  the  Atonement  (p.  244)  is  something  sub- 
stituted in  tlie  place  of  the  penalty  of  the  law  whicli 
will  answer  the  same  ends  that  the  i)unishment  of  the 
oflViider  himself  would.''  But  his  own  definition  of  the 
penalty  is,  pain  inflicted  with  the  design  of  showing  the 
evil  of  violating  the  law;  and  now  he  says  that  the 
Atonement  is  pain  inflicted  with  the  same  design;  and 
yet  in  making  the  Atonement,  Christ  did  not  suffer  the 
penalty.  Thus  God  manifested  his  justice  by  refusing 
to  exercise  it,  and  gave  an  example  of  punishment  when 
there  was  no  penalty,  and  proved  his  hatred  of  sin,  and 
the  certainty  that  under  his  government  sin  shall  be 
punished  by  not  punishing  it  either  in  the  person  of  the 
sinner  or  of  his  Substitute. 

The  advocates  of  the  Governmental  Theory  of  the 
Atonement  maintain  that  Christ  did  not  suffer  the  pen- 
alty of  the  law,  but  a  substitute  for  the  penalty.  That 
his  sufferings,  m  some  way  or  other,  avail  to  secure  the 
same  ends  that  the  actual  infliction  of  the  penalty  on 
the  transgressors  in  person  would  have  done.  These 
parties  agree  in  maintaining  that  it  is  essential  to  the 
penalty  (a)  that  it  should,  in  each  case,  consist  in  some 
precise,  definite  kind  and  degree  of  suffering;  and  (h) 
that  it  should  be  inflicted  on  the  wrong-doer  in  person. 

On  the  other  hand,  some  orthodox  divines — as,  for 
instance,  Owen,  in  his  reply  to  Baxter's  strictures  against 
parts  of  his  work  on  Re(lem})tion — have  maintained  that 
Christ  suffered  the  very  same  penalty  legally  due  his 


IMMUTABILITY   OF   THE   LAW.  65 

people  for  whom  he  was  substituted,  and  not  nurely  a  full 
equivalent  for  it;  that  is,  an  idem  and  not  a  tantundcm. 
The  motive  for  this  apparently  excessive  precision  of  ex- 
pression was  commendable.  Those  who  make  such 
difficulty  in  admitting  that  Christ  really  suffered  the 
penalty  of  the  law  are  no  more  ready  to  admit  that 
what  he  suffered  was  a  fidl  equivalent,  in  any  strictly 
legal  sense,  for  the  punishment  of  his  people  in  person. 
They  mean  that  he  did  not  suffer  the  penalty  in  any 
sense,  and  their  views  as  to  the  connection  between  his 
death  and  our  deliverance  from  condemnation  are  most 
vague  and  unsatisfactory. 

The  following  points,  however,  appear  to  be  sufficiently 
certain.  (1.)  Christ  did  not  suffer  the  same  degree  or 
duration  of  pain  that  his  people  Avould  have  suffered  in 
person,  nor  in  all  respects  sufferings  of  the  same  kind. 
Theirs  would  have  been  eternal,  his  were  temporary. 
Theirs  would  have  involved  ever-increasing  depravity 
of  soul  and  self-accusing  remorse,  while,  on  the  contrary, 
his  were  consistent  with  (a)  the  divinity  of  his  person, 
(6)  the  perfection  of  his  humanity,  and  (c)  the  fact  that 
he  was  always  the  well-beloved  Son  in  whom  the  Father 
was  well  pleased.  (2.)  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  no  less 
certain  that  the  identity  of  the  penalty  does  not  consist 
either  in  the  precise  kind,  or  degree,  or  duration  of  the 
suffering,  nor  in  the  personal  identity  of  the  sufferer  with 
the  sinner;  but  in  the  relation  of  the  suffering  to  the 
guilt  of  some  particular  sin  or  sins,  and  to  the  demands 
of  divine  justice  in  the  case.  Duty  in  any  case  is  what- 
ever the  moral  law  says  ougld  to  be  done.  Penalty,  in 
any  case  of  disobedience,  is  precisely  that  kind,  degree 
and  duration  of  suffering  which  the  same  law  decides 
6* 


66       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

ought  to  be  suffered.  Of  this  obligation  to  suffering  in 
all  cases  whatsoever  the  nature  of  God  is  the  ground, 
and  the  reason  of  God  is  the  judge.  The  execution  of 
precisely  the  same  sufferings,  if  it  had  been  possible,  in 
the  person  of  the  God-man,  that  would  have  been  the 
proper  penalty  of  the  law  if  executed  in  the  persons  of 
the  transgressors  themselves,  would  have  been  an  out- 
rageous injustice.  It  would  not  consequently  have  been 
the  penalty  of  the  law,  but  an  illegal  violation  of  that 
absolute  righteousness  which  is  the  pi'incijnum  essendi  of 
the  law.  The  substitution  of  a  divine  and  all-perfect 
person  in  the  stead  of  sinners  necessarily  involves,  as  a 
matter  of  justice,  the  substitution  within  the  penalty  of 
different  kinds  and  degrees  of  suffering.  Christ  suffered 
precisely  that  kind,  degree  and  duration  of  suffering  that 
the  infinitely  wise  justice  or  the  absolutely  just  wisdom 
of  God  determined  was  a  full  equivalent  for  all  that  was 
demanded  of  elect  sinners  in  person — equivalent,  we 
mean,  in  respect  to  sin-expiating  and  justice-satisfying 
efficacy — and  2ijull  equivalent  in  being  of  equal  efficacy 
in  these  respects  in  strict  rigour  of  justice,  according  to 
the  judgment  of  God.  Consequently,  what  Christ 
suffered  is  by  no  means  the  same  with  what  his  people 
would  have  suffered,  when  considered  as  sufferiug,  but 
is  precisely  the  very  same  when  considered  as  ])enalty. 

3.  The  Scriptures  clearly  teach  that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  Christ  came  not  to  relax  the  law,  but  to  fulfil  it. 
He  says  of  himself  (Matt.  v.  17, 18):  ''Think  not  that  I 
am  come  to  destroy  the  law,  or  the  prophets :  I  am  not 
con/e  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.  For  verily  I  say  unto  you, 
till  lieaven  and  earth  pass,  one  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in 
uo  wise  pass  from  the  law,  till  all  be  fulfilled.'^     The 


IMMUTABILITY   OF   THE   LAW.  67 

apostle  declared  (Rom.  x.  4),  that  "Christ  is  the  end  of 
the  law  for  righteousness  to  every  one  that  believeth." 
When  discussing  the  great  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith,  Paul  anticipates  the  objection  (Rom.  iii.  31):  "Do 
we  then  make  void  the  law  tlirougli  faitli?"  and  answers, 
"God  forbid;  yea,  M^e  establisli  the  law."  The  law  pro- 
nounced a  curse  upon  the  sinner,  and  "Christ  redeemed 
us  from  the  curse  of  the  law,"  not  b}  waiving  that  curse, 
but  by  "being  made  a  curse  for  us." 

If  the  penalty  is  an  essential  part  of  the  law;  if  the 
whole  law  is  immutable;  if  Christ  actually  came  to  fulfil 
the  law  and  not  to  relax  its  demands;  then  it  follows, 
without  doubt,  that  he  suffered  the  penalty  of  the  law 
as  our  Substitute. 

John  Young,  LL.D.,  of  Edinburgh,  in  two  chapters 
of  his  late  work  (Life  and  Light  of  Men),  entitled  sever- 
ally "Spiritual  I^aws"  and  "Eternal  Justice,"  essays  to 
overturn  the  entire  conception  of  law  and  penalty  upon 
which  the  faith  of  the  whole  Church,  Greek  and  Ro- 
man, Lutheran,  Reformed  and  Arminian,  has  always 
reposed.  His  points  are  as  follows:  (1.)  The  spiritual 
laws  of  the  universe  have  their  ground  independent  of 
God  in  the  essential  and  eternal  nature  of  things.  (2.) 
They  are  necessarily  and  instantly  self-acting.  The 
penalty  of  every  sin  is  so  connected  with  the  sin  itself, 
in  the  nature  of  things,  that  "it  is  impreventable.  It 
lies  in  the  essential  nature  of  things  that  it  must  come 
down.  Ever  and  ever  justice  inflicts  an  inevitable  pen- 
alty, and  exacts  the  completest  satisfaction."  (3.)  These 
laws  are  self-acting  and  independent  of  God ;  "  the  God 
of  purity  and  love  has  no  part  in  the  punishment  of  sin." 
Sin   punishes   itself  instantly   and   adequately.     "The 


68       THE  KATUEE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

doom  of  the  lost,  be  it  whatever  it  may,  is  simply  and 
wholly  their  own  work.  It  is  all,  from  first  to  last,  not 
only  their  own  doings  but  their  own  doing  in  despite  of 
God."  (4.)  Sin  continues  to  punish  itself  as  long  as  it 
exists.  It  can  cease  to  be  punished  only  by  being  anni- 
liilated.  And  the  instant  sin  ceases  to  exist  in  a  sinner's 
soul,  that  is,  as  soon  as  he  is  sanctified,  he  ceases  to  be 
punishable.  (5.)  God  is  not  just  in  the  rectilineal  hu- 
man sense  at  all.  He  is  never  less  than  just.  He  is  never 
unjust.  But  he  is  always  more  than  just,  that  is,  better 
to  men  than  their  deserts.  Goodness  is  his  grand  dis- 
tincruishintr  attribute. 

This  ap])ears  to  us  a  very  low  and  material  view  of 
the  case.  It  is  incipient  Positivism,  and  Positivism  is 
infallibly  gross  materialism.  It  conceives  of  the  laws 
of  a  spiritual  society  of  persons,  personal  subjects  living 
under  the  righteous  administration  of  a  personal  God, 
acting  upon  them  by  the  light  of  truth  and  the  influence 
of  motives,  by  commands,  benefactions,  authority,  pro- 
mises, threatenings,  as  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
necessarily  self-acting  physical  laws  of  the  material 
world  or  of  the  human  organism.  It  grounds  these  laws 
in  the  "nature  of  things,"  independent  of  God.  But 
what  entity  in  the  w^hole  universe  exists,  except  as  the 
product  of  the  divine  will,  but  the  uncreated  essence  of 
God  himself?  This  uncreated  essence  is,  as  we  have  in- 
sisted above,  the  absolute  norm  of  all  spiritual  laws. 
But  this  divine  nature  never  expresses  itself  outwardly 
except  through  the  acts  of  the  divine  will.  This  will, 
and  not  the  "nature  of  things,"  makes  and  executes  the 
moral  law  of  the  universe.  That  God  rewards,  and 
punishes,  an^  that  he  holds  forth  before  men  the  pros- 


IMMUTABILITY   OF   THE   LAW.  69 

pect  of  future  rewards  aud  punislinieut  for  present  con- 
duct, is  taught  too  clearly  and  universally  in  Scripture  to 
need  proof  here.  ^'The  idea  that  the  2)uiiishment  of 
sin  is  only  its  natural  consequences,  and  that  remission 
is  merely  deliverance  from  the  natural  operations  of 
moral  evil  in  the  soul,  as  freedom  from  the  pain  of  a 
burn  can  be  allayed  only  by  allaying  the  inflammation, 
is  so  repugnant  to  Scripture  and  to  common  sense  as  to 
need  no  refutation.  The  expulsion  of  our  first  parents 
from  Paradise;  the  deluge;  raining  fire  and  brimstone 
upon  Sodom  and  Gomorrah;  the  death  of  the  first-born 
of  the  Egyptians;  all  the  plagues  brought  on  Pharaoh; 
drought,  famine,  pestilence  threatened  as  the  punishment 
of  the  Hebrews,  were  not  the  natural  consequences  of 
sin,  but  positive  punitive  inflictions.  Indeed,  almost  all 
the  judgments  threatened  in  the  Bible  are  of  that  cha- 
racter."* "Taking  vengeance"  for  sin  is  everywhere  set 
forth  as  the  personal,  deliberate,  volitional  act  of  a 
righteous  moral  governor.  Dent,  xxxii.  35;  Ps.  cxlix. 
7;  Rom.  iii.  5,  and  xii.  19.  At  his  second  coming, 
Christ  is  to  be  "revealed  from  heaven  in  flaming  fire, 
tahing  vengeance  upon  them  that  know  not  God  and  that 
obey  not  the  gospel."  2  Thess.  i.  8.  This  taking  venge- 
ance is  a  personal  act  executed  for  a  purpose,  at  such 
times,  and  under  such  conditions,  and  in  such  modes  as 
best  serve  the  purpose  intended. 

That  this  world  is  not  a  scene  of  rew^ards  and  punish- 
ments; that  sin  may  be  forgiven  entirely  previous  to, 
and  as  the  condition  of,  the  work  of  sanctification ;  and 
that  a  sin,  long  past  and  repented  of,  if  not  punished  in 
the  past,  will  continue  to  demand  punishment  through 
*  Princeton  Keview,  April,  1866. 


70       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

all  the  future,  are  facts  established  bv  the  teachino^  of 
Scripture  as  clearly  as  by  the  universal  experience  of  the 
race.  "It  is  not  true  that  sanctifi  cat  ion  and  remission 
are  ever  confounded;  nor  are  they  related  as  cause  and 
effect.  The  two  things  are  distinct  in  their  nature,  and 
are  always  distinguished  in  the  Bible  and  the  common 
sense  of  men.  There  neither  is  nor  can  be  any  sanctiiica- 
tion  or  destruction  of  the  power  of  sin  in  the  soul,  until 
there  has  been  antecedent  remission  of  the  penalty. 
Paul  teaches  clearly,  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  chapters 
of  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  that  so  long  as  the  sinner 
is  under  condemnation  he  brings  forth  fruit  unto  death; 
that  it  is  not  until  he  is  delivered  from  condemnation, 
by  the  body  or  sacrifice  of  Christ,  that  he  brings  forth 
fruit  unto  God."* 

That  God  does  not  do  all  he  can  to  remedy  sin  when 
it  has  once  entered  upon  his  domain,  is  a  flict  as  promi- 
nent in  the  history  of  the  different  races  and  families  of 
men  as  the  great  stars  are  on  the  face  of  the  sky.  The 
blessed  Saviour  said,  "  I  thank  thee,  O  Father,  that  thou 
hast  hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and 
hast  revealed  them  unto  babes."  That  God,  over  and 
above  being  just,  is  also  abundantly  merciful,  the  Chris- 
tian Church  has  always  recognized  as  gratefully  as  Dr. 
Young.  To  us,  certainly,  he  has  been  ahvays  good  as 
well  as  just.  But  it  is  impossible  that  he  should  be  un- 
just, and,  as  I  showed  above,  justice  is  as  essentially 
involved  in  the  infliction  of  the  penalty  as  it  is  in  the 
imposition  of  the  precept.  God  cannot  be  unjust,  and 
it  would  be  unjust  not  to  punish  sin.  Sin  can  be  ex- 
purgated as  a  subjective  condition  of  the  soul  only  by 
*  Princeton  Review,  April,  1866. 


IMMUTABILITY   OF   THE    LAW.  71 

sanctification ;  but  its  penalty,  which  is  always  eternal 
death,  can  be  removed  only  l^y  expiation,  that  is,  by  pun- 
ishment endured  either  personally  or  vicariously.  For 
the  proof  of  these  positions,  and  consequently  for  the 
refutation  of  those  assumed  by  Young,  I  refer  the 
reader  to  the  entire  argument  of  this  book. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

THE   THREE-FOLD    RELATION  WHICH  MORAL  AGENTS  SUSTAIN 
TO  THE  DIVINE  LAW. 

BUT  if  the  law  is  immutable,  and  if  its  demands  are 
personal,  how  can  the  legal  relations  of  one  person 
be  assumed  by  another,  and  all  of  his  legal  obligations 
be  vicariously  discharged  by  the  substitute  instead  of  the 
principal  ?  In  order  to  throw  light  upon  this  question, 
I  propose  the  following  considerations.  Turretin*  well 
noted  the  fact  that  the  relations  which  men  sustain  to  the 
law  may  be  discriminated  under  three  heads — the  no^M- 
ralj  federal  J  and  penal  relations. 

1.  To  every  created  moral  agent  in  the  universe  the 
law  of  absolute  moral  perfection  sustains  a  uniform  and 
constant  natural  relation  as  a  standard  of  character  and 
rule  of  action.  In  this  relation  the  law  is  absolutely 
perfect  and  absolutely  changeless.  All  that  is  moral  is 
eternally  and  intrinsically  obligatory  on  all  moral  agents. 
All  that  is  not  obligatory  is  not  moral.  And  every 
particular  and  every  degree  in  which  any  moral  agent 
comes  short  of  the  standard  of  perfect  moral  excellence 
in  beinir  or  action  is  of  the  nature  of  sin.  The  demands 
of  the  law  therefore  are  everywhere  and  always  the  same; 
they  are  inherently,  and  therefore  changelessly,  obligatory 
and  incapable  of  being  either  intermitted,  relaxed,  or 
*  Loc.  14,  Qufestio  13,  §  15. 
72 


RELATION   TO   THE   MORAL   LAW.  73 

transferred.  In  respect  to  tliis  natural  relation  to  the 
law  therefore,  Christ  did  not,  and  from  the  nature  of  the 
case  could  not,  take  our  law-place.  In  respect  to  the  in- 
herent and  inalienable  claims  of  right,  it  is  purely  impos- 
sible that  the  obligations  of  law  can  be  removed  from 
one  person  and  vicariously  assumed  by  another.  The 
law  in  this  relation  maintains  for  ever  inviolable  all  its 
claims  over  all  moral  creatures  whatever ;  ecpially  over 
angels  and  devils,  men  unfallen,  fallen,  regenerate,  in 
perdition,  and  in  glory.  The  hideous  heresy  of  the 
Antinomians  consists  in  the  claim  that  Christ  has  in 
such  a  sense  fulfilled  all  the  claims  of  law  upon  his  peo- 
ple that  they  are  no  longer  required  to  live  in  conformity 
to  it  in  their  own  persons.  This  abominable  heresy  the 
entire  Church  has  always  consistently  rejected  with 
abhorrence,  maintaining  that  the  immutability  of  the  law 
and  the  changeless  perpetuity  of  its  claims  is  a  principle 
lying  at  the  foundation  of  all  religion,  whether  natural 
or  revealed. 

2.  The  federal  relation  to  the  law,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  respect  to  a  period  of  probation,  into  which  man  was 
introduced  in  a  condition  of  moral  excellence,  yet  falli- 
ble; and  his  confirmation  in  an  immutably  holy  charac- 
ter, and  his  subsequent  eternal  blessedness  is  made  to 
depend  upon  his  obedience  during  that  period.  It 
appears  to  be  a  general  principle  of  the  divine  govern- 
ment (1)  that  every  moral  agent  is  created  holy,  yet  (2) 
in  a  state  of  instable  moral  equilibrium,  and  hence  (3) 
that  confirmation  in  an  estate  of  stable  holiness  is  a 
divine  gift,  above  those  included  in  the  natural  endow- 
ments of  any  creature,  and  always  (4)  suspended  upon 
the  condition  of  ix'rfect  obedience  during  a  period  of  pro- 
7 


74  THE    NATUIJE    OF   THE    ATONEMENT. 

bation.  Asa  matter  of  fact,  this  is  precisely  the  relation 
to  the  law  as  a  covenant  of  life,  into  which  Adam  (and 
all  his  descendants  in  him)  was  brought  at  his  creation. 
He  was  created  holy,  yet  fallible,  and  for  a  period  of  pro- 
bation put  under  the  law  as  a  test  of  obedience.  Upon 
this  obedience  his  character  and  condition  for  eternity 
were  made  to  depend.  If  he  had  obeyed  for  the  period 
prescribed  he  would  have  attained  the  reward.  The 
granting  of  that  reward  would  have  confirmed  him  in 
holiness,  and  by  thus  rendering  him  impeccable,  would 
have  closed  his  probation  and  removed  him  from  under 
the  law  in  this  federal  relation  for  ever,  while  his  sub- 
jection to  the  same  law,  in  its  natural  relation,  would 
have  been  continued  and  confirmed.  We  know  that  the 
angels  have  passed  through  a  probation  not  essentially 
different.  They  were  created  holy,  yet  fallible,  for  some 
did  fall.  And  all  who  stood  at  the  first  appear  to  have 
been  consequently  confirmed  in  character  and  the  enjoy- 
ment of  divine  favour;  since  there  is  no  intimation  that 
any  have  since  fallen  into  sin,  and  since  we  cannot 
believe  that  it  is  God's  plan  that  any  of  his  sinless 
creatures  should  continue  permanently  or  even  indefi- 
nitely in  that  state  of  instable  equilibrium  in  which  they 
were  created.  We  may  therefore  assume  it  to  be  a  gene- 
ral principle  of  the  divine  government  that  every  new 
created  moral  agent  is  introduced  into  being  holy,  yet 
fallible,  and  subjected  to  the  law  as  a  covenant  for  a 
period  of  probation,  conditioning  upon  perfect  obedience 
ultimate  confirmation  in  holiness  and  divine  favour 
for  ever. 

It  is  evident  that  this  federal  relation  to  the  law  is  in 
its  very  nature  temporary  in  any  event,  being  inevitably 


RELATION   TO   THE   MORAL   LAW.  75 

closed,  ipso  facto,  either  by  giving  the  reward  in  case 
of  obedience,  or  by  inflicting  the  penalty  in  case  of 
disobedience.  It  is  evident  also  that  this  relation  to  the 
law  has  a  special  end :  ir»t  the  demanding  of  perpetual 
obedience  because  of  its  intrinsic  rightfulness,  but 
demanding  it  as  a  test  for  a  definite  period,  to  the  end 
of  an  ultimate  confirmation  of  a  holy  character,  which 
confirmation  Avill  terminate  the  relation  itself  by  securing 
the  end  for  which  it  was  designed.  Hence  this  federal 
relation  to  the  law,  unlike  the  natural  relation,  concerns 
not  at  all  the  unchangeable  demands  of  personal  holi- 
ness, but  simply  those  conditions  upon  which  God's 
favours  are  to  be  shown.  And  hence,  unlike  the  natu- 
ral relation,  the  federal  is  neither  intrinsic,  perpetual, 
nor  inseparable  from  the  person  concerned.  Although, 
of  course,  it  is  ultimately  founded  upon  the  essential 
righteousness  of  the  divine  nature,  yet  all  the  variable 
conditions  of  the  probationary  period  and  test  are 
evidently  largely  dependent  upon  the  divine  sovereignty, 
and  the  relation  itself  ceases  as  soon  as  the  trial  is  closed, 
either  by  the  grant  of  the  reward  or  the  infliction  of  the 
penalty  ;  and,  if  God  pleases,  the  whole  relation  may  be 
sustained  by  a  substitute,  and  its  obligations  discharged 
vicariously,  as  was  the  case  in  the  instances  of  Adam  and 
of  Christ. 

3.  The  penal  relation  to  the  law  is  that  which  instantly 
supervenes  when  the  law  is  violated.  As  shown  above, 
the  penalty  is  an  essential  element  of  the  law,  expressing 
the  essential  attitude  in  which  absolute  righteousness 
stands  to  transgression,  just  as  the  preceptive  element  of 
the  law  expresses  the  attitude  in  which  that  righteous- 
ness stands  to  the  moral  condition  and  action  of  the  sub- 


76       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

ject.  Whenever,  tlierefor<^^  the  law  is  violated  by 
disobedience,  the  penalty  instantly  supervenes,  and  con- 
tinues for  ever  until  it  is  fully  exhausted  in  strict  rigoui 
of  absolute  justice. 

It  is  consequently  obvious  that  the  penal  and  federal 
relations  to  the  law  are  naturally  nuitually  exchisive. 
The  instant  a  moral  agent  incurs  the  penalty  his  federal 
relation  to  the  law  necessarily  terminates,  because  the 
end  of  that  relation — that  is,  his  confirmation  in  a  holy 
character — has  definitely  failed.  Adam  was  created  under 
the  natural  and  the  federal  relation  to  law.  When  he 
sinned  he  continued  under  the  natural,  and  passed  from 
the  federal  to  the  penal,  where  his  non-elect  descendants 
remain  for  all  eternity.  And  it  is  just  here  that  with 
respect  to  the  elect  the  infinitely  gracious  mediation  of 
Christ  intervenes.  If  it  were  not  for  the  sovereign  super- 
vention of  a  gracious  upon  a  purely  legal  economy,  they 
w^ould  of  course  be  left,  with  the  rest  of  mankind,  to  the 
just  consequences  of  their  sin.  Their  probation  having 
been  abused,  the  promised  confirmation  in  holy  character 
having  been  forfeited,  nothing  but  the  penalty  remains. 
But  in  behalf  of  the  elect  Christ  comes  as  the  second 
Adam,  assumes  and  graciously  continues  their  federal 
relation  to  the  law  just  at  the  point  at  which  Adam 
failed.  If  he  undertakes  their  case,  there  is  a  need  that 
he  assume  both  their  obligations  to  obedience,  which  was 
the  original  condition  of  their  being  raised  to  a  stable 
equilibrium  of  moral  character  and  receiving  the  adop- 
tion of  sons,  and  their  obligations  to  penal  sufferings 
incurred  by  their  disobedience.  The  law  in  its  natural 
relation  of  course  remains  binding  on  them  as  before, 
while  they  are  for  ever  released  from  all  obligation  to 


RELATION   TO   THE   MORAL   LAW.  77 

obey  it  as  a  condition  of  life,  and  are  confirmed  in  an 
imnuitable  stiibility  botli  of  character  and  happine.ss 
througli  the  vicarious  discliarge  of  all  of  their  original 
obH_![:;ations  by  their  Substitute. 

When  we  say  that  Christ  as  our  Substitute  assumed 
our  law-place,  the  specific  thing  that  we  mean  is,  that  he 
became  the  federal  head  of  the  elect  under  the  Covenant 
of  Redemption,  whicli  provided  for  his  assuming  in  rela- 
tion to  them  all  the  conditions  of  the  violated  Covenant 
of  Works.  The  federal  headship  of  Christ  presupposes 
the  federal  headship  of  Adam.  The  latter  is  the  neces- 
sary basis  for  the  former,  and  the  work  and  position  of  the 
former  can  be  understood  only  when  it  is  brought  in 
mental  ])erspoctive  into  its  true  relation  to  the  latter. 
The  solution  of  the  question  as  to  the  true  nature  of  the 
federal  headship  of  Adam  becomes,  therefore,  an  essen- 
tial element  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Atonement.  The 
apostle  declares  that  the  principles  upon  which  sin  and 
misery  came  upon  the  race  through  Adam  are  identical 
with  those  upon  which  righteousness  and  blessedness 
come  upon  the  elect  through  Christ.  No  man  can  enter- 
tain false  views  as  to  the  former  without  perverting  his 
fiiith  as  to  the  latter.  Hence  I  venture  to  ask  the  pa- 
tience of  the  reader  while  I  enter  upon  a  digression  from 
the  strict  line  of  scriptural  proof  bearing  directly  upon 
the  nature  of  the  Atonement,  to  consider  the  question 
whether  the  Scriptures  really  teach  that  in  the  Covenant 
of  A\^orks  Adam  in  a  strict  sense  represented  all  his 
descendants,  and  hence  that  the  sin  and  misery  of  that 
estate  into  which  they  were  born  are  the  ^^<?«aZ  cons&- 
quences  of  Adam's  public  sin  ? 
7* 


CHAPTER    VII. 

ADAM  -WAS,  IN  THE  STRICT-  SENSE  OF  THE  WORDS,  THE  FED- 
ERAL REPRESENTATIVE  OF  THE  RACE;  AND  THE  ANTENA- 
TAL FORFEITURE,  OP  WHICH  EACH  OF  HIS  DESCENDANTS  IS 
SUBJECT,  IS  THE  PENAL  CONSEQUENCE    OF    HIS  PUBLIC  SIN. 

OUR  doctrine  is,  that  God  as  the  legitimate  Guardian 
of  the  human  race,  and  acting  for  its  advantage, 
ordered  its  probation  under  the  law  as  a  covenant  of  life 
in  the  representative  agency  or  federal  headship  of  Adam, 
the  first  root  and  natural  head  of  the  race,  in  circum- 
stances and  on  conditions  as  favourable  for  the  race  as 
possible.  Adam,  although  as  well  endowed  and  circum- 
stanced as  any  individual  of  his  natural  order,  while  yet 
in  a  state  of  instable  moral  ec[uilibrium,  could  possibly 
be,  nevertheless  fell ;  and  his  sin,  according  to  the  favour- 
able conditions  of  their  probation,  is  the  judicial  ground 
of  the  antenatal  forfeiture  of  his  children,  of  the  penal 
withdrawing  from  them  of  the  influences  of  God's  Spirit; 
and  hence  their  innate  corruption  is  the  penal  conse- 
quence of  Adam's  sin.  We  may  therefore  discuss  this 
subject  by  tracing  downward  from  cause  to  effect  the 
headship  of  Adam,  the  imputation  of  the  guilt  of  his 
sin,  and  the  penal  consequences  thereof  in  the  sin  and 
misery  of  his  descendants.  Or,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  may  trace  from  effects  to  causes  the  experienced 
78 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP   OF   ADAM.  79 

facis  as  to  man's  natural  condition  up  to  the  imputation 
of  Adam's  j^ublic  sin.  I  prefer  the  latter  metliod  for 
the  following  reasons :  (a.)  Because  the  facts  of  the  case 
are  indubltal)ly  proved  by  the  natural  reason  and  uni- 
versal experience  of  mankind,  as  well  as  by  divine  reve- 
lation. It  hence  follows  tliat  the  weight  of  the  facts 
bears  as  heavily  upon  every  system  of  thought  which 
admits  the  existence  of  an  infinite  moral  Governor  as  it 
does  upon  any  school  of  Christian  theology.  (6.)  Be- 
cause this  method  will  afford  us  the  best  possible  oppor- 
tunity of  contrasting  the  solution  Avhich  the  Scriptures 
give  us  of  the  terrible  facts  of  the  case,  by  referring  them 
to  their  legal  ground  In  the  judicial  charging  to  his 
descendants  of  the  guilt  of  the  public  sin  of  our  repre- 
sentative, with  every  other  solution  ever  suggested  hy 
human  genius.  This  will  bring  out  into  clear  relief  the 
fact  that  the  scriptural  doctrine  of  the  immediate  and 
antecedent  imputation  of  the  guilt  of  Adam's  sin  to  his 
descendants,  instead  of  being  a  repulsive  and  unnecessarily 
aggravated  feature  of  Calvinism,  is  the  most  honouring 
to  God  and  gratifying  to  the  moral  sense  of  men,  of  all 
the  solutions  of  the  awful  but  undeniable  facts  of  the 
case  which  has  ever  been  attempted.  None  are  more 
ready  to  recognize  the  real  difficulties  inherent  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  federal  headship  of  Adam  than  its 
staunchest  advocates.  But  it  is  certain  that  these  diffi- 
culties are  the  same,  both  in  kind  and  degree,  with  those 
which  are  inseparable  from  those  broad  facts  of  the  case 
which  are  universally  recognized  by  all  except  theoreti- 
cal or  practical  atheists. 

These  patent  facts  as  to  man's  moral  and  spiritual  con- 
dition from  birth,  which  I  will  here  simply  state  and 


80       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

assume  as  universally  conceded,  are  as  follows.  1.  Every 
individual  human  being  is  from  birth  and  by  nature 
totally  depraved.  This  general  truth  involves  three 
subordinate  ones.  (1.)  Every  human  being  habitually 
sins  as  soon  as  he  enters  a  state  of  moral  agency.  (2.) 
Each  human  being  is  born  with  an  antecedent  effec- 
tual tendency  in  his  nature  to  sin.  And  (3)  this  innate 
tendency  in  his  nature  to  sin,  with  which  every  man 
outers  the  world,  is  itself  of  the  nature  of  sin  and 
worthy  of  punishment.* 

2.  Every  human  being  is  born  into  and  lives  under 
the  power  of  a  social  organization  called  the  world,  all 
the  moral  forces  of  which  oppose  virtue  and  secure  the 
prevalence  of  vice. 

3.  All  men  are  introduced  into  existence  under  the 
dominion  of  an  unseen  spiritual  empire  of  apostate  an- 
gels, of  which  Satan  is  prince. f 

These,  then,  arc  the  portentous  facts  concerning  the 
universal  moral  condition  of  mankind  by  nature.  Each 
individual  comes  into  existence  with  a  nature  itself 
worthy  of  punishment,  and  effectually  predisposing  him 
to  sin.  They  are  moreover  born  into  a  corrupt  and  cor- 
rupting social  organization,  and  subject  to  the  mysterious 
and  prevalent  influence  of  an  apostate  spiritual  empire. 
Yet,  notwithstanding  this  disability  under  which  men 

*  Dr.  Edward  Beecher,  in  his  "  Conflict  of  Ages,"  p.  96,  give?  his 
vahiable  testimony  as  follows:  ''The  Princeton  Review  alleges,  and 
n,'?  Jar  as  I  knoiu  corrcclly,  that  '  there  is  not  a  creed  of  any  Christian 
Church  in  which  the  doctrine  that  inherent  corruption,  as  existing 
prior  to  voluntary  action,  is  of  the  nature  of  sin,  is  not  distinctly 
affirmed.'  " 

t  Dr.  Edward  Beecher's  Conflict  of  Ages,  Book  I.,  Chapters  viii., 


FEDERAL   ITEADSTITP   OF    ADAM.  81 

are  born,  tluy  arc  still  held  bound,  under  further  penalty 
of  eternal  damnation,  to  fulfil  in  disposition  and  act  the 
entire  unmodified  law  of  absolute  perfection.  These 
statements,  moreover,  do  not  represent  the  peculiar  re- 
sults of  any  school  either  of  philosophy  or  theology,  but 
the  naked  and  undeniable  facts  of  the  case,  authenticated 
as  certain  by  reason,  conscience  and  exp(?rience,  as  well  as 
by  revelation.  The  denial  of  Christianity  affords  no 
escape  from  them,  much  less,  of  course,  the  deniul  of  the 
truth  of  Augustinian  theology.  We  have  no  alternative 
but  to  face  them  in  their  full  significance,  and  to  adapt 
our  speculations  to  the  unquestionable  facts. 

It  is  here  that  the  agonizing  but  una\oidable  question 
arises  as  to  the  reconciliation  of  this  state  of  facts  with 
the  character  of  a  just,  holy  and  merciful  Creator.  If 
God  had  seen  fit  to  shed  no  light  whatever  upon  this 
dark  subject,  it  would  still  undoubtedly  be  our  duty  to 
exercise  an  unquestioning  faith  in  him,  and  to  appease 
our  reason  by  the  plea  of  mystery.  But  men  must  de- 
mand, and  ought  to  demand,  the  full  development  of 
every  element  of  relief  from  this  great  moral  enigma 
which  God  has  graciously  vouchsafed  to  give  us  in 
his  word.  The  ultimate  intuitions  of  right  are  them- 
selves a  direct  revelation  from  God,  and  when  legiti- 
mately interpreted  and  applied,  they  are  of  as  high 
authority  as  any  dogma  of  theology.  It  is  absolutely 
impossible  for  a  devout  mind  to  admit  that  God  can  be 
the  immediate  author  of  sin,  or  that  he  can  treat  a 
creature  whose  natural  claims  upon  him,  as  a  creature, 
have  not  previously  been  justly  forfeited,  as  worthy  of 
punishment.  The  most  orthodox  theologians  agree  with 
the  Rationalists  on  the  following  points. 


82       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

1.  God  cannot  be  the  author  of  sin. 

2.  God  cannot  originally  create  agents  with  an  inhe- 
rent corrupt  nature  effectually  predisposing  them  to  sin, 
for  that  would  constitute  him  the  author  of  sin.  And 
as  a  matter  of  fact  he  did  create  mankind  and  the  angels 
holy ;  that  is,  with  a  positive,  pre-existent  disposition 
inclining  them  to  virtue. 

3.  God  will  not  inflict  either  moral  or  physical  evil 
upon  any  moral  agent  whose  natural  claims  as  a  depen- 
dent creature  have  not  previously  been  justly  forfeited. 

4.  Hence  every  moral  agent  ought  in  justice  to  enjoy 
a  fair  probation;  that  is,  a  trial  so  conditioned  as  to 
afford  at  least  as  much  opportunity  of  success  as  lia- 
bility to  failure.  Hence  arise  two  distinct  and  unavoid- 
able questions,  which  have  been  anxiously  discussed  by 
the  philosophers  and  theologians  of  all  times. 

1.  Why,  that  is,  on  lohat  ground  of  justice,  does  God  in- 
flict this  terrible  evil,  the  root  and  sum  of  all  other  evils, 
upon  every  human  being  at  the  instant  his  existence  com- 
mences ?  What  fair  probation  have  infants  born  in  sin 
enjoyed  ?  And  when  and  why  were  their  rights  as  new- 
created  moral  agents  forfeited  ? 

2.  How — since  w^e  must  believe  that  God  originally 
creates  every  moral  agent  with  a  nature  predisjiosed  to 
virtue ;  and  since  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  did  so  create  the 
first  man — HOW,  so  that  the  author  of  the  nature  is  not 
the  author  of  the  sin,  is  a  sinful  disposition  originated  in 
every  human  being  as  soon  as  he  begins  to  exist  ? 

It  is  self-evident  that  while  these  two  questions  relate 
to  the  same  subject,  they  are  themselves  essentially  dis- 
tinct, and  they  must  be  treated  as  distinct,  unless  we 
should  leave  the  entire  subject  in  confusion.     It  is  one 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP   OF   ADAM.  83 

thing  to  Inquire  ho2o  it  is  possible  that  sin  shall  originate 
as  a  connate  predisposing  cause  of  sin  in  every  new-born 
infant,  and  yet  the  Maker  of  the  infant  not  be  the  cause 
of  the  sin  ;  and  a  very  different  thing  to  inquire  why,  on 
what  ground  of  justice,  this  direful  calamity  is  brought 
upon  those  who  have  not  previously  offended  in  their 
own    persons.     The  former    question    may  possibly  be 
solved  by  reference  to  some  ascertainable  physiological 
law  of  natural  generation ;  it  may  have  its  ground  in 
some  general  relation  which  all  individuals  sustain  to  the 
genus  to  which  they  belong.     But  the  latter  question 
essentially  relates  to  the  administration  of  the  divine 
government,  and  to  the  character  of  those  ultimate  moral 
principles  upon  which  it  proceeds.     If  this  important 
distinction  had  always  been  kept  clearly  in  view,  much 
of  the  obscurity,  and  of  the  error  too,  which  have  marred 
speculations  and  controversies  on  this  subject,  would  have 
been  avoided.    Endeavoring  therefore,  to  keep  it  steadily 
in  view,  I  proceed  to  give  a  summary  statement  of  all 
the  important  solutions  of  both  these  questions  which 
have  been  offered. 

All  opinions  upon  this  subject  may  be  classified  upon 
two  distinct  principles. 

1.  We  may  classify  them  as  they  are,  on  the  one  hand,  ex- 
cogitated on  purely  rationalistic  principles,  independently 
of  revelation,  or  as,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are  developed 
by  a  more  or  less  faithful  Interpretation  of  Scripture. 

Or,  2.  We  may  classify  them  either  as  they  affirm  or 
deny  the  principle  that  all  men  have  justly  forfeited  their 
rights  as  new-created  moral  agents  before  their  birth  into 
this  world.  I  shall  adopt  the  latter  principle  of  classi- 
fication, remarking  that  the  two  principles  come  to  the 


84       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

same  practical  result  in  this  respect,  that  nearly  all  the 
purely  rationalistic  solutions  of  the  problem  deny  that 
men  are  born  subject  to  antenatal  forfeiture;  while, 
on  the  contrary,  nearly  all  those  solutions  which  are 
professedly  derived  from  the  interpretation  of  Scripture 
affirm  it. 

I.  I  propose  under  this  head  to  state  briefly  those 
solutions  of  the  questions  above  stated  which  agree  in 
rejecting  the  principle  that  man  is  born  subject  to  a  just 
antenatal  forfeiture,  and  liable  to  the  righteous  penalty 
of  a  violated  law. 

1.  The  first  attempted  solution  is  afforded  by  the  Mani- 
chaean  dualism,  which  postulates  the  independent  self-ex- 
istence of  two  principles.  On  the  one  hand,  God,  an  eter- 
nal, self-existent,  absolutely  perfect  Spirit,  is  the  Father 
of  all  spirits,  and  the  centre  and  governor  of  the  whole  spi- 
ritual kingdom  of  light  and  purity.  On  the  other  hand, 
matter,  or  that  ultimate  essence  of  which  matter  is  one 
of  the  forms,  is  an  independent,  self-existing  principle, 
inherently  corrupt  in  itself,  and  corrupting  to  all  that 
comes  in  contact  with  it.  All  spirits  being  pure  in  their 
origin  from  God,  become  vitiated  through  entanglement 
with  the  matter  composing  their  bodies.*  Although  the 
magnificent  speculations  in  which-  these  opinions  were 
first  embodied  have  long  since  been  forgotten,  except  by 
a  few  students  of  Christian  antiquities,  the  radical  idea 
of  the  self-existence  and  inherent  viciousness  of  matter 
has  not  yet  lost  place  among  men's  thoughts.  Against 
the  false  view  of  sin  embodied  in  this  theory  all  the 
early  Fathers  of  the  Christian  Church  protested.  Mani- 
chajism  virtually  amounts  to  a  denial  of  the  existence  of 
*  Noundei'B  Hist. "Christ.  Relig.,  vol.  i.,  pp.  488-506. 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP   OF   ADAM.  85 

moral  evil  altogether,  because  it  resolves  it  into  a  physi- 
cal groiiiul,  making  it  an  attribute  of  matter,  like  attrac- 
tion, or  in(!rtia,  or  the  like.  Tlie  essence  of  sin  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  is  a  spontaneous  state  or  act  of  a  free 
moral  agent,  not  in  conformity  to  the  law  of  absolute 
moral  j)erfection.  Sin  is  necessarily  immaterial,  spirit- 
ual, an  attribute  of  moral  agency,  inseparable  from  per- 
^sons.  Manicliaiism  limits  Jchovali  by  the  eternal  and 
necessary  co-existence  with  him  of  a  hostile  and  inde- 
pendent principle.  It  wrongs  him  by  attempting  to 
vindicate  his  freedom  from  all  complication  with  sin  by 
exhibiting  him  as  helpless  to  prevent  it.  And  it  destroys 
all  moral  distinctions  by  resolving  sin  into  a  physical 
accident,  exterior  to  the  personal  soul,  and  moral  respon- 
sibility for  crime  into  misfortune. 

2.  A  second  method  of  answering  both  the  questions, ^oi<? 
and  why  men  always  commence  their  conscious  existence 
habitual  sinners  as  far  as  that  fact  relates  to  the  agency  of 
God  in  the  matter,  cuts  the  knot  by  affirming  the  absolute 
self-determining  power  of  the  human  will,  and  the  con- 
sequent absolute  "  impreventability  of  sin."  While  in 
many  other  respects  they  differ,  yet  at  this  point,  touch- 
ing the  agency  of  God  with  respect  to  this  estate  of  sin 
and  misery  into  which  man  has  fallen.  Pelagians,  Soci- 
nians,  and  the  class  of  Trinitarians  represented  by  Bush- 
nell  and  Young,  are  perfectly  agreed.*  Every  man 
creates  his  own  character,  being  free  to  sin  or  not  as  he 
pleases.  God  did  all  he  could  to  prevent  the  entrance 
of  sin  at  the  first,  and  ever  since  he  has  been  doing  all 
that  is  consistent  with  the  necessary  limitations  of  moral 

*  See  Dr.  J.  Young's  "  Evil  and  God,"  pp.  180-230,  and  "  Life 
and  Light  of  Men,"  pp.  112-117. 

8 


86  THE   NATURE   OF   TPIE   ATONEMENT. 

agency,  to  put  each  man  in  the  best  possible  positi(/n, 
and  to  bring  to  bear  upon  him  the  best  possible  moral 
and  spiritual  influences. 

]S^ow  it  is  evident  that  this  answer  gets  rid  of  the 
difficulty  by  denying  the  plain  fact  of  the  total  deprav- 
ity of  each  child  from  birth  and  by  nature,  antecedent 
to  all  moral  action,  which  is  proved  as  well  by  an  unex- 
ceptional experience  as  by  revelation.  The  self-deter- 
mining power  of  the  human  will  may  prove  that  sin  is 
impreventable,  and  may  account  for  the  existence  of  sin 
in-  a  few  cases.  As  it  is  absolutely  impossible  for  a  man 
to  believe,  when  the  dice  are  thrown  sixes  successively  a 
thousand  times,  that  the  dice  are  not  loaded ;  so  is  it  a 
thousand  times  more  impossible  to  believe,  when  every 
human  being  of  all  nations  and  generations,  without  a 
single  exception,  begins  to  sin  the  instant  he  enters  moral 
agency,  that  his  will  is  not  biassed  by  a  previous  effectual 
tendency  in  his  nature  to  sin.  Now  the  Bible,  true  psy- 
chology and  uniform  Christian  experience  unite  in 
teaching  that  this  innate  previous  tendency  to  sin  is 
itself  sin  and  worthy  of  punishment.  The  prcvcntability 
of  sin  or  the  opposite  is  not  the  question.  The  fact  to 
be  accounted  for  is  that  all  men  sin  as  soon  as  they  begin 
to  act  as  moral  agents.  This  universal  constitution  of 
things,  which  produces  such  uniformly  dire  effects,  is 
God's  ordering,  and  he  is  bringing  new  souls  into  it 
every  day.  It  does  not  help  the  matter  to  say,  that  the 
sin  of  the  parent  is  propagated  to  the  child  by  genera- 
tion, or  by  education  and  example.  For  God  is  the 
author  of  the  wIkjIc  system  of  human  ger.eration  and 
social    relations.      The   questions    remain    unanswered, 


FEDEP.AL    ITEADSIIIP   OF   ADAM.  87 

ichy?  and  liowf  God   oither  permits  or  cifccts  such  re- 
sults, and  yet  remains  just  and  holy. 

3.  The  third  solution  is  the  one  incident  to  pantheistic 
speculations  in  general,  and  develo])ed  prominently  by 
the  German  philosopher  ITen^el,  adopted  by  Emerson, 
and,  in  a  modified  form,  held  by  Theodore  Parker  and 
many  of  the  advanced  Unitarians  of  America ;  namely, 
that  sin  is  a  natin-al  and  necessary  incident  of  a  finite 
nature  conditioned  as  man  is,  and  the  appointed  means 
of  develojmient  and  ultimate  perfection.  Sin,  according 
to  this  view,  is  limitation,  the  necessary  accident  of  a 
process  of  growth.  Even  Bushnell  regards  sin  as  a 
favourable  incident  of  spiritual  education,  which,  train- 
ing the  soul  for  stable  and  intelligent  virtue  hereafter,  in- 
volves necessarily  an  experiment  of  evil,  and  conse- 
quently a  previous  fall,  and  temporary  subjection  to  its 
power. 

This  theory  at  once  destroys  all  proper  ideas  alike  of 
God  and  sin.  It  is  absolutely  inconsistent  with  the  in- 
finite power,  wisdom,  goodness  and  holiness  of  God. 
Sin  is  essentially  avofila^  and  the  divine  law  has  its  norm 
in  the  divine  nature.  Sin,  therefore,  is  intrinsically 
opposition  to  God.  It  is  not  a  limitation  incident  to 
finite  existence,  nor  a  condition  incident  to  a  stage  in  the 
development  of  a  creature's  life,  for  then  it  would  be 
according  to  law.  It  is  the  spontaneous  reprehensible 
attitude  of  a  creature's  will  in  opposition  to  God.  God 
must  hate  and  resist  it  and  punish  it,  and  no  natural 
constitution  of  things  which  he  ordains  can  involve  it  as 
a  nec««sary  incident.  Sin  can  originate  no  otherwise 
than  in  the  free,  self-determined  act  of  a  personal  spirit, 


88       THE  NATUKE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

acting  in  violation  of,  and  not  in  accordance  with,  tlic  law 
of  its  being. 

4.  The  common  view  characteristic  of  the  New  Eng- 
land Theology  was  generated  by  an  attempt  to  readjnst 
the  positions  of  old  Calvinism  in  view  of  the  rationalistic 
attacks  made  upon  it  by  John  Taylor,  of  Norwich,  and 
the  Socinians  of  America.  This  view  was  introduced 
by  Dr.  Samuel  Hopkins,  and  developed  by  Edwards, 
Dwight,  Emmons,  &c.,  and  has  hence  passed  into  gene- 
ral currency  among  all  the  adherents  of  that  form  of 
modified  Calvinism  called  New  England  Theology. 
They  found  it  necessary  to  protest  in  the  interest  of  Ra- 
tionalism against  the  principle  that  the  descendants  of 
Adam  should  have  been  judicially  held  to  have  justly 
forfeited  all  their  rights  as  new-created  moral  agents, 
simply  because  of  the  sinful  act  of  their  progenitor,  per- 
formed ages  before  their  own  existence.  They  therefore 
deny  that  human  beings  come  into  the  world  subject  to 
any  antenatal  forfeiture,  or  with  any  positive  moral  cor- 
ruption of  nature.  In  the  place  of  these  discarded 
positions  of  old  orthodoxy,  they  explain  the  facts  by 
saying  that  the  human  race  exists  under  a  sovereign 
constitution  of  God,  which  has  provided,  that  upon  the 
condition  of  Adam's  sin  in  the  garden,  every  one  of  his 
descendants  shall  infallibly  sin  as  soon  as  he  enters 
upon  moral  agency.  Thus  they  ground  the  whole  j^ro- 
cedure  ultimately  upon  the  sovereignty  instead  of  upon 
the  justice  of  God.  In  answer  to  the  question  why  this 
great  evil  is  inflicted  upon  creatures  just  commencing 
their  existence,  they  refer  us  simply  to  the  sovereign 
good  pleasure  of  God.  In  answer  to  the  question  how 
the  uniform  origination  of  sin  is  determined  in  the  first 


FEDERAL    HEADSHIP   OF    ADAM.  89 

responsible  act  of  the  recent  creatures  of  a  holy  God, 
some  of  them  content  themselves  with  referring  to  an 
inscrutable  divine  constitution  whicli  secures  that  result; 
while  others  resolve  the  matter  into  tlie  natural  ])hysio- 
logieal  laws  of  ,iz;eneration,  whereby  the  parent  begets  an 
otlspring  morally,  as  well  as  intellectually  and  physically, 
like  himself;  and  others  again,  as  eminently  Dr.  Emmons, 
refer  the  result  to  a  "stated  mode  of  divine  efficiency,'' 
whereby  God,  upon  the  antecedent  condition  of  Adam's 
sin,  proceeds  to  create  a  series  of  sinful  acts  through  the 
agency  of  each  of  his  descendants.  This  last  view, 
which  refers  all  human  action  to  a  direct  divine  efficient 
precursus,  is  virtual  pantheism,  and  evidently  makes 
God  the  author  of  all  sin.  On  this  side  of  divine  effi- 
ciency Emmons  developed  the  New  England  Theology 
to  death.  Since  his  time  all  the  advocates  of  that  system 
refer  the  origin  of  sin  in  men  to  their  natural  descent 
from  Adam,  the  organic  root  and  natural  head  of  all 
mankind;  so  that  inherited  corruption,  instead  of  being 
viewed  as  a  penal  consequent  of  Adam's  sin,  is  regarded 
simply  as  a  vatural  consequent  of  it,  transmitted,  like 
the  nose  upon  the  face,  by  the  natural  and  universal  laws 
of  animal  reproduction. 

This  so-called  "improvement"  of  New  England  Theo- 
logy is  in  principle  identical  with  the  doctrine  broached 
by  Joshua  Placseus,  Professor  in  the  Theological  Semi- 
nary of  Saumur,  France  (circum  1640).  He  maintained 
that  Adam's  first  sin  Avhereby  he  apostatized,  being  his 
own  personal  act,  could  not  be  imputed  to  any  of  his 
descendants,  because,  since  it  was  not  their  act,  they 
were  not  responsible  for  it,  and  therefore  could  not  justly 
be  punished  for  it.     But  since  Adam's  apostasy  necessa- 


90       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

rily  corrupted  his  own  nature,  and  since,  by  ordinary 
generation,  the  corruption  of  his  nature  determined  the 
corruption  of  all  those  who  were  descended  from  him, 
it  follows  hence  (1)  that  all  descended  from  him  by  ordi- 
nary generation  begin  to  sin  as  soon  as  they  begin  to  act 
as  moral  agents,  and  (2)  that  they  are  justly  condemned 
and  punished  for  their  own  sinful  acts  which  thence 
result. 

After  this  doctrine,  which  is  obviously  identical  witli 
that  of  the  Xew  England  view  above  stated,  had  been 
ventilated  a  number  of  years,  the  French  National 
Synod,  meeting  at  Charenton  (Dec.  26,  1644;  Jan.  26, 
1645),  passed  with  reference  to  it  the  following  decree: 
"There  was  a  report  made  in  Synod  of  a  certain  writing, 
both  printed  and  manuscript,  holding  forth  this  doctrine, 
that  the  whole  nature  of  original  sin  consisted  only  in 
that  corruption  which  is  hereditary  to  all  Adam's  pos- 
terity, and  residing  originally  in  all  men,  and  denying 
the  imputation  of  his  first  sin.  This  Synod  condemncth 
the  said  doctrine  as  far  as  it  restraineth  the  doctrine  of 
original  sin  to  the  sole  hereditary  corruption  of  Adam's 
posterity,  to  the  excluding  of  the  imputation  of  tliat  first 
sin  by  which  he  fell;  and  interdicteth,  on  pain  of  all 
church  censure,  all  pastors,  professors  and  others,  who 
shall  treat  of  this  question.,  to  depart  from  the  common 
received  opinion  of  the  Protestant  Churches,  who  (over 
and  besides  that  corruption)  have  all  acknowledged  the 
imputation  of  Adam's  first  sin  to  his  posterity."  * 

After  this,  in  order  to  reconcile  his  doctrine  in  appear- 
ance with  the  requirements  of  the  Synod,  Placseus  in- 
vented the  distinction  between  immediate  and  anteccdeivt 
*  Quick's  Synodicon,  vol.  ii.,  p.  473. 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP   OF   ADAM.  91 

imputation  on  the  one  hand,  and  mediate  and  consequent 
imputation  on  the  other.  By  the  immediate  and  ante- 
cedent imputation  of  Adam's  sin  to  his  posterity,  he 
meant  to  express  the  established  doctrine  of  the  Reformed 
Churches,  to  wit :  that  Adam  was  in  such  a  sense  the 
covenant  liead  and  re])resentative  of  iiis  descemlants,  that 
their  probation  was  merged  into  his,  and  that  his  action 
was  made  the  condition  upon  which  tlieir  confirmation 
in  holiness  or  rejection  and  punishment  was  made  to 
depend ;  and  hence  that  the  guilt  or  punishableness  of 
his  sin  was  charged  to  their  account  immediately  upon 
their  birth,  and  antecedently  to  their  own  action ;  and 
that  consequently  the  entire  corruption  of  nature  with 
which  they  are  born  is  the  first  consequence  and  most 
awful  part  of  the  punishment  of  that  sin  charged  to  them 
and  punished  in  them.  By  the  mediate  and  consequent 
imputation  of  Adam's  sin  to  his  posterity,  Placseus  meant 
to  deny  the  above  doctrine  of  antenatal  forfeiture  alto- 
gether, and  to  teach  that  the  descendants  of  Adam, 
deriving  from  him  corrupt  natures  by  ordinary  genera- 
tion, begin  to  sin  after  his  example  as  soon  as  they 
become  moral  agents,  and  are  consequently,  like  him, 
punished  for  their  own  sin.  It  is  as  plain  as  noon-day 
that  there  is  no  real  imputation  here  at  all,  no  charging 
of  the  punishableness  of  Adam's  first  apostatizing  act 
to  his  descendants  in  any  honest  sense.  The  application 
of  the  term  imputation  to  this  theory  by  Placaeus  was 
uncandid  and  sophistical.  His  cavil  was  that  he  also 
held  that  Adam's  sin  was  imputed  and  punished  in  his 
posterity  mediately  through  and  consequentli/  to  their  own 
sin  in  compliance  with  his  example.  Thus  Adam  sinned, 
and  was  punished  for  his  own  sin.     For  his  sin  his  pos- 


92       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

terity  are  in  no  way  responsible,  nor  are  they  punished 
on  account  of  it,  but  only  cursed,  by  means  of  the  natural 
law  of  generation,  with  corrupt  natures.  They  conse- 
quently sin,  and  are  all  severally  punished  for  tlieir  own 
sins.  Hence,  Adam's  sin  is  charged  to  them  mediately 
and  consequently.  This  is  nothing  either  more  or  less 
than  the  New  England  Root  theory  above  stated,  with 
this  difference,  that  the  New  England  theory  honourably 
discards  the  sophistical  and  deluding  use  of  the  theologi- 
cal term  imputation  in  a  sense  not  only  modified,  but  so 
perverted  as  to  signalize  the  express  denial  of  that  which 
from  time  immemorial  all  men  had  used  it  to  affirm. 
The  objections  to  this  theory  are  fatal. 

1.  It  fails  entirely  and  obviously  to  quadrate  with  the 
plain  sense  of  those  Scriptures  (Rom.  v.  12-19)  of  which, 
as  I  shall  show  below,  the  orthodox  doctrine  is  the  dog- 
matic expression.  The  evidence  of  this  allegation  I 
will  present  when  I  come  to  exhibit  the  evidence  estab- 
lishing the  truth  of  the  old  doctrine. 

2.  AVhile  this  improvement  was  excogitated,  as  the 
younger  Edwards  said,  with  the  design  of  reconciling  the 
doctrine  of  the  fall  with  the  demands  of  rational  justice, 
it  sets  justice  at  defiance  far  more  directly  and  uncom- 
promisingly than  does  that  orthodox  doctrine  against 
the  injustice  of  which  it  protests.  The  orthodox  doctrine 
affirms  that  God,  the  rightful  Guardian  of  the  human 
race,  gave  them  the  most  favourable  trial  possible 
for  a  race  so  ]n'oi)agated — a  trial,  moreover,  in  wiiich 
great  and  undeserved  blessings  were  made  possible, 
ajs  well  as  a  great  loss.  It  hence  follows  that  they 
wen;  justly  responsible  for  the  penal  consequences  of 
Adam'i  failure,  and  hence  that  their  natural  rights  were 


FEDErwAI,    TIEAPSIIIP   OF   ADAM.  93 

justly  forfeited  before  tlieir  birth.  Tliis  ^^mproved" 
doctrine,  on  the  other  hand,  refers  the  whole  result  to 
the  arbitrary  sovcrei«i;nty  of  God.  Tlie  orthodox  doc- 
trine demonstrates  tliat  every  man  had  a  fair  probation 
in  tlie  person  of  Adam.  The  "improved"  doctrine 
asserts  that  God  creates  every  man  into  a  state  of  virtual 
re^^robation,  witliout  any  probation  at  all. 

3.  This  theory  absurdly  attempts  to  account  for  the 
origination  of  sin  in  the  children  of  men  severally,  as 
soon  as  they  begin  to  act,  by  a  physiological  theory  of 
generation,  instead  of  on  a  moral  principle  of  righteous 
legal  responsibility. 

4.  The  whole  peculiarity  of  this  view  is  grounded  on 
an  assumption  subversive  of  the  entire  foundation-prin- 
ciples of  the  gospel;  namely,  that  it  is  inconsistent  with 
justice  that,  under  any  circumstances,  one  person  should 
be  held  judicially  2)unisliable  for  a  sin  performed  by 
another;  while  it  is  a  matter  of  fact  that  Christ,  in 
consequence  of  his  federal  union  with  his  people,  was 
justly  punished  for  their  sin,  and  they  are  justly  pro- 
nounced righteous  on  the  ground  of  his  obedience. 

6.  This  theory  is  conspicuously  inconsistent  with  the 
fact  of  that  parallel  which  the  Scriptures  affirm  to  exist 
between  the  principle  upon  which  we  are  condemned  for 
the  sin  of  Adam  and  that  uj^on  which  we  are  justified  on 
the  ground  of  the  righteousness  of  Christ.  The  essence 
of  redemption  lies  in  the  fact  that  Christ  was  justly 
punished  for  our  sins  as  federally  responsible  for  them, 
and  that  we  are  justly  justified  on  the  ground  of  his 
obedience,  because  by  the  terms  of  his  covenant  witli  the 
Father  the  rewardablen  ?ss  of  his  obedience  reverts  to  us. 
If  this  be  so,  it  follows  that  the  guilt  or  obligation  to 


94       THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

2>unis]iinont,  accruing  from  Adam's  sin  to  us,  i*  by  the 
terras  of  the  covenant  justly  ours,  and  hence  that  native 
depravity  and  all  other  natural  evils  are  justly  inflicted 
upon  us  as  the  punishment  of  that  sin.  While,  on  the 
other  hand,  if  it  be  held  that  we  first  derive  corrupt 
natures  from  Adam  as  purely  natural  and  physical  con- 
sequents of  generation,  and  then  are  punished  for  that 
innate  corruption  or  for  the  sinful  actions  to  which  it  gives 
birtli,  it  would  necessarily  follow,  as  to  the  method  of  sal- 
vation, that  we  first  derive  by  regeneration  holy  natures 
from  Christ,  and  are  then  justified  on  the  ground  of  in- 
herent holiness,  which  is  precisely  that  Moral  Influence 
Theory  of  Redemption  advocated  by  Bushnell  and 
Young.  If  the  ultimate  ground  of  our  forfeiture  is 
our  inherent  personal  corruption  of  nature  derived  by 
generation,  then  Paul's  words  are,  even  so,  the  ultimate 
ground  of  our  justification  must  be  our  inherent  personal 
holiness  of  nature  derived  by  regeneration.  Dr.  John 
W.  Nevin  says  :  "  Our  participation  in  the  actual  un- 
righteousness of  Adam's  life  forms  the  ground  of  our 
participation  in  his  guilt  and  liability  to  punishment. 
And  in  no  other  way,  I  affirm,  can  the  idea  of  imputa- 
tion be  satisfactorily  explained  in  the  case  of  the  second 
Adam."  That  is,  we  partake  by  ordinary  generation  of 
the  fallen  nature  of  Adam,  and  are  therefore  condemned. 
In  like  manner  we  partake  of  the  divine-human  life  of 
the  incarnate  Word  through  union  with  the  Church  and 
the  efficacy  of  the  sacraments,  and  are  therefore  justified. 
Thus  wonderfully  do  the  latest  "improvements"  of  old 
Puritan  orthodoxy  develop  into  that  Mercersburg theo- 
logy which  has  its  roots  in  a  pantheistic  philosophy  and 
a  Romish  religion. 


FEDERAI.    HEADSHIP   OF   ADAM.  95 

II.  We  come  now  to  consider  that  class  of  opinions 
which  ao-ree  in  maintaining:  that  tlie  members  of  the 
human  family  come  into  existence  under  a  forfeiture 
justly  incurred  before  their  birth.  With  one  singular 
exception,  all  the  theories,  as  far  as  I  know,  which  main- 
tain the  fact  of  this  antenatal  forfeiture,  agree  in  referring 
it  to  the  first  sin  of  Adam  as  its  judicial  ground. 

1.  The  singular  exception  referred  to  is  the  eccentric 
theory  that  the  evil  nature  with  which  all  men  are  born 
into  this  world  has  been  self-originated  by  a  free,  per- 
sonal self-determination  to  evil  ia  a  2^1'e-existent  state. 
As  thus  generally  stated,  this  theory  was  first  introduced 
into  the  Christian  Church  by  Origen,  and  revived  in  the 
modern  Church  by  Dr.  Edward  Beecher  in  his  "  Conflict 
of  Ages,'^  and  by  Julius  Muller  in  his  great  work  on  the 
"Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin."  Beecher  and  Muller  agree 
in  holding  that  (a)  every  child  is  born  with  a  nature 
morally  corrupt;  (b)  that  this  innate  corruption  is  guilt; 
that  is,  that  every  new-born  soul  is  from  the  first  mo- 
rally responsible  and  justly  punishable  for  that  corruption ; 
(c)  but  since  a  moral  agent  can  be  morally  responsible 
for  a  moral  character  only  when  it  has  been  self-origi- 
nated by  a  previous  unbiassed  act  of  will,  it  follows  that 
each  human  person  must  have  had  an  existence  in  which 
responsible  self-determination  was  possible  previous  to 
his  birth  in  this  life. 

Beecher's  conception  of  the  matter  is  as  follows.  In 
the  beginning  all  human  souls  were  created  like  the 
angels,  free,  responsible,  moral  agents  fully  developed. 
Each  stood  alone  and  enjoyed  a  fair  probation  in  his  own 
person.  Some  of  the  angels  stood  the  trial,  and  were 
confirmed  in  holy  character  for  ever.     Some  of  the  an- 


96       THE  NATUEE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

gels,  and  all  of  those  spirits  subsequently  born  into  this 
world  as  men,  fell  and  became  morally  depraved,  and 
righteously  condemned  because  of  their  own  personal 
apostasy.  For  the  purpose  of  bringing  this  last  class 
of  lost  souls  under  a  remedial  system  of  grace,  God  cre- 
ated the  pliysical  universe  for  their  habitation,  and 
caused  them  to  be  born  into  material  bodies  and  propa- 
gated by  generation.  They  all  come  into  the  world, 
consequently,  with  their  natures  depraved  and  their 
natural  rights  forfeited  by  their  own  personal  action  in 
their  pre-existent  state. 

The  conception  of  Mliller,  though  philosophically 
very  different  from  the  above,  in  a  theological  point  of 
view  amounts  to  the  same.  He  adopts  from  the  Ideal- 
ism of  Schelling  the  principle  of  a  transcendental  freedom 
as  an  attribute  of  all  personal  spirits.  "Man  in  his 
origin  is  a  morally  undetermined  not  yet  decided  essence, 
and  by  virtue  of  his  personality  can  only  be  such  an 
one.'^*  "Only  personal  essences  have  a  ground  in  their 
own  act ;  it  is  the  possession  of  freedom  in  this  their  now 
temporal  root  which  distinguishes  the  spirit  absolutely 
from  nature.^'f  "  In  the  kingdom  of  the  intelligible, 
this  silent,  timeless,  shadowy  kingdom  is,  as  it  were,  the 
maternal  womb  in  which  the  embryos  of  all  personal 
essences  lie  enclosed.  Here  we  find  the  simple,  undeter- 
mined beginnings  of  our  being  which  precede  its  concrete 
contents;  therefore,  one  is  not  in  this  kingdom  to  look  for 
the  fulness  of  the  Godlike  life,  but  only  the  jiower  of  de- 
ciding either  in  favour  of  voluntary  union  with  God  by 
subordination  to  his  will,  or  lor  the  persistency  of  self- 
hood in  itself.     Which  ever  way  this  primitive  decision 

*  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  157.  f  Ibid.,  p.  171. 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP   OF   ADAM.  97 

may  tako  place,  it  forms  for  tlicsc  intelligible  existences 
the  transition  into  sjiace  and  time,  into  corporiety  and 
development,  c^c."  * 

This  theory,  in  all  its  forms,  is  inadmissible,  because 
(1.)  It  is  absolutely  destitute  of  any  assignable  evidence, 
either  in  Scripture  or  in  the  sum  total  of  human  expe- 
rience. It  is  confessedly  a  pure  creation  of  the  human 
brain  to  reconcile  the  fact  that  all  men  are  born  respon- 
sible, guilty  sinners  with  the  speculative  assumption 
that  a  moral  agent  cannot  be  responsible  for  its  moral 
character,  unless  that  moral  character  be  self-determined 
by  a  previous  unbiassed  self-decision  of  the  moral  agent 
himself.  (2.)  This  doctrine  is  plainly  inconsistent  with 
all  the  Scriptures  teach  us,  either  as  to  the  origin  and 
original  state  of  man,  or  as  to  the  origin  of  sin.  As  to 
the  origin  of  man,  it  is  said,  "  And  the  Lord  God  formed 
man  of  the  dust  of  the  ground,  and  breathed  into  his 
nostrils  the  breath  of  life;  and  man  became  a  living 
soul.'^  Gen.  ii.  7.  As  to  his  original  state,  it  is  said,  "So 
God  created  man  in  his  own  image,  in  the  image  of  God 
created  he  him,"  Gen.  i.  27;  v.  1 ;  ix.  6;  which  image 
Paul  declares  consists  in  "knowledge,  righteousness  and 
true  holiness."  Eph.  iv.  24,  and  Col.  iii.  10.  At  the 
close  of  his  six  days  of  work  God  saw  everything  he 
had  made,  man  included,  "and  behold  it  was  very 
good."  Gen.  i.  31.  "Lo,  this  only  have  I  found,  that 
God  hath  made  man  upright;  but  they  have  sought 
out  many  inventions."  Eccles.  vii.  29.  As  to  the  origin 
of  sin  it  is  said,  "by  one  man  sin  entered  into  the 
world,  and  death  by  sin."  "  By  one  mail's  offence  death 
reigned  by  one."  "  By  the  offence  of  one,  judgment  came 
*  Clirisliaii  Doctrine  of  Sin,  vol.  ii.^  p.  107. 


98       THE  NATUEE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

upon  all  men  to  condemnation."  "By  one  man's  disobe- 
dience many  were  made  sinners."  Rom.  v.  12-21.  "In 
Adam  all  die."  1  Cor.  xv.  22.  (3.)  This  theory  is  as 
much  inconsistent  with  all  the  experience  and  phenomena 
of  human  life  as  it  is  with  the  words  of  revelation.  It 
is  impossible  to  see  or  rationally  to  imagine  anything  in 
a  young  child  and  its  early  growth,  excej^t  the  original 
development  of  the  germ  of  a  new  existence.  This  view 
represents  the  unconscious  infant,  with  its  slowly  un- 
folding capacities,  to  be  the  veteran  agent  in  a  high  act 
of  conscious  and  responsible  apostasy,  accomplished  amid 
the  scenes  of  a  former  life. 

(4.)  This  theory  obviously  fails,  even  upon  the 
hypothesis  of  its  truth,  to  account  for  the  enigma  which 
it  was  invented  to  explain.  There  appears  to  the  reason 
of  man  no  propriety,  no  moral  significancy,  in  punishing 
a  moral  agent  for  a  personal  sin  of  wliich  he  is  utterly 
and  necessarily  unconscious.  AVhat  the  Scriptures  and 
our  own  consciences  condemn  us  for  is  our  present  mo- 
rally depraved  state  and  actions.  This  is  the  burdcMi  of 
human  guilt,  and  it  is  impossible  that  we  can  be  ration- 
ally or  rightfully  ])UJiished  on  personal  grounds  for  that 
of  whicli  Ave  are  universally  and  invincibly  personally 
unconscious.* 

It  remains  for  us,  hence,  to  consider  only  those  re- 
maining solutions  of  the  questions  in  hand  which  agree  in 
maintaining  these  two  points :  (a)  that  all  human  souls 
are  ])orn  into  this  world  subject  to  a  forfeiture  justly  in- 
curred l)efore  their  birth  ;  and  (b)  that  this  forfeiture  was 
incurriMl  in  the  guilt  of  the  first  sin  of  Adam. 

All  possible  opinions,  embracing  l)oth  these  elements 
*  Princeton  Kevicw,  January,  1854. 


FEDERAT.    IIEAnSIITP   OF   ADAM.  99 

in  common,  may  be  classed  under  one  of  the  three  fol- 
lowing heads:  (a)  that  all  human  souls  were  created 
simultaneously  with  Adam,  and  in  some  way  consented 
Avith  him  in  his  sin ;  (b)  that  all  human  souls  were 
actually  m  Adam  (physically),  and,  as  guilty  co-agents, 
acted  with  him  in  his  apostasy;  (c)  the  doctrine  of  the 
llcfbrmed  Churches  that  all  human  souls  were  in  Adam 
(representatively)  as  our  Federal  Head,  and  are  therefore 
justly  liable,  with  him,  for  all  of  the  penal  consequences 
of  his  act. 

1.  The  first  view,  which  represents  all  souls  being 
created  with  Adam  and  consenting  with  him,  need  not 
be  considered  here,  since  it  is  held  by  no  one,  and  since 
it  is  obviously  open  to  all  the  objections  alleged  against 
the  pre-existence  theory  of  l^eeclK^r,  while  it  is  destitute 
of  all  its  advantages. 

2.  The  second  view  is,  that  since  Adam  was  the  entire 
gemif^  homo,  as  Avell  as  the  first  individual  of  the  series 
into  which,  by  his  agency,  the  genus  has  been  subse- 
:][uently  explicated,  it  follows  that  every  individual  mem- 
ber of  that  series  was  physically  numerically  one  with 
him,  and  in  the  entirety  of  the  genus  a  guilty  co-agent 
with  him  in  his  act  of  apostasy;  and  hence  that  the 
whole  genus  is  guilty  of  that  sin,  and  hence  each  indi- 
vidual into  which  the  genus  is  severally  propagated  is 
really,  essentially  and  inherently  as  guilty  of  that  sin  as 
Adam  was.  This  is  the  Realistic  view  of  the  nature  of 
our  connection  with  Adam,  recently  advocated  by  Dr. 
Samuel  J.  Baird,  in  his  Elohim  Revealed,  and  by  Dr. 
William  G.  T.  Sliedd,  both  in  his  volume  of  Essays  and 
in  his  "History  of  Christian  Doctrine." 

Slndd   maintains   that  sin   can   be   predicated   only 


100      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

of  the  will,  its  states  and  acts,  and  only  of  sucli  states 
of  tlie  will  as  arc  consequent  upon  its  own  previous  un- 
biiussed  self-determination.  He  docs  not,  however,  limit 
these  responsible  self-determinations  to  single  volitions, 
in  which  the  soul  consciously  chooses  or  refuses  particu- 
lar objects,  which  is  the  superficial  theory  of  "the  self- 
determining  power  of  the  wilP'  held  by  the  Arminians; 
but  he  includes  the  profound  original  self-determination 
of  the  whole  inward  being  to  evil  instead  of  good,  which 
antedates  consciousness,  which  corrupted  our  moral 
nature,  and  which,  by  thus  producing  a  corrupt  nature, 
determined  the  character  of  all  subsequent  responsible 
moral  action.  Will,  in  this  sense,  by  an  act  of  self- 
determination  to  evil  before  consciousness,  is  the  resjDon- 
sible  guilty  author  of  its  own  depravity.  And  this  act 
was  performed  not  by  each  one  of  us  personally,  but  by 
our  common  nature,  the  entire  genus  homo,  which 
existed  as  a  whole  in  Adam.  Adam  he  regards  not  as 
a  mere  receptacle,  containing  millions  of  individuals,  but 
as  the  entire  genus,  as  well  as  the  first  individual  of  the 
series  into  which  it  has  been  explicated.  This  genus 
has  since,  through  Adam's  agency,  become  varied  and 
manifold  through  its  development  by  propagation  into 
a  series  of  individuals.  The  responsibility  and  guilt 
incured  by  his  apostasy,  therefore,  inheres  necessarily  in 
the  entire  nature,  and  is  consequently  propagated  into 
and  made  the  personal  attribute  of  each  individual  of  the 
series  who  have  part  with  the  common  nature. 

Although  I  object,  for  many  serious  reasons,  to  the 
Realistic  philosophy  of  Shedd,  I  believe  it  covers  a 
doctrine  of  original  sin  perfectly  orthodox.  Any  doc- 
trine, to  be   orthodox  in  the  sense  of  the   Kefbrmed 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP   OF   ADAM.  101 

Churches,  mu8t  include  the  two  positions  (a)  that  the 
entire  moral  corruption  of  nature  which  characterizes 
every  human  soul  from  birth  is  a  consequence  of  Adam's 
act  of  apostasy;  and  [b)  that  it  is  a  most  just  penal  con- 
sequence of  that  sin.  This  8hedd  and  all  the  advo- 
cates of  his  doctrine  can  affirm  in  the  most  literal  sense, 
and  with  their  whole  heart.  To  the  question  WHY  this 
great  evil  is  brought  upon  all  new-born  souls,  the  answer 
they  give  is  that  we,  in  virtue  of  our  share  in  the  com- 
mon nature,  were  really  and  numerically  one  with 
Adam,  active  co-agents  Avith  him  in  his  great  act  of 
apostasy,  and  hence  the  depravity  of  nature  in  which 
they  are  born  is  the  just  punishment  of  our  common 
sin.  To  the  question  how  original  sin  is  originated  in  the 
new-born  soul,  the  answer  is  that  it  follows  by  natural 
law  from  the  development  of  the  genus  through  gene- 
ration into  a  series  of  individuals. 

It  has  in  the  last  few  years  been  affirmed  that  this 
Realistic  theory  of  our  numerical  physical  oneness  with 
Adam  is  an  essential  element  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Re- 
formed C'hnrclios  as  to  the  imputation  of  the  guilt  of  his 
first  sin  to  his  descendants.  AVe  believe  this  to  be 
utterly  and  transparently  groundless. 

(1.)  The  Realistic  philosophy  did  not  prevail  in  the 
schools  during  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries; 
and  hence  this  mode  of  thought  was  as  foreign  to  the 
general  mental  habits  of  men  in  that  age  as  it  is  in  this. 
It  hence  certainly  follows  that  if  this  had  been  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Reformers  and  their  great  successors,  they 
would  have  explicitly  stated  and  illustrated  this  point  in 
tluMr  writings,  which  it  is  notorious  the/  have  not  done. 

(2.)  The  Church  from  the  beginning  has  been  divided 


102      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

on  the  question  how  the  individual  souls  of  men  are  pro- 
duced. Now  the  belief  that  souls  as  well  as  bodies  are 
produced  ex  tnidicce  from  their  parents  is  consistent  with 
either  the  Realistic  view  of  our  union  with  Adam  or  the 
federal  and  representative  view.  President  Edwards*  and 
Samuel  Hopkinsf  both  held  the  Traduce  theory,  yet  both 
held  the  doctrine  of  Placseus  or  the  Root  Theory,  which 
excludes  that  idea  of  antenatal  forfeiture  which  it  is  the 
end  and  boast  of  the  Realistic  theory  to  vindicate.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  doctrine  that  each  soul  is  severally 
and  immediately  created  by  God  at  the  instant  of  con- 
ception is  obviously  and  absolutely  inconsistent  with  the 
Realistic  view  of  human  nature.  No  Creationist  can  be  a 
Bealist,  and  no  man  who  doubts  between  Creationism  and 
Traducianism  can  be  a  conscious  and  intelligent  Realist. 
Now,  let  it  be  observed  (a)  that  Augustine,  who  is  so 
often  claimed  as  a  Realist,  never  decided  between  Tra- 
ducianism and  Creationism.  Tertullian  was  the  advocate 
of  Traducianism,  Jerome  of  Creationism.  Augustine 
doubted.  He  wrote  to  Jerome,  "Teach  me  now,  I  beg 
of  you,  what  I  shall  teach ;  teach  me  what  I  shall  hold, 
and  tell  me  if  souls  are  every  day,  one  by  one,  called 
into  being  from  nonenity  in  those  who  are  daily  being 
born.  .  .  I  desire  that  that  opinion  may  be  mine,  but  I 
am  not  yet  certain. "|  It  is  simply  and  absolutely  im- 
possible that  a  man  talking  so  should  be  a  Realist. 
Augustine  often  says  that  the  whole  race,  being  many, 
were  one  in  Adam.  Turretin,  quoting  such  an  expres- 
sion, explains  it  thus:  "A  unity  not  specific  nor  nume- 

*  Original  Sin.  pt.  4,  chap,  ii,  f  Works,  vol.  i.,  p.  289. 

X  Augustinus :  De  Origine  Animae,  seu  Epi.stola  16G,  Ad  Hierony- 
mum,  quoted  by  Shedd. 


FEDERAL   IIEADSIIfP   OF   ADAM.  103 

rical,  but  partly  a  unity  of  origin,  because  all  are  from 
one  blood,  and  partly  unity  of  representation j  because  by 
the  ordinance  of  God  one  represented  the  persons  of  all."* 
(b)  The  doctrine  of  the  Kelbrmed  Cliurches  could  not 
have  been  Realistic,  because  Calvin  and  the  Reformed 
theologians,  almost  to  a  man,  were  Creationists.  This 
Shedd  confesses.!  HagenbachJ  says:  "Bellarmine, 
Calvin,  and  the  theologians  of  the  Reformed  Church  in 
general,  advocated  the  theory  of  Creationism."  He 
quotes  in  illustration  of  this,  Calvin,  Beza,  Peter  Martyr, 
Bucanus,  and  Polanus;  and  he  certainly  might  have 
quoted  many  more,  as  Heidegger,  Turretin,  De  Moor, 
Witsius,  Goodwin,  Owen,  &c.  Turretin  says  with  re- 
spect to  Creationism,  "Priorem  (creationem)  Orthodox! 
fere  dmnes  sequuntur.^'  Realism  is  not  the  doctrine  of 
the  Reformed  Churches.  The  truth  is,  it  was  simply 
not  dreamed  of  by  the  men  who  wrote  our  creeds. 

(3.)  Not  one  of  the  creeds  in  question  uses  any  terms 
or  forms  peculiar  to  Realism.  Calvin,  Beza,  Turretin, 
Heidegger,  &c.,  all  of  whom  explicitly  repudiate  Tradu- 
cianism,  an  essential  element  of  Realism,  unite  in  affirm- 
ing that  we  were  in  Adam  representatively ;  that  we 
really  and  truly  sinned  in  him  because  his  sin  is  our  sin, 
really  and  truly  our  sin  as  to  its  federal  responsibility. 
Really  and  truly,  though  not  physically,  but  morally ; 
not  efficiently  with  respect  to  personal  agency,  but  virtu- 
ally with  respect  to  representative  agency  and  just  legal 
accountability,  his  act  was  our  act,  and  we  truly  sinned 
in  him.  This  is  precisely  what  Turretin  and  Heidegger 
say  in  the  Formula  Consensus  Helvetica,  canons  10-12: 
*'God  entered  into  the  Covenant  of  Works  not  only 

*  Locus  9,  Qucestio  9.     f  Vol.  ii.,  pp.  24,  25.     %  Vol.  ii.,  p.  264. 


104      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

with  Adam  for  liiniself,  but  also  in  him,  as  the  head  and 
root,  with  the  whole  human  lace/^  "There  appears  no 
way  in  which  hereditary  corruption  could  fall  as  a 
spiritual  death  upon  the  whole  human  race  by  the  just 
judgment  of  God  unless  some  sin  of  that  race  preceded, 
incurring  the  penalty  of  that  death.  For  God,  the 
supremely  just  Judge  of  all  the  earth,  punishes  none  but 
the  guilty.'^  "  For  a  double  reason,  therefore,  first  on 
account  of  the  transgression  and  disobedience  which  he 
committed  in  the  loins  of  Adam ;  and  secondly,  on 
account  of  the  consequent  hereditary  corruption,"  &c. 
Yet  it  is  certain  that  these  men  were  not  Realists.  In  their 
personal  writings  they  specifically  explain  their  meaning 
to  be  that  we  were  in  Adam  representatively.  Our  Con- 
fession and  Catechism  use  the  same  language  in  the  same 
sense.  "  The  first  covenant  made  with  man  was  a 
Covenant  of  AYorks,  wherein  life  was  promised  to  Adam, 
and  in  him  to  his  posterity,  upon  condition  of  perfect  and 
personal  obedience,"  (the  Realists  do  not  claim  that  we 
were  in  Adam  personally).*  "They  being  the  root  of 
all  mankind,  the  guilt  of  this  sin  was  imputed,  and  the 
same  death  in  sin  and  corrupted  nature  conveyed  to 
their  posterity,  descending  from  them  by  ordinary  gene- 
ration."f  "  The  COVENANT  being  made  with  Adam  as 
a  public  person,  (here  there  is  a  distinct  definition  of  the 
representative  theory  of  Adam's  oneness  with  the  race, 
and  not  directly  nor  by  implication  a  hint  of  his  being 
the  genus  homo,  or  of  our  generic  nature  acting  as  an 
impersonal  co-agent  with  him  in  his  apostasy,)  not  only 
for  himself  but  for  his  posterity,  all  mankind  descending 

*  Coi  f.  Faith,  ch.  vii.,  ^  2.  f  Ch.  vi.,  ^  3. 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP   OF   ADAM.  105 

from  him  by  ordinary  generation  sinned  in  Jihii,  and  fell 
with  him  in  that  first  transgression." 

The  objections  to  this  lleaHstic-  theory  are  many  and 
very  serions.  (1.)  No  h)gieal  dividing  line  can  ever  be 
drawn  between  Realism  and  Pantheism.  For  (a)  if  all 
men,  of  all  varieties,  all  generations  and  local  habitations, 
are  numerically  one  substance,  why  may  not  a  higher 
genus  unite  all  animals  or  all  entities  in  one  numerical 
sul)stance,  one  in  essence,  multitudinous  in  its  transient 
modes.  And  (6)  if  will  be  not  personal,  if  many  thou- 
sand years  before  we  existed  as  persons  we  were  guilty 
co-agents  in  a  crime  in  virtue  of  the  ancient  existence 
of  the  total  genus  of  which  we  are  personal  modes,  what 
evidence  have  we  left  that  the  personal  mode  we  call 
ourselves  may  not  relapse  into  the  essence  from  which  it 
sprang,  and  that  all  things  phenomenal  may  not  bo 
j)assing  moments  in  succesive  modifications  (personal  or 
otherwise)  of  one  underlying  substance  ? 

(2.)  This  theory  has  no  shadow  of  ground  in  the 
Scriptures.  It  is  purely  a  creation  of  human  specula- 
tion in  the  effort  to  reconcile,  speculatively,  the  facts  of 
human  experience  with  our  abstract  notions  of  what 
justice  requires  on  the  part  of  God.  It  therefore,  even 
if  legitimate  as  a  philosophical  theory,  can  never  be  ad- 
mitted for  one  moment  to  the  place  of  a  doctrine. 

(3.)  But  even  as  an  attemj^ted  reconciliation  between 
the  fact  of  innate  sin  and  our  ideas  of  divine  justice,  it 
breaks  down  utterly.  All  the  ideas  we  have  or  possibly 
can  have  concerning  sin,  moral  obligation,  guilt,  justice 
or  the  like,  are  derived  from  our  own  moral  sense  and. 
from  Scripture.  But  the  moral  sense  of  every  man  and 
Scripture  teach   us   nothing  about  moral  agency  or  re- 


106      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Bponsibility  which  is  not  personal.  An  impersonal  will, 
an  impersonal  obligation,  an  impersonal  sin,  are  all  as 
utterly  inconceivable  as  a  square  circle  or  a  red  sound. 
No  man's  conscience  is  bound,  however  much  his  mind 
may  be  confused  by  such  words.  The  idea  of  a  generic 
nature,  acting  as  a  guilty  co-agent  with  a  person  in  a 
crime,  even  if  it  w^ere  true,  throws  no  light  upon  the 
justice  of  subjecting  persons  not  then  existing  to  a 
terrible  personal  penalty. 

(4.)  Hence  this  figment  of  the  numerical  union  of 
every  person  of  the  race  in  Adam  practically  collapses 
into  the  poor  Root  theory  of  Placieus  and  the  New  Eng- 
land divines,  w^hich  denies  that  antenatal  forfeiture  this 
licali.-tic  theory  was  excogitated  to  defend,  and  maintains 
that  the  guilt  of  his  sin  is  not  ours,  and  that  the  de- 
pravity of  his  nature,  consequent  upon  his  sin,  is  made 
ours  by  an  ordinary  physiological  law  of  generation. 
The  effort  to  prove  man  a  sinner  on  this  scheme  ends  by 
reducing  sin  to  the  category  of  transmissible  physiologi- 
cal accidents,  such  as  red  hair  or  a  prognathous  skull. 

(5.)  If  the  entire  genus  was  in  Adam,  the  entire  post- 
diluvian race  was,  in  the  same  sense,  in  Noah.  If  we 
were  guilty  co-agents  in  the  first  sin  of  the  one,  because 
of  numerical  and  physical  identity,  we  must  be,  for  the 
same  reason  and  to  the  same  extent,  guilty  of  every  one 
of  the  sins  of  Noah.  And  every  existing  jjerson  must 
literally,  and  by  direct  consequence  of  identity  of  nature, 
be  a.s  guilty  of  all  the  sins  of  all  his  ancestors  as  he  is 
of  his  own  personal  transgressions. 

(6.)  If  the  guilt  as  well  as  the  moral  corruption  of 
the  generic  nature  is  inherent  in  that  nature,  and  passes 
Into  every  individual  who  shares  in  it,  the  awful  conse- 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP   OF   ADAM.  107 

quence  would  follow  that  the  guilt  for  which  the  human 
race  is  cursed  attaches  as  much  to  the  human  soul  and 
body  of  the  Lord  Jesus  as  to  any  other.  Corruption  of 
nature  may  be  removed  by  divine  power,  but  guilt  never, 
otherwise  there  would  have  been  no  need  for  an  atone- 
ment, for  the  absolute  necessity  of  which  Shedd  argues 
so  earnestly  and  so  admirably. 

(7.)  In  Romans  v.  12-21,  Paul  asserts  that  the  princi- 
ple upon  which  we  share  in  the  righteousness  of  Christ 
is  identical  with  that  upon  which  we  share  in  the  guilt 
of  Adam.  If,  therefore,  we  share  in  the  guilt  of  Adam, 
because  we  were  as  to  essence  numerically  one  with  him, 
and  hence,  in  the  totality  of  the  generic  nature,  guilty 
co-agents  with  him  in  the  act  of  apostasy,  it  necessarily 
follows  that  we  share  in  the  righteousness  of  Christ,  be- 
cause the  eternal  Word  took  into  personal  union  with 
himself  the  total  genus  electorum;  and  because,  hence, 
we  were  numerically  one  with  him  on  the  cross,  and 
meritorious  co-agents  with  him  in  his  obedience  and  ex- 
piatory death.  But  the  Scriptures  teach  us  of  the 
sovereign  election  oi persons  to  eternal  life.  There  is  no 
intimation  of  the  election  of  a  certain  slice  of  the  genus 
humanuni.  But  if  the  genus  be  one  spiritual  substance, 
huw  can  it  be  divided?  After  its  division,  does  it  cease 
to  be  one?  It  is  too  horrible  to  think  of,  that  he  should 
be  in  union  with  the  entire  genus  including  the  lost.  If 
generation  does  not  separate  the  genus  into  parts,  then 
Christ  must  be  in  union  with  the  whole  genus.  But  if 
generation  does  sei)arate  the  genus  into  parts,  then  it  fol- 
lows (a)  that  Christ's  human  soul  and  body  are  only 
individual  parts  of  the  genus,  and  Christ,  therefore,  can 
sustain  no  generic  relation  to  us;  (6)  that  the  eletjt  who 


108      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

were  boru  before  Christ  were  already  parts  separated 
from  the  genus,  and  therefore  his  perfect  humanity  could 
not  be  propagated  through  the  oneness  of  the  genus  to 
them;  (c)  that  all  infants,  being  born  into  the  world 
corrupt,  and  being  regenerated  subsequently  to  their 
separation  from  the  common  nature,  cannot  receive,  by 
any  conceivable  form  of  propagation  within  the  genus 
or  from  the  genus  from  which  they  are  separated,  tliat 
jierfect  humanity  which,  as  second  Adam,  he  communi- 
cates to  his  seed. 

President  Edwards  holds  a  position  on  this  subject 
which  it  is  difficult  to  classify,  because  it  is  inconsistent 
witli  itself.  His  doctrine  of  identity,  which,  in  his  work 
on  Original  Sin,*  he  applies  to  our  relation  to  Adam, 
allies  him,  as  far  as  the  question  of  antenatal  forfeiture 
was  concerned,  with  the  high  Realistic  view  just  ex- 
amined. According  to  him,  there  is  no  real  causal  con- 
nection between  the  being,  mode  or  action  of  any  created 
thing  in  any  one  moment  with  its  being  or  condition 
the  ncixt  moment.  Everything  which  exists  is  in 
every  successive  moment  the  result  of  the  perpetual 
efflux  of  the  vis  creatrix  of  God.  There  is  no  real 
identity,  tliereforc,  no  real  connection  of  any  kind,  be- 
tween the  man  and  his  state  and  acts  any  one  moment 
of  liis  life  and  the  same  man  any  other  moment.  It  is 
a  direct  and  purely  sovereign  act  of  God  which  consti- 
tutes the  sameness  that  we  call  identity  between  created 
moments  of  being  in  themselves  really  different.  It  is 
God's  bare  will  that  makes  any  one  of  us  identical  with, 
and  therefore  responsible  for,  his  youthful  self.  By  a 
mere  volition,  he  might  make  the  age  of  one  man  ideu- 
^  Tart  4,  thaj).  iii. 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP   OF   ADAM.  109 

tical  with,  and  responsible  for,  the  youth  of  another.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  he  has  })lcasc(l  to  make  each  one  of  us 
identical  with  (literally),  and  responsible  for,  the  proba- 
tionary life  of  Adam.  Plence  we  are  literally,  and  to 
the  same  de«^ree,  and  on  the  same  (ground,  and  through 
the  same  method,  identical  with  Adam  and  responsible 
for  his  sin,  as  he  was  himself,  and  as  we  are  with  respect 
to  our  own  acts  of  disobedience.  This  is  the  doctrine  of 
the  antecedent  and  immediate  imputation  of  Adam's  sin 
to  his  posterity  put  upon  the  highest  ground  possible. 
They  are  punished  for  it  for  the  precise  reason  that  he 
is  punished  for  it — because  they  did  it  as  much  as  they 
ever  do  anything,  and  because  they  were  he  as  much  as 
they  ever  are  anything. 

On  the  other  hand,  Edwards  inconsistently  teaches, 
and  evidently  makes  his  own  thoroughly  the  doctrine 
of  Placaeus  and  Stapfer,  that  we  are  Condemned  with 
Adam  only  mediately  through,  and  in  consequence  of, 
our  having,  by  natural  generation,  corrupt  natures  like 
his.  The  corrupt  nature  is  a  natural  result  of  his  cor- 
ruption, and  the  condemnation  is  consequent  to  the  cor- 
ruption. The  corruption  is  not  regarded  as  itself  a 
punishment,  and  hence,  on  this  side  of  his  doctrine, 
Edwards  does  not  teach  the  existence  of  any  judicial 
ground  of  forfeiture  previous  to  and  conditioning  the 
birth  of  mankind. 

Having  thus,  by  a  process  of  exhaustion,  shown  that 
all  of  the  prominent  alternatives  of  the  orthodox  doc- 
trine on  this  subject  are  alike  unsatisfactory  and  un- 
authenticated,  we  have  raised  a  powerful  presumption  in 
its  favour,  in  spite  of  the  large  residuum  of  difficulty 

which   confessedly  rcMuains  in   the  (picstion   after  all   is 
10 


110      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

said.  The  doctrine  of  the  Reformed  Church  is  that 
every  human  soul  is  born  into  the  world  under  forfeiture 
resulting  from  our  just  legal  responsibility  for  Adam^a 
action  as  our  federal  head  and  representative.  The 
several  elements  involved  in  this  doctrine  are  as  follows. 

1.  By  a  sovereign  creative  act  Adam  was  constituted 
the  natural  head  and  root  of  all  mankind. 

2.  According  to  a  principle  observed  in  the  case  of 
the  angels,  and  we  believe  universal,  God  created  Adam 
with,  a  nature  positively  holy  and  inclined  to  good,  yet 
fallible,  and  made  his  future  character  and  destiny  to 
depend  upon  his  obedience  for  a  definite  period,  called  a 
probation,  during  which  he  remained  in  a  condition  of 
instable  moral  equilibrium.  The  alternatives  placed 
before  him  were,  that  if  he  obeyed  for  the  term  ap- 
pointed he  should  be  confirmed  in  moral  excellence  and 
rendered  infallible  and  blessed  for  ever;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  if  he  disobeyed,  his  trial  should  be,  ipso  fado, 
closed,  and  he  himself  morally  degraded  in  character  and 
made  an  heir  of  misery  for  ever.  This  most  natural  and 
reasonable  divine  constitution  is  commonly  called  the 
Covenant  of  Works  or  the  Covenant  of  Life. 

3.  In  making  this  Covenant  with  Adam,  and  assigning 
him  a  favourable  state  and  definite  period  of  probation, 
God,  acting  as  the  guardian  of  the  whole  human  race, 
and  for  their  benefit,  provided  for  all  Adam's  descend- 
ants the  best  conceivable  conditions  of  moral  probation 
for  a  race  of  moral  agents  propagated  through  an  animal 
nature  such  as  mankind,  by  ap})ointing  Adam  their 
federal  head  and  representative,  and  making  their  per- 
manent character  and  destiny  to  depend  upon  his  con- 
duct during  his  period  of  personal  trial.     The  ground  in 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP  OF  ADAM.  Ill 

reason  and  riglit  of  this  divine  appointment  of  Adam  as 
the  federal  head  and  representative  of  his  descendants,  as 
far  as  made  known  to  ns,  is  (a)  the  indefeasible  right  of 
God. sovereignly  to  order  the  prol)ation  of  the  subjects  of 
his  moral  government  according  to  the  pleasure  of  his 
infinitely  wise,  righteous,  and  benevolent  will,  (b)  The 
evident  fait  that  in  the  arrangement  in  question,  God  as 
the  faithful  Guardian  of  his  creatures,  has  ordered  their 
probation  under  the  very  best  conditions — the  holy  and 
adult  Adam  in  the  virgin  earth  being  in  a  condition  for 
passing  the  trials  of  a  moral  probation  far  more  favour- 
able than  any  single  infant  or  any  number  of  infants 
developing  into  childhood  could  ever  be.  (c)  Adam's 
natural  relation  to  his  descendants  made  him  the  proper 
person  to  represent  them.  Without  going  the  length  of 
Realism,  it  ap2:>ears  probable  that  the  divinely  ordained 
representative  and  substitutionary  constitution,  alike  of 
the  probation  in  Adam  and  the  redemption  in  Christ,  is 
conditioned  upon  the  generic  unity  of  men  as  consti- 
tuting a  race  propagated  by  generation,  (d)  The  head- 
ship of  the  fi7'st  Adam  is  an  inseparable  part  of  tiiat 
infinitely  glorious  system  which  culminates  in  the  head- 
ship of  the  second  Adam. 

4.  It  is  involved  in  this  covenant  headship  that  all 
Adam's  descendants  were  federally  embraced  in  him  and 
represented  by  him,  so  that  in  case  either  of  obedience 
or  of  disobedience  the  corresponding  reward  or  penalty  is 
by  the  conditions  of  the  covenant  as  justly  and  as  really 
theirs  as  it  is  his. 

5.  It  plainly  follows  that  Adam's  first  sin,  which,  ipso 
faetoj  closed  his  probation  and  theirs,  although  it  be  as 
respects  us  a  peccatum   alienum  when   it   is   regarded 


112      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

simply  as  an  action,  is,  notwithstanding,  when  considered 
in  respect  to  its  guilt  or  legal  responsibility  or  obliga- 
tion to  punishment,  as  justl}'  and  as  really  ours  as  it  is 
his,  since  by  the  law  of  the  covenant  he  acted  as.  our 
agent,  and  we  are  bound  by  his  action.  In  one  sense  the 
sin  is  very  plainly  his,  and  not  ours.  It  is  ours  only  as 
the  covenant  makes  our  moral  standing  to  dcDend  upon 
his  action.  The  personal  character  of  one  man  never  can 
be  transferred  to  another.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
plain  one  man  may  be,  under  certain  conditions,  justly 
and  morally  responsible  for  the  action  of  anotlier  man. 
Now,  it  is  precisely  the  reatuSj  the  legal  responsibility, 
the  federal  obligation  to  punishment  incurred  by  Adam's 
sin,  that  is  justly  charged  to  each  of  his  descendants.  In 
this  sense  only  is  his  sin  their  sin.  And  in  this  sense  it 
is  just  as  much  and  as  really  theirs  as  his. 

6.  Consequently  God,  by  a  strictly  judicial,  not  sove- 
reign, act,  justly  impvies  Adam's  apostatizing  act  to  us : 
that  is,  God  simply  acts  upon  the  facts  of  the  case,  treat- 
ing us  as  legally  responsible  for  Adam's  sin,  and  justly 
obnoxious  to  its  penalty.  This  imputation  proceeds 
upon  no  fiction,  makes  no  confusion  between  Adam's 
personality  and  our  personalities,  between  Adam's  agency 
and  our  agency,  presumes  no  absurd  transfer  of  Adam's 
personal  subjective  moral  character  to  us,  nor  confusion 
of  his  subjective  states  with  ours ;  but  it  simply  (a)  re- 
cognizes our  legal  oneness  with  Adam,  and  consequent 
common  responsibility  with  him  for  the  guilt  of  his  pub- 
lic sin ;  (b)  consequently  charges  the  guilt  of  his  sin  to 
our  account ;  and  (c)  most  righteously  treats  us  according 
to  the  demerit  of  that  sin. 

When  we  say  that  Adam's  sin  wiis  imputed  to  us,  the 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP   OF   ADAM.  113 

Reformed  Churches  have  always  understood  by  it  that 
the  f/uilt  or  Ictjal  obligation  to  suffer  the  penalty  of  Adam's 
sin  is  judicially  charged  to  our  account  as  the  legal 
ground  of  penal  treatment.  That  this  is  the  true  sense 
of  the  scriptural  phrase  to  impide  sin  will  be  found  suf- 
ficiently proved  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of  this  book. 

7.  Hence  we  are  all  born  into  the  world  under  an 
antecederi  just  forfeiture  of  all  natural  rights,  and  right- 
eously subject  to  all  the  penal  consequences  of  apostasy 
under  the  terms  of  the  Covenant  of  Works ;  that  is,  to 
the  immediate  penal  withdrawal  of  that  communion  and 
support  of  the  Spirit  of  God  w^hich  is  the  condition  of 
si)i ritual  life  and  blessedness.  Connate  spiritual  death, 
therefore,  befals  us  as  the  just  punishment  of  the  public 
sin  of  Adam,  the  penal  responsibility  for  which  is  ours 
as  truly  as  it  is  his.  This  imputation  of  the  guilt  of 
Adam's  sin  to  us,  or  this  practical  regarding  and  treating 
us  as  responsible  for  it,  is  (a)  judicial,  not  sovereign,  and 
(6)  immediate  and  antecedent  to  the  corruption  of  our 
nature,  and  to  personal  sinful  actions,  not  mediately 
through  them  nor  consequent  upon  them.  It  is  to  be 
remembered,  however,  that  the  antenatal  forfeiture,  in- 
volving the  privation  of  those  spiritual  influences  upon 
which  spiritual  and  physical  life  depends,  is  the  only 
penalty  which  comes  upon  us,  consequent  to  Adam's  sin, 
immediately  and  antecedently  to  our  own  action.  Other 
temporal  and  eternal  punishments  are  doubtless  neces- 
sary consequents  (unless  God  mercifully  intervenes;  of 
that  withdrawment  of  God's  Spirit  which  is  the  imme- 
diate penalty  of  Adam's  sin;  nevertheless,  the  Scriptures 
always  represent  these  as  being  properly  and  immediately 
the  punishment  of  our  own  personal  sins  of  disposition 
10* 


114      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

and  action.  Tin's  matter  is  cleai'ly  and  fully  stated,  in 
the  sense  I  have  above  given,  by  Turretin.*  The  doc- 
trine of  the  Reformed  Churches  he  sums  up  in  the  follow- 
ing unmistakable  words:  "The  question  returns  to  these 
terms,  whether  the  sin  of  Adam,  not  any  one,  but  the 
first  sin  (apostatizing  act),  not  his  sinful  habit  (that  is, 
subjective  state),  but  his  act,  is  imputed  to  all  his  pos- 
terity proceeding  from  him  by  ordinary  generation,  by 
an  imputation  not  mediate  and  consequent,  but  immedi- 
ate and  antecedent  ?  They  with  whom  we  are  now  hold- 
ing controversy  either  deny  imputation  absolutely  or  only 
admit  a  mediate  imputation ;  we,  on  the  other  hand,  with 
the  orthodox,  affirm  alike  that  an  imputation  is  to  be 
conceded,  and  that  it  is  immediate  and  antecedent." 

If,  then,  the  question  be  asked  why?  on  what  basis 
of  justice  does  God  bring  new-born  creatures  into  exis- 
tence under  such  penal  conditions  that  total  corruption 
of  nature,  the  sum  and  root  of  all  other  evils  in  every 
case  accrues?  the  answer  is,  that  their  natural  rights  were 
forfeited  by  the  public  act  of  their  federal  representative 
before  they  were  born,  and  that  they  are  in  fact  as  truly, 
penally  responsible  for  his  sin  as  he  was  himself. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  question  be  asked  how  in- 
lierent  moral  corruption  originates  in  a  newly-created 
soul  and  yet  the  Creator  of  the  soul  be  not  the  author 
of  the  sin,  it  must  be  confessed,  in  reply,  that  the  Scrip- 
tures give  us  no  direct  solution,  and  that  various  answers 
have  been  given  by  men  equally  orthodox. 

1.  Some  have  maintnined  that,  according  to  the  great 
physiological  law  that  like  begets  like,  the  depraved  na- 
ture of  Adam  has  been  propagated  to  his  descendants 
*  Locus  9j  (^uapstio  9, 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP   OF   ADAM.  115 

tlirougli  their  bodies,  and  that  each  soul  newly  created 
pure  is  morally  corrupted  the  instant  it  is  brou^rht  into 
union  with  its  body,  in  which  the  vitiating  virus  re- 
sides. 

The  fatal  objection  to  this  view  is  that  it  is  inconsist- 
ent with  the  essential  nature  of  sin.  Sin  is  a  quality 
or  accident  neither  of  elementary  matter  nor  of  material 
organization.  It  can  exist  only  as  a  moral  quality  of 
a  rational  spirit.  A  disordered  condition  of  body  may, 
as  we  all  experience,  occasion  in  an  already  apostate  soul 
inordinate  animal  passions,  but  it  could  never  cause  in  a 
holy  soul  aversion  from  God,  pride,  malice  and  other 
purely  spiritual  sins. 

2.  Another  and  by  far  more  prevalent  form  of  the 
ex  traduce  theory  is  that  the  souls,  as  Avell  as  the  bodies, 
of  children  'are  propagated  from  their  parents,  and  thai 
thus  the  depraved  nature  of  Adam  has,  by  a  natural  law^ 
been  reproduced  in  his  offspring  in  successive  genera- 
tions. Jerome  held  to  the  immediate  creation  of  each 
soul  at  the  time  of  conception.  Tertullian  held  to  this 
doctrine  of  the  generation  of  souls.  'Augustine  was  un- 
willing to  decide  the  question  either  way.  The  Lu- 
therans have  generally  held  the  doctrine  of  traduction, 
and  the  Reformed  almost  universally  have  maintained 
creationism. 

3.  The  great  majority  of  the  Reformed  theologians, 
since  they  maintain  that  each  soul  is  a  new  and  imme- 
diate product  of  creation,  have  consequently  held  [a)  that 
the  only  penalty  inflicted  by  God  on  the  new-created 
soul,  as  the  immediate  punishment  of  Adam's  public  sin, 
is  privative,  the  penal  withholding  of  those  spiritual 
Influences  upon  \i  hich  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  of  the 


116      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

creature  depends,  (b.)  That  (as  has  been  always  held 
from  Augustine  to  Edwards)  sin  in  its  origin*  is  not  a 
positive  entity  concreated  in  the  soul,  but  a  privative  vice, 
resulting  necessarily  from  the  creation  of  the  soul  into  a 
condition  of  justly  incurred  condemnation  and  alienation 
from  God.  Their  common  declaration  was  that  innate 
corruption  of  nature  is  propagated  neque  per  corj/us, 
neque  per  animamjSed  per  culpam — not  through  the  gene- 
ration, either  of  the  body  or  of  tlie  mind,  but  as  a 
righteous  punishment  for  crime.  Ursinus,  in  his  Expli- 
cation of  the  Heidelberg  Catechism,  of  which  he  was 
the  principal  author,  says,  '^  Original  sin  is  communi- 
cated, neither  through  the  body,  nor  through  the  soul,  but 
tlirough  the  guilt  of  parents,  on  account  of  which  God, 
while  he  creates  souls,  at  the  same  time  deprives  them 
of  that  original  righteousness  and  of  those  gifts  which  he 
had  conferred  upon  the  parents  upon  this  condition,  that 
tliey  sliould  confer  them  or  forfeit  them  for  their  pos- 
terity just  as  they  retained  or  lost  them  for  themselves." 
The  Keformed  doctrine  therefore  is,  that  corruption  of 
nature  is  the  penal  consequent  of  Adam's  sin,  and  that 
it  is  jn-opagated,  not  on  the  physiological  principles  upon 
whicli  it  is  the  glory  of  the  disciples  of  Placa^us  and  of 
the  New  England  Theology  to  rely,  but  by  the  penal 
dejirivation  of  the  new-born  soul  of  those  influences  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  upon  which  its  moral  life  depends. 

We  believe  that  the  doctrine  thus  stated  is  substan- 
1  iated  by  the  following  considerations. 

1.  This  doctrine  of  the  Federal  Represenlation  of 
Adam,  instead  of  adding  anything  either  of  mystery  or 
of  apparent  severity  to  the  undeniable  facts  of  God's 
*  Edwards'  Original  Sin,  part  4,  chap.  ii. 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP  OF   ADAM.  117 

providential  dealing  ^vitll  tlie  Imman  race,  Is,  as  I  have 
shown  by  comparison,  more  rational  tlian  nny  other  ex- 
planation of  these  facts  ever  suggested  by  the  ingenuity 
of  man.  On  the  liypothesis  tljat  a  race  of  moral  agents, 
united  to  an  animal  organization  and  propagated  through 
it  in  successive  generations,  as  man  is,  was  to  be  created, 
the  conceivable  alternatives  are — either  (a)  that  a  proba- 
tionary trial,  such  as  it  appears  God  imposes  upon  all 
moral  agents  as  the  condition  of  their  being  confirmed 
in  indefeasible  holiness  and  blessedness,  should,  in  their 
case,  be  absolutely  forborne,  and  they  be  endowed  with 
the  highest  graces  without  passing  through  the  condi- 
tions required  of  all  other  holy  creatures;  or  (/;)  that 
each  infant  should  stand  his  own  trial  severally  as  he 
struggles  through  twilight  development  of  his  corporeal 
and  mentab  nature ;  or  (c)  the  probation  of  the  entire 
race  must  be  held  in  the  j^erson  of  its  holy  adult  pro- 
genitor, in  the  fresh  vigour  of  his  perfect  manhood,  sur- 
rounded with  the  purity  of  the  new-born  earth.  Of  the 
propriety  of  the  first  alternative  we  are  utterly  unable 
to  judge.  The  execution  of  the  second  alternative 
would  have  certainly  involved  the  whole  race  in  ruin. 
It  is  certain,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  third  alterna- 
tive was  the  one  actually  chosen  by  God  as  the  Infin- 
itely wise  and  benevolent,  as  well  as  righteous.  Guar- 
dian of  the  interests  of  all  rational  spirits  created 
in  his  likeness,  for  the  benefit  of  the  race  in  this  case 
concerned.  If  Adam  had  succeeded,  and  we  had  re- 
ceived the  excellent  graces  conditioned  on  that  success, 
no  human  being  would  have  ever  doubted  the  surpass- 
ing wisdom  and  justice  of  the  entire  constitution. 

2.   The    biblical    record    unquestionably    represents 


118      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Adam  as  sustaining  a  j^ublic  and  representative  position. 
(a.)  He  was  named  Adam,  that  is,  man,  the  man,  the 
gcncrie  man.  {b.)  Everything  that  was  commanded,  or 
threatened,  or  promised  him  related  to  his  descendants 
as  much  as  to  him  personally.  Thus  "obedience,"  "a 
cursed  earth,"  "liability  to  death,"  "painful  child-bear- 
ing," concern  us  and  our  families  as  much  as  they  con- 
cerned him.  The  Protevangelion,  or  promise  of  redemp- 
tion through  the  Seed  of  the  woman,  which  was  given 
to  our  first  parents  in  immediate  connection  with  their 
fall,  of  course  is  a  gospel  for  us  as  well  as  for  the  original 
parties. 

3.  It  is  an  undeniable  matter  of  fact  that  the  very 
penalty  which  God  denounced  upon  Adam  has  in  all 
its  particulars  come  upon  every  one  of  his  descendants, 
from  tlieir  birth  upward.  Death,  physical  and  spiritual, 
was  the  penalty  denounced  and  executed  on  Adam  the 
very  day  he  transgressed ;  and  in  the  same  sense  it  has 
been  executed  uj^on  each  of  his  descendants  at  birth. 
If  these  were  penal  inflictions  in  the  case  of  Adam,  they 
must  be  penal  inflictions  in  the  case  of  each  one  of  his 
cliildren. 

4.  The  truth  we  contend  for  is  expressly  taught  in 
Scripture,  Rom.  v.  12-21.  In  this  passage,  so  plain  in 
spite  of  all  that  men  have  done  to  confuse  it,  Paul  says 
that  death,  which  is  the  penalty  of  the  law,  came  upon 
all  men  through  the  sin  of  one  man.  This  great  evil 
could  not  be  inflicted  as  a  penalty  for  violations  of  the 
law  of  Moses,  because  it  had  been  inflicted  for  ages 
before  the  law  of  Moses  was  given.  It  could  not  be 
inflicted  upon  individuals  as  a  penalty  incurred  by 
their  personal  sins,  because  it  is  inflicted  upon  infants, 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP  OF   ADAM.  119 

who  have  never  been  guilty  of  personal  transgression. 
It  follows,  so  Paul  argues,  that  by  one  man's  offence 
death  hath  reigned,  and  that  by  the  oHenee  of  one  man 
judgment  hath  come  upon  all  men  to  condemnation. 
Til  us  Paul  in  this  passage  affirms  in  precise  terms  the 
full  doctrine  of  the  Reformed  Churches,  to  wit:  (a)  that 
the  law  of  death,  spiritual  and  physical,  under  which  we 
are  born,  is  a  consequent  of  Adam's  public  disobedience, 
and  (6)  that  it  is  a  ^^ judgment j^  a  ^^  condemnation^^ — that 
is,  a  penal  consequent  of  Adam's  sin — see  also  1  Cor. 
XV.  21,  22. 

5.  The  apostle  proves  in  the  above  passage  that  there 
is  a  precise  parallelism  between  the  way  in  which  our 
"  condemnation"  follows  from  the  disobedience  of  Adam, 
and  in  which  our  ^'justification  "  or  '^  being  made  righte- 
ous" follows  from  the  obedience  of  Christ.  Rom.  v.  18. 
"Therefore,  as  by  the  offence  of  one  judgment  came 
upon  all  men  to  condemnation ;  even  so  by  the  righte- 
ousness of  one  the  free  gift  came  upon  all  men  unto 
justification  of  life."  If  it  be,  then,  the  great  central 
principle  of  the  gospel  that  the  merit  or  rew^ardableness 
of  Christ's  obedience,  graciously  imputed  or  set  to  the 
account  of  the  believer,  is  the  legal  ground  of  his  justi- 
fication, it  follows  of  necessary  consequence,  if  the 
apostle's  assertion  of  the  parallelism  of  the  two  is  correct, 
that  the  demerit  or  rightful  obligation  to  punishment 
inherent  in  Adam's  sin,  imputed  or  charged  to  the 
account  of  each  of  his  natural  descendants,  is  the  legal 
ground  of  their  antenatal  forfeiture.  These  two  com- 
plementary doctrines,  thus  bound  together  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, stand  or  fall  together.  It  is  an  historical  fact  that 
whenever  the  one  has  been  denied  or  radically  miscon- 


120      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

ceived,  the  other  has  soon  fallen  with  it,  and  thus  the 
Avliole  gosi^el  been  subverted. 

6.  The  federal  or  representative  principle  upon  which 
this  doctrine  is  grounded  is  conformed  to  the  entire 
analogy  of  all  God's  dispensations  with  mankind.  Wit- 
ness God's  covenants  with  Adam,  Noah,  Abraham,  and 
David.  Witness  the  constitutions  of  both  the  Jewish 
and  Christian  Churches,  in  which  the  rights  of  infants 
are  predetermined  by  the  status  of  their  parents.  Hugh 
Miller  draws  the  following  deduction  from  a  scientific 
review  of  the  world  and  of  the  history  of  the  various 
races  and  nations  of  its  human  inhabitants.  "  It  is  a 
fact,  broad  and  palpable  as  the  economy  of  nature,  that 
parents  do  occupy  a  federal  position,  and  that  the  lapsed 
progenitors,  when  cut  off  from  civilization  and  all  exter- 
nal interference  of  a  missionary  character,  become  the 
founders  of  a  lapsed  race.  The  iniquities  of  the  parents 
are  visited  upon  their  children.  In  all  such  instances  it 
is  man  left  to  the  freedom  of  his  own  will  that  is  the 
deteriorator  of  man.  The  doctrine  of  the  fall,  in  its 
purely  theologic  aspects,  is  a  doctrine  that  must  be 
apprehended  by  faith  ;  but  it  is  at  least  something  to 
find  that  the  analogies  of  science,  instead  of  running 
counter  to  it,  run  in  precisely  the  same  line.  It  is  one 
of  the  inevitable  consequences  of  that  nature  of  man 
which  the  Creator  ^  bound  fast  in  fate,'  while  he  left  free 
his  will,  that  the  free-will  of  the  parent  should  become 
the  destiny  of  the  child."* 

7.  It  is  a  very  strong  presumption  in  favour  of  the 
truth  of  this  doctrine  in  the  form  in  which  I  have 
stated  it  above,  that  beyond  question  it  is  the  common 

*  IVstiiiKiiiv  of  the  Kucks. 


FEDERAL   HEADSHIP   OF   ADAM.  121 

doctrine  of  the  Romish,  Lutheran,  and  Reformed 
Churches.  It  is  accurately  stated  in  the  writings  of 
Bcllarmine  and  Pascal.  As  to  the  Reformed  Church, 
the  quotations  I  have  given  above,  from  the  Formula 
Consensus  Helvetica,  from  the  Westminster  Confession 
and  Catechism,  and  from  Ursinus  and  Turretin,  must 
suffice,  in  connection  with  the  following  from  Theodore 
Beza,  the  great  pupil  and  friend  and  successor  of  John 
Calvin.  Writing  on  Rom.  v.  12,  he  says  :  ^'  Two  things 
should  be  considered  in  original  sin,  namely,  guilt  and 
corruption ;  which,  although  they  cannot  be  separated,  yet 
ought  to  be  distinguished  accurately.  For  as  Adam  by 
the  commission  of  sin  first  was  made  guilty  of  the  wrath 
of  God,  then,  as  being  guilty,  he  underwent  as  the  pun- 
ishment of  sin  the  corruption  of  soul  and  body ;  so  also 
he  transmitted  to  posterity  a  nature  in  the  first  place 
guilty,  next  corrupted.  Concerning  the  propagation  of 
guilt,  the  apostle  is  properly  teaching  in  this  passage,  in 
contrast  with  which  the  imputation  of  the  obedience  of 
Christ  is  set  forth.  Hence  it  follows  that  that  guilt 
which  precedes  corruption  is  by  the  imputation  of 
Adam's  disobedience,  as  the  remission  of  sins  and  the 
abolition  of  guilt  is  by  the  imputation  of  the  obedience 
of  Christ.  Nothing  can  be  plainer." 
11 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

CHRIST  WAS,  IN  THE  STRICT  JEWISH  SENSE,  A  SACRIFICE. 
THE  JEWISH  SACRIFICES  WERE  STRICTLY  PIACULAR,  AND 
THEY  WERE  TYPICAL  OF  THE  SACRIFICE  OF  OUR  LORD. 

OUR  third  argument  is  derived  from  the  fact  that  the 
Scriptures  constantly  represent  Christ  as  dying,  and 
thus  effecting  the  salvation  of  his  people  as  a  sacrifice. 
The  points  involved  in  this  argument  are  the  following. 
1.  From  the  dawn  of  sacred  history  the  first  and  every- 
where prevailing  mode  in  w^iich  the  true  people  of  God 
worshipped  him  with  acceptance  was  in  the  use  of 
bloody  sacrifices.  From  the  family  of  Adam  this  usage 
prevailed  among  the  inhabitants  of  all  countries  and  the 
votaries  of  all  religions  up  to  the  time  of  Christ.  And 
these  sacrifices  were  universally  regarded  by  those  offer- 
ing them  as  vicarious  sufferings,  expiating  sin  and  pro- 
pitiating God.  2.  The  sacrifices  which  God  ordained 
under  the  Mosaic  economy  were  certainly  expiatory. 
3.  They  were,  moreover,  certainly  typical  of  the  sacrifice 
of  Christ ;  that  is,  Christ,  in  dying,  expiated  the  sins  of 
his  own  people  on  precisely  the  same  principles  that  the 
Jewish  sacrifices  expiated  the  ofierer's  violation  of  the 
ceremonial  law. 

I.  That  sacrifices  originated  in  the  fiimily  of  Adam, 
that  do^\Ti  to  the  time  of  Christ  they  continued  the  in- 
separable accompaniment  of  all  acceptable  worship,  and 
iU2 


SACEIFICES    PIACULAR   AND   TYriCAL.  123 

lluit  tlicy  were  diiiu.sod  iiinoii**;  the  people  of  all  lands 
and  all  religions,  are  siniphi  matters  of  fact  admitted  by 
all.  It  has,  however,  been  much  disputed  whether  they 
originated  in  an  immediate  divine  revelation,  and  whether 
their  observance  was  at  first  imposed  by  divine  authority. 
The  early  Christian  Fathers  generally,  the  learned  and 
orthodox  Outram,  the  great  body  of  Socinian,  rational- 
istic, and  Broad  Church  writers,  as  Maurice  and  Bush- 
nell,  have  answered  this  question  in  the  negative  ;  while 
the  Unitarians,  Priestly,  Dr.  John  Young,  and  the 
great  body  of  orthodox  divines,  have  decided  affirma- 
tively. This  is  just  as  we  should  have  expected  to  find 
it.  The  question  as  to  the  origin  and  character  of  the 
j)rimitive  sacrifices  is  not  necessarily  bound  up  Avith  the 
far  more  important  questions  which  concern  the  Mosaic 
sacrifices  and  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  INIen  may  take 
orthodox  views  as  to  the  divine  origin  of  sacrifice,  while 
they  utterly  misconceive  its  true  nature  and  design.  Yet 
truth  is  so  self-consistent  in  all  its  parts,  that  it  is 
eminently  natural  for  all  those  who  believe  that  the 
Mosaic  sacrifices  were  piacular,  and  that  they  were  typical 
of  the  work  of  Christ,  to  believe  that  the  whole  system 
of  primitive  sacrifices  was  ordained  by  God  to  be  typical 
of  that  great  event. 

At  any  rate,  their  divine  origin  appears  to  be  estab- 
lished with  sufficient  certainty  by  the  following  consid- 
erations. (1.)  It  is  inconceivable  that  either  the 
propriety  or  probable  utility  of  presenting  material  gifts 
to  the  invisible  God,  and  especially  of  attempting  to 
propitiate  God  by  the  slaughter  of  his  irrational 
creatures,  should  ever  have  occurred  to  the  human  mind 
as   a   spontaneous  suggestion.     Every  instinctive  sen- 


124      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

timcnt  and  every  presumption  of  reason  must,  In  the 
first  instance,  have  appeared  to  exclude  them.  (2.)  On 
the  hypothesis  that  God  intended  to  save  men,  it  is  in- 
conceivable that  he  should  have  left  them  without  in- 
struction upon  a  question  so  vital  as  that  concerned  in 
the  means  whereby  they  might  approach  into  his  pre- 
sence and  conciliate  his  favour.  (3.)  It  is  characteristic 
of  all  God's  self-revelations,  under  every  dispensation, 
that  he  discovers  himself  as  jealous  of  any  use  by  man 
of  unauthorized  methods  of  worship  or  service.  He 
uniformly  insists  upon  this  very  point  of  his  sovereign 
right  of  dictating  methods  of  worship  and  service,  as 
well  as  terms  of  acceptance.  The  religion  of  unfallen 
men  might,  well  enough,  proceed  on  a  basis  of  natural 
reason  and  conscience  acting  spontaneously.  But  since 
the  salvation  of  the  sinner  must  be  only  of  grace,  the 
religion  of  the  sinner,  in  the  principles  on  which  it 
rests,  the  methods  by  which  it  is  realized,  and  the  very 
forms  whereby  it  is  to  be  expressed,  must  originate  with 
God,  and  be  dictated  by  him  to  us.  Thus,  all  manner 
of  "  will-worship"  and  "  teaching  for  doctrines  the  com- 
mandments of  men,"  are  forbidden  with  equal  emphasis 
in  both  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  Matt.  xv.  9 ; 
Mark  vii.  7;  Isa.  xxix.  13;  Col.  ii.  23.  (4.)  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  very  first  recorded  instance  of  accept- 
able worship  in  the  family  of  Adam  brings  before  us 
bleeding  sacrifices,  and  seals  them  emphatically  with  the 
divine  approbation.  They  appear  in  the  first  recorded 
act  of  worship.  Gen.  iv.  3,  4.  They  are  emphatically 
approved  by  God  as  soon  as  they  appear.  From  that 
time  down  to  the  era  of  Moses  they  continued  to  be  uni- 
versally the  characteristic  mode  in  which  the  people  of  God 


SACRIFICES   PIACULAR   AND   TYPICAL.  125 

worship  him  acceptably.  Gcn..viii.  20-22;  xv.  9,  10; 
xxii.  2-13;  Job.  i.  5;  xlii.  8. 

That  those  primitive  sacrifices  were  strictly  piacular 
ajipcars  to  be  certain — (1.)  From  the  manner  in  which 
the  sacred  record  presents  tlic  direct  effect  of  the  sacrifice 
of  Noah.  Immediately  after  he  left  the  ark  "Noah 
bnilded  an  altar  unto  the  Lord,  and  took  of  every  clean 
beast,  and  of  every  clean  fowl,  and  offered  bnrnt-offerings 
on  the  altar.  And  the  l^ord  smclled  a  savour  of  red;^ 
and  the  Lord  said  in  his  heart,  I  will  not  again  cktsc  the 
ground  any  more  for  man\s  sake/'  &c.  Gen.  viii.  20-22. 
(2.)  Also  from  what  is  said  of  the  occasion  and  desi^i^n 
of  the  sacrifices  of  Job :  "  His  sons  went  and  feasted  in 
their  houses,  every  one  his  day.  .  .  And  it  was  so,  when 
the  days  of  their  feasting  were  gone  about,  that  Jol)  sent 
and  sanctified  them,  and  rose  up  early  in  the  morning, 
and  offered  burnt-offerings  according  to  the  number  of 
them  all :  for  Job  said,  It  may  be  that  my  sons  have 
sinned,  and  cursed  God  in  their  hearts.  Thus  did  Job 
all  the  days."  Job  i.  4,  5.*  (3.)  The  bleeding  sacrifices 
which  prevailed  among  all  races  of  mankind,  and  the 
votaries  of  all  the  ethnic  religions  from  the  ages  ])reced- 
ing  all  written  history,  were  certainly  regarded  as  piacu- 
lar. This  fact  is  freely  admitted  by  Bahr  and  by  all  the 
advocates  of  the  Moral  Theory  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ. 

Such  writers  as  Jowett  and  Maurice,  Young  and 
Bushnell,  reject  the  plain  teaching  of  the  Bible  on  the 
subject  of  vicarious  and  piacular  sacrifices,  because  it 
outrages  their  instinctive  moral  judgments  and  senti- 
ments. Maurice,  Young,  and  Bushnell  maintain  that 
the  sacrifices  of  the  Mosaic  institute  were  not  piacular  — 

*  See  marginal  reading. 
11* 


126  THE  NATURE   OF  THE  ATONEMElsT. 

that  they  were  designed  to  express  the  repentance  and 
S2:)lrltual  aspirations  of  the  worshipper,  and  not  to  eifect 
the  propitiation  of  God.  Jowett,  more  consistent  than 
they  in  liis  Rationalism,  as  he  far  surpasses  them  in 
learning  and  genius,  appears  to  admit  that  the  sacrifices 
of  the  Old  Testament  were  piacular,  but  denies  that  they 
are  so  far  forth  true  types  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ. 
^'  Heathen  and  Jewish  sacrifices  rather  show  us  what  the 
sacrifice  of  Christ  was  not  than  Avhat  it  was."*  Again,  he 
affirms  that  ^^  to  state  this  view  of  the  doctrine  at  length 
(that  is,  the  orthodox  view)  is  but  to  translate  the  New 
Testament  into  the  language  of  the  01d."t  We  point 
them  to*  the  fact  that  sacrifices,  undeniably  vicarious  and 
piacular,  have  prevailed  everywhere  among  all  nations 
from  before  the  dawn  of  history  down,  at  least,  to  the 
Christian  era.  They  respond  by  admitting  the  fact  al- 
leged to  its  utmost  extent,  but  maintain  that  it  is  the 
result  and  expression  of  crude  civilization  and  gross  su- 
perstition. Michaells  attributes  the  universal  prevalence 
of  piacular  sacrifices  to  a  sensus  communis,  having  its 
ground  in  human  nature.  Thompson  argues  the  same 
principle  at  length  in  the  second  of  his  Bampton  Lec- 
tures. Bishop  Butler  says :%  "  By  the  general  preva- 
lence of  propitiatory  sacrifices  over  the  heathen  world, 
this  notion  of  repentance  alone  being  sufficient  to  expiate 
guilt  appears  to  be  contrary  to  the  general  sense  of 
mankind.'^  This  reduces  the  question  to  a  direct  issue 
between  the  cultivated  moral  consciousness  of  a  few 
"  advanced  thinkers,'^  self-styled,  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other,  the  natural 

■^  Epistles  of  Paul,  vol.  ii.,  p.  479.  f  I^^'^^v  V-  470. 

X  Analogy,  part  ii.,  chap.  5. 


SACIIIFICES    PIACULAR   AND   TYPICAL.  127 

moral  instincts  of  all  races  and  nations.  This  issue  is 
made  not  by  us,  but  by  the  ^*  advanced  thinkers"  them- 
selves. It  appears  to  be  a  rcdadio  ad  absurdum,  and  a 
finished  specimen  of  its  kind. 

II.  That  the  sacrifices  instituted  by  God,  under  the 
Mosaic  economy,  were  vicarious  and  expiatory  is  suscep- 
tible of  abundant  proof.  The  death  of  the  bleeding 
sacrifice  was  a  posna  vicaria,  a  vicarious  punishment, 
the  life  of  the  victim  being  substituted  in  the  stead  of 
the  life  of  the  offerer. 

This  is  the  traditional  and  orthodox  view  of  both  the 
Jewish  and  the  Christian  Churches,  held  in  common  by 
all  writers  of  authority,  from  the  Rabbins  and  the  early 
Fathers  down  to  very  recent  times.  Even  among  mod- 
ern German  writers  it  is  supported  by  many  rationalists, 
such  as  Gesenius,  De  Wette,  Bruno  Bauer,  &c.,  who 
have  no  interest  in  any  relation  the  Jewish  sacrifices 
may  have  to  the  Christian  atonement,  as  wtII  as  ortho- 
dox expositors  of  the  first  eminence  for  learning  and 
genius,  as  Hengstenberg,  Tholuck,  Lange,  Ebrard,  Tho- 
masius,  Kahnis  and  Kurtz.  As  I  shall  show  below,  this 
view  is  plainly  taught  by  the  inspired  record  of  the  in- 
stitution, observance  and  history  of  the  Mosaic  sacrifices, 
and  also  by  the  entire  mass  of  whatsoever  traditions  re- 
lated to  the  subject  remain  in  the  world. 

The  old  Socinian  view  of  sacrifice  taught  in  the  last 
century  by  the  Latitudinarian  Sykes  and  the  Unitarian 
John  Taylor,  of  Norwich,  has  in  this  generation  been  re- 
vived and  advocated  with  great  ability  by  Biihr,  and 
through  him  disseminated  among  classes  of  men  not 
confessedly  Socinian,  yet  unwilling  to  accept  the  heredi- 
tary faith  of  the  Church.     His  opinion   was,  that  the 


128      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

death  of  the  victim,  instead  of  being  a  vicarious  punish- 
ment, was  no  essential  part  of  the  transaction,  but  merely- 
incidental  as  a  means  of  affording  the  blood.  The 
essence  of  the  whole  sacrificial  service,  according  to  Biihr, 
•vvas  the  sprinkling  of  the  blood,  as  the  bearer  of  the  life, 
upon  God's  altar,  thus  symbolizing  the  giving  away  of 
the  offerer's  life  to  God;  "in  other  words,  his  returning 
back  again  to  God,  by  repentance  and  faith  and  self- 
dedication,  after  being  separated  from  him  by  sin." 
Jowett  appears  to  give  up  the  Jewish  sacrifices  as  being 
as  entirely  unjustifiable  as  those  of  the  heathen.  He 
says,  "Heathen  and  Jewish  sacrifices  rather  show  us 
what  the  death  of  Christ  was  not  than  what  it  was. 
They  are  the  dim,  vague,  rude,  almost  barbarous  ex- 
pression of  that  Avant  in  human  nature  which  has  re- 
ceived satisfaction  in  him  only."  "The  death  of  Christ 
is  not  a  sacrifice  in  the  Leviticcd  sense."  "Not  the  sacri- 
fice, nor  the  satisfaction,  nor  the  ransom,  but  the  greatest 
moral  act  ever  done  in  the  Avorld — the  act,  too,  of  one 
in  our  likeness — is  the  assurance  to  us  that  God  in 
Christ  is  reconciled  to  the  world."* 

Maurice,  not  being  sufficiently  advanced  to  rtject  with 
Jowett  the  Old  Testament  sacrifices  as  barbarous,  must 
needs  agree  with  Biihr  in  making  them  mere  symbol i(;al 
expressions  of  the  subjective  state  of  the  offerer,  who 
presented  his  victim  in  place  of  himself  as  an  expression 
of  "his  sense  of  gratitude,  of  obligation,  of  dependence." 
He  admits  that  the  inspired  apostle  applied  the  Greek 
words  DMapLrx;  and  llaazrjfuov  to  Christ,  as  sacrificed  for  us, 
in  the  sense  which  those  words  had  always  born  in  class- 
ical Greek.  Yet  he  says  that  in  its  Christian  use  its 
*  Epistles  of  Paul,  pp.  477-481. 


SACRIFICES   PIACULAR   AND   TYriCAL.  129 

uniform  "heathen  sense  must  be,  not  niodiiiecl,  but  iu- 
vertcdy'^'  Tliat  is,  Paul  eliosc  a  word  whieh  always  had 
meant,  and  whieli  eould  only  signify  to  his  readers,  the 
very  opi)osite  of  what  he  intended  to  say.  An  admira- 
ble canon  of  interpretation,  to  be  aj)plied  whenever  the 
apostle  says  the  opposite  of  what  Maurice  is  willing  to 
believe ! 

Bushnell  is  essentially  in  agreement  with  Maurice 
and  Biihr.  With  him  the  Jewish  sacrifices  were  the 
liturgy  of  the  Jewish  religion,  a  transactional  liturgy, 
expressing  the  confession  of  guilt  and  repentance  by  the 
worshipper  before  God  as  a  reconciling  God.  He  holds 
that  the  only  effect  of  tjie  sacrifices  was  lustral.  "  Here, 
then,  is  the  grand  terminal  of  all  sacrifice;  taken  as  a 
liturgy,  it  issues  in  making  clean ;  purges,  washes, 
sprinkles,  purifies,  sanctifies,  carries  away  pollution ;  in 
that  sense  absolves  the  guilty ."f 

Dr.  John  Young,  of  Edinburgh,  holds  precisely  the 
same  view  of  the  Mosaic  sacrifices.  "When  a  Jew 
brought  his  sacrifice  to  the  altar,  two  distinct  ideas  were 
presented  to  his  mind.  On  the  one  hand,  here  was  a 
merciful  divine  provision  for  his  animal  life;  on  the 
other  hand,  the  God  who  had  made  this  provision  was 
here  laying  claim  to  the  reverence  and  love  of  his  heart, 
and  demanding  his  w'illing  return  and  self-surrender. 
Every  fresh  offering  was  meant  to  be  a  new  return  and 
self-surrender  to  his  God.^'J 

This  theory  has  been  fully  sifted  and  refuted  by 
Kurtz  and  Fairbairn.     Its  only  ground  is  a  moral  (so- 

*  Doctrine  of  Sacrifice,  pp.  72,  154. 
f  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  pp.  1G3,  1(J9. 
X  Life  and  Light  of  Men,  pp.  220,  230. 


130      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

called)  sentiment  which  refuses  to  accept  the  doctrine  of 
expiation  so  plainly  read  by  the  whole  Church  in  the 
words  of  Scripture.  It  is  utterly  without  support,  either 
in  the  natural  sense  of  the  Pentateucli,  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament ajiplication  of  the  law  to  the  gospel,  or  in  the 
opinions  of  ancient  Jews  or  Christians,  who  lived  when 
sacrifices  were  in  habitual  use. 

'  The  bleeding  sacrifices  under  the  Mosaic  law  were  of 
three  kinds;  the  sin  and  trespass-offering,  the  burnt- 
offering  and  the  peace-offering.  The  presentation,  the 
imposition  of  hands  and  confession  of  sins,  and  the 
slaughtering,  were  the  same  in  all.  "  But  in  the  remain- 
ing functions,  the  sprinkling  of  the  blood,  the  burning, 
and  the  sacrificial  meal,  we  find  characteristic  differences, 
inasmuch  as  each  one  of  these  three  stands  out  by  itself 
as  a  peculiarly  emphasized  and  prominent  feature  in  one 
of  the  three  kinds  of  sacrifice.  The  sprinkling  of  the 
blood  was  the  culminating  point  in  the  sin-offering.  In 
the  others,  it  evidently  fell  into  the  background,  the 
blood  being  merely  poured  around  upon  the  altar;  but 
in  the  sin-offerings  the  horns  of  the  altar  of  burnt-offer- 
ing, in  which  the  whole  worth  of  the  altar  culminated, 
were  appointed  as  the  object  upon  which  the  blood  was 
to  be  sprinkled.  In  some  cases  even  this  appeared  in- 
sufficient, and  the  blood  was  taken  into  the  Holy  Place, 
Avhere  it  was  sprinkled  upon  the  horns  of  the  altar  of 
incense,  towards  the  curtain  before  the  Capporeth,  and 
sometimes  even  upon  the  Cajjporeth  itself,  in  the  Most 
Holy  Place.  In  the  burnt-offering,  vh^y  an  asceiision  or 
going  up,  and  S^Sd,  the  whole,  on  the  other  hand,  the  act 
of  burning  was  the  culminating  point.  Lastly,  the 
sacrificial  meal  was  the  main  point  and  real  character- 


SACrJFICES   riACULAR   AND   TYPICAL.  131 

istic  of  the  peaee-offering."*  From  this  we  obtain  a  by 
no  means  unim})ortant  insiglit  into  the  nature  and  dis- 
tinguishins^  eharacteristic  of  the  sacrifices.  There  was 
confession  of  sin  and  the  infliction  of  death,  the  vicari- 
oiis penalty,  in  all  alike;  but  in  the  case  of  the  sin  and 
tre.'ipam-offcring,  expiation  of  some  special  sin,  the  re- 
moval of  some  special  penalty  involving  exclusion  from 
the  covenant  of  grace,  is  the  great  thing  intended.  In 
the  case  of  the  burnt-offering,  atonement  was  made  for 
sin  as  a  constant  habit  and  condition  in  a  more  general 
sense,  and  together  with  this  there  was  an  expression 
made  of  the  entire  consecration  of  the  life  and  substance 
of  the  worshij)per  to  his  God.  In  the  case  of  the  peace- 
offering,  the  characteristic  feature  was,  that  after  the  sin 
had  been  confessed,  imposed  and  atoned,  the  fat  and 
richer  portions  of  the  sacrifice  were  burnt  upon  the  altar, 
and  thus  given  to  Jehovah,  while  the  offerer  and  his 
friends  feasted  upon  the  remaining  portions.  "This  was 
the  symbol  of  established  friendship  with  God  and  near 
communion  with  him  in  the  blessings  of  his  kingdom, 
and  was  associated  in  the  minds  of  the  worshippers  with 
feelings  of  peculiar  joy  and  gladness.^^f 

As  it  is  undeniable  that  it  was  the  sin  and  trespass- 
offering  that  were  most  specially  typical  of  the  work  of 
Christ,  and  since  it  was  in  these  that  the  idea  of  expia- 
tion was  most  explicitly  set  forth,  it  will  abundantly 
suffice  our  purpose  if  we  establish  the  truth  of  our 
general  position  with  regard  to  them.  It  is,  moreover, 
altogether  unnecessary  that  we  should  complicate  our 
investigation  by  discussing  the  long-debated  and  really 

*  Kurtz's  Sacrificial  Worship  of  Old  Testameut,  §  85. 
t  Fairbiiirn'b  Typology,  vol.  ii,,  p.  321. 


132      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

obscure  question  as  to  the  distinction  between  the  sin- 
oifering  and  the  trespass-offering.  Whatever  that  differ- 
ence may  have  been,  it  can  sustain  no  relation  to  our 
present  discussion.  As  far  as  expiating  sin  and  propi- 
tiating God  by  apcena  vicaria  is  concerned,  "as  the  sin- 
offering  is,  so  is  the  trespass-offering;  there  is  one  law  for 
them."  Lev.  vii.  7. 

I  shall  attempt  to  make  good  my  position,  that  the 
sin-offering  expiated  sin  and  propitiated  God  on  the 
principle  of  vicarious  punishment,  by  noticing  (a)  their 
occasions;  (b)  the  qualifications  and  sacrificial  desig- 
nations of  the  victims;  (c)  the  ritual  of  the  sacrifice; 
(r/)  their  declared  effects;  (e)  the  testimony  of  the  in- 
spired prophets,  and  of  ancient  heathens,  Jews  and 
Christians. 

1.  The  law  of  the  sin-offering  is  recorded  Lev.  iv. — vi. 
13.  From  this  record  it  is  plain,  (a)  that  the  occasion 
of  the  sin-offering  was  some  special  sin;  (b)  that  this  in- 
cluded moral  as  well  as  ceremonial  transgressions,  lying, 
stealing,  false  swearing,  licentiousness,  &c. ;  (c)  that  sins 
were  in  this  respect  divided  into  two  classes — those  which 
admitted  of  expiation  and  those  which  did  not.  Sins 
of  ignorance  and  infirmity  fell  into  the  former  class,  and 
sins  committed  "presumptuously"  or  "with  a  high  hand'' 
were  embraced  in  the  latter  class.  The  point  to  be  ob- 
served is,  that  whenever  a  priest,  or  the  whole  congrega- 
tion, or  a  ruler,  or  one  of  the  common  people,  became 
conscious  of  a  sin,  the  punishment  of  which,  if  unex- 
piated,  would  have  involved  exclusion  from  the  fellow- 
ship of  the  covenant  people,  he,  or  in  the  case  of  the 
whole   congregation,  their   representatives   the   priests, 


SACRIFICES   PIACULAH   AND   TYPICAL.  133 

won'  (lirortcfl  to  bring  tlic  bullock  or  the  goat  and  offer 
it  in   his  stead.* 

2.  The  l)l(!eding  sacrifices,  which  were  to  sulTer  death 
in  the  place  of  men,  were  to  be  exclusively  either  sheep 
or  bullocks  or  goats,  or  pigeons  in  a  few  cases.  These 
last,  in  the  economy  of  Jewish  life,  took  the  place  occu- 
pied by  the  domestic  fowl  among  us,  and  all  classes  were 
chosen  from  the  highest  classes  of  clean  animals,  those 
most  immediately  associated  with  man,  and  therefore  of 
all  possible  living  substitutes  for  man's  life  the  most 
nearly  human.  These  were  to  be  selected,  each  indi- 
vidual the  most  perfect  of  its  kind  as  to  age,  health  and 
physical  excellence.  Lev.  xxii.  20-27;  Ex.  xxii.  30; 
xxix.  28,  &c.  This  physical  perfection  of  the  animal 
was  symbolical  of  spiritual  perfection  in  the  man,  and 
indicated  that  only  an  innocent  and  pure  life  could  be 
accepted  as  a  sacrificial  substitute  in  the  stead  of  a  pol- 
luted one  ;  thus  typically  foreshadowing  the  character- 
istics of  him  who  was  offered  as  "a  lamb  without 
blemish  and  without  spot."  And  yet,  notwithstanding 
the  ceremonial  perfection  of  the  selected  victim,  con- 
sidered in  itself,  the  common  name  for  them,  considered 
as  vicarious  sacrifices  bearing  and  expiating  another's 
sins,  were  nxDn,  sin  (Lev.  iv.  3;  viii.  20-28),  and  di^k, 
guilt  (Lev.  v.  6,  16,  19,  &c.,  &c.)  The  victim  is  called 
sin  or  guiltj  obviously  because  its  entire  character  as  a 
sacrifice  is  summed  up  in  this,  that  it  is  a  substitute  for 
a  sinner,  and  that  its  death  is  the  punishment  of  sin. 
In  perfect  consistency  with  the  type  it  is  declared  of  the 
ever-immaculate  Jesus  that  he  who,  considered  in  him- 

■5^  Sec  Fairl);urn's  Typolosry,  vol.  ii.,  p.  301.     Outraui,  Dc  Sacri- 
liciis,  I\  \,^'^,^.  1,  ;iml  Kml/,,  ^^  :;i)  02. 
12 


134      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

self,  knew  no  sin,  was,  as  our  vicarious  sacrifice  "made 
SIN  for  us."  2  Cor.  v.  21. 

3.  The  truth  w^e  contend  for  is  made  very  plain  by 
the  ritual  of  the  sacrifice,  or  the  prescribed  ceremonies, 
which  preceded  and  accompanied  the  slaughter  of  the 
victims.     These  were — 

(1.)  The  laying  on  of  hands.  This  is  prescribed  in 
the  case  of  all  kinds  of  bleeding  sacrifices,  including  the 
burnt  and  peace-oifering.  Lev.  i.  4;  iii.  2;  iv.  4-15; 
xvi.  21 ;  2  Chron.  xxix.  23.  This  is  a  natural  and  ex- 
pressive symbol  of  transfer  from  the  j^erson  imposing  to 
the  person  or  thing  upon  which  they  are  imposed.  Thus 
it  is  used  to  designate  a  personal  substitute  or  represen- 
tative. Compare  Num.  viii.  10  and  viii.  16.  Also  to 
communicate  official  character  and  authority.  Deut. 
xxxiv.  9;  Acts  vi.  6;  1  Tim.  iv.  14.  And  to  communi- 
cate the  virtue  which  went  out  from  Christ  and  his 
apostles  when  they  wrought  miraculous  cures.  Matt.  ix. 
18;  Mark  vi.  5;  Acts  ix.  12, 17.  Now  the  sacrifice  had 
its  reason  only  in  the  sin  of  the  offerer,  and  the  dis- 
pleasure of  God  with  him  in  consequence.  He  appeared 
before  God  with  his  sacrifice  in  his  hand  as  a  sinner. 
He  uniformly  accompanied  the  laying  on  of  hands  with 
the  confession  of  sins.  Outram  quotes  from  the  rabbin- 
ical writings  the  following  "Form  of  deprecation  used 
by  a  sinner  offering  a  piacular  sacrifice,  who  said  with  his 
own  mouth,  while  his  hands  were  laid  upon  the  head  of  the 
victim:  ^I  beseech  thee,  O  Lord;  I  have  sinned,  I  have 
trespassed,  I  have  rebelled ;  I  have  done  this  or  that  .  .  . 
but  now  I  repent,  and  let  this  be  my  expiation.' "  Aaron 
Ben  Chajim  says,  "  Where  there  is  no  confession  of  sins, 
there  is  no  imposition  of  hands,  because  imposition  of 


SACRIFICES  PIACULAR  AND  TYPICAL.  135 

hands  belongs  to  confession  of  sins/^*  "When  the  sacri- 
i'lcc  had  reference  to  the  sin  of  an  individual,  the  man 
placed  liis  own  hands  on  the  head  of  the  victim  and 
confessed.  When  it  had  reference  to  the  sins  of  the 
whole  congregation,  the  elders  of  the  congregation  (Lev. 
iv.  15)  laid  their  hands  upon  the  head  of  the  bullock 
and  confessed  as  the  representatives  of  the  whole  body. 
Hence,  in  either  case,  he  or  they  could  have  transferred 
to  the  victim  nothing  more  than  the  guilt  or  obligation 
to  i)unishment  incidental  to  his  or  their  sin.  This  trans- 
ference is  expressly  declared  to  be  effected  in  the  case  of 
the  sin-offering  for  the  people  on  the  great  day  of  atone- 
ment. Lev.  xvi.  7-22.  The  two  goats  presented  at  the 
door  of  the  tabernacle  are  expressly  said  to  be  one  victim  ; 
"  two  kids  of  the  goats  for  a  sin-offering,"  "  so  that  the 
sacrifice  consisted  of  two,  merely  from  the  natural  im- 
possibility of  otherwise  giving  a  full  representation  of 
what  was  to  be  done;  the  one  being  designed  more 
especially  to  exhibit  the  means,  the  other  the  effect  of 
the  atonement."  That  the  two  kids  form  but  one  sacri- 
fice is  plain  from  the  entire  reading  of  the  passage. 
They  are  called  so  in  verse  fifth.  They  are  brought  and 
presented  together  to  the  Lord.  The  Lord  decides  by 
the  lot  which  shall  die  and  which  shall  go  into  the  wil- 
derness. The  one  stands  by  and  is  atoned  for  by  the 
dying  victim  (see  Hebrew  of  verse  10),  and  then  bears 
away  the  sins  thus  expiated  into  the  land  of  forgetful- 
ness  for  ever.  "  And  Aaron  shall  lay  both  his  hands 
upon  the  head  of  the  live  goat,  and  confess  over  him  all 
the  iniquities  of  the  children  of  Israel,  and  all  their 
transgressions  in  all  their  sins,  putting  them  upon 
*  Outram,  De  Sacrificiis,  D.  1,  C.  15,  U  8,  10,  11. 


136      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

THE  HEAD  OF  THE  GOAT ;  .  .  .  and  the  goat  shall  bear 
upon  him  all  their  iniquities  unto  a  land  not  inha- 
bited/^ * 

(2.)  The  slaying  of  the  victim.  The  original  sen- 
tence pronounced  by  God  upon  all  sin,  from  the  com- 
mencement, was  death.  Gen.  ii.  17;  iii.  3,  17,  19.  Tlie 
apostle  declares  that  the  principle  abides  for  ever  that 
"  the  wages  of  sin  is  deatli.'^  Rom.  vi.  23.  To  this  the 
whole  Mosaic  law  was  conformed ;  for  "  without  shed- 
ding of  blood  is  no  remission.''  Heb.  ix.  22.  The  sinner 
having  presented  his  victim,  and  laying  his  hands  upon 
its  head,  confessed  and  transferred  his  sin  upon  its  head ; 
"  it  was  accepted  for  him,  to  make  atonement  for  him," 
Lev.  iv. ;  and  he  executed  upon  it  with  his  own  hands 
the  penalty  incurred  by  the  sins  he  had  transferred. 
"  For  the  life  of  the  flesh  is  in  the  blood ;  and  I  have 
given  it  to  you  upon  the  altar,  to  make  atonement  for 
your  souls;  for  it  is  the  blood  tliat  maketh  an  atonement 
for  the  soul,''  Lev.  xvii.  11 ;  that  is,  the  life  or  soul  of 
the  victim  atones  for  the  life  or  soul  of  the  offerer,  hav- 
ing been  judicially  executed  as  its  substitute.  Hence  the 
altar  of  sacrifice,  which  was  in  an  eminent  sense  the 
place  where  Jehovah  met  and  held  intercourse  with  his 
guilty  children,  was  called  by  a  name  (n3?D)  which  ety- 
mologically  signifies  "  the  place  of  slaughter ;"  "  for  tlie 
way  to  fellowship  with  God  for  guilty  beings  could  only 
be  found  through  an  avenue  of  death." 

(3.)  The  sprinkling  of  the  blood.  All  that  precedes, 
the  imposition  of  hands,  the  confession  of  sins,  and  the 
infliction  of  the  vicarious  penalty  of  death,  were  com- 

*  Magee  on  the  Atonement,  notes  39  and  71.  Fairbairn's  Typology, 
book  3,  chap,  iii.,  sec.  5. 


SACRIFICES    PIACULAK   AND   TYPICAL.  137 

moil  to  all  the  bleeding  sacrifices.  In  the  ca.se  of  sin 
and  trespass-ofiering,  in  addition  to  these  there  saper- 
vened  the  sprinkling  of  the  blood  upon  the  altar,  and 
especially  upon  the  horns  or  more  exalted  and  sacred 
parts  of  the  altar.  Lev.  iv.  7,  18,  25,  30,  34.  In  the 
case  of  a  sin-offering  in  behalf  of  the  high  priest  and 
of  the  whole  congregation,  the  blood  was  carried  within 
the  Holy  Place,  and  sprinkled  before  the  veil,  and 
smeared  upon  the  altar  of  incense.  Lev.  iv.  5,  and  fol- 
lowing. On  the  great  day  of  atonement,  when  the  most 
exact  representation  the  ancient  worship  could  afford  of 
the  all-perfect  atonement  of  Christ  was  given,  the  blood 
was  taken  into  the  Holy  of  Holies  itself,  and  sprinkled 
upon  the  Capporcth.  This  brought  the  blood,  which 
had  thus  vicariously  discharged  the  penalty  incurred  by 
the  worshipper,  into  immediate  contact  with  God.  It 
signified  that  the  vicarious  satisfaction  was  accepted,  and 
that  in  each  case  the  soul-bearing  blood  of  the  victim 
avails  to  cover  from  the  judicial  sight  of  God  the  sins 
attached  to  the  soul  of  the  offerer. 

4.  The  Scriptures  declare  that  the  effect  of  these 
sacrifices  was  uniformly  and  actually  to  expiate  the 
guilt  of  the  offender  and  to  propitiate  God.  Neither 
the  Moral  Influence  nor  the  Governmental  theor}^  of  the 
sacrifice  of  Christ  finds  the  least  support  in  the  analogies 
of  the  sacrifice  of  the  law.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
indication  that  the  design  of  any  sacrifice  was  ever  to 
produce  a  moral  influence  upon  the  transgressor,  or  to 
place  him  in  a  position  in  which  the  remission  of  the 
penalty  was  a  possibility,  or  to  exhibit  God's  determina- 
tion to  punish  sin.  The  sin  and  trespass-offering  were 
always  offered  with  the  single  and  definite  design  of 
12  • 


138      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

securing  tl.e  actual  remission  of  the  penalty.  The  effect 
is  said  to  be  "  to  make  atonement  for  sin/'  "  to  recon- 
cile/' and  the  promise  always  attached  is,  "and  it 
SHALL  BE  FORGIVEN  HIM."  Lcv.  iv.  20,  26,  31;  vi. 
30;  viii.  15;  xvi.  10.  Forgiveness  is  the  immediate 
end  sought  and  promised;  and  this  necessarily  issued 
in  that  ceremonial  purification  which  Bushnell  mis- 
takenly describes  as  "  the  grand  terminal  of  all  sacri- 
fices."* But  the  forgiveness  obviously  was  the  condition 
of  the  purification,  not  the  purification  of  the  forgive- 
neas.  Sin,  unexpiated,  excluded  a  man  from  the  society 
of  the  covenant  people.  When  expiated  and  forgiven, 
the  person  was,  ipso  facto,  cleansed  and  returned  to  the 
full  enjoyment  of  all  ecclesiastical  privileges.  As  we 
have  seen  above,  these  sacrifices  secured  the  remission  of 
the  penalties  denounced  by  the  Jewish  Theocratic  State- 
Church  law  upon  all  sins,  whether  moral  or  simply 
ceremonial,  except  such  as  were  committed  "  with  a  high 
hand."  As  far  as  this  ceremonial  State-Church  penalty 
was  concerned,  these  sacrifices  effected  a  real  expiation. 
But  as  far  as  the  penalty  attaching  to  the  moral  law, 
absolutely  considered,  was  concerned,  they  were  of 
course  only  symbolical  of  the  principles  upon  which 
alone  remission  could  be  obtained,  and  hence  typical  of 
the  one  all-perfect  sacrifice  of  Christ.  "  It  is  not  possi- 
ble that  the  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats  should  take  away 
sins,"  Heb.  x.  4 ;  tliat  is,  sin  viewed  absolutely.  But 
they  did  avail  to  "  sanctify  to  the  purifying  of  the  flesh." 
Heb.  ix.  13.  A  member  of  the  theocratic  community 
broke  the  law,  and  incurred  the  penalty  at  once  of  the 
cereuK  iiial  and  of  the  moral  law.  He  presents  a  fault- 
*  V^cavioV!^  Saprifice,  p,  4G9. 


SACRIFICES    PIACULAR  AND   TYPICAL.  139 

less  victim,  lays  his  hands  upon  its  liead,  confesses  his 
sins,  slays  it,  giving  life  for  life,  and  then  the  penalty  is 
remitted.  That  is,  the  ceremonial  penalty  is  remitte<l, 
ipso  JaotOj  u})on  the  completion  of  a  regular  sacrifice, 
and  the  penalty  of  the  moral  law  is  remitted  if  the 
offerer,  spiritually  discerning  the  evangelical  principles 
of  which  these  sacrifices  were  the  symbols,  acted  fiiith, 
however  darkly,  upon  the  promise  of  God  relating  to 
that  sacrifice  of  which  they  were  the  types.  The  sacri- 
fice of  a  dumb  animal  was  fully  sufficient,  when  divinely 
appointed,  to  satisfy  for  the  infringement  of  the  law, 
when  considered  simply  in  its  character  as  a  ceremonial ; 
while  the  law,  viewed  as  an  expression  of  absolute 
righteousness,  can  evidently  be  satisfied  with  nothing 
else  than  either  the  full  execution  of  the  penalty  in  the 
person  of  the  sinner,  or  a  full  equivalent  therefor  in  the 
person  of  an  adequate  substitute.* 

The  word  habitually  used  to  define  the  exact  nature 
of  the  process  through  which  the  Mosaic  sacrifices 
attained  to  their  constant  effect,  forgiveness,  is  "iSD, 
to  cover y  to  make  expiation,  to  atone.  Lev.  iv.  20,  26,  30, 
31,  35;  V.  6,  10,  13,  18,  &c.,  &c.  All  admit  that  the 
Greek  word  IXdaxeadac,  and  its  cognates  tXaff/iofZ  and 
IXaazTjpioVj  have  universally  and  from  time  immemorial, 
the  sense,  when  construed  with  God,  o^ propitiation,  and 
when  construed  with  sin  of  expiation  in  the  strict  sense. 
And  yet  it  is  a  fact  that  the  authors  of  the  Septuagint, 
three  hundred  years  before  Christ,  while  the  Jewish  and 
ethnic  sacrifices  were  still  in  constant  use,  habitually 
translated  the  Hebrew  "na:)  by  the  Greek  VAaxzadac, 
and  the  ni3D  (mercy-seat)  they  translate  IXaanjptov^ 
*  See  Candlish  on  the  At^ne  ,uent,  part  I.,  chs.  v.  and  vi. 


140      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

propitiatorium,  or  seat  of  expiation  and  propitiation.  The 
Septuagiiit  was  the  version  of  the  Old  Testament 
habitually  quoted  by  Christ  and  his  apostles.  Instead 
of  ever  hinting  that  the  inspired  Hebrew  text  was  mis- 
represented by  the  Greek  words  used  as  equivalent,  they 
ado])t  the  same  words  themselves  when  speaking  of  the 
sacrifioe  of  Christ.  Christ  is  said  to  have  been  made  a 
faithful  high  priest  "  to  make  expiation  for  the  sins  of 
the  people,"  et<;  to  VAaxeaOac  xo.^  ^./mfyziar  too  Xaou, 
Heb.  ii.  17.  See  also  Rom.  iii.  25;  1  John  ii.  2,  and 
iv.  10.     See  below,  chapter  twelve. 

5.  In  confirmation  of  the  truth  of  this  interpretation 
of  the  J(!wi.sh  sacrifices,  we  can  cite  the  unanimous  tes- 
timony of  (a)  the  inspired  prophets  and  apostles,  and 
(6)  the  ancient  heathen,  (c)  Jews,  and  {d)  Christian 
writers.  In  opposition  to  this  ancient  external  testi- 
mony to  the  meaning  of  sacrifices^  the  school  of  Bahr, 
Maurice,  Bushnell,  Young,  &c.,  have  not  a  single  wit- 
ness to  cite. 

(1.)  As  to  the  testimony  of  the  prophets  to  the  piacu- 
lar  character  of  the  Mosaic  sacrifices,  I  cite  the  witness 
of  Isaiah  liii.  4,  6,  10,  &c.  Speaking  of  the  Messiah, 
the  prophet  says  God  "  made  Ids  soul  an  offering  for  sin/^ 
a  sin-offering ;  and  to  this  end  "  laid  on  Mm  the  iniquity 
of  us  allj^  and  hence  he  was  punished  in  our  stead ; 
"  lie  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  .  .  .  a7id  the 
punishment  of  our  peace  was  upon  him.''*  As  to  the 
apostolic  testimony,  in  part,  compare  1  Cor.  v.  7,  where 
Christ  is  said  to  be  ^'  sacrificed  for  us/'  and  1  Pet.  i.  18, 
19,  where  it  is  said  that  we  are  redeemed  ivith  the  j^recious 
blood  of  Christ,  as  "a  lamb  without  blemish  and  ivithout 
*  Dr.  J.  A.  Alexander's  version. 


SACRIFICES    riACULAR   AND   TYPICAL.  141 

spot;'  with  Matt.  xx.  28,  "  The  Son  of  Man  came  to 
give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many.''  "  The  i)romlocnt  idea 
of  ransom  is  that  of  payment — of  vicarious  substitu- 
tion—of one  thing  standing  in  phicc  of  another.  Xo 
figure  can  so  fully  convey  this  idea  as  one  drawn  from 
purchases  with  money.  AVhat  a  source  of  misconcep- 
tion, then,  would  it  have  been  thus  to  yoke  the  idea  of 
sacrifice  to  that  of  vicariousness,  if  these  ideas  were  not 
harmonious,  but  discordant?  Il  sacrifice  pointed  to  no 
substitution,  no  expiation,  but  only  to  self-surrender  of 
the  penitent  worshipper,  could  any  mode  of  speaking  be 
devised  more  likely  to  mislead  than  calling  the  sacrificial 
oficrino-  a  ransom — a  Autpov — the  most  potent  symbol 
of  substitution  and  exchange."* 

(2.)  It  would  be  entirely  a  work  of  supererogation  for 
us  to  encumber  our  pages  with  citations  from  heathen 
authors,  proving  that  they  universally  practised  their 
sacrificial  rites  and  used  their  sacrificial  language  in  the 
sense  for  which  we  are  contending,  since  no  man  living 
contests  the  point.f 

(3.)  It  is  certainly  important  to  know  the  opinion  of 
the  Jews  with  respect  to  their  own  religious  rites.  And 
it  is  an  indisputable  fiict  that  the  whole  body  of  ancient 
Jewish  theological  literature  is  unanimous  in  expound- 
inc^  their  national  sacrifices  as  vicarious  and  piacular. 
Thus  Kabbi  Levi  Ben  Gerson,  quoted  by  Outram,  says, 
"  The  imposition  of  hands  was  a  tacit  declaration  on  the 
part  of  every  oiferer  that  he  removed  his  sins  from 
himself  and  transferred  them  to  that  animal."     So  also 

*  Doc.  of  Atonement,  by  Kev.  J.  C.  Macdonnell,B.D.— Donnellan 
Lectures  for  1857,  p.  124. 

t  Let  the  curious  reader  see  Outram,  De  Sacriliciis,  D.  1,  ch  22. 


142  THE  NATUEE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Isaac  Ben  Arama :  "  Whenever  any  one  sins  through 
ignorance,  or  even  with  knowledge,  he  transfers  his  sins 
from  himself  and  lays  them  upon  the  head  of  the 
victim.  And  this  is  the  design  of  those  confessions, — I 
have  sinned,  I  have  been  rebellious,  I  have  done  per- 
versely,— as  appears  from  the  confessions  of  the  high 
priest,  pronounced  over  the  bullock  sacrificed  as  his  sin- 
offering  on  the  day  of  atonement."  Rabbi  Moses  Ben 
Nachman  says :  "  It  was  just  that  his  blood  be  shed  and 
that  his  body  should  be  burned.  But  the  Creator,  of 
his  mercy,  accepted  this  victim  from  him  as  his  substi- 
tute and  ransom,  that  the  blood  of  the  animal  might  be 
shed  instead  of  his  blood  ;  that  is,  that  the  life  of  the 
animal  might  be  given  for  his  life."  Rabbi  Solomon 
Jarchi  says,  referring  to  Lev.  xvii.  11:  "The  life  of 
every  living  creature  is  in  the  blood :  wherefore  I  have 
given  it  to  make  an  atonement  for  your  souls :  life  shall 
come  and  atone  for  life ;"  and  Aben  Ezra,  "  The  blood 
makes  atonement  for  the  soul ;  the  meaning  is  life  in- 
stead of  life."* 

(4.)  Outramf  cites  the  following  testimonies  from  the 
early  Christian  Fathers,  and  declares,  that  as  far  as  his 
knowledge  extended,  they  were  agreed  in  understanding 
that  the  Jewish  sacrifices  were  vicarious  and  piacular. 
'^  He  laid  his  hands  upon  the  head  of  the  calf;  that  is, 
he  laid  the  sins  of  mankind  upon  his  own  head :  for  he 
is  the  head  of  the  body,  the  Church."|  "  On  the  head 
of  the  victim  the  offerer  laid  his  hands,  as  it  were  his 
actions ;  for  hands  are  significant  of  action  ;  and  for  these 

*  These  and  many  more  witnesses  may  be  found  in  Outram,  D.  1, 
chs.  xx.-xxii. 

f  D.  1,  chap.  ii.  J  Origen,  Ilomil.  ad  Levit.  i. 


SACRIFICES    PLICULAR   AND   TYPICAL.  143 

he  offered  the  sacrifice."*  "The  priests  laid  their 
hands,  not  upon  all  victims,  but  on  those  that  were 
offered  for  themselves,  and  especially  their  sin-offerings; 
but  upon  others  the  offerers  themselves  laid  their  hands. 
This  was  a  symbol  of  the  substitution  of  the  victim  in 
the  room  of  the  offerer  for  whom  it  was  slain.^f  "An 
attentive  observer  may  learn  this  very  thing,  also, 
from  the  law  respecting  sacrifices,  which  enjoins  every 
one  who  offers  a  sacrifice  to  lay  his  hands  on  the  head 
of  the  victim,  and  holding  it  by  the  head,  to  bring  it  to 
the  priest,  as  offering  the  animal  instead  of  his  own 
head.  Wherefore  its  language  respecting  every  victim 
is.  Let  the  offerer  present  it  before  the  Lord,  and  lay  his 
hands  upon  the  head  of  his  offering ;  .  .  .  whence  it  is 
concluded  that  the  lives  of  the  victims  were  given  in- 
stead of  the  lives  of  the  offerers.^f 

III.  It  only  remains  for  us,  in  this  third  division  of 
our  argument,  to  prove  that  the  sacrifices  of  the  law  were 
typical  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ ;  that  is,  that  the  prin- 
ciples of  vicarious  and  piacular  suffering  upon  which 
they  proceeded  are  identical  with  those  upon  which,  by 
one  sacrifice  for  sin,  he  has  for  ever  perfected  them  that 
are  sanctified. 

"Every  true  type,^^  says  Litton, §  "is  necessarily 
a  symbol;  that  is,  it  embodies  and  represents  the 
ideas  which  find  their  fulfilment  in  the  antetype ;  but 
every  symbol  is  not  necessarily  a  type;  a  symbol 
may  terminate  in  itself,  and  point  to  nothing  fu- 
ture; it  may  refer  to  something  past.     The  difference 

*  Theodorct,  Quaest.  i.,  ad  Levit.  f  Qufest.  Ixi.,  ad  Exod. 

X  Eusebius,  Bishop  of  Caesarea,  Deraonstr.  Evang.,  L.  i.,  c.  x. 
2  Litton' s  Bainpton  Lectures  Lee.  iii. 


144      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

between  tlie  two  will  become  evident  if  we  consider  that 
the  learned  researches  of  modern  times  have  made  it 
more  than  probable  that  the  religions  of  antiquity  were 
all  symbolical  in  character,  or  so  framed  as  to  convey, 
under  sensiljle  images,  the  ideas  on  which  they  were 
respectively  based ;  but  no  one  would  think  of  calling 
the  rites  of  heathenism  types ;  they  were  a  species  of 
acted  hieroglyphics,  which  reached  the  understanding 
through  the  senses, — and  here  their  use  terminated.  A 
type  is  a  prophetic  symbol;  and  since  prophecy  is  the 
prerogative  of  him  who  sees  the  end  from  the  begin- 
ning, a  real  type,  implying  as  it  does  a  knowledge  of  the 
reality,  can  only  proceed  from  God/' 

Now  we  claim  that  it  can  be  proved  that  the  Mosaic 
sacrificial  system  was  not  only  symbolical  of  divine 
truth  in  connection  with  the  then  existing  dispensation, 
but  that  it  embraced  types,  or  prophetic  symbols,  of  the 
better  things  to  come  in  the  gospel.  This  is  certain, 
because — 

1.  Christ  himself  declares  that  the  whole  Old  Testa- 
ment Scripture  in  all  its  divisions,  the  law  as  well  as 
the  prophets  and  the  Psalms,  spoke  of  him  and  his 
work.  John  i.  45;  v.  39;  Luke  xxiv.  27.  "To  him 
give  all  the  prophets  witness,  that  through  his  name, 
whosoever  believetli  in  him  shall  receive  remission  of 
sins.'^  And  all  these  things  stood  in  such  a  relation  to 
him  that  all  these  things  must  be  fulfilled  which  were 
therein  written  concerning  him.  Luke  xxiv.  44.  And 
in  what  sense  this  was  so,  we  can  trace  in  John  xix.  36. 
John,  as  an  eye-w^itness  of  the  crucifixion,  declares  that 
the  exemption  of  our  I^ord's  person  from  the  mutilation 
to  which  the  two  tliievcs  with  whuni  he  was  crucified 


SACRIFICES    PIACULAR   AND   TYPICAL.  145 

were  Rubjected,  "was  dono  that  the  Scripture  sliould  he 
fulfilled  J  A  bone  of  him  shall  not  be  broken."  But  the 
Scriptures  say  this  only  of  the  Pascal  lamb.  Ex.  xii. 
46;  Num.  ix.  12.  And  the  Apostle  John  declares  that 
the  saying  this  of  the  Pascal  lamb  was  equivalent  to 
saying  this  prophetically  of  Christ.  That  the  Pascal 
lamb  was  a  sacrifice  in  the  strict  expiatory  sense  is 
admitted  by  all  modern  theologians.  It  is  expressly 
called  j3*ip  (Num.  ix.  7),  which  everywhere  means 
something  offered  to  God.  It  is  called  hdt,  sacrifice 
(Ex.  xii.  27),  which  is,  in  the  Old  Testament,  only  ap- 
plied to  the  bleeding  offerings  presented  to  Jehovah. 
This  the  apostle  distinctly  asserts  in  the  very  sentence 
in  which  he  declares  that  Christ  is  the  Christian  Pass- 
over; "  For  even  Christ  our  Passover  is  sacrificed  {izudTj) 
for  us."  1  Cor.  v.  7. 

2.  The  sacrificial  language  of  the  Mosaic  ritual  is 
constantly  applied  to  Christ.  Jowett,  no  mean  witness, 
admits  that  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
presents  the  "  New  Testament  as  hidden  in  the  Old,  and 
the  Old  as  revealed  in  the  New."*  But  it  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  but  characterizes  the 
whole  Testament.  John  the  Baptist,  the  last  Old  Testa- 
ment prophet  (John  i.  29),  stood  as  the  index-finger,  and 
spoke  as  the  voice  of  the  whole  Old  Testament  dispensa- 
tion, when  he  said,  "Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which 
taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world."  Paul  (Eph.  v.  2) 
witnesseth  of  Christ  that  "He  gave  \imself  for  us  an 
offering  and  a  sacrifice  to  God  for  a  sweet-smelling 
savour,"  which  certainly  means  that  the  effect  of  his 
sacrifice  terminates  upon  God,  and  not  upon  either  the 

*  Kpistk'H  of  Piiiil,  vol.  ii.,  p.  470. 
13 


146      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

sinful  offerer  or  the  moral  universe.  ^'  Now  once  in  the 
end  of  the  world  hath  he  appeared  to  put  away  sin  by 
the  sacrifice  of  himself  .  .  .  having  been  once  offered  to 
bear  the  sins  of  many.''  ^^  For  even  Christ  our  Passover 
is  sacrificed  for  us."  1  Cor.  v.  7.  "  AVe  were  redeemed 
with  the  precious  blood  of  Christ,  as  of  a  lamb  without 
blemish  and  without  spot."  1  Pet.  i.  19.  "This  man, 
after  he  had  offered  one  sacrifice  for  sins,  for  ever  sat 
down  on  the  right  hand  of  God."  "By  one  offering  he 
hath*  perfected  for  ever  them  that  are  sanctified."  Heb. 
X.  12,  14. 

3.  They  are  expressly  said  to  have  prefigured  Christ 
and  his  work.  These  things,  Paul  says,  "are  a  shadow 
of  things  to  come,  but  the  body  is  of  Christ."  Col.  ii. 
17.  The  law  had  "a  shadow  of  good  things  to  come, 
and  not  the  very  image  of  the  things."  Heb.  x.  1.  The 
tabernacle  and  its  services  w^ere  patterns  of  things  in  the 
heavens,  and  figures — antetypes — of  the  true  tabernacle 
into  which  Christ  has  now  entered  for  us.  Heb.  ix.  23, 
24.  "For  the  bodies  of  those  beasts,  whose  blood  is 
brought  into  the  sanctuary  by  the  high  priest  for  sin, 
are  burned  w^ithout  the  camp.  Wherefore  Jesus  ahoj 
that  he  might  sanctify  tlie  people  with  his  own  blood, 
suffered  without  the  gate."  Heb.  xiii.  11, 12.  In  this  case, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  unbroken  bones  of  the  Pascal  lamb, 
the  antetype  mud  conform  to  the  type.  The  argument 
of  the  apostle,  in  Heb.  ix.  13, 14,  necessarily  involves  the 
assumption  of  this  identity  of  principle  between  the  type 
and  the  antetype.  "For  if  the  blood  of  bulls  and  of 
'^oats,  and  the  a.shes  of  an  heifer,  sprinkling  the  unclean, 
sanctifieth  to  the  purifying  of  the  flesh ;  how  much  more 
*hall  the  blood  of  Christ,  who,  through  the  eternal  Spirit 


SACRIFICES  PIACULAR  AND  TYPICAL.  147 

offered  himself  without  spot  to  God,  purge  your  cou- 
science  from  dead  works  to  serve  the  living  God  ?"  If 
tlio  one  can  avail  to  effect  the  lower  end  on  the  same  prin- 
ciple, how  much  more  shall  the  infinitely  better  avail  to 
effect  the  higher  end?  Young  attempts,  in  the  first 
place,  to  prove  that  the  Mosaic  sacrifices  signified  no- 
thing more  than  an  expression  of  the  subjective  exercises 
of  the  sinner,  and  then  that  these  sacrifices  are  not  typi- 
cal of  the  greater  and  better  sacrifice  of  Christ.  But 
the  correspondences  which  the  apostles  point  out  cannot 
be  understood  in  the  vague  and  general  sense  which 
Young  prefers.  They  not  only  declare  that  there  is,  in 
some  sense,  an  analogy  between  the  sacrifices  of  the 
law  and  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  but  they  affirm  that 
the  former  were  patterns,  types,  shadows,  of  the  latter. 
They  point  out,  in  particular,  wherein  the  analogy  con- 
sists and  wherein  it  fails.  They  show  that  it  holds  in 
all  the  essential  particulars  of  "bearing  sin,"  Christ 
being  "made  sin"  (that  is,  nxDH,  sin-offering),  of  being 
vicarious  {unkp  6/i6)i^),  of  "giving  his  life  as  a  ransom," 
of  "redeeming  us  by  his  blood,"  of  expiating  sin,  of 
propitiating  God,  of  securing  pardon.  Matt.  xx.  28; 
Rom.  iii.  25;  2  Cor.  v.  21;  Heb.  ii.  17. 

4.  And  lastly,  the  Scriptures  habitually  assert,  in  the 
plainest  and  most  direct  terms  that  language  admits  of, 
til  at  Christ  accomplishes  for  the  man  who  comes  to  God 
by  him  just  what  we  have  shown  that  the  Mosaic  sacri- 
fices accomi)lished  for  the  man  who  approached  God  by 
them,  and  that  he  accomplishes  it  in  the  same  manner. 
"  He  that  knew  no  sin  was  made  a  sin-offering  for  us." 
2  Cor.  v.  21.  "Christ  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of 
the  law,  be^ig  made  a  curse  for  us."  Gal.  iii.  13.     He 


148      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

says  of  himself,  "The  Son  of  Man  came  to  give  Ms  life 
a  ransom  for  many/^  Matt.  xx.  28;  Mark  x.  45.  "The 
blood  of  Jesus  Christ,  his  Son,  cleanseth  from  all  sin.'' 
1  John  i.  7.  "He  is  the  'propitiation  {IXaafioq)  for  our 
sins;  and  not  for  ours  only,  but  also  for  the  sins  of  the 
whole  world.''  1  John  ii.  2.  "  Herein  is  love,  not  that 
we  love  God,  but  that  he  loved  us,  and  sent  his  Son  to 
be  the  propitiation  {llaaii6<;)  for  our  sins."  1  John  iv.  10. 
This  making  propitiation,  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  declares,  Christ  effects  as  our  "High 
Priest."  Heb.  ii.  17.  Paul  says,  '^Baing  justified  freely 
by  Ms  grace^  through  the  redemption  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus:  whom  God  hath  set  forth  to  be  a  propitiation 
{lXaaTijpcoD)y  through  faith  in  Ms  hlood.''^  E,om.  iii.  24, 
25.  "Much  more,  then,  being  wow  justified  by  Ms  bloody 
we  shall  be  saved  from  wrath  tM^ough  Mm.  For  if, 
while  we  were  enemies,  we  were  reconciled  to  God  by 
the  death  of  his  Son,  much  more  being  reconciled,  we  shall 
be  saved  by  his  life."  Rom.  v.  9,  10.  "Our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  wJio  gave  Mmself  for  our  si?is"  {Kspc  d.fiaf)ria}v), 
which  is  the  very  phrase  frequently  used  in  the  Septua- 
gint  to  translate  riNDH,  sin-ofi^ering.  See  Lev.  iv.  and 
xvi.;  Gal.  i.  3,  4.  "In  whom  we  have  redemption 
through  Ms  blood,  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  according  to  the 
riches  of  his  grace."  Eph.  i.  7.  "But  now,  in  Christ 
Jesus,  ye,  who  sometime  were  far  off,  are  made  nigh  by 
the  blood  of  CliristJ'  Eph.  ii.  13.  "In  whom  we  have 
redemption  through  his  blood,  even  the  forgiveness  of  sins,'* 
and,  "Having  made  peace  through  the  blood  of  his  cross, 
by  him  to  reconcile  all  things  unto  himself."  Col.  i.  14, 
20.  "  Be  it  known  unto  you,  therefore,  men  and  brethren, 
that  thvugh  this  man  {oca  rouzou)  is  preached  unto  you 


SACRIFICES    PIACULAR   AND   TYPICAL.  149 

the  forgiveness  of  shis:  and  by  7dm  {eu  toutoj)  all  that 
believe  ixreJ2csfifed  from  all  things,  from  which  ye  could 
not  be  justified  by  the  law  of  Moses.'^  Acts  xiii.  38,  39.* 

We  claim  that  these  passages  teach  the  gospel,  not  in  a 
figuFe,  but  in  direct  terms,  to  be  understood  according  to 
the  ordinary  use  of  language  and  force  of  words.  All 
that  Jowett,  and  those  who  agree  with  him  on  this  sub- 
ject, can  say  to  turn  the  force  of  the  Scriptures  is,  that 
they  are  "figurative;"  that  we  must  take  their  "inward 
meaning,"  because  their  literal  meaning  is  dishonouring 
to  God,  and  revolting  to  the  refined  moral  sense  of 
advanced  thinkers.f 

Thus  we  have  the  whole  heathen  world,  the  Jewish 
people,  and  the  entire  Christian  Church,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment symbols,  and  the  New  Testament  historical  narra- 
tives and  didactic  statements,  all  on  one  side,  and  the 
Socinians,  Rationalists,  Jowett,  Maurice,  Bushnell  and 
Young  on  the  other. 

*  See  Macdonnell  on  Atonement,  pp.  76-81. 

t  Jowett,  vol.  i.,  p.  261,  and  vol.  ii.,  pp.  476,  477. 

13* 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE  ORTHODOX  DOCTRINE  PROVED  BY  THE  FACT  THAT 
CHRIST  EFFECTED  SALVATION  BY  ACTING  AS  THE  HIGH 
PRIEST    OF    IIIS    PEOPLE. 

THAT  our  doctrine  as  to  the  nature  of  Christ's  work, 
as  above  stated,  is  true,  we  chiim  is  established  by 
our  fourth  argument,  namely,  that  the  Scriptures  clearly 
set  forth  Christ  as  acting  and  suffering  as  the  High  Priest 
of  his  people.  It  is  essential  to  the  Moral  Influence 
Theory  to  consider  Christ  solely  as  the  medium  through 
which  God  exerts  a  saving  moral  influence  upon  man.* 
The  point  of  the  controversy  of  the  Church  with  the 
advocates  of  that  theory,  as  was  truly  stated  by  Lim- 
borch,  is,  whether  Christ,  by  his  death,  removed  obsta- 
cles to  our  salvation  existing  in  the  nature  of  God,  as 
well  as  those  existing  in  the  nature  of  man.  In  oppo- 
sition to  their  error,  I  propose  to  prove  that  the  charac- 
teristic function  of  the  ancient  priest,  and  especially  the 
high  priest,  was,  that  he  represented  the  people  before 
God;  that,  taken  from  among  men,  he  was  ordained  to 
act  in  behalf  of  men  m  those  mcittcrs  wldch  have  a  hearing 
upon  God  {to.  TTfw^  zbv  Oebv),  that  he  may  bring  near 
to  God  both  gifts  and  sacrifices  for  sin.  Heb.  v.  1.  It 
is  essential  to  the  Governmental  Theory  to  assume  (a) 
that  the  work  of  Christ,   in  itself  considered,  accom- 

*  See  Young's  "  Life  and  Light  of  Men,"  p.  27,  and  note. 
150 


CHRIST   THE   HIGH    PRIEST.  151 

plishes  only  the  salvability,  and  not  the  actual  salvation, 
of  any,  and  (b)  that  it  is  general  and  indefinite  in  its 
reference,  having  respect  to  no  particular  individuals, 
but  to  all  sinners  of  mankind  as  such.  In  opposition 
to  their  error,  I  j^ropose  to  prove  that  the  ancient  priest 
and  high  priest  (a),  in  every  instance,  sought  and  ob- 
tained remission,  not  remissibility — reconciliation,  not 
merely  the  possibility  of  reconciliation — for  those  for 
whom  they  acted ;  and  (6)  that  hence  the  work  of  the 
priest  had  a  definite  reference  to  particular  persons,  whom 
he  represented,  for  whom  he  offered  expiation,  and  in 
whose  behalf  he  interceded. 

I.  The  distinctive  character  of  the  priest  was,  that  he 
was  divinely  ordained  to  act  in  behalf  of  men  in  those 
matters  ivhlch  have  a  heaving  on  God.  As  the  general 
character  of  the  prophet  was  that  of  one  qualified  and  au- 
thorized to  speak  for  God  to  men,  so  the  general  idea  of 
a  priest  is  that  of  one  qualified  and  authorized  to  treat  in 
behalf  of  men  with  God.  When  Korah,  Dathan  and 
Abiram,  and  their  colleagues,  rebelled  against  the  as- 
sumption of  an  exclusive  priestly  character  on  the  part 
of  Moses  and  Aaron,  on  the  ground  that  it  belonged  to 
every  member  of  the  holy  nation  in  common,  INIoses 
appealed  to  God,  saying,  "  Even  to-morrow  Jehovah  will 
show  who  are  his,  and  who  is  holy;  and  will  cause  him 
to  come  near  unto  him;  even  him  whom  he  hath  chosen 
will  he  cause  to  come  near  unto  him."  Numb.  xvi.  5. 

Hence  a  priest  was  one — 1.  Taken  from  among  men 
to  represent  them.  "  Every  high  priest  taken  from  among 
men  was  ordained /or  men,  in  things  pertaining  to  God." 
Heb.  V.  1.  Especially  did  the  high  priest,  in  whom  the 
^i^tire  pi  lestly  character  culminated,  act  in  all  respects 


152      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

as  the  literal  representative  of  the  whole  congregation. 
(1.)  He  bore  the  names  of  each  tribe  graven  on  his 
shoulders  and  on  his  breast-plate  over  his  heart.  Vit- 
ringa,*  quoted  by  Fairbairn,  says,  '^This  high  priest 
represented  the  -whole  people.  All  Israel  were  reckoned 
as  being  in  him."  Ex.  xxviii.  9-29.  (2.)  If  he  sinned, 
it  was  regarded  as  the  sin  of  the  whole  people.  Lev.  iv. 
3.  (3.)  He  made  atonement  and  offered  intercession 
in  behalf  of  the  whole  people.  He  placed  his  hands 
upon  the  scape-goat  and  confessed  the  sins  of  the  whole 
people,  and  laid  them  upon  the  head  of  the  goat.  Lev. 
xvi.  15-21. 

2.  He  was  chosen  by  God  as  his  sjiccial  election 
and  property.  "Jehovah  will  show  wdio  are  his,  and 
him  whom  he  hath  chosen  to  come  near  unto  him." 
Numb.  xvi.  5.  "  No  man  taketh  this  honour  unto 
himself,  but  he  that  is  called  of  God,  as  was  Aaron." 
Heb.  V.  4. 

3.  He  must  be  holy ;  that  is,  both  morally  pure  and 
consecrated  to  the  service  of  God.  He  wore,  circling  his 
head,  a  band  of  pure  gold,  on  which  w^as  engraved 
"  Holiness  to  the  Lord."  Ex.  xxxix.  30,  31.  "  They 
shall  be  holy  unto  their  God,  and  not  profane  the  name 
of  their  God :  for  the  offerings  of  Jehovah,  made  by 
fire,  and  the  bi^ead  of  their  God,  do  they  offer :  therefore 
they  shall  be  holy."  Levit.  xxi.  6 ;  Ps.  cvi.  16. 

4.  The  priest's  grand  distinction  was,  that  he  had  a 
right  to  draw  near  to  God.  Hence  the  common  designa- 
tion of  priests  w^as  "those  who  draw  near  to  Jehovah." 
Ex.  xix.  22;  Numb.  xvi.  5;  Ezek.  xlii.  13  and  xliv.  13. 
The   distinctive   rriestly  act  which  marked  his   great 

*  Obs.  Sac,  p.  292. 


CHRIST  THE  mail  priest.  153 

function  was  to  })riiig  near,  3npn — translated  habitually 
to  offer.  Lev.  xvi.  G,  0,  11,  20,  <&c.  Every  oll'ering 
which  it  was  the  office  of  the  priest  to  bring  near  to 
God  is  distinctively  called  pip,  or  tliat  wliicli  is 
bronr/Jit  near  to  God,  or  ofl'ered, — translated  in  our 
version,  ohlatlo7ij  offering j  or  sacrifice.  Lev.  ii.  1,  4,  5, 
and  xxvii.  11,  tfcc.  The  fat,  as  the  most  excellent  part 
of  every  sacrifice,  was  always  entirely  burnt  by  the 
priest  on  the  altar,  and  so  sent  up  to  God  as  his  portion. 
This  is  constantly  called  "  GoiVsfood^^  or  "  God^s  hreoA^^ 
which  it  was  the  priesf  s  grand  prerogative  to  present  to 
him.  Lev.  iii.  11 ;  xxi.  6,  8,  17,  21,  22 ;  xxii.  25  ;  Ezek. 
xliv.  7;  Mai.  i.  7,  12.  This  altar,  upon  which  the 
priests  presented  their  offerings  to  Jehovah,  is  called 
"  God's  table:'  Mai.  i.  7, 12 ;  1  Cor.  x.  17,  21,  and  Heb. 
xiii.  10.  The  oiferings  which  it  was  the  distinctive 
duty  of  the  priest  to  l)ring  near  and  to  present  to  God, 
when  properly  presented  are  habitually  said  to  be  "  a 
sweet  savour  J  an  offering  to  the  Lord.''  Ex.  xxix.  18,  25 ; 
Levit.  i.  9,  13,  17 ;  Numb.  xv.  7,  14,  24,  &c.,  &c.  The 
distinction  of  the  priest  was  that  he  was  the  minister 
of  the  sanctuary  or  temple.  Here  he  came  and  dis- 
charged all  his  priestly  functions  as  the  representative 
of  man  and  as  the  familiar  of  God.  Only  the  priests 
could  enter  daily  into  the  Holy  Place,  and  only  the  high 
priest  himself  once  a  year  into  the  Most  Holy,  in  the 
presence  of  the  Schekinah — and  that  in  connection  with 
the  expiatory  sacrifices — to  sprinkle  sacrificial  blood 
on  the  altar  of  incense  and  on  the  Capporeth,  and  to 
present  the  incense  symbolical  of  prayer.  The  constant 
biblical  designation  of  the  temple,  to  which  all  the 
priest's  functions  had  referenc*  ^  was  the  "dwelling''  or 


154      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

"house"  of  Jehovah.  Ex.  xxv.  8 ;  xxix.  45,  46 ;  Deut. 
xxiii.  18;  Josh.  ix.  23,  and  "tabernacle  of  the  meeting  ;^* 
that  is,  properly  the  tent  of  meeting  between  God  and 
man,  wliere  God,  propitiated  by  blood,  met  the  Church 
through  their  representatives,  the  priests,  who  brought 
the  propitiating  blood  into  his  presence. 

5.  Hence  the  two  grand  functions  of  the  priest  were 
(a)  to  propitiate  with  bleeding  sacrifices,  Heb.  v.  1-3 ; 
and  (6)  to  make  intercession  for  the  people.  Tlie  nature 
of  tlie  former  function  I  have  sufficiently  discussed  in 
the  last  chapter.  The  symbolical  design  of  the  presen- 
tation of  incense  before  the  Lord  is  very  clearly  set 
forth  in  Scrijiture  to  be  representative  of  prayer — the 
prayers  of  God's  peo])le  in  mass;  and  in  the  case  of 
the  priests,  the  representatives  of  the  people,  intercessory 
prayer.  The  altar  of  incense  was  placed  on  the  outside 
of  the  veil,  over  against  the  mercy-seat  or  propitiato- 
rium.  Ex.  xxx.  6.  Incense  was  daily  offered  by  the 
priests  before  the  veil,  behind  which  God  sat  enthroned. 
During  the  "time  of  incense"  it  was  customary  for  the 
whole  multitude  of  the  people  to  be  praying  w^ithout. 
Luke  i.  10.  On  the  great  day  of  atonement  it  was  car- 
ried within  the  veil  by  the  high  priest,  "  that  the  cloud 
of  the  incense  may  cover  the  mercy-seat  that  is  upon 
the  testimony,  that  he  die  not."  Lev.  xvi.  13;  Ps.  cxli. 
2 ;  Rev.  v.  8  and  viii.  3,  4.  All  this  proves  beyond 
any  question  that  the  priest,  as  the  representative  of  the 
2)eo2)le,  as  the  minister  of  God's  house,  having  authority 
to  come  near  and  to  bring  near,  to  present  God's  food  on 
his  table,  and  to  present  to  Jehovah  sacrifices,  affording 
to  God  an  odour  of  a  sweet  smell, — that  in  this  ca])acity 
the  priest  was   for  sinful   men   the   only  medium  of 


CHRIST   THE    HIGH   PRIEST.  155 

acceptable  approach  to  God.  The  priest's  work  termi- 
nated on  God,  and  made  return  to  God  objectively  pos- 
sible to  the  sinner.  The  Moral  Influence  Tlieory  makes 
Christ's  work  terminate  on  the  sinner,  causing  the  sin- 
ner to  be  subjectively  disposed  to  return  to  God.  But 
herein  the  New  Testament  Priest  thoroughly  corresponds 
to  the  Old  Testament  type.  Jesus  testifies  of  himself, 
"I   am   the  way,  the   truth   and   the   life:    no   man 

COMETPI    TO   THE   FATHER   BUT   BY   ME.'' 

II.  The  work  of  the  ancient  priest  secured  the  actual 
and  certain  remission  of  the  sins  of  all  for  whom  he 
acted,  and  it  bore  a  definite  reference  to  the  persons  of 
all  those  whom  he  represented,  and  of  none  others. 

1.  The  priest  is  never  in  one  single  instance  repre- 
sented in  Scripture  as  oifering  a  sacrifice,  the  immediate 
design  or  effect  of  which  Avas  to  produce  a  moral  effect 
upon  the  transgressor,  or  to  place  him  in  a  position  in 
which  remission  is  a  possibility,  subject  to  other  con- 
ditions, or  to  exhibit  God's  determination  to  punish  sin. 
The  professed  and  uniform  design  and  effect  of  the 
priest's  work  was  to  secure  the  remission,  and  not  the 
remissibility,  of  the  penalty  due  the  sin  of  the  person  or 
persons  for  whom  he  acted.  AVhen  an  Israelite  sinned, 
he  went  to  the  priest,  who  presented  a  sin-offering  in  his 
stead — life  for  life — and  the  immediate  effect  was  forgive- 
ness, remission  of  the  penalty  due.  The  constant  pro- 
mise attached  to  the  command  to  sacrifice  is,  "and  it 
shall  be  forgiven  him."  Lev.  iv.  20,  26,  31,  &q.,  &c. 
The  sacrifice,  and  not  something  else  following  the  sacri- 
fice, ipso  facto  J  absolved. 

2.  The  Jewish  high  priest  offered  intercession  for  pre- 
cisely the  same  persons — for  all  of  them,  and  for  none 


1 66      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

others — for  -whom  he  had  previously  made  expiation 
He  bore  the  names  of  tlie  tribes  of  Israel  upon  hib 
breast.  He  confessed  the  sins  of  the  entire  congrega- 
tion, and  made  atonement  for  them  with  the  goats  of  the 
sin-offering.  He  appeared  before  God,  within  the  veil, 
in  behalf  of  all  the  congregation.  The  entire  work  of 
the  priest  was  one  work.  To  speak  the  language  of 
Christian  theology,  the  office  which  they  discharged, 
both  in  the  impetration  and  in  the  application  of 
benefits,  had  respect  to  precisely  the  same  persons. 
They  sacrificed  for,  they  interceded  for,  they  blessed 
precisely  the  same  persons,  and  none  others.  Numb, 
vi.  22-27. 

III.  Christ  was  a  real,  and  not  merely  a  metaphorical 
priest,  and  his  priesthood  was,  as  to  its  essential  charac- 
teristics, shadowed  forth  by  the  priests  of  the  Mosaic 
economy. 

1.  The  entire  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  an  inspired 
witness  to  the  fact  that  the  Levitical  priests  were  types 
of  Christ,  and  that  he  acted  as  the  literal  High  Priest  of 
his  people.  In  this  short  letter  he  is  called  Priest  six 
times  and  High  Priest  twelve  times.  Of  the  earthly 
tabernacle  it  is  declared  that  it  "  stood  only  in  meats 
and  drinks,  and  divers  washings  and  carnal  ordinances, 
imposed  on  them  until  the  time  of  reformation.  But 
Christ  being  come  a  High  Priest  of  good  things  to  come 
by  a  greater  and  more  perfect  tabernacle,  not  made  with 
hands,  that  is  to  say,  not  of  this  building;  neither  by 
the  blood  of  goats  and  calves,  but  by  his  own  blood,  he 
entered  in  once  into  the  holy  place,  having  obtained  eter- 
nal ro(lom])tion  for  us.  .  .  For  Christ  is  not  entered  into 
the  li<jly  phices  made  with  liands,  which  are  the  figures 


CHRIST   THE   HIGH   PRIEST.  157 

^f  tlic  true,  but  into  lieavcn  itself,  no\v  to  appear  in  the 
presence  of  God  for  us.  .  .  For  the  law  having  a 
shadow  of  good  things  to  come,  and  not  the  very  image 
of  th^  things,  can  never,  with  those  sacrifices,  make  the 
Cbmers  thereunto  j)erfect.  .  .  But  this  man,  after  that  he 
had  ottered  one  sacrifice  for  sins,  for  ever  sat  down  on 
the  right  hand  of  God.  .  .  For  by  one  offering  he  hath 
perfected  for  ever  them  tliat  are  sanctified.^^  Heb.  ix. 
10-24,  and  x.  1-14. 

2.  His  work  of  propitiation,  therefore,  must  have  been 
real  and  not  meta[)horical,  because  it  is  declared  to  be 
the  substance  of  which  the  services  of  the  Levitical 
priests  were  the  "  shadows,'^  ^'  figures,''  or  ^^  types." 
But  shadows  are  cast  by  literal  substances,  not  by  meta- 
phors ;  and  a  type  or  image  necessarily  implies  real 
characters  and  attributes  which  it  represents. 

3.  This  is  rendered  certain  from  the  following  facts. 
(1.)  He  was  expressly  declared  to  be  a  priest  both  in  the 
Old  Testament  and  in  the  New.  "  Jehovah  hath  sworn, 
and  will  not  repent,  Thou  art  a  priest  for  ever  after  the 
order  of  Melchizedek."  Ps.  ex.  4,  and  Heb.  v.  6  ;  vi.  20. 
Of  the  man  whose  name  is  the  branch,  it  is  said  that 
he  shall  be  '^  a  priest  upon  his  throne.^'  Zech.  vi.  13. 
(2.)  The  New  Testament  account  of  his  person  and 
character  ascribes  all  the  literal  characteristics  of  a  real 
priest  to  him.  (a)  He  was  taken  from  among  men  to 
represent  them.  Compare  Heb.  v.  1,  2,  with  Heb.  ii. 
14-18,  and  iv.  15.  "Forasmuch  then  as  the  children 
are  partakers  of  flesh  and  blood,  he  also  himself  likewise 
took  part  of  the  same.  .  .  Wherefore  in  all  things  it 
behooved  him  to  be  made  like  unto  his  brethren ;  that 
lie  might  he  a  merciful  and  faithful  high  priest  iii  things 

14 


158      THE  NATUEE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Tcpb^  rov  dhov,  to  make  reconciliation  for  the  sins  of  his 
people."  [b)  Pie  was  chosen  by  God  to  his  office.  Heb. 
V.  4-6.  (e)  He  was  perfectly  holy.  Luke  i.  35 ;  Heb. 
vii.  26.  {d)  He  possessed  beyond  all  others  the  right  of 
nearest  access  to  the  Father,  and  the  greatest  influence? 
with  him.  "I  came  forth  from  the  Father,  and  am 
come  into  the  w^orld ;  again  I  leave  the  world,  and  go  to 
the  Father.'^  He  said  to  the  Father,  '^  1  knew  that  thou 
hearest  me  always."  "  If  the  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats 
sanctifieth  to  the  purifying  of  the  flesh,  lioic  much  more 
shall  the  blood  of  Christ,  who  through  the  eternal  Spirit 
offered  himself  without  spot  to  God,"  avail  to  the  sal- 
vation of  our  souls  ?  ^'  For  Christ  has  not  entered  into 
the  holy  places  made  with  hands,  .  .  .  but  into  heaven 
itself,  now  to  api:)ear  in  the  presence  of  God  for  us 
ipirhp  -fjiiajv).  Jolm  xvi.  28 ;  xi.  42 ;  Heb.  i.  3 ;  ix. 
11-14,  24.  (3.)  And  finally,  both  the  Old  and  the 
New  Testaments  declare  that  he  literally  discharged  the 
functions  of  a  priest.  These  are  (a)  expiation.  Is.  liii. 
10,  12.  Daniel  declared  that  after  such  a  time  the 
Messiah  "should  be  cut  off,  but  not  for  himself,"  and 
that  he  would  make  "an  end  of  sins  and  reconciliation 
for  iniquity."  Dan.  ix.  24-26;  Eph.  v.  2;  Heb.  ix.  26; 
X.  12;  1  John  ii.  2.*  (h)  Intercession.  "Who  is  he 
that  condemneth?  It  is  Christ  that  died,  yea  rather 
that  is  risen  again,  who  is  even  at  the  right  hand  of 
God,  who  also  maketh  intercession  for  us."  Rom.  viii. 
34;  Heb.  vii.  25;  1  John  ii.  1. 

4.  I^astly,  we  maintain  that  the  priesthood  of  Christ 
was  a  real  and  literal  priesthood,   because  the  whole 
history  proves  that  the  elaborate  system  of  Lcviti(;al 
*  Sec  our  chapter  on  the  Sacrifice  of  Christ. 


CHRIST   TTTE   HIGH    PRIEST.  159 

types,  being  images  or  sluidows  of  Ins  work,  were  pre- 
paratory to  him,  aiul  found  their  fulfilment  in  liim. 
Thus,  for  example,  tlie  apostle  John  declared  that  the 
fact  that  the  soldiers  did  not  break  the  limbs  of  Jesus, 
as  they  had  done  those  of  the  two  thieves,  was  in  fulfil- 
ment of  the  law  with  regard  to  the  Pascal  lamb.  John 
xix.  36 ;  Ex.  xii.  46  ;  Numb.  ix.  12.  The  instant  of 
Christ's  death  the  veil  of  the  temj)le,  which  had  from  the 
b(\<;inning  marked  the  line  between  the  priests,  bruirjluf/ 
nciir  the  oilerings,  and  the  unapproachable  Jehovah, 
dwelling  between  the  cherubim,  "was  rent  in  tviain  from 
top  to  bottom.''^  Matt,  xxvii.  50,  51.  This  was  true  not 
only  of  each  type  or  prophetic  symbol  in  detail,  but  also 
of  the  entire  system  as  a  whole.  It  is  a  grand  histo- 
rical fact  that  the  ancient  temple,  its  ritual  services,  arid 
its  ministers  and  their  functions,  prefigured  and  prepared 
the  way  for  the  advent  and  work  of  Christ  for  nearly 
two  thousand  years.  It  is  also  a  grand  historical  fact 
that  the  priestly  work  of  Christ  immediately  and  definitely 
superseded  the  work  of  the  Levitical  priesthood.  The 
sacrifice  of  Christ  made  the  Levitical  priest,  ipso  fadOy 
functus  officio. 

Hence  we  argue,  since  the  ancient  high  priest  was  a 
type  of  Christ,  and  since  he  was  a  literal  and  not  a 
metaphorical  High  Priest,  that  it  certainly  follows — 
(1.)  That  since  "Christ  is  the  one  Mediator  between  God 
and  man'^  in  his  character  of  Pligh  Priest  (compare 
1  Tim.  ii.  1,  with  Heb.  ix.  11-15),  he  cannot  be  primarily 
the  medinm  of  divine  influences  upon  men,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  the  mediating  person,  propitiating  God  in 
behalf  of  men,  acting  in  behalf  of  men  in  those  things 
which  have  a  bearing  upon  God.     (2.)  It  follows  that 


160      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Christ  must  have  boon  ip  a  striet  seiiso  tho  Ixrpresrnlailve 
of  those  for  whose  benefit  he  acted.  (3.)  I'hat  the 
design  and  effect  of  Christ's  piacular  sacrifice  of  himself 
as  the  High  Priest  of  his  people  could  not  have  been  to 
bring  all  men  into  a  salvable  condition,  in  which  the 
remission  of  their  sins  is  possible ;  but  they  must  have 
been  to  secure  with  certainty  the  actual  remission  of  the 
sins  of  all  those  for  whom  he  died.  And  (4)  it  follows 
that  Christ  must  make  intercession  for  all  those  for 
whom  he  made  expiation.  But  (a)  Christ's  intercession 
is  always  efficacious.  It  is  offered  from  a  throne  at  the 
ri2:ht  hand  of  his  Father.  His  formula  of  intercession 
is  "  Father,  I icill.''  His  testimony  is  that  the  "Father 
heareth  him  always."  And  (6)  he  intercedes  only  for 
his  "own  people."  John  xvii.  9.  ^^ I  jpray  not  for  the 
WORLD,  hut  for-  them  which  thou  hast  given  me." 


CHAPTER    X. 

OURIST's      sufferings     were      strictly      AiND      DEFINITEL? 
VICARIOUS. 

I  PRESENT,  as  my  fifth  argument,  that  hirgc  class 
of  Scriptures  which  teach  that  Christ's  sufferings 
were  vicarious;  that  is,  that  he  suffered,  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  word,  as  the  Substitute  of  his  people — not 
merely  for  their  advantage,  but  strictly  in  their  room 
and  stead. 

Buslmoll  has  lately  written  a  remarkable  work,  the 
logic  of  which  may  be  judged  of  from  the  relation 
sustained  by  its  title  to  its  doctrine  and  design.  It  is 
entitled  "Vicarious  Sacrifice,"  and  its  design  is  to  prove 
that  the  sufferings  of  Christ  were  not  vicarious,  but  sim- 
ply philanthropic — in  sympathy  with  men  and  for  their 
benefit.  "  The  true  conception  is  that  Christ,  in  what  is 
called  his  vicarious  sacrifice,  simply  engages,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  great  suffering,  and  even  of  death  itself,  to  bring 
us  out  of  our  sins  themselves,  and  so  out  of  their  pen- 
alties; being  himself  profoundly  identified  with  us  in 
our  fallen  state,  and  burdened  in  feeling  with  our  evils.'' 
.  .  .  "Love  is  a  principle  essentially  vicarious  in  its  own 
nature,  identifying  the  subject  with  others,  so  as  to  suffer 
their  adversities  and  pains,  and  taking  on  itself  the 
burden  of  their  evils."  .  .  .  "Motherhood,  friendship, 
patriotism,  are  all  vicarious."  ..."  The  eternal  Father 
14  *  161 


162      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

before  Christ,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  coming  after,  and  the 
good  angels  both  before  and  after,  all  alike  have  borne 
the  burdens,  struggled  in  the  pains  of  their  vicarious 
feeling  for  men;  and  then,  at  last,  now  Christianity 
comes  in  to  its  issue,  in  begetting  in  us  the  same  vicari- 
ous love  that  reigns  in  all  the  glorified  and  good  minds 
of  the  heavenly  kingdom/'  .  .  .  "What  we  call  the 
vicarious  sacrifice  of  Christ  is  nothing  strange  as  regards 
the  principle  of  it — no  superlative,  unexampled  and 
therefore  unintelligible  grace.  It  only  does  and  suffers, 
and  comes  into  substitution  for,  just  what  any  and  all 
love  will,  according  to  its  degreed "^ 

Thus,  the  only  distinction  between  the  relation  sus- 
tained by  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  to  our  salvation,  and 
that  sustained  by  the  sympathies  and  sufferings  of  our 
mothers  and  pastors,  is  one  not  at  all  of  kind,  but  solely 
of  degree.  The  sufferings  of  Christ  on  the  cross  sustain 
precisely  the  same  relation  to  our  sins  as  do  the  prayers 
and  tears  of  our  mothers  as  they  intercede  for  our  salva- 
tion. Angels,  the  Father  himself,  and  the  Holy  Ghost, 
all  are  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  and  suffer,  the 
just  for  the  unjust,  and  give  their  lives  ransoms  for 
many  in  the  same  sense  that  Christ  did,  and  to  the  same 
effect — only  as  they  severally  differ  in  degree.  Now  it 
stands  to  reason  that,  as  certainly  as  pantheism  is  athe- 
ism, does  this  generalizing  of  vicarious  suffering,  which 
of  right  is  the  sole,  inalienable  and  glorious  function  of 
the  "one  Mediator  between  God  and  man,'' amount  only 
to  a  direct  and  absolute  denial  of  the  doctrine  of  vicari- 
ous sacrifice,  and  to  the  affirmation  that  the  sufferings 
of  Christ  were  mere  incidental  concomitants  of  his  phi- 
*  Bushnell  on  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  pp.  41-53. 


cueist's  sufferings  vicarious.  163 

lanthropic  interpositions  in  man's  behalf.  We  disprove 
this  denial  of  the  vicarious  character  of  the  sufferings 
of  Christ  by  proving  that  the  Scriptures  assert  in  many- 
ways  that  they  are  vicarious. 

There  are  several  forms  of  expression  which  essen- 
tially present  the  same  great  principles,  but  with  varia- 
tions. His  suffc'rings  are  said  to  be  vicarious.  He 
himself  is  said  to  have  been  the  Substitute  of  his  people, 
and  a  Ransom  for  them,  that  is,  in  their  stead.  He  is 
also  said  to  have  been  their  Representative  before  God, 
and  the  one  Mediator  between  God  and  man.  AVe  have 
before  seen  that  Christ  was  accurately  prefigured  by  the 
bleeding  sacrifice  upon  the  altar,  and  by  the  high  priest 
who  brought  the  blood  near  to  God  within  the  veil. 
He  was  in  like  manner  prefigured,  at  the  same  time,  by 
the  slain  goat  upon  the  altar,  and  by  the  living  goat 
carrying  away  the  expiated  sins  of  the  people  into  the 
wilderness.  His  office  as  Mediator  included  the  func- 
tions at  once  of  Prophet,  Priest  and  King,  and  yet  not 
one  of  his  j^ersonal  types  embraced,  in  one  person,  more 
than  two  of  these,  as  David  and  Ezra.  The  reason  for 
this,  of  course,  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  type  was  finite 
and  transient,  while  the  antetype  was  infinite  and  eternal. 
He  Avas  at  once  God,  and  priest,  and  bleeding  sacrifice, 
dead  and  alive  again  for  evermore,  off^erer  and  offering. 
When  we  say,  therefore,  that  our  blessed  Lord  is,  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  word,  our  Substitute  or  our  Ransom, 
we  do  not  mean  that  for  any  single  moment  these  rela- 
tions exhaust  all  the  relations  borne  or  functions  dis- 
charged by  his  infinite  person.  At  the  very  same 
moment  he  is  God,  whose  justice  demands  propitiation; 
and  Priest,  offl'ring  himself  a  sacrifice;  and  the  sacrifice, 


164      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATO>'EMENT. 

offered  to  satisfy  that  justice.  I^ct  it  be  distinctly  un- 
derstood, then,  that  when  we  say  that  Christ  was  the 
Substitute  of  his  people,  and  his  suflerings,  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  word,  vicarious,  we  affirm  this  to  be  true  of 
him  viewed  in  his  function  as  a  sacrifice.  When  we  say 
that  he  is  the  Representative,  we  affirm  this  to  be  true  of 
him  as  the  second  Adam  or  federal  Head,  undertaking 
and  discharging  all  'the  obligations  of  the  broken  law 
in  our  stead.  When  we  say  he  is  our  Mediator,  we 
affirm  tliat  to  be  true  of  him  as  our  High  Priest,  as  he 
is  ordained  for  man  in  the  things  pertaining  to  God 
(ra  rr^ooc  rbu  Oebv). 

The  place  we  occupied  was  "  under  the  law.''  We  were 
placed  under  it  at  the  creation,  and  perfect  obedience 
made  the  condition  of  our  well-being.  By  our  fall  in 
Adam  we  became  at  once  incapable  of  obeying  tlie  de- 
mands of  the  law  and  subject  to  its  unrelaxable  penalty. 
The  law  remains  over  us,  therefore,  as  an  inexorable 
taskmaster,  demanding  the  imj)ossible,  and  as  the  organ 
of  immutable  justice,  demanding  our  deatli.  Christ, 
being  a  divine  Person,  was  of  course  himself  the  norm 
and  fountain  of  all  law,  and  incapable  of  being  subjected 
to  any  personal  conditions  of  life;  yet,  as  the  Thean- 
thropic  Mediator  in  behalf  of  his  elect,  he  "  was  made 
under  the  law,"  that  is,  transferred  to  that  position,  "that 
he  might  redeem  them  that  are  under  the  law."  Gal.  iv. 
4,  5.  The  place  he  took,  therefore,  was  our  law-place. 
In  taking  our  law-place  he  necessarily  assumed  our  legal 
responsibilities;  for  example, obedience  as  a  condition  of 
life,  and  suffi'ring  as  a  penal  consequent  of  disobedience. 
And  he  did  this  "to  redeem  them  that  tu-e  under  the 
law;"  that  is,  all  he  did  in  our  place  was  for  our  sake. 


165 

Wo  ficcept  fully  Barnes's  definition  of  a  substi- 
tute.* "The  idea  is,  that  the  person  substituted  is  to 
do  or  suffer  the  same  thlni^  which  the  person  for  ^vhom 
he  is  substituted  would  have  done."  This  is  a  fair 
statement  of  the  true  doctrine  of  substitution,  which 
necessarily  involves  the  true  doctrine  of  the  Atonement. 
The  advocates  of  the  Governmental  Theory  are  able  to 
admit  that  Christ  died  as  our  Substitute  only  in  the  loose 
sense  of  having  died /or  our  sakes.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  maintain,  as  is  implied  in  the  above  definition,  that 
Christ  suffered  as  our  Substitute  in  the  strict  and  proper 
sense  of  having  suffered  in  our  place  or  stead.  The 
truth  of  this  j^osition  is  expressly  affirmed  in  Scripture, 
as  well  as  indirectly  involved  in  many  related  doc- 
ti'ines. 

1.  We  saw,  under  a  previous  head,  that  in  the  Jewish 
sacrifices  the  victim  was  in  the  most  literal  sense  con- 
ceivable substituted  for  the  offerer  to  bear  the  penalty 
due  him,  and  thus  to  discharge  his  obligations  to  the 
law.  Reconciliation  was  effected  through  propitiation, 
propitiation  through  expiation,  and  expiation  through 
the  substitution  of  life  for  life.  Christ  suffered  as  a 
sacrifice,  and  hence  was  substituted  in  a  sacrificial  sense. 

2.  The  preposition  dKsp  with  the  genitive,  generally 
though  not  always,  carries  with  it  the  idea  of  strict  sub- 
stitution. Caiaphas  said  (John  xi.  50,)  "  It  is  expedient 
for  us,  that  one  man  should  die  for  (unkp)  the  people,  and 
that  the  whole  nation  perish  not;"  that  is,  that  one 
should  die  in  the  place  of  the  nation — that  is,  instead 
of  their  death.  Paul  (2  Cor.  v.  20)  says :  "  We  pray 
you  {uTckp  XpiGzoi))  in  Christ's  stead,  be  ye  reconciled  to 

*  Atonement,  p.  281. 


166      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

GoJ  ;"  that  is,  we  do  in  Christ's  place  what  he  would 
do  in  person  if  present.  Paul  writes  to  Philemon  that 
he  sends  back  to  him  Onesimus,  '^  whom  I  would  have 
retained  with  me,  that  in  thy  stead  {unkp  aob)  he  might 
have  ministered  unto  me  in  the  bonds  of  the  gospel/' 
Philemon  13.  The  same  construction  is  habitually- 
used  to  set  forth  the  nature  of  Clirist's  substitution  for 
us.  ^'We  thus  judge  that  if  one  died  for  all  {uTzep 
7rduTQ)v)j  then  were  all  dead."  2  Cor.  v.  14.  "  For  he 
hath  made  him  to  be  sin  for  {uizhp)  us  that  knew  no  sin." 
2  Cor.  V.  21.  ^^  Christ  hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse 
of  the  law,  being  made  a  curse  for  (urrkf))  us."  Gal.  iii. 
13.  "That  by  the  grace  of  God  he  should  taste  death 
for  (<3/T£/>)  every  man."  Heb.  ii.  9.  "  For  Christ  hath 
once  suffered  for  sins,  the  just  for  {uTikp)  the  unjust,  that 
he  might  bring  us  to  God."  1  Pet.  iii.  18. 

3.  The  preposition  dvrr  expresses  more  precisely  than 
any  other  word  in  the  Greek  language  the  exact  idea  of 
substitution  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word.  This  is 
the  radical  and  definite  usage  of  the  preposition.* 

Thus  it  is  said  (Matt.  ii.  22),  "  Archelaus  did  reign  in 
Judea  in  ilie  room  of  {dvzi)  his  father  Herod."  Again, 
(Matt.  V.  38)  "An  eye  /w  (dvrr)  an  eye,  and  a  tooth /or 
{d.\^Ti)  a  tooth."  And  when  this  word  is  used  to  express 
the  relation  of  Christ  to  those  in  whose  behalf  he  acted, 
its  sense  is  rendered,  if  possible,  more  precise  and  em- 
phatic by  association  with  the  word  Xurpov,  redemption- 
price.  Thus  (Matt.  XX.  28),  "The  Son  of  Man  came  to 
give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many  [I'jvpov  Avrl  ttoUwu). 
The  same  is  repeated  in  Mark  x.  45;  and  in  1  Tim.  ii.  6. 
Paul,  after  his  manner,  combines  in  one  most  emphatic 

^  See  Winer's  Gram,  of  New  Test.  Diction,  part  iii.,  sec.  47. 


Christ's  sufferings  vicarious.  167 

formula,  the  force  of  all  the  three  words  most  exactly 
ex[)ressiiig  substitution,  "who  gave  himself  a  ransom 
{duzcXuTffuu)  for  (uTrkff)  all ;"  that  is,  gave  himself  to  be 
a  substitutionary  rani^m  in  the  place  of  all.  If  the 
Holy  Ghost  (lid  intend  us  to  understand  that  Christ  was 
strictly  substituted  in  the  law-place  of  his  people,  he 
could  have  used  no  language  more  exactly  adapted  to 
ex})ress  his  meaning.  If  this  were  not  his  meaning,  we 
may  well  despair  of  arriving  at  the  understanding  of  his 
meaning  on  any  subject  through  the  study  of  his  words 
in  any  department  of  Scripture. 

When  the  purpose  is  to  express  the  relation  which  the 
death  of  Christ  sustains  not  to  the  persons  of  his  people, 
but  to  their  sins,  the  prepositions  used  are  Treffc  and 
uTckf^,  with  the  genitive.  Robinson  says  that  Ttsfjc 
Si/jLapTcar,  in  this  connection,  signifies  "on  account  of 
sin,  or  for  sin ;  that  is,  for  doing  away  or  expiating  sin." 
Rom.  viii.  3;  Ileb.  x.  18,  26;  1  Pet.  iii.  18;  1  John 
ii.  2,  and  iv.  10.  The  same  authority  renders  urrkp 
when  construed  with  SL/jaftrcajv,  as  indicating  the 
"ground,  motive,  or  occasion  of  the  action."  1  Cor. 
XV.  3.  S(;e  Heb.  v.  1-3,  and  vii.  27.  This  usage  may 
give  no  additional  force  to  the  argument  proving  that 
Christ  is  our  Substitute  in  a  literal  sense,  which  I  have 
presented  above,  but  it  abundantly  disproves  the  moral 
view  of  the  atonement  in  any  form  it  can  assume. 
Christ  died  for,  because  of,  our  sins.  This  naturally 
suggests,  and  has,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  always  suggested 
to  the  great  majority  of  men,  that  the  immediate  reason 
of  his  dying  was  the  removal  of  sin;  not  that  our  sin 
was  the  remote  occasion  which  rendered  his  dying  pro- 
per. 


168      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Barnes  maintains  {a)  that  the  idea  of  substitution 
is,  "that  the  person  substituted  is  to  do  or  suffer  the 
same  thing  which  the  person  for  whom  he  is  substituted 
would  have  done."  (6)  That  Christ  suffered  and  died  as 
the  true  Substitute  of  his  people.  And  yet  he  affirms 
that  Christ  did  not  suffer  the  true  penalty  of  the  law ; 
that  is,  -he  did  not  suffer  what  they  would  have  done ; 
that  is,  that  he  was  their  Substitute,  while  he  lacked  that 
which  is  essential  to  the  idea  of  a  substitute.  It  is  true, 
as  I  showed  above,  that  the  person  upon  whom  the 
penalty  is  to  be  inflicted  being  changed — one  divine  Per- 
son being  substituted  for  many  human  persons — the  law 
itself,  on  principles  of  essential  justice,  spontaneously 
adjusts  the  quality  of  the  sufferings  constituting  the 
penalty  to  the  quality  of  the  victim.  Sinners  being 
the  victims,  the  penalty  includes  remorse  and  eternal 
death.  Christ  being  the  substituted  victim,  remorse 
and  eternal  death,  ij^so  facto,  cease  to  be  the  penalty, 
and  he,  standing  in  our  place,  suffers  precisely  the  very 
penalty  of  the  law  in  our  stead,  that  is,  all  that  the  law 
in  rigour  of  justice  demands  on  the  account  of  our  sins, 
when  that  account  is  settled  in  his  person.  In  every 
substitution  there  must  be  a  constant  as  well  as  a  vari- 
able quantity.  A  substitute  is  not  a  different  man  in  a 
different  place,  but  a  different  man  in  the  same  place. 


CHAPTER     XI. 

THE  OIITJIODOX  DOCTRINE  PROVED  FROM  THE  FACT  THAT 
THE  SCRIl'TURES  DECLARE  THAT  OUR  SINS  WERE  LAID 
Ul'ON    CHRIST. 

OUK  doctrine  is  explicitly  and  emphatically  taught 
in  a  large  class  of  passages  which  assert  that  our 
«m,9  were  laid  iq')on  Christ — that  they  were  charged  to 
his  account,  and  made  his  in  such  a  sense  that  they  were 
the  legal  cause  of  his  suffering  the  pei^alty  due  to  them. 
"The  Lord  hath  laid  on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all.^' 
Is.  liii.  6.  "He  bare  the  sin  of  many.'^  Is.  liii.  12. 
"  For  he  hath  made  him  to  be  sin  for  us,  who  knew  no  sin, 
that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God  in  him.'' 
2  Cor.  V.  21.  "Christ  hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse 
of  the  law,  being  made  a  curse  for  us."  Gal.  iii.  13. 
"So  Christ  was  once  offered  to  bear  the  sins  of  many." 
Heb.  ix.  28.  "Who  his  own  self  bare  our  sins  in  his 
own  body  on  the  tree."  1  Pet.  ii.  24. 

It  is  claimed  that  these  expressions  cannot  possibly  be 
interpreted  literally ;  that  it  cannot  be  true  that  Christ 
in  any  literal  sense  was  transformed  into  sin ;  that  the 
all -perfect  Son  of  God  could  not  have  been  in  any 
natural  sense  of  the  word  a  sinner.  Those  who  reject 
^he  orthodox  doctrine  of  satisfaction  hence  illogically 
Ljonclude  that  since  these  terms  are  not  to  be  interpreted 
literally,  they  have  no  definite  and  certainly  ascertain- 
able meaning  at  all,  but  may  be  accommodated  to  any 
15  loy 


170      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

view  of  tlie  atonement  which  we  have  reason  on  other 
grounds  to  prefer.  In  opposition  to  this,  we  maintain 
that  the  usage  of  Scripture  with  respect  to  the  phrases 
"sin,"  "to  bear  sin,"  or  "iniquity,"  "to  impute"  or  "to 
lay  upon"  one  "sin"  or  "iniquity,"  is  uniform,  and  that 
their  sense  is  both  definite  and  certainly  ascertainable ; 
and  that  the  meaning  of  the  passages  above  quoted,  when 
interpreted  in  the  light  of  this  usage,  is  unmistakably 
clear  and  consistent  only  with  the  doctrine  that  our  sins 
were,  in  strict  rigour  of  justice,  laid  U23on  and  jiunished 
in  the  person  of  Christ. 

1.  The  word  sin  is  habitually  used  in  Scripture  to  set 
forth  moral  evil  in  three  aspects  or  relations.  (1.)  Sin 
considered  as  to  its  formal  nature,  that  is,  as  transgres- 
sion of  God's  law.  1  John  iii.  4.  (2.)  Sin  considered  as 
a  moral  quality  inherent  in  the  soul  of  the  agent — as 
pollution — macula,  llom.  vi.  11-13.  (3.)  Sin  considered 
with  respect  to  its  legal  obligation  to  punishment — as 
guilt — rcatiis.  In  this  last  sense  it  is  used  in  all  those 
passages  which  speak  of  "bearing  sin,"  of  "laying  on 
iniquities,"  of  "imputing  sin,"  &c.  In  this  sense  the 
Plebrew  words  for  sin  (n^^ton)  and  guilt  {uw\i)  were 
used  to  designate  the  sacrifices,  which  were  made  to 
suffer  vicariously  the  penalty  due  the  ritual  transgres- 
sions of  the  offerer.  In  like  manner  Christ  is  said  to  be 
made  sin — that  is,  according  to  constant  usage,  a  sin- 
offering — because  he  is  the  sacrifice  who  volunteers  to 
suffer  vicariously  the  penalty  consequent  upon  our  trans- 
gressions of  the  moral  law. 

2.  The  phrase  to  "impute  sin,"  or  "righteousness,"  in 
its  sci-iptural  usage  signifies  simply  to  set  to  one's  ac- 
count, to  lay  to  one's  charge  or  credit  as  a  ground  of 


OUR   SINS   LAID   ON   CIIIIIST.  171 

lo<^"al  process.  The  thing  imputed  iiiiiy  belong  to  the 
person  to  whom  it  is  imputed  originally.  In  that  ease 
it  is  imputed  in  the  sense  of  being  simply  charged  to 
him,  made  the  ground  of  a  legal  indictment  2)reparatory 
to  judicial  process.  Or  the  thing  imputed  may  not  be 
originally  his,  but  may  be  made  his  by  the  imputation, 
because  of  the  legal  connection  subsisting  between  the 
person  to  whom  the  thing  originally  belonged  and  him 
to  whom  it  is  im|)uted.  Thus,  not  to  impute  sin  to  the 
doer  of  it  is  of  course  not  to  charge  the  guilt  of  his  own 
sin  upon  him  as  a  ground  of  punishment.  To  impute 
righteousness  without  works  can  only  mean  to  credit  a 
believer  with  the  rewarclableness  of  a  righteousness 
which  did  not  originate  with  himself.  Rom.  iv.  4-8. 
God  in  Christ  not  imputing  their  trespasses  unto  his 
people,  is,  of  course,  God  for  Christ's  sake  not  charging 
their  trespasses  to  them  as  a  ground  of  punishment. 
2  Cor.  V.  19.  Christ  must  be  made  sin  for  us  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  sense  that  we  are  made  the  righteousness 
of  God  in  him.  2  Cor.  v.  21.  But,  as  will  be  shown 
below,  we  are  Justified  or  pronounced  righteous  in 
Christ  forensically,  as  a  matter  of  legal  relation,  not 
made  inherently  righteous  by  the  infusion  of  grace. 
The  macula  or  pollution  of  sin  might  possibly  be 
transmitted  by  generation.  Otherwise  it  must  ever  re- 
main the  inalienable  personal  quality  of  the  individual 
sinner.  It  is  an  absurdity,  for  which  no  class  of 
Reformed  theologians  have  ever  been  responsible,  to 
represent  personal  character,  either  good  or  bad,  as 
transferable  from  one  person  to  another  by  imputation. 
All  that  can  be  im2:)ut<3d  from  person  to  person  is  tho 
guilt  or  legal  obUg'^tion  to  punishment  of  any  sin,  and 


172  THE   NATUPvE   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

that  only  in  those  cases  in  which  tlie  person  to  whom  it 
is  imputed  has  become  in  some  way  or  other  justly 
responsible  for  the  action  of  the  person  the  guilt  of 
whose  sin  is  imputed. 

This  usage  of  the  word  "impute"  is  not  a  creation  of 
"artificial  theology/'  as  is  asserted  by  Dr.  Young  and 
by  all  those  who  maintain  either  the  "Moral"  or  the 
"Governmental"  theory  of  the  Atonement.  This  is 
evident,  because  (1)  this  sense  is  embraced  in  the  classi- 
cal usage  of  the  word  loyi^ofiai.  Its  primary  sense  is  to 
count,  reckon.  Then,  when  construed  with  a  person  in 
the  dative  and  a  thing  in  the  accusative,  it  signifies  to 
set  down  that  thing  to  the  account  of  that  person,  and 
is  thus  equivaleiojt  to  the  Latin  term  imputare."^  Ains- 
worth  defines  imputare — "to  ascribe,  to  charge;  to  lay 
the  blame  or  fault  on  any  one."  Suidas'  Lexicon — 
^^Xoy'i^cOj  reputo;  et  Xoyi(TO[iae,  computabo;  et  Xoyarjfiat, 
numerabo,  computabo;  et  XoycT),  existimo,  ut  illud:  et 
imputatum  est  ipsi  in  justitiam." 

(2.)  The  same  is  true  of  the  usage  of  the  Hebrew 
3l7n  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  daughters  of  Laban 
complained  (Gen.  xxxi.  15)  that  their  father  ^'countecV^ 
them  strangers — that  is,  regarded  and  treated  them  as 
strangers.  "If  any  of  the  flesh  of  the  sacrifice  of  his 
peace-offerings  be  eaten  at  all  on  the  third  day,  it  shall 
not  be  accepted,  neither  shall  it  he  imputed  vnto  him  that 
offei^eth  it;  it  shall  be  an  abomination,  and  the  soul  that 
eateth  of  it  shall  bear  his  iniquity."  Lev.  vii.  18.  The 
sacrifice  was  offered  as  a  matter  of  fact,  but  was  not  set 
to  the  credit  of  the  offerer  as  acceptable  or  effective. 
The  l.eave-offering  of  the  Leviteswas  to  be  ^^  reckoned  a8 
*  Liddell  and  Scott. 


OUR   SINS   LAID   ON   CHRIST.  173 

iliough  it  were  the  corn  of  the  threshing-floor,  and  rus  the 
fuhiess  of  the  wine-press/'  Numb,  xviii.  27,  30.  That 
Pliincas  slew  the  offending  Israelite  at  Shittim  "was 
counted  unto  him  for  righteousness  unto  all  generations 
for  evermore."  Ps.  cvi.  31. 

(3.)  The  same  is  true  with  regard  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment usage  of  the  word  loyL^ofLdi.  Christ,  referring  to 
Tsa.  liii.  12,  said:  "For  I  say  unto  you,  that  this  that 
is  written  must  yet  be  accomplished  in  me,  And  he 
was  reckoned  among  the  transgressors."  Luke  xxii.  37. 
"Therefore  if  the  uncircumcision  keep  the  righteousness 
of  the  law,  shall  not  his  uncircumcision  he  counted  for 
circumcision?"  Rom.  ii.  26.  "Abraham  believed  God, 
and  it  was  countednwio  him  for  righteousness."  Gal.  iii.  6. 
"To  him  that  worketh,  the  reward  is  not  rechoned  o^ 
grace,  but  of  debt."  "To  him  that  worketh  not,  but 
believeth  on  him  that  justificth  the  ungodly,  his  faith  is 
counted  for  righteousness."  David  speaks  of  the  bless- 
edness of  the  man  "  to  whom  the  Lord  imputeth  right- 
eousness without  tcorks — to  whom  the  Lord  will  not 
impute  sin."  "Faith  was  reckoned  to  Abraham  for. 
righteousness."  Eom.  iv.  3-9.  "  God  in  Christ  recon- 
ciling the  world  unto  himself,  not  imputing  their  tres- 
passes unto  them."  2  Cor.  v.  19.  "At  my  first  answer 
no  man  stood  with  me,  but  all  men  forsook  me;  I  pray 
God  that  it  may  not  be  laid,  to  their  charged  2  Tim.  iv. 
16.  "  He  was  ww?7i6erfd' with  the  transgressors."  INIark 
XV.  28.  "But  also  that  the  temple  of  the  great  goddess 
Diana  should  be  counted  for  naughtJ^"^  Acts  xix.  27. 

The  Scriptures  plainly  teach,  therefore,  that  all  the 
guilt  or  obligation  to  punishment  incurred  by  the  sins 

*  Etj  ovSiv   \oy17Ofjvai. 

15  * 


174      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

of  his  people  was  imputed  or  charged  to  the  account  of 
Christ,  as  the  legal  ground  of  the  execution  upon  him 
of  the  penalty  involved  in  the  case.  Yet,  notwithstand- 
ing that  the  guilt  of  all  our  sins  is  thus  charged  to 
Christ,  and  expiated  in  him,  all  their  blame,  shame, 
pollution  and  power,  as  inherent  personal  habits  or 
principles,  remain  all  the  while  inalienably  ours.  These 
sins  ire  none  the  less  ours, after  their  imputation  to  him, 
than  they  were  before,  (a.)  The  very  force  of  the  im- 
putation is  to  make  him  ^^  alienee  culpce  reiis,''  that  is, 
penally  responsible  for  another's  sin.  They  must  remain 
ours  in  order  that  they  may  be  to  him  the  sins  of  an- 
other, (b.)  Because  personal  moral  qualities,  and  the 
pollution  inherent  in  sinful  ones,  are  inalienable  and 
cannot  be  transferred  by  imputation,  (c.)  Because,  as 
Owen  pointed  out  long  ago,  to  be  'Udience  culpce  rews" 
makes  no  man  a  sinner,  subjectively  considered,  unless 
he  did  unwisely  or  irregularly  undertake  the  responsi- 
bility. (cZ.)  Because  our  blessed  Lord  was  a  divine 
Person,  and  therefore  absolutely  incapable  of  personal 
sin  in  any  sense  or  degree.  While,  therefore,  he  bore 
our  sins,  and  consequently  suffered  the  penalty  involved, 
and  hence  was  both  regarded  and  treated  by  the  Father, 
during  the  time  and  for  the  purpose  of  expiation,  as 
mcarioudy  guilty  and  worthy  of  wrath,  he  was  all  the 
while  not  one  iota  the  less  personally  inmiaculate  and 
glorious  in  holiness,  and  all  the  more  the  well- beloved 
Son  of  the  Father,  in  whom  he  was  well  pleased. 

All  this  the  orthodox  have  ahvays  held  and  carefully 
expressed.  We  regard  it,  then,  as  an  evident  sign  of 
weakness,  and  as  an  offence  against  honourable  argu- 
ment, when  the  advocates  of  the  Governmental  Theory 


OUR  SIXS   LAID   OX   CHRIST.  175 

(as  for  instance,  Barnes,  Fiskc,  and  others),  by  studi- 
ously confounding  the  imputation  of  guilt  with  the 
transference  of  personal  inherent  sinful  character,  and 
by  habitually  setting  forth  the  coarse  and  indiscriniinat- 
ing  language  of  Luther  on  this  subject  as  a  fair  repre- 
sentation of  the  Satisfaction  Theory,  disingenuously, 
insinuate  that  at  least  the  more  self-consistent  of  the 
orthodox  have  held  the  blasphemy  that  Christ  was  made 
personally  a  sinner  when  he  bore  our  sins  upon  the  tree. 
On  this  subject,  I  remark,  (1.)  No  Christian  ever  did, 
or  by  possibility  could,  hold  the  doctrine  of  imputation 
which  they  thus  covertly  impute  to  us.  It  is  nonsense 
on  the  one  hand,  and  infamous  blasphemy  upon  the  other. 
(2.)  Luther's  language  on  this  point  Avas,  characteristi- 
cally of  the  man  and  of  his  age,  coarse  and  wild,  and 
Eoithcr  to  be  defended  nor  imitated.  (3.)  But  Luther 
was  a  good  man,  and  no  competent  theologian  believes, 
and  no  honest  one  will  pretend,  that  he  held  a  doctrine 
in  any  respect  different  from  that  which  I  have  stated 
above  as  that  of  the  Scriptures  and  of  the  Keformed 
Churches.  (4.)  But  his  language  renders  him  pecu- 
liarly liable  to  misconception  upon  the  part  of  the  unin- 
structed.  It  is,  therefore,  an  instrument  peculiarly  fitted 
for  the  use  of  controversialists,  who,  lacking  argument, 
need  to  excite  the  prejudices  of  the  uninstructed  against 
their  opponents.  (5.)  These  very  same  gentlemen,  who 
thus  exhibit  Luther  to  the  public  as  a  vile  blasphemer, 
in  order  that  all  who  hold  the  same  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement  may  be  silently  implicated  in  the  same 
charge,  nevertheless  honour  him  as  a  true  Christian  and 
a  great  reformer.  But  unless  they  misrepresent  his  doc- 
trine of  imputation  he  cannot  be  a  Christian.     Which 


1  76      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

alternative  will  they  aceept?  Will  they  accept  as  a  true 
Christian  a  traducer  of  their  Lord?  Or  will  they  assert 
that  Luther  was  no  Christian?  Or  will  they  acknow- 
ledge that  for  purposes  of  controversy  they  have  mis- 
represented his  doctrine?* 

3.  This  doctrine  of  the  imputation  of  the  guilt  of  our 
sins  is  clearly  proved  by  the  passages  above  stated,  when 
interpreted  in  careful  comparison  wnth  the  usage  of  the 
words  translated  "to  bear  sin/'  both  in  the  Old  and 
New  Testament.  Thus  (1)  the  Hebrew  word  S:iD  has 
tlie  precise  sense  of  hearing — not  of  bearing  aioay  or  re~ 
moving,  but  in  the  sense  of  carrying.  Thus  (Lam.  v.  7), 
"Our  fathers  have  sinned  and  are  not,  and  we  have 
home  (p^^)  their  iniquities."  This  can  only  mean 
to  bear  the  penalty  of  the  sins  of  their  fathers.  So 
of  Christ,  "My  righteous  servant  shall  justify  many; 
for  he  shall  hear  (^3d)  their  iniquities."  Isa.  liii.  11. 
(2.)  The  w^ord  xi^J  has  a  more  diversified  usage  than 
^!3D,  yet  when  construed  with  sin  it  always  plainly 
means  "to  bear  sin"  in  the  sense  of  "being  penally  re- 
sponsible" for  it.  "Not  to  bear  sin"  is  not  to  have  sin 
charged  or  imputed  as  a  ground  of  punishment.  If  a 
husband  cause  his  wife  to  break  a  vow  made  with  liis 
knowledge,  "he  must  bear  her  iniquity,"  Numb.  xxx. 
15;  that  is,  he  must  be  responsible  for  the  punishment 
attached.  If  a  soul  sin,  "he  shall  hear  his  iniquity;" 
that  is,  he  shall  be  held  gui-lty  and  liable  to  punishment, 
and  therefore  shall  he  bring  a  ram,  and  the  priest  shall 
make  atonement.  Lev.  v.  17,  18.  The  consequence  of 
hearing  sin  is  death  or ixmaltij.  Numb,  xviii.  22.     "And 

''^  See  Cuimingliam's  Reformers  ar.d  Tlieology  of  the  Kefonuation, 
Essay  2d — Lutlier. 


OUR  SINS   LAID   ON   CHRIST.  177 

the  goat  shall  bear  vpon  lilm   all  their  iniquities  into  a 
land  not  in]uil)iteJ."  Lev.  xvi.  22. 

(3.)  Tlie  authors  of  the  Septuagint  translation  render 
these  words  sometimes  with  dc/xo,  to  bcai' — to  bear  away ; 
but  often  also  with  (fSfuo  and  dpa(fifuo,  whieh  can  only 
mean  to  bear  in  the  sense  of  bearing  on  one's  self  in 
order  to  bear  aivay.  Kobinson,  who  cannot  be  suspected 
of  theological  bias,  gives  the  meaning  both  of  (fifno  and 
dvaififuo  as  ''to  take  up  and  bear  in  the  place  of  an- 
other; to  tiike  from  another  on  one's  self;  to  bear  the 
punishment  of  sin;  to  expiate/' 

Bushnell*  says  that  Matthew's  reference  (Matt.  viii. 
17)  to  Isa.  liii.  4  "is  the  one  Scripture  citation  that 
gives  beyond  question  the  exact  vmls  loquendi  of  all  the 
vicarious  and  sacrificial  language  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment." The  passage  in  Isaiah  is  as  follows:  "Surely 
he  hath  borne  (Hebrew,  xa^:;  Septuagint,  (fspw)  our 
griefs,  and  carried  (Hebrew,  S::d)  our  sorrows."  The 
reference  in  Matthew  is :  "  And  he  cast  out  the  spirits 
with  his  word,  and  healed  all  that  were  sick ;  that  it 
might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  Esaias  the  pro- 
phet, saying.  Himself  took  (Vm^b)  our  infirmities,  and 
bare  our  sicknesses."  From  this  datum  Bushnell 
draws  two  amazing  conclusions:  (1.)  That  the  exact 
imis  loquendi  of  all  the  vicarious  and  sacrificial  language 
of  the  New  Testament  is  to  be  derived  from  this  single 
passage.  (2.)  That  the  only  sense  in  which  Christ  bore 
either  our  sins,  our  sorrows,  or  our  diseases  was  that  he 
took  them  on  his  feelings — had  his  heart  burdened  with 
a  sense  of  thera. 

To   the  first   assumption   we   answer   that   the    usus 
*  "  Vicarious  Sacrifice,"  pages  43,  44. 


178      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

loqucndl  of  the' words  can  be  dcteriniiicJ  only  by  a  care- 
ful analysis  and  comparison  of  all  the  passages  in  which 
they  severally  occur  in  the  original  Hebrew,  in  the 
Scptuagint,  and  in  the  New  Testament  itself. 

To  the  second  assumption,  we  answer  that  it  is  a  noto- 
rious fact,  admitted  by  all  scholars,  that  the  New 
Testament  writers  quote  the  Old  Testament  freely, 
accommodating  the  sense  to  a  present  purpose.  Isaiah 
affirms  that  Christ  bore  our  sorrows — that  is,  bore  them 
on  himself  in  order  to  remove  them.  Isaiah  uses  the 
technical  words  N^yj  and  S:3D ;  the  Septuagint  translates 
by  (fipcoj  but  Matthew  substitutes  iXa^B.  There  is  no 
contradiction;  only  Isaiah  emphasized  the  carried,  and 
Matthew  emphasized  the  removed.  The  first  pointed 
out  the  means,  the  other  the  result  effected.  The  fact 
is  that  he  endured  visible  sorrows,  which  made  men 
believe  that  he  was  under  divine  chastisement ;  hence  it 
is  said,  "We  thought  him  stricken,  smitten  of  God,  and 
afflicted.  .  .  But  he  was  wounded  for  our  transgression, 
the  punishment  of  our  peace  was  upon  him."* 
*  See  Alexander's  Isaiali. 


CHAPTER     XII. 

THE  ORTHODOX  DOCTRINE  AS  TO  TUE  NATURE  OF  THE 
ATONEMENT  PROVED  BY  THE  CHARACTER  OF  THE 
EFFECTS    WHICH    ARE    ATTRIBUTED    TO    IT    IN     SCRIPTURE. 

AS  our  seventh  argument,  we  cite  those  numerous  pas- 
sages of  Scripture  which  describe  in  various  rela- 
tions and  liglits  the  effects  of  the  redemption  work  of 
our  Lord.  These  are  set  forth  in  three  capital  relations: 
(a)  as  these  effects  concern  God,  they  are  termed  'propi- 
tlatio7iy  and  hence  reconciliation;  (b)  as  they  respect 
sin,  expiation  ;  and  (c)  as  they  respect  the  sinner  himself, 
\'edemption. 

I.  The  effect  of  Christ's  death,  as  it  regards  God,  is 
revealed  to  be  propitiation,  and  consequently  reconci- 
liation. The  principal  words  which  have  been  used  by 
the  Holy  Ghost  to  express  the  effect  of  the  atoning 
work  of  Christ  as  it  regards  God,  are  the  Greek  words 
xara/JjiGCFSWj  xaraXXayrjj  IXdaxsadaCj  IXaafior^  and  IXaa- 
rirj()cov^  and  the  Hebrew  word  *13D. 

1.  The  classical  usage  of  the  word  xaraXXdaaztv  is 
(a)  to  change,  to  exchange ;  and  (6)  to  change  a  person 
from  enmity  to  friendship,  to  reconcile.  And  the  usage 
with  regard  to  the  derivative  noun  xaraXlayrj  is  pre- 
cisely similar.  When  God  is  said  to  reconcile  us  to 
himself  by  Jesus  Christ,  the  expression  doubtless  com- 
prehends the  whole  result  eflected,  and  that  evidently 
179 


180  THE  NATTJKE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

includes  a  mutual  reconciliation  of  God  to  us  and  of 
us  to  God.  Young  and  Bushnell,  and  the  advocates 
of  the  Moral  Influence  hypothesis  generally,  insist  tha„ 
the  word  is  used  only  in  the  sense  of  the  persuasion  of 
the  sinner  by  God,  through  the  cross  of  Christ,  to  lay 
aside  his  wicked  alienation.  But  that  the  other  sense 
of  the  propitiation,  or  rendering  placable  the  divine 
nature  in  respect  to  sinners,  is  also  included,  and  in 
some  passages  is  the  main  sense  intended,  is  plain  from 
the  following  considerations:  (1.)  In  Rom.  v.  10,  11, 
the  phrase,  "  We  w^ere  reconciled  to  God  by  the  death 
of  his  Son,"  is  explained  by  the  parallel  phrase,  "being 
justified  by  his  blood,'^  so  as  to  be  "saved  from  wrath 
through  him."  (2.)  In  2  Cor.  v.  18-20,  the  phrase  that 
"  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself," 
is  explained  by  saying  in  the  same  sentence,  "not  im- 
puting their  trespasses  unto  them."  Not  to  impute  sin 
is  to  forgive  it.  Rom.  iv.  5 ;  2  Tim.  iv.  16.  (3.)  The 
command  addressed  by  Paul  to  gospel -hearers,  "Be  ye 
reconciled  to  God,"  is  precisely  parallel  to  that  other 
command  given  by  Christ  in  Matt.  v.  24 :  "  Therefore, 
if  thou  bring  thy  gift  to  the  altar,  and  there  remem- 
bercst  that  thy  brother  hath  aught  against  thee,  ...  go 
thy  way ;  first  be  reconciled  to  thy  brother,  and  then  come 
and  offer  thy  gift."  This  must  mean.  Go,  cause  thy 
brother  to  be  reconciled  to  thee  by  removing  the  cause 
for  his  anger.  So,  "Be  ye  reconciled  to  God,"  must 
mean  that  they  should  accept  Christ  as  their  propi- 
tiation, as  that  whereby  they  might  be  reconciled  to 
their  God.  (4.)  The  meaning  of  this  word  is  rendered 
j)lain,  and  the  doctrine  I  am  insisting  on  is  conclusively 
t'st;iblislicd,  by  tlie  usage  i}i  the  second  Greek  verb  noted 


EFFECTS   OF   CHRIST's   WORK.  181 

above,  tXdaxeadacj  and  its  association  with  the  Hebrew 
word  "^iJD. 

2.  In  its  classical  sense  the  word  OAaxeadat  means  to 
propitiate  an  offended  deity  by  means  of  expiatory  sacri- 
fices or  penances.  This  was  the  universally  received 
sense  of  the  word  and  its  uniform  usage  among  all 
persons  who  used  the  Greek  language  ages  before  the 
translators  of  the  Septuagint  used  it  as  the  ])roper  Greek 
equivalent  of  the  Hebrew  "^SD;  and  it  continued  to 
be  its  sense  without  shadow  of  c^hange  down  to  the  time 
when  the  inspired  apostles  used  it  to  express  the  precise 
effect  of  Christ's  work  as  it  respects  God.  Tliis  fact  is 
acknowledged  by  Young,  although  it  is  radically  sub- 
versive alike  of  the  Governmental  Atonement  Theory 
and  of  his  own.  Thus  Christ  is  made  a  faithful  high 
priest,  in  things  pertaining  to  God,  to  make  recon- 
ciliation for  {lXd(Txeadac)  the  sins  of  his  people.  Heb.  ii. 
17.  In  1  John  ii.  2,  and  iv.  10,  the  Lord  Jesus  is  said 
to  be  the  IXaafio^  for  our  sins — a  word  used  by  the 
Seventy  to  translate  Dn3D,  expiation.  And  in  Rom. 
iii.  25,  he  is  declared  to  be  an  IXaav^pcov  through  faith 
in  his  blood — that  is,  a  propitiation  by  means  of  an  ex- 
piatory sacrifice  covering  the  sins  of  his  people  with  his 
blood. 

3.  The  Hebrew  word  133  is  the  principal  one  used 
by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  express  the  precise  effect  designed 
and  accomplished  by  the  sacrifices,  (a)  in  respect  to  sin 
as  a  covering,  and  hence  (h)  in  respect  to  God  as  a  means 
of  reconciliation.  The  root-meaning  of  the  word  is  to 
cover  J  overlay,  and  this  sense  is  carried  with  it  through 
its  entire  usage.  The  Holy  of  Holies,  in  the  temple,  was 
God's  iiiimc'diato  prc.>^cnce- chamber,  and  the  mercy -seat, 

16 


182  THE    NATUliE    OF    THE   ATONEMENT. 

covering  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant,  was  GocVs  throne. 
In  this  ark,  as  the  foundation  on  which  liis  throne  rests, 
were  placed  the  two  stone  tables  of  the  law,  on  which 
were  engraven  those  commandments  summarily  embody- 
ing the  principles  of  perfect  righteousness,  constituting 
in  this  position  God's  terrible  testimony  against  all  sin 
and  all  sinners.  The  ark  was  covered  w^ith  a  slab  of 
pure  gold,  called  the  J^iiJO  or  covering^  rendered  in  the 
Greek,  IXaazTjpiov)  in  the  Latin,  propitiatorium ;  and 
in  the  English,  mei\cy-seat.  Immediately  over  this 
mercy-seat,  and  between  the  cherubim,  habitually  dwelt 
the  Schekinah,  or  visible  manifestation  of  Jehovah's 
presence.  On  the  great  day  of  atonement,  the  high 
priest  entered  within  the  veil,  first  with  the  blood  of  the 
bullock  slain,  as  an  atonement  for  the  sin  of  his  house; 
and  again  with  the  blood  of  the  goat  slain,  as  a  sin- 
offering  for  the  sin  of  the  people;  and  he  sprinkled 
them  both  in  turn  over  the  mercy-seat,  and  seven  times 
before  it.  Lev.  xvi.  14,  15.  Hence,  when  God  looked 
down  tow^ard  his  law,  on  which  rests  his  throne,  and 
which  called  for  the  execution  of  the  penalty  upon 
every  transgression,  his  eye  rested  first  on  the  nn33,  or 
covering  bearing  the  sacrificial  blood;  the  sins  were 
therefore  covered,  and  God  was  reconciled.  Hence  this 
small  slab  of  gold  became  the  most  important  part  of 
the  tabernacle — the  Holy  of  Holies  being  at  times 
designated  as  "the  house  of  the  nnsD,  or  the  house 
of  the  blood-bearing  covering."  1  Chron.  xxviii.  11.* 
Hence  the  word  "liDD,  originally  signifying  to  cover, 
(5anie  to  be  used  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  express  the  effect 

*See  Hengstenberg,  Gen.  of  the  Pent,,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  524-526.     See 
Fairbairn's  Typology,  vol.  ii.,  chap.  v. 


EFFECTS  OF   CIIRTST\s  WORK.  183 

of  a  sacrifice  In  expiating  the  guilt  of  sin,  and  hence  in 
propitiating  the  infinitely  holy  God.  Hence  it  is  pro- 
perly translated  in  our  version,  in  different  constructions, 
by  the  words  to  mahe  atonement,  to  apjwase,  to  pacifj/y 
to  reconcile,  to  purge,  to  purge  aioay.  Ezek.  xvi.  63; 
Gen.  xxxii.  20,  21;  Ps.  Ixv.  3,  4;  Ixxviii.  38;  1  Sam. 
lii.  14;  Numb.  xxxv.  33.  And  hence  also  the  cog- 
nate word,  Dn33  is  translated  atonement,  and  *^£3D  is 
translated  sometimes  rani^om;  Ps.  xlix.  7.  "If  there 
shall  be  laid  upon  him  a  sum  of  money  (an  atonement, 
something  to  cover  his  offence),  then  he  shall  give  for 
the  ransom  of  his  soul  whatsoever  is  laid  upon  him." 
Ex.  xxi.  30.  "I  am  the  Lord  thy  God,  the  Holy  One 
of  Israel ;  I  gave  Egypt  for  thy  ransom,  Ethiopia  and 
Seba  for  thee."  Isa.  xliii.  3;  and  sometimes  satisfaction. 
Numb.  xxxv.  31,  32.  Thus  under  the  Old  Testament, 
as  well  as  under  the  New,  sacrificial  expiation  is  declared 
to  be  of  the  nature  of  a  ransom ;  that  is,  of  some  person 
or  thing  given  for  another  as  the  condition  of  deliver- 
ance. But  the  fixed  idea  of  the  basis  of  the  whole 
usage  of  the  word  and  its  derivatives  is,  that  (a)  God  is 
reconciled  to  the  sinner  only  by  covering  his  sin,  and  (J)) 
that  sin  is  covered  only  by  sacrificial  blood.  Thus,  in 
Lev.  X.  17,  it  is  said  that  the  "sin-offering  is  given  to 
make  atonement  (that  is,  covering  of  sin  by  blood)  for 
them  before  the  Lord."  Paul  declares,  as  the  sum  of 
tlie  Old  Testament  ritual,  that  "without  shedding  of 
blood  is  no  remission,"  and  "where  remission  of  these 
is,  there  is  no  more  offering  for  sin."  Heb.  ix.  22 
and  x.  18.  The  Seventy  habitually  translate  this  word 
133  (to  cover  sin  by  blood)  by  the  Greek  word  VAa- 
xeadac,  the  fixed  meaning  of  which  was  to  propitiate  by. 


184      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

expiation.  And  the  a»)Ostlcs,  following  tlie  Seventy, 
apply  the  same  word  :o  Christ  and  his  work.  His 
"blood  is  shed  for  the  remission  of  sins."  Matt.  xxvi. 
28.  He  is  the  llaaiib^  (1  John  ii.  2)  and  the  llaaxrj' 
ptov,  or  mercy-seat,  covering  our  sins  with  sacrificial 
blood. 

II.  The  effect  of  Christ's  sufferings,  as  it  respects  tlic 
sins  of  his  people,  was  expiation  of  guilt.  Propitiation 
has  reference  to  the  bearing  or  effect  of  satisfaction  upon 
God.  Expiation  has  reference  to  the  bearing  of  the 
same  satisfaction  upon  tlie  guilt  of  sin.  It  does  not,  in 
the  least  degree,  remove  the  pollution  or  moral  turpitude 
of  sin.  It  removes  only  its  guilt  or  moral  obligation, 
and  hence  its  legal  exj)osure  to  punishment.  The  same 
words,  alike  in  classical  Latin  and  Greek,  and  in  the 
originals  of  both  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments,  are 
used  in  different  constructions  to  express  this  double 
bearing  of  a  bloody  sacrifice,  now  upon  God  and  now 
upon  sin.  (a.)  The  words  lAaaxoiiac  and  llaofioQ,  trans- 
lated in  the  English  New  Testament  by  the  word  propi- 
tiate, were  habitually  used  by  the  Seventy  to  translate 
•^93,  which  can  only,  as  a  general  thing,  signify  expia- 
tion by  covering  with  blood.  (6.)  The  word  DAaxo/iat, 
when  construed  with  God,  evidently  and  confessedly  is 
used  by  both  classical  writers  and  the  Seventy  in  the 
sense  of  propitiation;  but  when  it  is  construed  with 
sin,  it  can  only  be  used  in  the  sense  of  expiation.  Heb. 
ii.  17.  Christ  was  made  a  faithful  High  Priest  in  things 
pertaining  to  God  {IXdaxBadac  rac  lifrnpria^  zou  Xaou),  to 
expiate  the  sins  of  the  people.  In  1  John  ii.  2  and  iv. 
10,  Christ  is  twice  declared  to  be  the  expiation  for  our 
^  sins,     (c.)  The   Hebrew   word   133   is   sometimes   con- 


185 

stncd  witli  God  wlioii  it  mii.st  be  rendered  propitiation, 
as,  for  instance,  Ezek.  xvi.  63:  "When  I  am  paciftrd 
toward  thee  for  all  that  thou  hast  done,  saith  the  Lord." 
See  Gen.  xxxii.  20.  Whereas  the  same  word  is  gene- 
rally and  more  immediately,  in  accordance  with  its  radi- 
cal meaniiii^,  construed  with  sin,  or  with  the  person  or 
thing  in  rrhich  the  .sm  inheres.  Isa.  vi.  7 ;  Dan.  ix.  24 ;  and 
Lev.  iv.  20;  v.  G,  10;  xvi.  6,  12:  "And  Aaron  shall 
bring  tlie  bullock  of  the  sin-offering,  which  is  for  him- 
self, and  shall  make  an  atonement  for  himself  and  for  his 
house;  .  .  .  and  he  shall  take  a  censer  full  of  burning 
coals  of  fire  from  off  the  altar  before  the  Lord,  and  his 
hands  full  of  sweet  incense  beaten  small,  and  bring  it 
within  fhe  veil :  and  he  shall  put  the  incense  upon  the 
fire  before  the  Lord,  that  the  cloud  of  the  incense  may 
cover  the  mercy-seat  (msj  or  covering)  that  is  upon 
the  testimony,  that  he  die  not.  And  he  shall  take  of  the 
blood  of  the  bullock,  and  sprinkle  it  with  his  finger 
upon  the  mercy-seat  eastward :  and  before  the  mercy-seat 
shall  he  sprinkle  of  the  blood  with  his  finger  seven 
times.  Then  shall  he  kill  the  goat  of  the  sin-offering 
that  is  for  the  people,  and  bring  his  blood  within  the 
veil,  and  do  with  that  blood  as  he  did  with  the  blood 
of  the  bullock,  and  sprinkle  it  upon  the  mercy-scat,  and 
before  the  mercy-seat:  and  he  shall  make  an  atonement 
(covering  by  sacrificial  blood)  for  the  holy  place,  because 
of  the  uncleanness  of  the  children  of  Israel,  and  because 
of  their  transgressions  in  all  their  sins."  Although  a 
different  word  is  used,  this  is  evidently  the  idea  of  David 
when,  in  Ps,  ?:xxii.  1,  he  says,  "Blessed  is  the  man 
whose  sin  is  covered ;^^  which  he  explains  by  the  parallel 
phrases,  "whose  sin  is  forgiven,"  and  "to  whom  the  Lord 

16* 


186      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

imputeth  not  iniquity."  And  Paul,  in  Rom.  iv.  5,  de- 
clares that  tliis  is  the  principle  on  which,  in  the  gospel, 
God  justifies  the  ungodly  without  works,  and  reckons 
faith  for  righleousness. 

Young  supposes  that  he  overthrows  this  entire  body 
of  proof  by  noticing  the  fact  (a)  that  the  Seventy 
sometimes  translate  the  word  ")£)D  by  the  Greek  terms 
dycd^EiU,  to  consecrate,  and  by  xadapi^eii^,  to  purify, 
although  he  admits  that  their  characteristic  rendering  is 
IXdaxzaOac.  (b.)  That  in  those  cases  in  which  the  word 
"^23  is  used  to  set  forth  the  ceremonial  atonement  for 
the  sacred  instruments  of  religion,  as  the  altar  (Ex.  xxix. 
36,  37),  and  for  the  plague  of  leprosy  in  the  walls  of  a 
house  (Lev.  xiv.  48-53),  it  cannot  possibly  be  used  in 
the  strict  sense  of  making  expiation  for  sin.*  We  an- 
swer to  the  first  point,  that  the  very  thing  expressed  by 
the  habitual  and  always  consistent  usage  of  this  word 
is,  that  a  sinner  can  be  reconciled,  and  his  sin  cleansed, 
and  soul  made  holy,  and  his  life  consecrated  to  God's 
service,  only  as  his  sin  is  covefred  and  so  atoned  by  sacri- 
ficial blood.  Remission  of  sins,  the  immediate  effect  of 
an  acceptable  offering,  is  in  order  to  sanctifi cation — 
sanctification  is  not  in  order  to  remission.  But  since 
sacrificial  blood,  by  making  expiation,  and  so  securing 
remission,  always  effects  purification,  it  is  eminently 
proper  that  the  instrumentality  should  be  differently 
designated,  as  one  or  other  effect  might  be  in  the  special 
case  most  prominently  thought  of.  To  the  second  point, 
the  answer  is  obvious,  that  the  sin  of  man  really  brings, 
in  a  true  sense,  under  condemnation  with  himself,  his 
be  dy,  his  world,  and  the  very  instruments  of  his  daily 
*  Young's  "  Life  and  Light  of  Men,"  pp.  237-239. 


EFFECTS   OF   CIIRIST's    WORK.  187 

life  and  religious  service.  The  disease  of  leprosy  wa3 
chosen  as  a  type  or  image  of  sin.  Leprosy  in  the  walls 
of  a  house  was  treated  as  an  image  of  that  in  man. 
The  priest  was  directed  to  slay  a  bird,  to  sprinkle  the 
house  seven  times  to  make  an  atonement  for  the  house. 
This  is  of  course  a  figure  from  beginning  to  end ;  but  a 
figure  of  what?  The  leprosy  is  a  figure  of  human  sin- 
fulness, involving  guilt  and  pollution.  The  atonement 
is  a  figure  of  human  redemption  from  sin.  In  both 
cases  the  cleansing  comes  through  the  atonement  or  cover- 
ing,  and  the  covering  is  effected  through  sacrificial 
blood. 

When  it  is  said  that  the  Atonement  had  a  bearing 
upon  the  divine  nature,  and  in  some  real  sense  pro- 
pitiated God's  justice  and  so  reconciled  him  to  the  sinner, 
it  is  by  no  means  forgotten  (a)  that  God  is  absolutely 
unchangeable  in  his  states  and  moods,  as  well  as  in  his 
essence,  or  (b)  that  instead  of  the  Atonement  being  the 
cause  of  God's  love  for  his  people,  it  is  itself  the  effect 
of  that  love  pre-existing  from  eternity.  For  "God  so 
loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son." 
John  iii.  16. 

The  scriptural  doctrine  of  propitiation  is  no  more  in- 
consistent with  the  divine  unchangeableness  than  the 
Scripture  doctrine  with  respect  to  the  real  efficacy  of 
prayer.  We  may  not  be  able  to  define  the  method  of 
that  consistency,  yet  it  is  not  difficult  to  believe  that  the 
atoning  work  of  Christ  was  present,  like  every  act  of 
prayer,  in  the  divine  mind  from  eternity.  It  by  no 
means  follows  that  because  there  are  no  chronological 
successions  in  God,  there  are  therefore  to  be  traced  no 


188      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

relations  of  cause  and  effect  through  his  thoughts,  pur- 
poses or  actions. 

In  like  manner,  our  doctrine  is  not  in  the  least  incon- 
sistent with  the  glorious  truth  that  the  love  of  God  for 
his  own  people  is  eternal  and  self-originated — the  cause 
and  not  the  effect  of  the  Atonement.  The  fact  is,  that 
his  love  for  their  persons,  and  his  holy  displeasure  for 
their  sins,  were  co-existent  states  of  mind  from  eternity. 
And  yet  the  apostle  takes  upon  himself  to  say  that  the 
very  elect  themselves,  so  beloved,  were,  because  of  God's 
righteousness,  "by  nature  the  children  of  wrath,  even  as 
others."  Eph.  ii.  3.  The  wrath  of  God  is  a  verity, 
being  revealed  from  heaven,  and  coming  even  now  upon 
the  children  of  disobedience,  and  in  many  cases  fearfully 
treasured  up  against  the  day  of  wrath  to  come.  Rom.  i. 
18;  ii.  5.  But  it  is  asserted  over  and  over  again  that 
"we  shall  be  saved  from  W7'ath  through  Christ"  (Rom. 
V.  9),  and  that  "Christ  delivered  us  from  the  wrath  to 
come."  1  Thess.  i.  10.  Absolutely  considered,  God  is 
unchangeable.  But  such  a  change  in  our  relations  to 
God  was  wrought  by  the  work  of  Christ,  that  his  infi- 
nite righteousness  coincides  with  his  infinite  love  in  all 
tlieir  blessed  manifestations  and  operations  towards  his 
own  people  for  ever. 

Young  complains  that  our  doctrine  of  Satisfaction 
leads  inevitably  to  the  conception  of  two  different  Gods.* 
"  Tlie  one  God  is  angry  with  the  other  God ;  and  the 
incarnate  God  is  represented  as  bearing  the  wrath  of 
tlie  first."  He  admits,  that  "  When  we  bow  in  ador- 
ing reverence  before  the  eternal  essential  Unity,  it  is 
n»il  hard  to  think  of  distinct  aspects  blending  niysteri- 
*Life  and  Liglit  of  Men,  pj).  284,  285. 


EFFECTS   OF   CIIRIST^S   WORK.  189 

ously  and  harmoniously  in  one  being,  or  of  distinct 
agencies  and  injluencrji  springing  out  of  one  source." 
Although  we  have  not  time  to  dwell  upon  the  point,  it 
is  impossible  not  to  notice  the  very  significant  fact  that, 
although  he  professes  to  be,  and  doubtless  is  in  his 
heart,  a  devout  believer  in  the  real  divinity  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  yet  having  adopted  the  Unitarian  theory 
as  to  the  nature  of  Christ's  work,  he  necessarily  gravi- 
tates towards  the  Unitarian  theory  as  to  the  constitution 
of  his  person.  In  the  above  extract,  which  harmonizes 
with  the  tone  of  his  whole  book,  he  distinctly  excludes 
the  scriptural  doctrine  of  the  three-fold  distinction  of 
persons  in  the  unity  of  essence.  If  the  first  clause,  in 
which  he  speaks  of  the  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Ghost  as 
"distinct  asjx'ds/^  stood  alone,  we  would  credit  him  with 
being  a  Sabcllian,  holding  that  God  is  one  single  person 
as  well  as  one  single  essence,  and  admitting  a  modal 
three-foldness  in  respect  to  manifestation  and  operation. 
But  in  the  second  clause,  which  doubtless  he  intends  to 
be  exegetical  of  the  first,  he  represents  the  divine  in 
Christ  and  the  Holy  Ghost  to  be  "agencies  or  influences^' 
springing  out  of  a  divine  source.  Neither  Strauss  nor 
Renan  would  object  to  such  a  statement  of  the  Trinity 
as  involved  in  a  rational  conception  of  the  person  of 
Christ.  Let  the  reader,  for  the  purpose  of  tracing  the 
connection,  compare  BushnelFs  book  on  the  "Vica- 
rious Sacrifice,"  in  which  he  gives  the  Unitarian  view 
as  to  the  work  of  Christ,  with  the  radically  defective 
view  of  the  person  of  our  Lord  given  in  his  "God  in 
Christ." 

To  the  charge  that  our  view  of  Satisfaction  necessarily 
involves  Tritheism,  we  answer — (1.)  That  the  eternal 


190      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

subsistence  of  tliree  distinct  j^ersons,  capable  of  mutual 
personal  interaction  in  the  unity  of  one  indivisible 
essence,  is  a  truth  clearly  revealed  in  Scripture,  yet  one 
which  no  man  can  distinctly  construe  in  his  own  mind. 
As  it  is  presented  in  different  relations  in  Scripture, 
every  person  who,  with  comj^etent  clearness  of  thought, 
observes  his  own  mental  states,  knows  that  his  mind 
oscillates  between  the  extreme  of  too  widely  separating 
the  persons  (Trithcism),  and  the  opposite  extreme  of  too 
closely  pressing  the  unity  toward  the  extinction  of  the 
personal  distinction  (Sabellianism).  Nevertheless,  there 
are  no  truths  more  clearly  taught  in  Scripture  than 
these:  (a.)  That  the  true  God  is  one  God.  (b.)  That 
Christ,  in  tlie  highest  sense  the  word  bears,  is  the  great 
God  in  person,  (c.)  That,  at  the  same  time,  he  is  a  dis- 
tinct person  from  the  Father.  (2.)  We  answer,  that  our 
doctrine  of  the  execution,  by  the  Father,  of  the  penalty 
of  the  law  upon  the  person  of  the  God-man  as  the  Sub- 
stitute of  his  people  does  not  bear  a  tritheistic  appear- 
ance any  more  than  the  undeniable  representations  given 
in  Scripture  of  the  relations  sustained  by  the  Son  to  the 
Father.  They  mutually  love  and  are  beloved  by  each 
other.  The  Son  is  commandedj  is  sent  by  the  Father; 
prays  to  him;  addresses  to  him  the  pronoun  thou; 
uses,  with  reference  to  him,  the  pronoun  he.  When  the 
Son  came  in  the  place  of  men,  and  suffered  in  their  stead 
{avTt)j  then  the  Scriptures  declare  that  the  Father  laid 
upon  him  the  iniquities  of  us  all,  and  made  him  to  be 
sin  and  a  curse.  On  the  cross  the  Son  cried  in  agony, 
the  whole  world  darkening  in  sympathy,  "ify  Gody  my 
God  J  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  f^ 

III,  The  Scriptures  set  forth  the  effect  of  the  atoning 


191 

work  of  Christ,  as  it  bears  upon  the  sinner  himself,  as  a 
redemption;  as  a  deliverance  from  the  curse  of  the  law 
by  the  'payment  of  an  equivalent  as  a  ransom-price.  The 
words  which  ex2)ress  this  effect  are  of  frequent  recur- 
rence, and  are  such  as  dyoffd^sev,  to  buy.  "Ye  are 
bought  with  a  price,''  1  Cor.  vii.  23 ;  "  Redeemed  us  to 
God  by  thy  blood,"  Rev.  v.  9;  ''E^ayoftd^eeu,  to  redeem, 
to  buy  out  of  the  hands  of;  "Hath  redeemed  us  from 
the  curse  of  the  law,  being  made  a  curse  for  us."  Gal. 
iii.  13.  Also  XoTpoco,  mid.,  to  ransom,  to  redeem  by 
payment  of  a  ransom ;  "  For  ye  were  not  redeemed  with 
corruptible  things,  such  as  silver  and  gold,  but  with  the 
precious  blood  of  Christ."  1  Pet.  i.  18.  Christ  is  called 
our  XuTpov,  ransom  (Matt.  xx.  28),  and  our  dvrtXurnov, 
S2ibstitufcd  ransom  (1  Tim.  ii.  6).  Aurpoco  is  very  fre- 
quently used  by  the  Seventy  to  translate  the  Hebrew 
Sxj  and  ma,  words  of  very  frequent  occurrence,  and 
translated  in  our  version  by  redeem  and  ransom.  The 
Jehovah  of  the  Old  Testament  habitually  is  described 
as  the  Redeemer  of  his  people  of  Israel.  Isa.  xli.  14; 
xliv.  24,  &c.  And  the  people  of  the  Lord  are  con- 
stantly set  forth  as  those  who  have  been  bought  with  a 
price — ^l-ansomed.  Isa.  xxxv.  10;  li.  11;  Ixii.  12,  &c. 

It  has  often  been  charged  against  the  supporters  of 
the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  that,  by  unduly 
pressing  the  literal  sense  of  a  few  passages  like  those 
just  cited,  we  have  been  led  to  represent  the  work  of 
our  Lord  as  purely  a  mercantile  transaction.  This  ob- 
jection is  utterly  unfounded.  The  orthodox  have  from 
the  first  carefully  distinguished  in  statement,  and  in 
argument  triumphantly  vindicated  their  doctrine,  in  view 
of  the  distinction  between  a  pecuniary  satisfaction  on 


192      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

the  one  hand  and  a  penal  satisfaction  on  the  other.^ 
In  a  matter  of  pecuniary  indebtedness,  the  claim  respects 
exelutfively  the  tiling  due,  and  not  at  all  the  person  of 
the  debtor.  A  pecuniary  satisfaction,  therefore,  being 
the  payment  of  the  money  due,  which  was  all  the  claim 
required,  ipso  facto,  liberates,  no  matter  whether  the 
debtor  pays  or  another  pays  for  him.  The  receipt  in 
full  of  the  creditor  is  jHirely  a  business  acknowledgment 
that  his  claim  is  satisfied,  and  therefore  extinguished  by 
the  simple  force  of  the  payment,  and  without  any  room 
for  the  exercise  of  grace  on  his  part.  In  a  case  of  debt, 
moreover,  the  demand  is  for  the  precise  amount  due. 
Nothing  satisfies  but  the  payment  of  the  very  thing 
nominated  in  the  bond.  Now  the  orthodox  doctrine  is, 
that  the  sufferings  of  Christ  are  a  penal  satisfaction  to 
the  demands  of  the  law.  In  this  case  the  claim  of  the 
law  essentially  respects  the  person  of  the  criminal  as  well 
as  the  penal  debt  incurred.  The  claims  of  law,  precep- 
tive and  penal,  are  all  personal,  and  can  be  transferred 
from  person  to  person  only  by  the  prerogative  of  the 
sovereign  as  a  matter  of  gracious  will.  As  a  matter  of 
mere  law,  no  satisfaction  can  find  acceptance  other  than 
the  literal  suffering  of  the  penalty  by  the  criminal  in 
person.  If  the  sovereign  admits  a  substitute  in  the 
place  of  the  criminal,  it  is  a  matter  of  pure  grace.  Even 
if  the  sovereign  does  admit  a  substitute,  the  solution  of 
the  penal  debt  by  that  substitute  does  not  give  any 
claim  to  the  criminal  represented,  nor,  ipso  facto,  liberate 
him  from  the  legal  bonds  in  which  he  is  held.  The 
only  rights  to  which  the  vicarious  solution  of  a  penal  debt 
can  give  rise  accrue  to  the  substitute,  not  the  criminal, 
*  Tiirntiii,  J/jciip  M,  (iii.TBtiu  10. 


193 

and  the  criminal  receives  the  benefits  thereof  purely  as 
a  matter  of  grace,  and  at  such  times  and  under  such 
conditions  as  may  be  settled  between  the  sovereign  judge 
and  the  substitute.  In  the  case  of  a  penal  infliction,  the 
demand  respects  not  any  constant  and  definite  kind  and 
degree  of  suffering.  The  demand  is  for  whatever  kind 
and  degree  of  suffering  the  infinitely  righteous  intelli- 
gence of  God  sees  in  each  given  case  to  be  morally  right; 
the  crime  to  be  expiated  and  the  person  to  suffer  being 
both  taken  into  consideration. 

The  commercial  language,  above  quoted,  is  not  the 
invention  of  orthodox  theologians.  It  is  the  spontane- 
ous and  very  frequent  language  of  the  Hoi}"  Ghost, 
deliberately  chosen  to  set  before  our  minds  the  true 
nature  and  method  of  Christian  salvation.  It  is  more- 
over plain  that  this  language,  taken  in  its  obvious  sense, 
is  most  appropriate  to  the  subject,  if  our  view  of  the 
nature  of  the  Atonement  be  true,  Avhile  it  is  certainly 
unnatural  and  misleading  if  either  of  the  alternative 
views  should  be  true. 

On  the  Moral  Influence  Theory  the  language  must 
be  emptied  of  all  sense,  and  the  ideas  it  suggests  must 
not  only  be  modified,  but  totally  ignored.  As  a  moral 
impression,  the  work  of  Christ  terminates  upon  the 
heart  of  the  sinner.  But  as  a  ransom,  as  an  act  of  re- 
demption out  of  the  hands  of  justice  for  a  price  paid,  it 
must  respect  the  deliverance  of  the  sinner  from  the  claim 
and  power  of  some  person  exterior  to  himself. 

The  Governmental  Atonement  Theory  sets  forth  the 
sufferings  of  Christ  as  having  only  a  general  and  imper- 
sonal relation  to  the  mass  of  sinners,  and  a  very  indefi- 
nite relation  to  the  Inw  and  its  penaltv.  The  sufferings 
17 


194  THE   NATURE   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

of  Christ,  in  this  view,  secured  no  claim  upon  God 
on  Christ's  part  any  more  than  on  ours.  It  simply 
makes  it  consistent  with  governmental  expediency  to 
offer  salvation  on  easier  terms,  and  it  puts  the  sinner  in 
a  salvable,  not  a  saved  condition.  But  this  characteristic 
scriptural  language  of  ransom,  buying  with  a  price, 
redeemed  out  of  the  hands  of,  &c.,  necessarily  carries 
with  it  the  ideas  («)  of  a  personal  reference  to  the  indi- 
viduals redeemed,  that  is,  paid  for;  (6)  of  these  persons 
being  really  saved  by  redemption,  not  simply  put  in  a 
salvable  condition ;  and  (c)  of  Christ  having  acquired  a 
right  to  that  for  which  he  had  paid  the  price.  There  is 
an  exact  correspondence  between  the  representation  that 
Christ  assumed  our  law-place,  and  as  our  Substitute 
suffered,  in  our  stead  and  behalf,  the  penalty  of  the  law, 
and  this  scriptural  language  above  quoted,  that  Christ 
is  the  ransom  of  our  souls,  the  price  paid  for  our  re- 
demption ;  that  is,  by  which  we  Avere  bought  off  from 
the  claims  of  that  law  by  which  we  were  held. 

There  are  three  several  generic  forms  of  conception 
under  which  the  work  wrought  by  Christ  for  the  salva- 
tion of  men  is  set  forth.  These  are  («)  that  of  an  expia- 
tory offering  for  sin ;  {b)  that  of  the  redemption  of  the 
life  and  liberty  of  a  captive  by  the  payment  of  a  ransom 
in  his  stead;  and  (c)  the  satisfaction  of  the  laio  by  the 
vicarious  fulfilment  of  its  demands.  These  different 
conceptions  are  designed  both  to  limit  and  to  supplement 
each  other  in  a  manner  strictly  analogous  to  the  com- 
bination of  the  different  perceptions  of  the  same  object 
by  the  different  bodily  senses.  The  sense  of  sight, 
although  when  educated  in  connection  Avith  the  concur- 
rent and  nmtually  limiting  and  supplementing  pcrcep- 


195 

tions  of  the  organs  of  touch  and  hearing,  it  is  unmatched 
as  to  the  extent  and  accuracy  of  its  information,  yet 
would,  if  left  to  itself,  never  have  risen  beyond  an 
infant's  vague  perception  of  a  surface  variously  shaded, 
without  any  sense  of  relation  in  space.  All  our  know- 
ledge of  the  material  world,  considered  as  an  object  of 
sense,  arises  from  the  education  of  our  minds  in  the  use 
of  our  bodily  senses  in  combination,  and  the  habits  of 
judgment  and  inference  which  are  thus  produced.  Men 
learn  to  interpret  tlie  impressions  made  upon  them 
through  their  eyes  by  means  of  other  impressions  made 
upon  them,  in  connection  with  the  same  objects,  through 
the  senses  of  touch  and  hearing,  and  vice  versa.  In  like 
manner  our  knowledge  of  the  true  nature  of  the  work 
of  Christ  and  its  bearing  upon  us  results  from  all  the 
various  forms  in  which  the  Scriptures  set  it  forth  in 
combination,  each  at  once  limiting,  modifying  and  sup- 
plementing all  the  others.  It  should  be  noticed,  more- 
over, that  the  Scriptures  do  not  present  these  several 
views  as  different  sides  of  the  same  house  to  be  taken  in 
succession,  but  habitually  present  them  in  combination, 
as  lights  and  shades  blend  together  in  the  same  picture 
in  producing  the  same  intelligible  expression.  Thus,  in 
the  same  sentences,  it  is  said,  "  We  are  redeemed  with  the 
precious  blood  of  Christ  as  of  a  lamb  ivithout  blemish  and 
without  spoty  1  Pet.  i.  18,  19.  Christ  came  "to  give  his 
life  a.  ransom  for  many."  Matt.  xx.  28.  "Christ  hath 
redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  being  made  a  curse 
for  usJ'  Gal.  iii.  13.  "He  hath  made  him,  who  knew 
no  sin,  to  be  a  sin-offering  for  us,  that  we  might  be  made 
the  righteoitsness  of  God  in  him.''  2  Cor.  v.  21.*  That 
■^Macdonnell's  Donnelhin  Lecture  for  1857,  pp.  115-125. 


196      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

is,  lie  redeems  us  not  in  the  sense  of  making  a  pecuniary 
payment  in  cancellation  of  our  debts,  but  by  his  vicari- 
ous suffering,  like  the  bleeding  sacrifices  of  the  Mosaic 
ritual,  of  the  penalty  due  our  sins. 

The  fact  here  noticed,  that  the  same  inspired  sentences 
represent  Christ  at  the  same  instant  and  in  the  same 
relations  as  a  ransom  and  as  a  sin-offering,  and  as  made 
to  endure  the  curse  of  the  law  for  us,  is  worthy  of 
careful  study.  The  teaching  of  Scripture  is  not  that 
Christ  is  a  sacrifice,  and  a  ransom,  and  a  bearer  of  the 
curse  of  the  law,  but  it  is  that  he  is  that  particular 
species  of  sacrifice  which  is  a  ransom ;  that  his  redemp- 
tion is  of  that  nature  which  is  effected  by  his  bearing 
the  curse  of  the  law  in  our  stead,  and  that  he  redeems 
us  by  offering  himself  a  bleeding  sacrifice  to  God. 
Thus,  the  teaching  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  as  precise  as 
any  ecclesiastical  theory  of  Atonement.  Christ  saves 
us  by  being  a  sacrifice.  But  not  any  one  of  the  many 
kinds  embraced  in  the  whole  genus  sacrifice.  He  is 
specifically  a  sin-offering  in  the  Jewish  sense,  because 
this  was  declared,  while  the  temple  was  still  standing, 
by  a  Jewish  apostle  to  Jewish  readers.  More  specifically 
yet,  the  offering  of  himself  as  a  sin-offering  is  declared 
to  have  been  equivalent  to  his  making  himself  a  ransom 
for  us,  and  to  his  bearing  the  curse  of  the  law  in  our 
stead,  and  that  the  design  and  effect  of  this  ransom- 
pjiying,  curse-bearing  sacrifice  of  his  is,  that  he  redeems 
us  from  the  curse  of  the  law.  It  is  not  any  kind  of  a 
sacrifice,  but  a  ransom-paying,  curse-bearing  sacrifice. 
It  is  not  any  kind  of  redemption,  but  a  sacrificial 
redemption.  A  given  line  of  latitude  a  thousand  miles 
long  may  be  a   very  indeterminate  definition  of  the 


197 

geographical  position  of  a  city  ;  but  tlic  precise  point  of 
intersection  of  a  line  of  latitude  and  a  determinate  line 
of  longitude  marks  a  mathematical  point  with  meta- 
physical precision.  The  Holy  Ghost  has  ideally  repre- 
sented the  work  of  Christ  as  marked  by  the  precise 
point  of  convergence  of  the  bleeding  sacrifice,  of  re- 
dem])tion  by  the  substitution  of  a  personal  ransom,  and 
of  the  vicarious  bearing  of  the  curse  of  the  law  by  a 
substitute  in  the  stead  of  the  criminal.* 

Besides  this,  these  different  expressions  are  sometimes 
applied  to  different  subjects.  When  it  is  said  that 
Christ  "has  redeemed  us  by  his  blood"  (Rev.  v.  9),  the 
term  redemption  of  course  is  used  to  designate  the  nature 
and  designed  effect  of  his  sacrifice,  which  he  finished  on 
the  cross.  But  when  it  is  said  that  Christ  "obtained 
eternal  redemption  for  us"  (Heb.  ix.  12),  and  that  we 
are  "sealed  by  the  Holy  Spirit  unto  the  day  of  redemp- 
tion," the  word  is  of  course  used  to  include,  in  addition 
to  the  means  whereby  Christ  obtained  our  salvation,  also 
its  application  and  complete  realization  by  us — when  not 
only  the  remission  of  sin  and  the  complete  sanctification 
of  our  souls  will  have  been  attained,  but  u^^on  the  con- 
summated adoption,  to  w^it,  the  redemption  of  our  bodies, 
"the  creature  itself  also  shall  bt  delivered  from  the 
bondage  of  corruption  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the 
children  of  God."  Rom.  viii.  21-23. 

*  See  Chapter  iii.,  Definition  7. 

17* 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

THE  TRUE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT  PROVED  BY  THE 
NATURE  or  THE  UNION  WHICH  THE  SCRIPTURES  ASSERT 
SUBSISTS   BETWEEN    CHRIST   AND    HIS    PEOPLE. 

AS  our  eighth  argument,  I  propose  to  establish,  by  an 
induction  of  scriptural  passages,  the  fact  that  a 
UNION  of  such  a  kind  subsists  between  the  Lord  Jesus 
and  his  people,  as — however  mysterious  it  may  be  in  its 
own  nature — yet  when  once  admitted,  on  the  ground  of 
divine  testimony,  as  a  fact,  involves,  as  a  natural  result, 
the  consequence  of  his  bearing  our  sins,  and  our  being 
clothed  upon  with  the  rewardableness  of  his  obedience, 
and  which  is  utterly  anomalous  and  meaningless  if  our 
doctrine  of  literal  substitution  and  of  penal  sufferings 
is  rejected. 

The  main  objection  alleged  against  the  doctrine  of 
vicarious  expiation  of  sin  by  its  opponents  is,  that  ifc 
confounds  all  our  elementary  and  necessary  ideas  of 
justice.  This  objection,  in  substance,  though  variously 
modified  in  form,  is  made  by  the  Unitarian  and  Trinita- 
rian advocates  of  the  Moral  Influence  Theory,  such  as 
Socinus,  S.  Crellius,  Bushnell  and  John  Young,  and 
by  all  classes  of  the  adherents  of  the  Governmental 
Atonement  School.  It  may  be  considered  in  two  rela- 
tions:  (1.)  As  it  respects  Christ,  it  is  claimed  that  the 
judicial  treatment  of  the  innocent  as  if  he  were  guilty 
198 


THE   MYSTICAL   UNION.  199 

IS  an  outrageous  injustice,  involving  tlie  confusion  of 
every   moral    principle.     (2.)  As  it  regards   his  sinful 
people,  in  whose  stead  Christ  is  said  to  have  died,  it  is 
claimed  that  his  punishment  in   their  stead  can,  as  a 
matter  of  abstract  justice,  avail  them  nothing,  for  the 
plain  reason  that  the  precise  and  only  thing  which  justice 
demands  is  not  the  suffering  of  so  much  pain,  but  the 
judicial   infliction  of  the  pain   upon  the  sinner  in   per- 
son.    Both  Fiske  and  Barnes  insist,  as  do  the  Sociu- 
ians,  that  it  is  essential   to  the  idea  of  the  penalty  that 
it  is  pain  inflicted  by  the  lawgiver  upon  the  transgressor 
in   person.     As  to  tha  first  side  of  the  objection,   we 
admit  that,  in  the  common  judgment  of  all  men,  to  re- 
gard and  treat  a  man  as  responsible  for  a  sin  for  which 
he  is  not  truly  responsible  is  beyond  question  unjust. 
But  this  plain  principle  does  not  apply  to  the  case  of 
Christ  suffering  the  just  for  the  unjust;  because  (a)  he, 
being  the  equal  of  God,  the  fountain  of  all  law,  and 
owing  no  obedience  to  the  law  on  his  own  account,  and 
having  an  unlimited  right  to  dispose  of  his  services  and 
of  his  life  as  he  pleased,  voluntarily  assumed  our  obliga- 
tions and  made  them  his  own.     As  far  as  Christ  is  con- 
cerned, therefore,  there  is  obviously  no  injustice  in  the 
Father's  exacting  from  him  all  the  conditions  of  a  sure- 
tyship which  he  has  spontaneously  assumed  and  volun- 
tarily yields.     Besides  this,  it  is  admitted  on  all  hands 
that  Christ  suffered  for  his  people.     The  advocates  of 
the  Moral  Influence  and  Governmental  theories  of  the 
Atonement  maintain  that  our  sins  are  the  occasion  of  his 
sufferings.     We  say  that  they  are  the  judicial  ground  of 
his  sufferings.     We  all  agree  in  maintaining  that  his 
sufferings  are  caused  by  our  sins,  and  that  they  Jire  self- 


200      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

assumed  by  lilm  witli  the  utmost  frceness  and  spontaneity 
of  love.  If  this  be  so,  it  is  evident  that  there  is  no 
injustice  in  the  one  view  of  the  case  any  more  than  in 
the  other,  (b.)  Since  the  sufferings  of  Christ  satisfy 
God,  and  maintain  the  honour  of  his  law  and  the  in- 
terests of  his  government,  even  better  than  the  punish- 
ment of  each  sinner  in  person  Avould  have  done,  there 
can,  of  course,  be  no  injustice  involved  in  the  arrange- 
ment as  far  as  the  interests  of  God  and  his  government 
are  concerned,  (c.)  This  vicarious  suffering  is  an  in- 
finite benefit  to  those  sinners  who  are  saved,  and  no 
disadvantage  whatsoever  to  any  who  may  be  left  to  bear 
the  penal  consequences  of  their  own  sins.  Therefore,  if 
there  be  no  injustice  done  to  any  one  of  the  parties  con- 
cerned, there  can  be  no  injustice  in  the  case. 

As  to  the  second  side  of  the  objection  above  made,  we 
confess  that  the  divine  administration,  both  as  to  the 
coming  in  of  the  curse  through  Adam,  and  as  to  the 
redemj)tion  from  the  curse  through  Christ,  rests  upon 
principles  higher  and  grander  than  those  embraced  in 
the  ordinary  rules  of  human  law.  Our  doctrine,  although 
never  contradicting  reason,  does  not  rest  upon  it,  but 
upon  the  supernatural  revelation  given  in  the  Word, 
But  while  the  complete  satisfaction  which  absolute  jus- 
tice finds  in  the  vicarious  sufferings  of  a  substituted 
victim  may  transcend  reason,  it  by  no  means  conflicts 
with  it,  because  (1)  it  is  no  part  of  the  teaching  of  Scrip- 
ture that  sin  can  be  imputed  to  any  one,  or  its  guilt  be 
expiated  by  the  sufferings  of  any  one  to  whom  it  does 
not  truly  belong.  There  must  be,  of  course,  in  every 
case  such  a  union  as  shall  in  the  unerring  judgment  of 
God  be  a  firm  foundation  in  justice  for  this  imputation. 


THE   MYSTICAL   UNION.  201 

It  is  no  mere  mental  assumption  on  the  part  of  Cod  of 
that  which  is  not  true  in  i'aet.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  a 
most  wise  and  righteous  recognition  of  the  exact  respon- 
sibility of  each  party  in  the  relations  in  which  he  stands 
in  the  eye  of  law  to  all  others.  Grotius,  wdio  discussed 
tlie  subject  with  great  learning  and  ability,  and  certainly 
with  sufficient  deference  to  the  claims  of  reason,  main- 
tiiins  that  while  it  is  necessary  to  the  essence  of  a 
penalty  that  it  be  inflicted  on  account  of  sin,  it  is  not 
necessary  that  in  every  case  it  should .  be  inflicted  on 
the  person  of  the  sinner,  if  only  there  be  such  a  union 
between  the  person  who  sinned  and  the  person  who  is 
punished  as  justifies  the  imputation.*  Turretin  saysf 
that  there  are  three  kinds  of  union  known  to  us  which 
justify  the  imputation  of  sin,  because  they  are  of  such  a 
nature  that,  in  the  case  of  certain  actions,  the  moral  re- 
sponsibility for  the  sin  is  common  to  all  the  parties 
involved.  These  are — (a)  natwal,  as  between  a  father 
and  his  children ;  (5)  moral  and  political^  as  between  a 
king  and  his  subjects;  and  (c)  voluntary^  as  between 
friends  and  between  an  arraigned  criminal  and  his 
sponsor.  Now  the  union  of  Christ  with  his  people  rests 
on  stronger  ground  than  any  of  these  considered  alone. 
It  is,  as  we  have  seen,  voluntary  upon  his  part,  who 
spontaneously  assumed  all  the  obligations  he  bore.  But 
it  was,  moreover,  the  eternal  and  sovereign  ordinance  of 
the  three  divine  Persons  in  council,  whose  behests  are 
tlie  foundation  of  all  law,  of  all  rights,  and  of  all  oljli- 

"'^  Defensio  F.  C.  De  Satisfactione  Christi,  chap.  iv.  See  also  "  The 
Gr:)tian  Theory  of  the  Atonement,"  translated  from  the  German  of 
Dr.  F.  C.  Baur.     Bibliotheca  Sacra,  vol.  ix.,  p.  259. 

f  Locus  9,  Quaes.  9. 


202      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

gations.  If  it  be  a  revealed  fact  that  such  a  union 
subsists  on  such  grounds,  it  is  surely  futile  for  a  mortal 
to  claim  that  it  is  a  pure  mental  fiction,  and  that  the 
judicial  action  that  proceeds  upon  it  is  unjust.  (2.) 
Providence  constantly,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  proceeds  upor 
jjrinciples  which  appear  to  be  identical  with  that  upor 
which  the  substitution  of  Christ  in  the  place  of  sinners 
nltimately  rests.  God,  as  the  Creator,  Father  and  Guar- 
dian of  the  human  family,  acting  for  its  advcuitage, 
placed  the  moral  probation  of  the  whole  race  in  the  con- 
duct of  Adam,  the  natural  head  and  covenant  repre- 
sentative of  that  race,  during  a  limited  period  and 
under  the  most  favourable  conditions,  in  the  Garden  of 
Eden.  Adam  sinned,  and  as  a  matter  of  unquestionable 
fact,  the  penalty  of  that  sin  has  been  executed  in  com- 
mon u])on  him  and  on  each  of  his  descendants  from 
birth.  The  penalty  denounced  and  actually  executed 
upon  him  included  spiritual  death,  mortality  of  body, 
the  earth  cursed  Avith  briers  and  thorns,  the  necessity  of 
winning  bread  by  the  sweat  of  the  brow,  and  of  bring- 
ing forth  children  in  pain.  Each  one  of  these  elements 
of  evil  has  been  executed  upon  his  descendants  univer- 
sally, and  literally  in  the  same  manner  in  which  they 
were  executed  on  him.  They  are  Tiot  the  mere  natural 
consequences  of  his  sin.  If  they  were  penal  evils  in  his 
case,  they  are  penal  consequences  of  his  sin  in  our  case. 
This  the  apostle  exj>licitly  declares,  Rom.  v.  19:  "As 
by  one  man's  disobedience  many  were  made  sinners,  so 
[that  is,  upon  the  same  principle]  by  the  obedience  of 
one  shall  many  be  made  righteous."  As  a  matter  of 
daily  experience,  also,  we  find  the  penal  consequences 
of  many  sins  passing  over  upon  those  who  are  provi- 


THE   MYSTICAL   UNION.  203 

dentially  bound  up  with  the  sinful  agents.  Ex.  xx.  5. 
God  does  actually,  as  he  says,  visit  the  iniquities  of  the 
fathers  upon  the  children  to  the  third  and  fourth  genera- 
tion of  them  that  hate  him. 

Now  we  propose  to  prove  (1)  that  the  Scriptures 
l)lainly  teach  that  God  has  established  between  Christ 
and  his  people  a  union  sui  generis,  transcending  all 
earthly  analogies  in  its  intimacy  of  fellowship  and  re- 
ciprocal copartnership,  both  federal  and  vital,  and  hence 
called  by  theologians  ^^  mystical "  in  the  sense  of  being 
mysterious,  in  perfection  and  completeness  transcending 
all  analogy.  And  (2)  that  the  fact  of  this  union  being 
established,  it  goes  far  to  explain  his  community  with  us 
in  the  guilt  of  our  sins,  and  our  community  with  him 
in  the  rewards  of  his  righteousness. 

I.  The  Scriptures  teach  that  such  a  union  exists  as  a 
matter  of  fact. 

As  might  be  supposed,  the  Scriptures  present  this 
union  to  us  simply  as  a  matter  of  fact,  to  be  credited 
solely  on  the  ground  of  divine  testimony.  They  attempt 
no  rational  explanations  of  its  nature.  We  can  under- 
stand its  essential  nature  no  more  than  we  can  the  coex- 
istence from  eternity  of  the  three  divine  Persons  in  the 
unity  of  the  one  essence;  or  the  union  of  the  two  natures 
in  the  one  person  of  the  God-man;  or  the  union  of  the 
whole  race  in  the  person  of  Adam.  As  it  transcends  all 
natural  analogies,  the  Scriptures  set  forth  its  variety  and 
fulness,  element  by  element,  by  means  of  many  partial 
analogies.  Thus  they  liken  it  to  the  relation  the  founda- 
tion of  a  building  sustains  to  the  superstructure  erected 
upon  it,  configured  to  it,  and  supported  by  it  (1  Pet.  ii. 
4-6);  to  a  tree  and  its  branches.  John  xv.  4,  5.    "Abide 


204  THE   NATURE   OF  THE   ATONEMENT. 

in  me,  and  I  in  you.  As  a  branch  cannot  boar  fruit  of 
itself,  except  it  abide  in  the  vine;  no  more  can  ye,  ex- 
cept ye  abide  in  me.  I  am  the  vine,  ye  are  the  branches. 
He  that  abideth  in  me,  and  I  in  him,  the  same  bringeth 
forth  much  fruit;  for  without  me  ye  can  do  nothing.'^  It 
is  also  likened  to  the  organic  union  of  the  different 
members  of  one  body  :  "  For  as  we  have  many  members 
in  one  body,  and  all  members  have  not  the  same  office; 
so  we,  being  many,  are  one  body  in  Christ."  Rom.  xii. 
4,  5.    "  For  as  the  body  is  one,  and  hath  many  members, 

....  so  also  is  Christ Now  ye  are  the  body  of 

Christ,  and  members  in  particular."  1  Cor.  xii.  12,  27. 
"We  are  members  of  his  body,  of  his  flesh,  and  of  his 
bones.  This  is  a  great  mystery ;  but  I  speak  concerning 
Christ  and  his  Church."  Eph.  v.  30,  32,  and  iv.  15,  16. 
Also,  to  a  husband  in  his  relation  to  his  wife.  Eph.  v. 
31,  32;  Rom.  vii.  4;  Rev.  xix.  7-9;  and  xxi.  9.  And 
more  particularly  to  the  relation  sustained  by  Adam  to 
his  descendants.  Rom.  v.  12-19;  and  1  Cor.  xv.  22 
and  45-49.  He  is  called  "the  lad  Adam/'  and  the 
^^  second  man.''  It  is  a  simple  matter  of  fact,  as  we  have 
seen,  whatever  philosophical  explanation  w^e  may  give 

it,  that 

"In  Adam's  fall  we  sinned  all." 

The  literal  penalty  in  all  its  ])arts  has  l)een  from  the  first 
universally  executed  upon  the  entire  race,  in  the  same 
sense  it  was  executed  upon  Adam.  The  apostle  calls  it 
a  "judfjment"  and  a  ^'condemnation."  The  same  infalli- 
ble authority  declares  (a)  that  " even  so"  that  is,  we  are 
made  righteous  through  the  obedience  of  Christ,  upon 
the  same  principles  as  those  upon  which  we  have  been 
made  siinurs  through  the  dis()l>edience  of  Adam.     And 


THE   MYSTICAL    UNION.  205 

(h)  tliat  our  union  with  Clirist  is  of  the  same  order,  and 
involves  the  same  class  of  effects  as  our  union  with 
Adam.  We  call  it  a  union  both  federal  and  vital. 
Others  may  call  it  what  they  i)l('ase,  but  it  will  neverthe- 
less remain  (;c;rtain  that  it  is  of  such  a  nature  as  to 
involve  an  identity  of  leo^al  relations  and  reciprocal 
obligations  and  rights.  "For  as  by  one  man's  disobe- 
dience many  were  made  sinners;  so  by  the  obedience  of 
one  shall  many  be  made  righteous."  Kom.  v.  19.  He 
is  said  to  have  "borne  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the 
tree.''  1  Pet.  ii.  24.  We  are  said  to  "be  made  the  right- 
eousness of  God  in  himJ^  2  Cor.  v.  21.  To  have  been 
chosen  in  him.  before  the  foundation  of  the  world.  Eph. 
i.  3-5.  "  Of  his  fulness  have  all  we  received,  and  grace 
for  grace."  John  i.  16.  We  are  declared  to  be  "com- 
plete in  him,  wblch  is  the  Head  of  all  principality  and 
power."  Col.  ii,  10.  To  be  circumcised  in  Clirist,  to  be 
buried  imth  him  in  baptism,  Col.  ii.  11,  12;  and  to  be 
qui(^kcned  togeiher  with  Christ,  and  made  to  sit  together 
in  heavenly  places  in  Christ  Jesus.  Eph.  ii.  5,  6.  In 
ourselves  we  are  <leclared  to  be  dead,  and  our  life  hid 
idth  Christ  in  Godj.  and  Christ  to  be  our  life.  Col.  iii.  3, 
4.  We  do  not  liv-j,  but  Christ  liveth  in  us.  Gal.  ii.  20. 
We  are  baptized  into  Christ  (Gal.  iii.  27),  and  sleep  in 
Jesus  when  we  die  (1  Cor.  xv.  18;  1  Thess.  iv.  14),  and 
our  bodies  are  maabers  of  Christ.  1  Cor.  vi.  15.  His 
death  is  said  to  ha  ve  been  virtually  our  death  (Rom.  vi. 
8-11;  and  2  Cor.  v.  14,  15),  and  his  resurrection  from 
the  dead  to  involve  the  certainty  of  ours.  1  Cor.  xv. 
20-22;  Phil.  iii.  21;  1  John  iii.  2.  Li  him  we  have 
redemption — through  his  blood  the  remission  of  sins. 
Eph.  i.  7.  We  sliare  with  him  in  his  rigliteousuess  (1 
18 


206      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Cor.  i.  30),  in  his  sufferings  (Phil.  iii.  10, 11),  in  his  Holy 
Spirit.  Rom.  viii.  9.  We  are  declared  to  be  joint  heirs 
with  him,  ordained  to  have  fellowship  hereafter  with 
him  in  his  glory,  as  now  in  his  suffering  (Rom.  viii.  17), 
and  to  sit  icith  him  on  his  throne.  Rev.  iii.  21.  As  St. 
Augustine  long  ago  noticed,  "Such  is  the  ineffable  close- 
ness of  this  transcendental  union,  that  we  hear  the  voice 
of  the  members  suffering,  when  they  suffered  in  the  Head, 
and  cried  through  the  Head  on  the  cross,  '^ly  God,  my 
God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?'  And,  in  like  man- 
ner, we  hear  the  voice  of  the  Head  suffering,  when  he 
suffered  in  his  members,  and  cried  to  the  persecutor  on 
the  way  to  Damascus,  'Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest  thou 

The  nature  of  this  union  is  further  set  forth  by  means 
of  several  titles  applied  to  Christ  in  view  of  his  relation 
to  us.  Thus  he  is  called  our  ^'second  or  last  Adam^'  (1 
Cor.  XV.  45-47),  our  "Head''  (Eph.  i.  22;  iv.  15;  Col. 
i.  18),  our  "High  PriesV'  (Heb.  ix.  11  and  v.  1):  "For 
every  high  priest  is  ordained  for  men  in  things  per- 
taining to  God,  that  he  may  offer  both  gifts  and  sacri- 
fices for  sins."  As  I  have  abundantly  proved,*  the 
function  of  the  priest  was  uniformly  to  represent  man 
before  God,  and  not  God  before  man.  The  efficiency  of 
his  work  was  designed  to  terminate  upon  God,  and  not 
upon  man.  He  is  called  also  our  "Mediator  between 
God  and  man"  (1  Tim.  ii.  5),  which  is  explained  by  the 
accompanying  phrase,  "who  gave  himself  as  a  substitu- 
tionary ransom  in  the  stead  of  all."  And  in  Heb.  viii. 
3-6  and  ix.  11-15,  he  is  set  forth  as  3fediafor  in  his 
capacity  of  High  Priest.  Hence  he  cannot  be  Mediator, 
*  See  Chapter  ix. 


THE   ]\IYSTTCAT.   UNION.  207 

as  Young  insists  he  is,  in  his  constantly  roferred-to 
note,*  in  the  sense  of  being  the  medium  through  which 
God  produces  a  moral  impression  upon  us.  It  must  ])e 
interpreted  in  the  sense  of  a  medium  through  which  we 
approach  a  reconciled  Father.  He  is  also  called  our 
"Adrocdte  with  the  Father.'^  "If  any  man  sin,  we 
have  an  Advocate  with  the  Father,  Jesus  Christ  the 
righteous;  and  he  is  the  {iXaafi6(:)  propitiation  for  our 
sins."  1  John  ii.  1,  2.  And  finally,  he  is  called  our 
Surety  {iyyuo::).  In  its  classical  sense  iyyuo^  means 
"Bondsman"  or  "Bailsman"  with  the  Father.  Ileb.  vii. 
22.  This  cannot  mean,  as  the  Socinians  and  their  fol- 
lowers have,  from  the  beginning,  striven  to  prove,  that 
Christ  was  Surety  for  the  truth  and  fidelity  of  God  to 
us.  It  nuist  mean  that  he  was  our  Surety  for  the  solu- 
tion of  our  legal  obligations  to  God,  because  it  is  ex- 
plicitly declared,  in  the  only  passage  in  which  the  word 
occurs,  that  he  was  Surety  for  us  in  his  function  as  High 
Priest.  "The  Lord  sware  and  will  not  repent.  Thou 
art  a  priest  for  ever  after  the  order  of  Melchisedec: 
By  so  much  was  Jesus  made  the  surety  of  a  better 
testament." 

We  here,  of  course,  attempt  no  philosophical  explana- 
tion of  the  essential  basis  of  that  union.  We  can  know 
it  only  so  far  as  its  nature  and  its  consequences  are  made 
known  to  us  by  direct  revelation.  The  disciples  of 
Schliermacher,  and  Realists  in  general,  maintain  that 
this  union  essentially  consists  in  the  fact  that  the  eternal 
Aoyo^j  in  his  incarnation,  assumed  the  entire  substance 
of  human  nature,  and  thus  becomes,  i/3so  factOj  m  the 
most  literal  sense,  responsible  for  all  the  sin  of  that 
*  Young's  "  Life  and  Light  of  Men,"  p.  27. 


208      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

nature.  This  view  wc  liave  rojectcd  for  reasons  assigjied 
in  a  preceding  chapter,*  and,  whether  true  or  false,  it 
is  no  part  of  Christian  doctrine,  because  no  part  of  re- 
vealed truth,  but  at  best  a  human  attempt  at  the  ra- 
tional explanation  of  the  truth  revealed.  All  that  is 
clearly  taught  in  the  Scriptures,  and,  therefore,  all  that 
ought  to  be  received  as  Christian  doctrine  as  to  the 
nature  of  this  union,  is,  (1)  that  it  is  a  real  union,  such 
as  in  the  infallible  judgment  of  God  lays  the  foundation 
in  right  for  his  being  punished  for  our  sins,  and  for  our 
being  credited  with  his  righteousness — that  is,  so  far  as 
to  answer  all  the  federal  demands  of  the  law  upon  us. 
(2.)  That  it  is,  in  some  way  to  us  unexplained,  condi- 
tioned upon  the  fact  that  our  nature  is  generative,  hence 
that  the  whole  race  is  made  of  one  flesh,  and  that  he 
became  bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh.  (3.) 
That  it  is  conditioned  upon  the  eternal  counsel  of  Father, 
Son  and  Holy  Ghost.  (4.)  That  our  legal  responsibili- 
ties were  voluntarily  assumed  by  the  Logos,  to  be  dis- 
charged by  him  as  Theanthropos.  (5.)  That  provision 
is  made,  through  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  for 
his  becoming  to  all  his  people  a  "quickening  spirit" 
(TTueufia  ^cooTTocouu),  1  Cor.  xv.  45,  and  for  their  being 
made  living  members  of  that  spiritual  body  of  wh'ich 
he  is  the  Head. 

This  much,  and  far  more,  the  Scriptures  teach  to  the 
same  eiFect,  the  whole  of  which,  taken  together,  conspires 
to  form  one  perfectly  self-consistent  representation  of  a 
union  most  real  and  practical,  though  transcending  all 
analogies.  I  do  not  deny  that,  by  skilful  selection  and 
apposition,  the  advocates  of  each  of  the  heterodox  theo- 
*  See  •ha2)ler  vii. 


THE   MYSTICAL   UNION.  209 

rics  of  the  Atonement  may  sliow  tliat  tlic  majority  of 
these  passages,  treated  separately,  are  not  absolutely  in- 
capable of  being  reduced  into  conformity  with  their 
views.  And  this  ibllows  necessarily  from  the  fact  that 
each  of  their  hypotheses,  as  is  the  case  with  respect  to 
every  heresy  which  ever  existed,  is  a  partial  truth. 
But— 

II.  I  submit  that  the  induction  of  scriptural  passages 
I  have  presented  makes  certain  the  following  points: 
(1.)  That  the  entire  class  of  passages  above  presented 
are  not  only  without  exception  consistent  with,  but  when 
tak(;n  together  naturally  suggest,  the  central  principle 
of  our  doctrine,  viz.,  that  Christ,  in  the  strict  and  proper 
sense  of  the  term,  was  substituted  in  the  law-place  of 
his  ])eople.  (2.)  That  the  existence  of  this  ineffable 
union,  when  established  as  a  fact  by  infallible  authority, 
goes  very  far  to  ex])lain  the  relation  which  Christ  has 
sustained  to  the  penal  sanctions  of  the  law,  and  the  effect 
which  his  work  of  active  and  passive  obedience  accom- 
])lishes  in  expiating  the  sins  of  his  people,  and  in  enti- 
tling them  with  himself  to  a  glorious  inheritance.  And 
(3)  that  neither  of  the  views  which  I  o])pose  can,  by  any 
])ossible  ingenuity,  be  adjusted  to  all  that  the  Scriptures 
reveal  concerning  the  union  of  Christ  to  his  people, 
taken  together  as  a  whole.  On  neither  hypothesis  can 
a  rational  explanation  of  the  application  to  the  subject 
of  such  language  in  such  variety  and  involution  be 
afforded. 

With  respect  to  the  Moral  Influence  Hypothesis,  the 

truth  of  this  assertion  is  more  than  sufficiently  evident. 

If  Christ  comes  to  us  merely  that  by  a  revelation  of 

divine  love  he  may  persuade  us  to  lay  aside  our  wicked 

18  * 


210      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

enmity  to  God,  in  what  sense,  consistent  with  the  honest 
use  of  language,  can  he  be  said  to  be  our  ^'  second  Adam," 
our  "Priest,"  our  "Ransom,"  our  "Advocate  with  the 
Father,"  the  "  Propitiation  for  our  sins,"  our  "  Surety," 
or  Bailsman  before  God?  In  what  sense  were  we  "pre- 
destinated in  hhn,"  "baptized  mto  his  death?"  In  what 
sense  was  his  death  virtually  our  death,  or  his  life  virtu- 
ally our  life?  In  what  sense  is  our  life  hid  with  Christ 
in  God  ?  In  what  sense  do  we  have  fellowship  with  him 
in  his  sufferings  and  in  the  power  of  his  resurrection? 
In  what  sense  is  he  our  righteousness  and  we  made 
righteous  by  his  obedience? 

The  same  essential  incongruity  will  appear  when  we 
attempt  to  adjust  the  great  central  truth  taught  by  these 
passages  to  the  Governmental  Hypothesis.  If  Christ 
was  not  strictly  a  Substitute  in  our  place,  and  if  he  did 
not  literally  bear  the  penalty  and  expiate  the  guilt  of 
our  sins;  if  all  he  did  was,  by  sufferings  which  were  not 
of  the  nature  of  punishment,  to  prove  that  God  will 
punish  sin,  and  thus  make  it  consistent  with  God's 
rectitude  as  King  for  him  not  to  save  any,  but  to  ])ut 
all  in  a  salvable  state;  if  this  represents  the  whole  truth 
revealed  as  to  the  nature  of  redemption, — then  it  neces- 
sarily follows  that,  after  all  the  Holy  Ghost  has  feaid 
about  it,  the  union  between  Christ  and  his  people  is  not 
real,  but  only  figurative.  He  helps  us  materially  to 
help  ourselves.  But  he  never  was  literally  one  with  us 
in  the  eye  of  the  law.  We  are  not  truly  of  his  flesh 
and  of  his  bones,  and  he  was  neither  our  Ransom,  nor 
our  Bailsman.  We  are  not  truly  joint  heirs  with  him, 
but  only  beneficiaries.  His  obedience  does  not  make  us 
righteou«,  but  his  sufferings  open  the  way  for  God's 


THE   MYSTICAL   UNION.  211 

giving  us  an  opportunity  of  becoming  so.  He  did  not 
bear  our  sin,  and  we  are  not  clotlied  upon  with  his 
righteousness.  Our  sin  was  only  the  occasion  of  his 
suffering;  and  the  same  suffering  is  only  the  occasion, 
by  means  of  which  we  may,  if  faithful,  become  per.son- 
ally  righteous. 


CHAPTER    XIY. 

THE  ORTHODOX  DOCTRINE,  AS  TO  THE  NATURE  OF  THE 
ATONEMENT,  PROVED  FR03I  WHAT  THE  SCRIPTURES  TEACH 
AS    TO    THE    NATURE   AND    GROUNDS    OF   JUSTIFICATION. 

AS  the  ninth  argument  in  su2)port  of  the  truth  of  our 
doctrine  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Atonement,  I  cit(; 
the  clear  and  indubitable  teachings  of  the  Scri})tures  as 
to  the  nature  of  justification  and  the  grounds  upon 
which  it  proceeds.  For  the  ends  of  my  argument,  I 
shall  define  and  establish  by  Scripture  the  true  doctrine 
of  justification, ^irs^  on  that  side  on  which  it  immediately 
antagonizes  the  IMoral  Influence  Theory  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  Atonement,  and  secondly^  on  that  side  on  which  it 
refuses  to  coalesce  with  the  Governmental  Theory  of  the 
same. 

I.  Those  who  hold  that  the  entire  design  and  effect 
of  the  vicarious  sufferings  of  Christ  was  to  produce  a 
moral  influence  upon  the  sinner,  and  thus  to  reconcile 
man  to  God  instead  of  propitiating  God  in  behalf  of 
man,  must,  of  course,  hold  justification  to  be  a  divine 
work,  effecting,  by  appropriate  means,  a  subjective 
change  in  the  moral  condition  of  the  individual.  Judged 
from  their  2)oint  of  view,  it  must  signify  to  make  in- 
herently or  personally  just  or  morally  good. 

In  opposition  to  all  heretics  of  this  class,  as  well  as  in 
02)position  to  the  Papists,  the  Evangelical  Protestant 
212 


DOCrrRINE   OF   JUSTIFICATION.  213 

Church  has  always  iiiaiiilaiiicci,  with  an  ov(TwhehiiIng 
weight  of  scriptural  (!vi(lciicc,  tliat  that  justification 
which  God  cflccts,  of  wliich  Christ's  sacrifice  is  tlie 
meritorious  ground,  and  the  people  of  Christ  tlie  subjects, 
is  not  an  infusion  of  grace  efleeting  a  subjective  change 
in  moral  condition,  but  a  declarative  act  pronouncing 
the  believer  to  be  forensically  just,  and  thus  effecting  a 
change  of  legal  relation,  and  not  a  change  of  moral 
character.  This  principle  was  the  precise  truth,  the  dis- 
tinct and  forceful  enunciation  of  which,  made  the  great 
Ileformation  of  the  Seventeenth  Century  what  it  was  to 
the  men  of  that  and  of  all  subsequent  generations.  It 
has  been  proved  over  and  over  again  by  such  conclusive 
scriptural  references  as  the  following. 

1.  The  common  sense  in  which  our  English  word  to 
justify  is  used  and  understood  in  all  secular  speech  and 
literature,  is  to  declare  a  man  to  be  in  the  right — never 
to  make  or  to  constitute  him  inherently  so.  To  justify 
is  to  assert  or  to  vindicate  his  innocence ;  it  is  to  pro- 
nounce him  to  be  in  fact  innocent,  or  clear  of  all  the 
claims  of  that  law  or  standard  of  conduct  or  character 
by  which  he  is  tested.  This  is  not  only  the  theological 
nsag©  of  the  term,  but  the  sense  in  which  it  is  universally 
used  in  the  common  intercourse  of  life.  The  Latin 
"words  jicstificatio  and  justijico  were  never  used  by  classi- 
cal writers,  but  were  newly-coined  terms  of  ecclesiastical 
writers  for  the  purpose  of  expressing  theological  ideas, 
and  hence  neither  their  etymology  nor  their  usage  can 
throw  any  additional  light  upon  this  subject. 

2.  The  word  which  the  Holy  Ghost  has  chosen  to 
express  the  tr  utli  he  intends  to  reveal  on  this  subject  is 
dcxaeoo),     lu  classical  Greek  this  word  has  substantially 


214      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

the  same  usage  which  the  word  to  justify,  by  which  it 
is  translated  in  tlic  New  Testament,  lias  in  English. 
Suidas'  Lexicon — ^^  dcxacoT)Vj  to  justify,  has  two  senses:  1, 
punhr;  2,justum  censere.  So  Herodotus,  &c."  Liddell 
&  Scott's  Lexicon — ^'  dexaioco:  1,  to  hold  as  rigid  or  fair, 
to  think  right  or  Jit;  2,  to  do  a  man  justice;  hence  (a)  to 
condemn,  punish,  and  {h)  to  make  just,  hold  guiltless, 
jmtify,  N.  T.'^ 

3.  The  Hebrew  word  pnv,  in  the  vast  majority  of  in- 
stances translat(3d  by  the  authors  of  the  Septuagent  by 
the  Greek  word  dixo.ioco,  and  in  our  version  by  the  Eng- 
lish word  to  justify,  is  always  used  in  the  sense  of  think- 
ing or  pronouncing  just,  acquitting,  and  never  in  the 
sense  of  making  good  by  the  exercise  of  a  moral  influ- 
ence. Job  ix.  20:  ^^  If  I  justify  (pli*)  myself,  mine 
own  mouth  shall  condemn  me;  if  I  say  I  am  perfect,  it 
shall  also  prove  me  perverse."  Job  xxxii.  2:  The 
wrath  of  Eliliu  was  kindled  against  Job,  "because  he 
justified  (p^if)  himself  rather  than  God.''  Deut.  xxv. 
1:  "Then  shall  they  [the  judges]  justify  the  righteous, 
and  condemn  the  wicked."  Prov.  xvii.  15:  "He  that 
justifieth  the  wicked,  and  he  that  condemneth  the  just, 
even  they  both  are  an  abomination  to  the  Lord."  See 
also  Isa.  V.  23;  Ex.  xxiii.  7;  and  Ps.  li.  4. 

4.  The  word  oixacoco  occurs  thirty-nine  times  in  the 
New  Testament,  and  in  every  case,  without  a  single  ex- 
ception, it  signifies  to  esteem,  to  pronounce,  or  to  treat 
as  righteous,  and  never  once  to  make  or  constitute  per- 
sonally, inherently  righteous.  Sometimes  the  word  is 
used  to  declare  the  fact  that  a  person  is  inherently 
righteous,  as  Luke  vii.  29:  "And  all  the  people  that 
heard  him,  and  the  publicans  justified  God;"  and  Matt. 


DOCTRINE   OF   JUSTIFICATION.  215 

xi.  19:  "Wisdom  is  justifitd  of  her  children."  But  in 
the  great  majority  of  instances  it  is  evident  that  it  was 
used  in  the  sense  of  pronouncing  and  treating  a  person 
as  just,  not  intrinsically,  but  in  relation  to  the  demands 
of  law  as  a  covenant  or  condition  of  life  and  favour. 
That  is,  in  the  simplest  words  possible,  it  is  a  declaration 
that  all  the  claims  of  the  law  are  satisfied.  Thus  Gal. 
ii.  16:  **  Knowing  that  a  man  is  not  justified  by  the 
works  of  the  law,  but  by  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ,  even 
we  have  believed  in  Jesus  Christ,  that  we  might  be 
justified  by  the  faith  of  Christ,  and  not  by  the  works 
of  the  law;  for  by  the  works  of  the  law  shall  no  flesh 
be  justified."  Gal.  iii.  11:  '^But  that  no  man  is  justi- 
fied by  the  law,  in  the  sight  of  God,  it  is  evident."  See 
also  Acts  xiii.  39;  Rom.  v.  7-9;  1  Cor.  vi.  11.  If 
Christ  died  as  God's  medium  of  moral  influence  upon 
the  sinner,  and  not  as  propitiating  Mediator  in  behalf 
of  men  with  a  justly  offended  God,  then  to  justify  must 
mean  to  make  just,  to  sandijy.  What  sense,  in  that  case, 
can  be  put  upon  those  passages  which  speak  of  our  be- 
ing "justified,"  that  is,  sanctified,  "without  the  deeds 
of  the  law?"  What  meaning  can  be  imported  into  such 
phrases  as,  "  By  the  deeds  of  the  law  no  flesh  can  be 
^ sanctified''^  (Rom.  iii.  20),  or,  "Christ  is  become  of 
no  eilect  unto  you,  who  are  ^sanctified'  by  the  law; 
whosoever  of  you  are  ^sanctified'  by  the  law,  are  fallen 
from  grace"  (Gal.  v.  4),  or,  "Whom  God  hath  set  forth 
to  be  a  propitiation,  ...  to  declare  at  this  time  his 
righteousness,  in  order  that  he  [God]  might  be  holy,  and 
the  ^sanetifier'  of  him  which  believeth  in  Jesus."* 

*  That  Busbnell  shall  say,  as  he  docs  on  page  420,  that  he  has 
established  ^lis  point,  that  6tKai6<jj  ia  not  used  in  a  declarative  or  judi- 


216      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

5.  The  phrases,  ^^  to  justify  ^^  and  ^'jiistification"  are  in 
the  Scriptures  constantly  used  as  the  opposite  of  "to 
condem7i"  and  " condemnation J^  ^'Who  shall  lay  any- 
thing to  the  charge  of  God's  elect?  It  is  God  that  Ji^^i- 
ficth:  who  is  he  that  condeinnethf  Rom.  viii.  33,  34. 
"Therefore,  as  by  the  offence  of  one,  judgment  came 
upon  all  men  to  condemnation,  even  so  by  the  righteous- 
ness of  one  the  free  gift  came  upon  all  men  unto  justifi- 
cation of  life."  Rom.  v.  18.  See  also  Rom.  viii.  1;  and 
John  iii.  18.  Now  the  phrase  ^Ho  condemn"  must  be 
taken  in  a  legal  sense.  Therefore,  "to  justify"  must  be 
legal  also.  The  opposite  of  "to  sanctify"  is  to  pollute, 
but  the  opposite  of  "to  condemn"  is  to  justify. 

6.  The  same  truth  is  established  by  the  character  of 
the  terms  which  in  Scripture  are  used  interchangeably 
with  dcxacoco  to  bring  out  the  full  sense  of  Christian 
justification.  These  are  such  as,  "To  impute  righteous- 
ness without  works;"  "to  forgive  iniquities;"  "to  cover 
sins;"  "not  to  impute  or  charge  sin  to  account."  Rom. 
iv.  6-8.  "Justified  by  his  blood;"  "saved  from  wrath;" 
"being  sinners  and  yet  reconciled  to  God  by  the  death 
of  his  Son."  Rom.  v.  9,  10. 

7.  The  same  truth  is  proved  by  Paul's  argument  as 
to  the  gratuitous  character  of  justification,  Rom.  iii.  27, 
28  and  iv.  3-5:  "Where  is  boasting  then?  It  is  ex- 
cluded. By  what  law?  of  works?  Nay;  but  by  the. 
law  of  faith.  .  .  .  Abraham  believed  God,  and  it  was 
counted  to  him  for  righteousness.     Now  to  him  that 

cial  sense,  but  means  to  make  morally  good,  "  in  a  manner  that 
leaves  no  room  for  dispute,"  is  an  exhibition  of  the  very  insanity  of 
sell-conceit.  So  far  from  the  word  in  Scripture  always  having  that 
BtiK-.f,  it  never  haw  it. — Princeton  litvicw,  April,  18G6. 


DOCTRINE   OF   JUSTIFICATION.  217 

workcth,  is  the  reward  not  reckoned  of  grace,  but  of 
debt.  But  to  him  that  worketh  not,  but  belie vcth  on 
liim  tliat  justifieth  the  ungodly,  his  faith  is  counted  for 
righteousness."  But  if  justification  be  only  setting  a 
man  subjectively  right,  making  him  to  be  good  in 
fact,  why  should  '^ sanciijication'^  by  works  be  a  ground 
of  boasting  any  more  than  '^  sanctification'^  by  faitli?  It 
is  easy  to  understand  how  a  man  can  be  forensically  just 
witliout  works,  on  the  credit  of  the  works  of  a  "  surety." 
But  what  mortal  can  construe  in  thought  the  thin^r 
meant  by  saying  that  a  man  is  personally  holy  without 
works  of  righteousness?  How  can  faith  be  counted  for 
^^ sanctification^^  in  the  case  of  a  man  who  has  no  works, 
but  believes  in  a  God  who  '^ saiictifies^'  the  ungodly? 

8.  The  sense  in  which  Paul  used  the  terms  in  ques- 
tion is  put  beyond  all  doubt  by  the  nature  of  the  objec- 
tions which  he  introduces  into  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
as  likely  to  be  made  to  his  doctrine.  The  question 
whether,  being  justified  by  grace,  we  should  continue  in 
sin  in  order  that  grace  might  abound,  is  both  obvious 
and  plausible,  if  the  phrase,  "being  justified,"  be  taken 
in  the  forensic  sense  attributed  to  it  by  the  Protestant 
Church  in  all  its  branches.  That  is,  will  not  the  free, 
gratuitous  acquittal  of  the  sinner,  without  either  obedi- 
ence or  punishment  on  his  part,  inevitably  lead  to  licen- 
tiousness? But  the  question  whether,  being  '^ sanctified^^ 
by  grace,  we  shall  continue  in  sin  that  grace  may  abound, 
has  not  even  a  decent  appearance  of  plausibility,  because 
utterly  devoid  of  sense. 

This  doctrine,  that  justification  is  forensic,  and  that  it 
is  based  upon  imjMited  righteousness,  was  the  watchword 
of  i\\i'  glorious  Uefbnnation — the  one  word  of  power 
19 


218      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

wliich  dissolved  the  venerable  power  of  the  Papacy, 
awakened  the  people  from  the  sleep  of  ages,  introduced 
the  new  world  of  modern  history,  and  the  stupendous 
career  of  progressive  liberty  and  civilization  which  has 
issued  from  it.  The  state  of  the  world  as  a  whole,  to- 
day, when  compared  with  all  the  past,  is  a  w^itness  to  its 
truth.  All  the  achievements  of  modern  Christianity, 
in  all  departments,  are  a  monument  to  its  value.  Yet 
Buslmell  says  of  this,  "articula  stantis,  vel  cadentis 
ecclesice,  I  could  more  easily  see  the  Church  fall  than 
believe  it."*  The  presumption  appears  overwhelming 
that  Protestantism  is  right,  and  that  Popery,  Socinian- 
ism  and  the  nondescript  genus  of  Bushnells  and  Youngs, 
are  wrong. 

The  w^ork  of  Dr.  John  Y^oung,  of  Edinburgh,  entitled 
the  "  Light  and  the  Life  of  Men,''  is,  as  far  as  the  pre- 
sent writer  knows,  the  most  thorough,  able  and  honest 
of  all  the  modern  essays  in  advocacy  of  the  Moral  Influ- 
ence Theory  of  Redemption,  In  his  chapter  on  Justifica- 
tion, in  the  face  of  all  the  facts  above  given  relating  to 
the  uniform  usage  of  the  Hebrew,  Greek  and  English 
words  involved  in  the  question  at  issue,  he  claims  that 
the  analogies  of  the  English  language  demand  that  we 
should  substitute  the  word  "to  righten,"  in  place  of  the 
word  "to  justify,"  as  the  English  equivalent  of  the 
Greek  daacdw.  As  we  have  in  Greek  dcxoio^,  dtxaeoaui^Tjj 
daai(ofia  and  dcxaiowj  so  we  would  have  in  English  the 
uniform  class  of  ^vords,  rir/fd^  rlgldeouSj  riglitcousness  or 
nc/Jitness;  and  to  rigJdcn  or  rectify,  or  set  right. 

But  the  only  advantage  Young  gains  in  favour  of 
his  argument  by  this  substitution  results  from  the 
*  "  Vicarious  Sacrilice,"  p.  439. 


DOCTRINE   OF   JUSTIFICATION.  219 

fact  tlmt  Ills  ncwly-ooined  terra  "to  rigliton/'  having  no 
established  2(sus  loqucndi,  is  necessarily  ambiguous.  The 
word  may  with  equal  propriety  be  understood  either  in 
tlie  sense  of  rir/htcning  a  man  subjectively,  that  is,  mak- 
ing him  inherently  good,  or  of  rir/htening  the  man  foren- 
sically,  or  vindicating  his  claim  to  be  regarded  and 
treated  as  standing  in  a  right  relation  to  the  divine 
law.  The  entire  plausibility  of  Young's  argument  in 
the  chapter  in  question  results  from  this  ambiguity  of 
his  chosen  word.  His  theory  of  the  nature  of  Christ's 
work  demands  that  "to  righten"  shall  mean  to  make  a 
man  subjectively  right.  On  the  other  hand,  as  I  have 
shown,  the  Scripture  usage  of  the  words  piv  and  dexrf.c6co, 
which  are  used  by  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  to  express  his  mind  upon  the  nature  of  this 
"rightening,"  demand  that  they  be  represented  by  an 
English  equivalent  which,  like  the  word  to  justify,  means 
precisely  to  pronounce  a  man  to  be  just  in  the  eye  of  law 
— to  be  free  of  all  legal  demands.  The  newly-invented 
terra  raay  be  convenient  to  veil  the  real  issue  involv^ed, 
but  it  is  irapotent  to  avoid  it.  Sense,  candor,  and  a 
Hebrew  and  a  Greek  Concordance  of  the  two  Testa- 
ments, will  settle  this  question  both  speedily  and  finally. 

II.  The  advocates  of  the  Governmental  Theory  of 
the  Atonement,  while  they  agree  with  us  that  justifica- 
tion is,  as  above  shown,  a  forensic  act,  yet,  nevertheless, 
are  forced  to  differ  from  us  as  to  the  nature  of  justifica- 
tion in  the  following  particulars. 

1.  As  Christ,  according  to  tneir  view,  did  not  suffer 
strictly  in  the  law-place  of  his  people,  and  as  their  sins 
were  not  really  imputed  to  hira,  and  as  he  did  not  die 
with  the  purpose  of  expiating  the  sins  of  any  particular 


220      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

iudivlduals,  but  to  put  all  men  generally  into  a  salvable 
state,  it  follows  that  his  righteousness  is  not  imputed  to 
the  believer,  and  that  it  is  only  in  some  sense  the  occa- 
sion, Init  not  at  all  the  strict  judicial  ground,  of  our 
justification. 

2.  As  Christ's  righteousness  is  not  imputed  to  the  be- 
liever as  the  ground  of  his  justification,  it  follows  that 
that  justification  cannot  be  an  act  of  God  as  Judge,  pro- 
nouncing his  judgment  according  to  the  fact  that  the 
man  is  righteous — that  is,  free  of  all  unsatisfied  claims 
of  law,  and  entitled  to  the  covenant  rewards  of  right- 
eousness; it  can  only  be  a  mere  executive  pardon  pro- 
nounced by  God  as  King,  remitting  the  penalty  due  to 
sin. 

3.  As  justification  is  mere  pardon,  as  it  is  a  sovereign 
and  not  a  judicial  act,  and  since  it  is  not  founded  on 
imputed  righteousness,  it  follows  that  it  must  proceed 
upon  a  relaxation  of  law  by  sovereign  prerogative — an 
exercise  of  prerogative  in  this  case  wisely  guarded  from 
abuse  by  the  governmental  device  of  an  atonement. 
This  wise  relaxation  of  the  claims  of  law,  in  which  all 
the  interests  of  God,  of  the  moral  universe  and  of  the 
sinner  are  reconciled  and  provided  for,  involves  two 
things;  (1)  the  admission  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ, 
in  themselves  of  incomparably  less  value,  in  the  place 
of  the  real  penalty  of  the  law;  and  (2)  the  admission 
of  faith  and  evangelical  obedience,  in  the  place  of  that 
perfect  obedience  which  the  law  demands  as  the  ground 
of  the  sinner's  justification.  The  first  relaxation  prepares 
the  way  for  the  second,  and  renders  it  consistent  with 
the  good  of  the  moral  universe.  This  makes  faith  the 
^ound  and   not  the  mere  condition   of  salvation,  and 


DOCTRINE   OF   JUSTIFICATION.  221 

assimilates  tlie  Governmental  Theory,  as  to  all  essential 
points,  with  the  Arminian  Soteriology. 

In  opposition  to  this  view  of  the  nature  of  justifi- 
cation, the  Scriptures  fully  support  the  truth  of  the 
docti-ine  common  to  all  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed 
Churclies,  including  the  following  points. 

1.  Justification  is  not  mere  pardon  executed  in  virtue 
of  his  kingly  prerogative,  but  it  is  a  judgment  pro- 
nounced by  God  as  Judge,  to  the  effect  that  the  believer 
is  in  all  respects  free  of  the  claims  of  law  as  a  covenant 
of  life. 

2.  The  ground  u[X)n  wdiich  justification  proceeds  is 
neither  the  sovereign  prerogative  of  God,  nor  the  faith 
nor  gi-acious  obedience  of  the  believer  accepted  in  view 
of  Christ's  exemplary  suffering,  but  it  is  the  all-perfect 
righteousness  of  Christ,  which,  in  the  just  judgment  of 
God  as  a  matter  of  fact,  belongs  to  the  believer  by  the 
terms  of  the  covenant  and  for  the  purpose  of  justifica- 
tion, and  which  hence  fulfils,  in  the  rigour  of  justice,  all 
the  demands  of  the  law  upon  us. 

1.  Judijicaiion  is  not  mere  j^archn. 

It  is  of  course  believed  on  all  hands  (a)  that  justifica- 
tion includes  pardon  of  sin  as  one  of  its  main  elements, 
and  (6)  that  this  pardon  in  relation  to  the  unworthy 
subjects  of  it.  who  are  selected  from  the  great  mass  of 
humanity  neither  better  nor  Avorse  than  themselves,  is  a 
matter  of  grace  absolutely  sovereign.  Hence  justifica- 
tion is  often  set  forth  in  Scripture  as  pardon  (Isa.  Iv.  7), 
remission  (Acts  x.  43),  forgiveness  (Eph.  i.  7),  and  the 
non-imputation  fif  sin  (Rom.  iv,  8),  &c.  But  that  justi- 
fication is  not  mere  pi^rdpn  is  eyident  from  the  following 
facts. 

19  * 


222      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Mere  pardon  is  (a)  the  act  of  a  sovereign  waiving  the 
claims  of  the  ]aw  and  discharging  the  penalty.  (6.)  It 
proceeds  upon  sovereign  prerogative  and  the  proprieties 
of  governmental  policy  to  relax  the  demands  of  law, 
but  does  not  declare  them  satisfied,  (c.)  The  effect  of 
mere  pardon  is  simply  to  remit  the  penalty ;  it  docs  not 
advance  the  pardoned  man  to  any  positive  favour,  nor 
entitle  him  to  any  positive  reward. 

But,  on  the  contrary,  justification  is  a  judicial  act  of 
God  proceeding  upon  the  fact  that  all  the  demands  of 
law  upon  the  persons  concerned  are  satisfied,  and  it  pro- 
nounces believers  to  be  entitled  to  the  rewards  condi- 
tioned upon  obedience  to  the  law  as  a  covenant  of  life. 
This  is  certain  (1)  from  the  uniform  classical  and  New 
Testaincnt  usage  of  the  words  ocxaco^,  dixai0(juyrj,  daaUo/ia^ 
dr/jubco.  The  ocxaco^  was  ^^a  person  observant  of  rules, 
hence  observant  of  the  rules  of  right,"  the  moral  law, 
and  hence  a  just  man,  or  rectus.  Jcxaioa'jvTj  was  the 
character  of  the  dlxaio^-,  that  in  the  man  vrhich  conforms 
to  and  fulfils  the  law.*  Jixacoo)  is  to  proclaim  a  man 
to  be  ocxaco^,  that  is,  to  possess  a  btxmoabvq^  or  righteous- 
ness. No  person  confounds  in  Greek  any  more  than  in 
English  the  ideas  of  justification  and  mere  pardon;  and 
the  language  which  is  uniformly  used  to  express  the  one 
cannot,  by  any  fair  interpretation,  be  held  to  convey  the 
other.  The  language  necessarily  suggests  the  function 
of  a  judge,  not  of  a  sovereign,  and  it  implies  that  the 
law  is  satisfied,  not  relaxed,  and  that  the  person  declared 
to  be  just  is  entitled  to  whatever  benefits  have  been 
graciously  made  to  depend,  by  covenant,  upon  the  con- 
dition of  perfect^  conformity  to  the  law. 
*  Liddell  &  Scott'R  Lexicon. 


DOCTRIXE   OF   JUSTIFICATION.  223 

(2.)  The  Scriptures  declare  that  justification  proceeds 
upon  the  ground  of  a  righteousness.  "The  righteous- 
ness of  the  law/^  "  their  own  righteousness/'  is  contrasted 
with  'Hhe  righteousness  of  God,"  'Hhe  righteousness  of 
faitii.'^  Tlie  former  is  declared  not  to  be,  but  the  latter 
to  be,  the  ground  of  justification.  Hence  Christ  is  said 
to  be  "the  Lord  our  righteousness '^  (Jer.  xxiii.  6),  and 
"  the  end  of  the  law  for  righteousness  to  every  one  that 
believeth"  (Rom.  x.  3-G);  and  we  are  said  to  be  the 
•'righteousness  of  God  in  him.''  2  Cor.  v.  21,  and  1  Cor. 
V.  30.  Justification  is  paraphrased  as  "the  imputation 
of  righteousness  without  works,"  and  "faith"  is  said  to 
be  "imputed  for  righteousness."  Rom.  iv.  6,  22.  "'They 
who  receive  the  gift  of  righteousness  shall  reign  in  life 
by  Jesus  Christ.  Therefore  as  by  the  offence  of  one 
JUDGMENT  came  upon  all  men  to  condemnation,  even 
so  by  the  righteousness  of  one  the  free  gift  came  upon 
all  men  unto  justification  of  life.  For  as  by  one 
man's  disobedience  many  were  made  sinners,  so  by  the 
obedience  of  one  shall  many  be  made  righteous." 
Rom.  V,  17-19.  The  essence  of  pardon  is  that  a  man  is 
forgiven  without  righteousness.  The  essence  of  justifica- 
tion is  that  a  man  is  pronounced  to  be  possessed  of  a 
righteousness  which  fulfils  the  law. 

(3.)  According  to  his  eternal  covenant  with  the  Father, 
the  work  of  Christ  secures  for  his  people  not  merely 
pardon,  but  both  (a)  remission  of  the  penalty  due  to  sin, 
and  (6)  a  title  to  the  purchased  possession.  Eph.  i.  14. 
Pardon  effects  nothing  more  than  remission.  But  the 
promise  is  that  "the  just  by  fiiith  shall  //?r."  Eph.  iii. 
11.  Justification  carries  with  it  the  effects  or  conse- 
quences of  "peace  with  God,"  "access  and  rejoicing  in 


224  THE  NATURE   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

the  glory  of  God,"  "rcconciluitlon  with  God  and  salva- 
tion." Rom.  V.  1-10.  The  blood  of  Christ  is  said  to 
effect  not  only  remission  of  sins,  but  also  "inheritance 
among  them  that  are  sanctified,"  and  the  elevation  of 
those  for  whom  it  was  shed,  to  be  '^  kings  and  priests 
unto  God."  Rev.  i.  5,  6;  Acts  xxvi.  18. 

2.  The  ground  upon  whicli  God  pronounces  the  ju^t'i- 
fioation  of  sinners  is  not  sovereign  prerogative^  hut  the 
all-perfect  '^  righteomness  of  Christ  imputed  to  us  and 
received  by  faith  alone  J' 

When  we  say  that  justification  is  a  judicial  and  not  a 
sovereign  act  of  God,  it  is  by  no  means  intended  by  the 
most  rigid  adherent  of  the  old  Calvinism  that  ever 
lived  to  deny  either  of  the  following  great  and  precious 
truths,  (a.)  That  the  substitution  of  the  person  of 
Christ  in  the  place  of  his  people,  for  the  purpose  of  ful- 
filling both  the  precept  and  the  penalty  of  the  law  in 
our  })lace,  was  an  act  of  absolute  sovereignty,  the  only 
reason  of  which  is  the  "counsel  of  his  own  will."  Nor 
(b)  that  the  election  of  any  individual  sinner  to  a  part 
in  that  body  which  Christ  represents  in  his  obedience 
and  suffering  was  an  act  of  sovereignty.  Nor  (c)  that 
as  far  as  any  claims  of  any  sort  on  the  part  of  the  elect 
sinner  himself  is  concerned,  the  application  of  this  re- 
demptive work  of  Christ  to  him  in  the  gift  of  faith, 
repentance  and  their  gracious  sequences  is  any  the  less 
absolutely  and  unconditionally  sovereign.  These  princi- 
ples belong  fully  as  much  to  the  old  Calvinism  as  to  the 
New  England  Theology.  But  what  we  do  mean  to 
affirm  is  precisely  this:  that  God  having,  as  Sovereign, 
admitted  the  substitution  of  Christ  in  the  law-place  of 
'lis  elect,  and   having  sovereignly  chosen  a  given  indi- 


DOCTTRINE   OF   JUSTIFICATION.  226 

vidiuil  to  a  place  in  tlieir  nuinbcr,  and  having,  according 
to  his  promise  to  the  Son,  but  sovereignly  as  far  as  con- 
cerns the  man  himself,  conferred  upon  him  the  gift  of 
faith,  he  then  proceeds  as  Judge  to  pronounce  the  fact  that 
the  law  is  satisfied  with  rcsj)ect  to  that  man,  because  of 
the  perfect  work  wrought  in  his  behalf  by  his  Substitute. 
Justification  is  precisely  this  judicial  decision,  recogniz- 
ing the  believer  as  righteous  (fbrensically),  and  providing 
for  his  being  so  regarded  and  treated  for  ever. 

Now  the  foundation  (5f  this  act  must  be  the  righteous- 
ness of  Christ,  because  (1)  justification  has  been  proved 
above  to  be  a  forensic  and  judicial  act,  and  not  to  be 
mere  pardon,  but  a  pronouncing  a  man  to  be  right  before 
the  law.  It  must,  therefore,  proceed  upon  the  ground 
of  a  righteousness  of  some  sort — that  is,  upon  the  appli- 
cation to  the  case  of  that  which  will  in  the  sense  of  strict 
justice  satisfy  the  demands  of  law,  and  not  the  self-will 
of  the  Sovereign. 

But  (2)  the  law  demands  either  perfect  obedience,  past 
and  present,  or  the  execution  of  the  penalty.  Conse- 
quently, "by  the  law  can  no  flesh  be  justified,"  if  respect 
be  had  to  their  own  imperfect  obedience. 

(3.)  When  the  Scriptures  declare  that  justification 
does  not  proceed  on  the  ground  of  human  works,  they 
always  use  the  words  in  a  general  sense  to  include  works 
of  whatever  kind.  This  excludes,  of  course,  faith  and 
evangelical  obedience,  as  Avell  as  obedience  to  the  law  of 
the  Adamic  covenant.  "And  if  it  be  of  grace.  It  is  no 
more  of  works :  otherwise  grace  is  no  more  grace.  But 
if  it  be  of  works,  then  it  is  no  more  grace:  otherwise 
works  is  no  more  works."  Rom.  xi.  6.  "Now  to  him 
that  wirketh  is  the  reward  not  reckoned  of  grace,  but 


226      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

of  debt.  But  to  liim  tliat  worketli  not,  but  believeth  on 
liini  tliat  justiiicth  the  ungodly,  his  faith  is  counted  for 
righteousness.  Even  as  David  describeth  the  blessedness 
of  the  man  unto  whom  God  imputeth  righteousness  with- 
out works."  Rom.  iv.  4-Q. 

(4.)  The  fact  that  this  justification  of  the  sinner  pro- 
ceeds upon  the  ground  of  Christ's  righteousness  made 
forensically  the  sinner's  righteousness  by  imputation  is 
directly  asserted  in  Scripture.  As  we  proved  in  a  pre- 
ceding chapter  that  the  guilt  or  obligation  to  punishment 
attaching  to  our  sins  was  charged  upon  Christ  and  ex- 
piated in  his  person,  so  we  now  see  that  the  Scriptures 
teach  with  equal  clearness  the  correlative  truth  that  the 
rewardableness  attaching  to  Christ's  righteousness  is 
actually  credited  to  the  believer,  and  rewarded  in  the 
whole  process  of  his  salvation.  Christ  is  called  "the 
Lord  our  righteousness."  Jer.  xxiii.  6.  He  is  said  to  be 
"the  end  of  the  law  for  righteousness  to  every  one  that 
believeth."  Rom.  x.  4.  He  is  "made  unto  us  wisdom, 
and  righteousness,  and  sanctification,  and  redemption."  1 
Cor.  i.  30.  "  He  was  made  sin  for  us,  who  knew  no  sin, 
that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God  in  him." 
2  Cor.  V.  21.  "Therefore  as  by  the  offence  of  one,  judg- 
ment came  upon  all  men  to  condemnation,  even  so  by 
the  righteousness  of  one  the  free  gift  came  upon  all  men 
to  justification  of  life.  For  as  by  one  man's  disobedience 
many  were  made  sinners,  so  by  the  obedience  of  one 

SHALL  MANY  BE  MADE  RIGHTEOUS."  Rom.  V.  18,  19.     It 

is  often  said  that  faith  "is  imputed  for  righteousness." 
Rom.  iv.  9,  22.  But  the  specific  faith  which  justifies  is 
faith  in  or  on  (st^  or  c/t/)  Christ  Jesus.  Acts  ix.  42;  xvi. 
il;  Gal.   ii,  IG.     Its  very  essence,  therefore,  is  trust 


DOCTRINE   OF   JUSTIFICATION.  227 

upon  him  and  his  sin-expiiiting  and  life-purchasing 
merits.  Its  very  essence  consists  in  its  self-emptying, 
self-denying,  Christ-grasping  energy.  The  phrase  ''to 
impute  or  reckon  faith  for  righteousness"  represents  no 
thinkable  idea,  unless  it  means  to  reckon  as  the  right- 
eousness of  the  sinner  that  righteousness  which  his  faith 
trusts  and  appropriates.  The  mere  act  of  leaning  will 
never  support  a  fainting  man,  unless  he  leans  upon  some 
object  capable  of  suj^porting  his  weight.  In  that  case  it 
is  the  object  which  is  reckoned  his  support,  and  not  his 
act  of  leaning.  The  act  of  leaning  is  the  same  whether 
a  man  leans  upon  a  broken  reed  or  upon  a  rock,  while 
the  results  differ.  The  act  of  trusting  is  the  same 
whether  a  man  trusts  a  false  foundation  or  to  Christ. 
The  difference  in  the  result  arises  from  the  fact  that  the 
righteousness  of  Christ,  upon  which  his  faith  reposes,  is 
made  his  so  far  forth  as  to  answer  all  the  conditions  and 
to  secure  all  the  rewards  of  the  Covenant  of  Life. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

THE  ORTHODOX  DOCTRINE,  AS  TO  THE  NATURE  OF  THE 
ATONEMENT,  PROVED  FROM  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  SCRIPTURE, 
AS    TO    THE    NATURE   AND    OFFICE    OF    FAITH. 

OUR  view  of  the  nature  of  the  Atonement,  and  of  the 
federal  union  subsisting  between  Christ  and  his 
people,  is  the  only  one  consistent  with  the  teaching  of 
Scripture  as  to  the  nature  and  office  of  faith. 

The  most  prominent  and  important  characteristic  of 
the  gospel  preached  by  the  apostles  is,  that  they  habitu- 
ally presented  salvation  to  all  their  hearers  as  an  instant 
gift  to  follow  immediately  upon  the  exercise  by  them  of 
faith  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Nothing  beside  this 
was  required.  No  other  condition  was  necessary  in 
addition  to  this  in  order  to  render  it  effective.  When- 
ever this  condition  was  present,  the  gift  of  salvation  was 
in  no  case  either  denied  or  delayed.  The  single  direc- 
tion given  to  every  inquirer  was,  ^*  Believe  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved." 

Now  it  is  susceptible  of  demonstration  that  this  faith, 
as  set  forth  in  Scripture  as  the  condition  of  salvation,  is 
not  mere  assent  of  the  mind  to  the  claims  of  Christ's 
person  or  to  the  truth  of  his  doctrine,  but  that,  together 
with  this  assent,  it  includes  trust  or  reliance  upon  him 
and  his  finished  work.     This  is  certain,  because — 

L  To  ijelievc  "m"  or  "o/i"  a  person  uocessarily  in- 
22S 


NATURE   AND    EFFECT   OF    FAITH.  229 

volves  trust,  reliance,  of  wliicli  his  cliaracter  and  liis 
(loinij^H  arc  the  oround,  as  well  as  credit  or  assent  to  the 
truthfulness  of  his  communications.  And  it  is  a  fact 
that  the  sole  condition  of  salvation  is  habitually  pre- 
sented in  the  Scriptures  by  the  phrases,  "to  believe  m  or 
%q)on  Christ  Jesus ;"  ecc:  or  irr/  rbv  X(n(Tzbv,  and  e/c  ^^  ovofia 
Xfnazcrj,  and  iv  T(p  XfnaraJ.  John  iii.  18:  "He  that 
believeth  on  him  is  not  condemned,  but  he  that  believeth 
not  is  condemned  already,  because  he  hath  not  believed 
in  the  name  of  the  only-begotten  Son  of  God."  John 
iii.  36:  "He  that  believeth  on  the  Son  hath  everlasting 
life.''  John  vii.  38:  "He  that  believeth  on  me,  as  the 
Scripture  hath  said,  out  of  his  belly  shall  flow  rivers  of 
living  water.''  Acts  ix.  42;  xvi.  31:  "And  they  said 
believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  {inl  rou  Kupiov,  &c.), 
and  thou  shalt  be  saved,  and  thy  house."  Gal.  ii.  16: 
"  Even  we  have  believed  in  Jesus  Christ,  that  we  might 
be  justified  by  the  faith  of  Christ." 

2.  We  are  said  to  be  saved  by  faith  in  or  «6/9o?i  Christ, 
nloTi^  elt;  tou  Xptarbv  and  iv  Xptarw.  Acts  xx.  21 ; 
xxvi.  18;  Gal.  iii.  26;  Col.  i.  4. 

3.  This  one  special  act  of  faith,  which  is  the  single 
yet  indispensable  condition  of  salvation,  is  in  Scripture 
illustrated  by  a  variety  of  paraphrases,  describing  in 
other  words  the  nature  of  the  thing  to  be  done.  These 
are  such  as,  " Coming  to  Christ ;"  John  vi.  35 :  "I  am 
the  bread  of  life;  he  that  cometh  to  me,  shall  never 
hunger;  and  he  that  believeth  on  me,  shall  never 
thirst."  Receiving  Christ;  John  i.  12:  "But  as  many 
as  received  him,  to  them  gave  he  power  to  become  the 
sons  of  God,  even  to  them  that  believe  on  his  name." 
Flying  to  Christ  for  refuge;  Heb.  vi.  18:    "That  by 

20 


230      THE   NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

two  immutable  things,  in  "which  it  was  impossible  for 
God  to  lie,  we  might  have  a  strong  consolation,  who 
have  fled  for  refuge  to  lay  hold  upon  the  hope  set  before 
us."  Committing  all  our  interests  to  his  keeping;  2 
Tim.  i.  12:  "For  I  know  whom  I  have  believed,  and 
am  persuaded  that  he  is  able  to  keep  that  which  I  have 
committed  unto  him  against  that  day.'^ 

4.  The  effects  inseparable  from  this  faith  are  of  such 
a  nature  as  to  show  that  the  faith  itself  is  an  act  of  the 
whole  soul  embracing  Christ,  relying  upon  him  and 
appropriating  his  whole  work  as  the  basis  of  our  future 
life  and  happiness.  By  faith  we  are  united  to  Christ. 
He  dwells  in  our  hearts  by  faith.  Eph.  iii.  17.  It  is 
by  faith  that  we  eat  the  flesh  and  drink  the  blood  of  the 
Son  of  God.  "He  that  eateth  my  flesh,  and  drinketh 
my  blood,  dAvelleth  in  me,  and  I  in  him.''  John  vi. 
56,  &c. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  this  form  of  presenting 
the  gospel  is  not  one  form  among  several  others,  but  it 
is  the  one  sole  way  in  which  the  gospel  was  offered  by 
the  apostles  to  sinners  in  their  day,  and  it  is  the  form  in 
which  the  gospel  has  always  been  presented,  when  it  has 
been  accompanied  with  the  witness  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
from  the  day  of  Pentecost  until  the  present  time.  And 
if  the  Chux'ch  doctrine  of  the  literal  substitution  of  Christ 
inj:he  law-place  of  his  people,  and  his  vicarious  suffer- 
ing of  their  penalty  in  order  to  expiate  them  and  pro- 
pitiate God,  is  acknowledged,  then  all  this  scriptural 
usage  with  respect  to  faith  in  Christ  as  the  sole  condition 
of  salvation  is  very  plain.  If  his  sufferings  exhaust  the 
penalty  for  which  we  were  bound — if  his  obedience 
merits  an  eternal  reward  for  us — then  all  we  can  have  to 


NATURE  AND  EFFECT  OF  FAITH.       231 

do  is  to  accept  aiul  ajj^ropriate  his  finislicd  substitution- 
ary work,  and  to  trmt  upon  it  implicitly  as  the  legal  and 
meritorious  foundation  on  wliich  our  entire  hope  is  built. 
And  such  a  faith,  when  once  exercised,  will  immediately 
secure  its  end.  The  instant  we  believe,  the  righteousness 
of  Christ  in  all  its  fulness  and  federal  rights  is  ours  for 
ever.  And  the  instant  we  exercise  such  a  faith,  we  are 
united  forensieally  to  its  olyect  in  an  ineffable  and  per- 
])('(ual  connnunion  {xo/vcoi^ia)  of  all  relations,  honours 
and  rights. 

On  the  other  hand,  according  to  the  Moral  Influence 
Hypothesis,  a  sinner  may  with  evident  propriety  be 
called  to  credit  the  communications  of  the  divine 
JNIessiah,  and  to  yield  obedience  and  sym})athy  to  the 
spiritual  influence  of  the  heavenly  Medium  of  the  Fa- 
ther's love  to  man.  But  on  this  hypothesis,  it  is  only 
in  a  very  far-fetched  sense  that  we  could  be  said  to  trust 
on  him,  and  to  commit  all  our  interests  to  his  charge. 
And  it  is  simply  preposterous  to  pretend  that  the  Scrip- 
tures would  make  trust  in  Christ  the  one  sole  and  essen- 
tial thing  to  be  done  in  order  to  the  remission  of  sins, 
if  the  whole  design  and  effect  of  the  work  of  Christ 
-was  to  produce  a  moral  impression  upon  ourselves,  that 
is,  save  us  by  persuading  us  to  be  good.  If  that  were 
so,  the  one  characteristic  point  of  the  gospel  would  be 
to  make  us  look  inward  and  reform.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  above  shown,  and  as  the  whole  world  knows, 
the  one  characteristic  point  of  the  gospel  is  to  make  us 
look  outward  to  Christ,  and  trust  self-abandoningly  upon 
him. 

It  is  true,  also,  that  the  scriptural  language  with  re- 
spect to  faith  refuses   absolutely  to  coalesce  with   the 


232      IHE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Governmental  Hypothesis.  If  it  be  true  that  Chris 
did  not  suffer  in  the  strict  sense  as  our  Substitute;  if  he 
did  not  occupy  our  law-place  in  the  covenant  upon  the 
fulfilment  of  which  our  life  was  suspended;  if  he  did 
not  suffer  the  penalty  of  the  law  in  our  stead;  if  his 
righteousness  is  not  credited  to  our  account  as  the  ground 
of  our  justification;  if  the  effect  of  his  deatli  is  actually 
to  save  none,  but  to  put  all  men  indiscriminately  in  a 
salvable  state; — then,  in  such  a  case,  there  can  obviously 
be  no  propriety  in  our  being  required  to  believe  on 
Christ  as  the  one  sole  condition  of  salvation.  In  such  a 
case  it  would  be  congruous  enough  to  require  us  to  sub- 
mit to  God  as  Sovereign,  and  to  credit  the  personal 
claims,  the  official  character,  and  the  infallible  teaching 
of  Christ.  We  may  even  with  sufficient  propriety  be 
required  to  trust  to  his  work  as  far  as  it  is  concerned  in 
putting  us  in  a  salvable  condition.  But  it  plainly  would 
be  absurd,  in  that  case,  to  make  the  one  sole  condition 
upon  which  remission  of  sins  and  actual  salvation  is 
instantly  suspended  to  be  trust  upon  Christ — ignoring 
the  fact  that  his  work,  costly  as  it  is,  is  only  one  of  the 
independent  grounds  on  which  our  salvation  depends. 

On  the  Governmental  Hypothesis,  faith  must  be  either 
(a)  the  sovereignly  imposed  condition  of  salvation,  or 
{h)  as  including  evangelical  obedience  accepted  in  the 
place  of  perfect  legal  obedience  for  Christ's  sake,  as  the 
ground  of  our  justification.  But  since  saving  or  justify- 
ing faith,  as  above  shown,  invoK^es  trust,  its  very  essence 
excludes  the  possibility  of  its  being  itself  the  ground 
upon  which  justification  depends.  Faith  is  in  its  nature 
self-emptying,  appropriating  and  building  upon  that  on 
which  its  trust  terminates.     If  belief  in  or  upon  Christ 


NATURE   AND   EFFECT   OF   FAITH.  233 

is  the  sole  condition  of  salvation,  if  it  is  the  one  thing 
to  be  done  by  the  inquirer,  and  if  salvation  invariably 
follows  upon  its  exercise,  tlien  it  is  beyond  question  that 
Christ's  pei'son.  and  work,  on  whicli  the  faith  terminates, 
must  be  the  ground,  the  meritorious  prinei})le,  on  which 
the  salvation  rests,  and  the  efficient  virtue  by  which  it  is 
eiFected. 

Thus  the  very  nature  of  slaving  faith,  as  set  forth  in 
the  constant  language  of  Scrii)ture,  makes  it  evident 
that  it  is  the  instrument  whereby  we  are  united  to  Christ 
and  made  participants  in  his  righteousness,  and  in  all 
the  covenanted  consequences  thereof. 
20  * 


CHAPTER    Xyi. 

THE  ORTHODOX  DOCTRINE  AS  TO  THE  NATURE  OF  THE 
ATONEMENT  PROVED  FROM  WHAT  THE  SCRIPTURES  TEACH 
AS  TO  ITS  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITY  IN  ORDER  TO  THE  SAL- 
VATION   OF    SINNERS. 

THE  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  the  Atonement 
is  further  certainly  established  by  the  teaching  of 
Scripture  as  to  the  sense  in  which  the  expiation  of  sin 
by  Christ  was  an  absolutely  essential  prerequisite  in  order 
to  the  salvation  of  sinful  men,  and  therefore  necessary 
to  that  end.  It  is  earnestly  maintained  by  all  Calvinists 
that  since  all  men  are  sinners,  whose  natural  claims  as 
mere  creatures  upon  their  Creator  are  justly  forfeited, 
salvation  must  sj^ring  up,  if  at  all,  out  of  grace  as  a 
product  of  the  sovereign  will  of  God.  If,  therefore, 
salvation  be  a  matter  of  grace  and  sovereignty,  it  cannot 
be  a  matter  of  necessity  in  any  sense  of  the  word  what- 
soever. But  on  the  hypothesis  that  it  is  the  purpose  of 
God  to  save  guilty  men,  the  question  must  arise.  In  what 
sense,  and  on  what  grounds,  was  the  atoning  work  of 
Christ  7iecessary  to  that  endf 

This  question  has  been  much  discussed  among  theo- 
logians, and  different  answers  have  been  given  by 
different  cla.^ses  of  them,  in  correspondence  with  the 
fundamental  principles  of  their  respective  systems.  The 
Socinians  hold  that  the  work  of  Christ,  as  a  whole,  was 
234 


2J.SCESSITY   OF   THE   ATONEMENT.  235 

one  of  doubtless  many  j)lans  subject  to  God's  selection, 
by  which  he  could  soften  the  hearts  of  men  and  bring 
thera  to  repentance.  The  advocates  of  the  Govern- 
mental Theory  hold  that  his  sufferings  and  death  were 
necessary  in  order  to  make  a  moral  impression  on  tlie 
subjects  of  God's  moral  government  generally,  so  that 
the  honour  of  the  law  may  be  uplield,  and  its  subjects 
duly  impressed  with  tlie  evil  of  sin  and  the  certainty  of 
its  punishment,  notwithstanding  the  special  instance  of 
impunity  allowed  in  the  case  of  sinners  among  mankind. 
Dr.  Twisse  and  others  held  it  to  be  necessary  simply 
because  God  had  determined  that  he  would  forgive  sin 
on  no  other  condition.  Thomas  Aquinas*  held  that  it 
was  impossible  that  the  punishment  of  sin  could  be  re- 
mitted absolutely — that  is,  inflicted  neither  upon  the 
sinner  nor  upon  his  substitute — ifjmtice  be  taken  into  the 
account.  Yet  he  maintained  that  because  of  God's  abso- 
lute sovereignty,  it  would  not  have  been  unjust  in  God, 
if  he  had  so  willed  it,  to  ignore  the  claims  of  justice,  and 
to  remit  sin  by  simple  prerogative,  without  any  satisfac- 
tion at  all.  The  great  body  of  the  Church,  on  the  other 
hand,  have  uniformly  held  that  it  is  essential  to  the 
very  nature  of  justice  (a)  that  it  should  be  voluntary, 
that  is,  spontaneous  and  free  in  the  divine  nature,  but 
(b)  that  its  exercise  should  not  be  optional.  Hence  the 
Church  doctrine  has  always  been,  that  if  the  sinner  is  to 
be  forgiven,  an  adequate  satisfaction  to  divine  justice,  in 
the  real  expiation  of  the  sin,  is  absolutely  necessary  to 
that  end. 

It  is  obvious  that  this  question  is  identical  with  one 
discussed  under  a  former  head,  viz..  What  is  the  reason 
*  Shedd's  Hist.  Doct.,  pp.  305-307. 


236  THE   NATURE   OF  TIIK    'ATONEMENT. 

why  God  punishes  sin  ?  Is  that  reason  to  be  found  in  the 
bare  fact  of  his  own  will;  or  in  the  moral  state  of  the 
individual  sinner;  or  in  the  moral  impression  it  is  de- 
sirable to  make  on  the  general  community  subject  to  the 
divine  government;  or  does  it  lie  in  the  immutable 
nature  of  God  himself?  It  is  evident  that,  if  it  depends 
upon  the  bare  will  of  God,  the  necessity  for  its  provision 
is  i)urely  contingent  upon  his  will.  If  the  reason  for  it 
results  from  the  obduracy  of  sinners  otherwise  irreme- 
diable, or  in  the  exigencies  of  the  divine  government,  or 
in  conditions  of  the  public  mind  of  the  subjects  of  that 
government  in  general,  then  the  necessity  alleged  is  still 
contingent  on  the  will  of  God,  because  these  grounds 
or  occasions  for  the  Atonement  might,  of  course,  one 
and  all,  be  removed  by  the  gracious  power  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  acting  directly  upon  the  hearts  of  his  creatures, 
and  inducing  whatever  moral  state  he  desired,  if  he  had 
so  willed.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  necessity  in 
question  results  from  the  inmiutable  demands  of  the 
divine  nature,  it  is  obviously  absolute  in  order  to  the 
forgiveness  of  the  sinner,  and  contingent  neither  upon 
the  divine  will  nor  upon  the  moral  condition  of  the 
creature.  Hence,  conversely,  if  the  necessity  for  the 
Atonement  be  absolute,  it  follows  that  it  mnst  have  its 
ground  in  the  divine  nature,  and  not  in  the  exigencies 
of  government  or  the  condition  of  the  creatures.  The 
argument  in  both  directions  is  conclusive,  alike  when  it 
proceeds  from  the  nature  of  the  Atonement  to  its  neces- 
sity, and  when  it  proceeds  from  its  necessity  to  its  nature. 
I  have  in  a  previous  chapter  proved  the  necessity  of  the 
Atonement,  and  consequently  its  nature,  from  the  Jiolincss 
of  the  divine  nature,  and  from  the  immutability  of  the 


NECESSITY    OF   THE    ATOXPjfENT.  237 

divine  law.  At  present,  T  propose  to  present  those  bib- 
lical statements  which  directly  establish  the  fact  that 
the  necessity  for  the  Atonement  of  Christ  to  the  end  of 
the  remission  of  sins  is  absolute,  and  which,  by  imme- 
diate and  unavoidable  inference,  establish  the  conclusion 
that  the  r/round  of  that  necessity  must  lie  in  the  divine 
nature,  and  neither  in  the  obduracy  of  the  sinner  nor  in 
the  exigencies  of  the  divine  government. 

The  fact  that  the  necessity  for  the  Atonement,  in  order 
to  the  salvation  of  sinners,  is  absolute,  is  to  be  certainly 
inferred  from  the  following  scriptural  data. 

1.  It  may  be  inferred  from  the  amazing  greatness  of 
the  sacrifice.  The  Scriptures  constantly  speak  of  the 
sacrifice  of  the  Son  by  the  Father  as  an  unparalleled 
wonder.  All  else  that  God  will  or  can  do  is  as  nothing 
in  comparison  with  the  gift  of  Christ.  If  God  "spared 
not  his  own  Son,  but  delivered  him  up  for  us  all,  how 
shall  he  not  with  him  also  freely  give  us  all  things  ?'' 
Kom.  viii.  32.  This  sacrifice  would  be  most  painfully 
irrelevant  if  it  were  anything  short  of  absolutely  neces- 
sary in  relation  to  the  end  designed  to  be  attained — that 
is,  unless  it  be  indeed  the  only  possible  means  to  the 
salvation  of  sinful  men.  God  surely  would  not  have 
made  his  Son  a  wanton  sacrifice  to  a  point  of  bare  will. 
Christ  certainly  would  not  have  been  sacrificed  if  divine 
wisdom  could  have  devised,  or  If  divine  power  could 
have  executed,  any  other  process  capable  of  effecting  the 
end  designed — that  is,  the  redemption  of  men  from  the 
curse  of  that  law. 

2.  The  same  truth  is  asserted  in  effect  in  Gal.  ii.  21: 
"If  righteousness  come  by  the  law,  then  Christ  is  dead 
in  vain."     In  the  original  there  is  no  article  before  the 


238      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

word  i^ofio::  {laic).  The  affirmation  of  the  text  is,  tliat 
if  riu'liteoiisne.ss  by  law  {fna  votio'))^  by  any  law  whatso- 
ever, were  possible  for  man,  then  Christ  is  dead  in  vain. 
So  great  a  sacrifice  as  this  is  misplaced,  is  to  all  intents 
In  vain,  thrown  away,  made  without  adequate  purpose, 
if  any  other  means  could  have  attained  the  end. 

3.  Again,  in  Gal.  iii.  21,  it  is  said:  "If  a  law  had 
been  given  wldcli  could  have  given  life,  verily  righteous- 
ness should  have  been  by  the  law."  God  can  give  no 
law  whose  requirements  fall  short  of  absolute  perfection, 
otherwise  he  would  deny  himself.  There  can  be  no 
change  or  compromise  of  rigliteousness.  But  in  the  case 
of  man  this  all-2)erfect  law  can  only  demand  and  con- 
demn. It  is  not  the  function  of  law  to  empower,  nor  to 
remit,  nor  to  give  life,  nor  to  atone.  Verily  Christ 
would  never  have  been  sacrificed  if  righteousness  could 
have  been  by  law. 

4.  God  expressly  measures  his  love  to  his  people  by 
his  gift  of  his  Son  to  die  for  them.  "God  so  loved 
THE  WORLD  that  lie  gave  his  only-begotten  Son.''  John 
iii.  16.  "God  commendeth  his  love  toward  us, 
in  that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us." 
E,om.  V.  8.  "In  this  was  manifested  the  love  of  God 
toward  us,  because  that  God  sent  his  only-begotten  Son 
into  the  world,  that  we  might  live  through  him."  1  John 
iv.  9.  This  is  an  amazing  truth,  and  it  is  true  just  be- 
cause the  sacrifice  of  Christ  was  necessary  to  secure  the 
salvation  of  those  God  loved ;  and  hence  the  greatness 
of  his  love  to  us  is  measured  by  the  greatness  of  his 
sacrifice  for  us.  But  if  the  sacrifice  was  not  necessary 
in  the  strict  sense  of  that  term,  then  there  must  have 
been  some  one  or  more  alternatives  at  God's  disposal, 


NECESSITY   OF   THE   ATONEMENT.  239 

and  licncc  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  the  alternative  clioscn, 
could  be  in  no  true  sense  a  measure  of  his  love  for  his 
people,  but  only  of  his  own  unwillingness  to  adopt  any 
otlicr  one  of  the  possible  alternatives. 

5.  Paul  declares,  Koni.  iii.  25,  26,  ''That  Christ  was 
set  forth  to  be  a  propitiation  {I'Aaovrjftcoi^j  expiation) 
through  faith  in  his  blood,  to  declare  his  righteousness 
for  the  remission  of  sins  that  are  past.''  That  is,  the 
expiatory  work  of  Christ  is  set  forth  as  the  vindication 
of  the  righteousness  or  essential  holiness  of  God,  in  re- 
spect to  the  fact  that  he  had  remitted  sins  in  time  past. 
And  he  proceeds  ''  to  declare,  I  say,  at  this  time  his  right- 
eousness, that  he  might  be  just  and  the  justifier  of  him 
which  believeth  in  Jesus.''  It  is  absolutely  necessary 
that  God  should  be  just.  This  he  eternally  is.  But 
that  he  should  be  just  while  he  justifies  the  unjust,  it  was 
necessary  that  Christ  should  be  offered  a  piacular  sacri- 
fice for  sin.  Therefore  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  considered 
as  a  means  to  the  justification  of  sinners,  was  an  absolute 
necessiiy.  And  therefore  it  follows,  as  shown  above,  that 
the  (J round  of  that  necessity  must  lie  in  the  divine  na- 
ture— which  is  the  one  only  absolute  ground  of  necessity 
in  the  universe.  And  if  the  ground  for  the  necessity 
for  the  Atonement  is  in  the  constitution  of  the  divine 
nature,  it  follows  that  the  Atonement,  as  to  its  nature,  is 
a  satisfaction  by  vicarious  penal  sufferings  of  the  de- 
mands of  the  divine  nature. 


CHAPTER    Xyil. 

THE    NATURE    OF    THE    ATONEMENT    DETERMINED    BY    WHAT 
THE    SCRIPTURES    TEACH   AS    TO    ITS    PERFECTION. 

THE  question  as  to  the  perfection  of  the  atoning 
work  of  Christ  has  often  been  agitated  in  the 
Churcli.  It  relates  to  two  distinct  points,  (a.)  Is  that 
work  perfect  as  to  its  intrinsic  justice-satisfying  value? 
Does  it  fully  satisfy  all  the  demands  of  the  law  by  rea- 
son of  its  own  inherent  merit.  And  (b)  as  to  its  appli- 
cation and  effect,  is  the  atoning  work  of  Christ  so 
comj)lete  in  itself  that  it  secures  the  salvation  of  those 
for  whom  it  was  made?  Or  does  it  only  put  the  sinner  in 
a  salvable  state,  leaving  the  result  to  depend  upon  other 
conditions? 

I.  The  first  point,  it  is  evident,  would  have  no  rele- 
vancy whatsoever  on  the  supposition  of  the  truth  of  the 
Moral  Influence  Theory.  If  the  one  design  of  Christ^s 
sufferings  is  to  touch  our  hearts  and  subdue  our  affec- 
tions, the  efficiency  of  the  work  must  depend  upon  every 
man's  subjective  appreciation  of  Christ's  person,  of  his 
motives,  and  of  the  necessity  and  value  of  his  interven- 
tions in  our  behalf  The  advocates  of  the  Governmental 
Theory  deny  that  Christ  suffered  the  penalty  of  the  law, 
or  that  his  sufferings  were  in  intrinsic  value  a  full 
equivalent  for  the  penal  sufferings  in  person  of  all  those 
in  whose  biihalf  lie  suflered.  They  maintain  that  shicc 
240 


PERFECTION   OF   THE   ATONEMENT.  241 

those  sufferings  are  an  expedient  to  secure  certain  ends 
in  the  administration  of  the  divine  government,  they  are 
introduced  and  acted  on  in  the  remission  of  sins  by  God 
in  his  capacity  of  a  Sovereign,  and  not  as  a  Judge.  He 
wills  to  accept  the  satisfaction  of  Christ,  not  because  in 
its  intrinsic  nature  it  is  a  full  equivalent  in  rigour  of 
justice  for  the  j^ersonal  punishment  of  his  people,  but 
because  his  wise  and  benevolent  mind  sees  that  he  may 
do  so  Avith  2)erfect  safety  to  all  the  best  interests  of  his 
general  government. 

Duns  Scotus,  referring  the  necessity  for  the  Atonement 
ultimately  to  the  will  and  not  to  the  nature  of  God, 
consequently  maintained  that  God  could  have  forgiven 
sin  without  any  satisfaction;  that  if  he  had  so  willed, 
he  might  have  proposed  conditions  of  forgiveness  other 
than  those  fulfilled  by  Christ;  and  that  the  temporary 
and  finite  sufferings  of  Christ  are  accepted  by  God,  iu 
the  gracious  exercise  of  sovereign  prerogative,  as  a  sub- 
stitute, but  not  as  a  full,  legal  equivalent  for  the  eternal 
sufferings  of  men.  This  principle  Scotus  expressed  by 
the  term  acceptilcdioy  borrowed  from  the  Roman  law, 
and  defined  as  "the  optional  taking  of  something  for 
nothing,  or  of  a  part  for  the  whole.^' 

Grotius,  in  his  great  work  De  Satisfactione,  rejected 
the  terra  acceptilatioj  but  retained  substantially  the 
idea.  He  refers  the  necessity  of  the  Atonement  to  the 
interests  of  good  order  in  the  universe.  He  considers 
the  optional  will  of  God  the  ground  and  origin  of  law, 
and  maintains  that  the  demands  of  law  may  of  course 
be  relaxed  by  the  choice  of  the  same  will  that  creates 
them.  He  held  that  Christ  did  not  ])ay  in  the  stead  of 
sinners  a  (juid  pro  qiui  but  an  aliwl  pro  quo,  which  ( J(Ki 
21 


242      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONIMENT. 

graciously  accepts;  that  is,  GocFs  law  is  not  satisfied  in 
rigour  of  justice  by  what  Christ  has  done,  but  he  has 
sovereignly  relaxed  it,  so  that  it  is  virtually,  that  is,  in 
practical  effect,  satisfied  thereby.  Limborch  says :  "  The 
satisfaction  of  Christ  is  so  called  (by  some)  because  that 
lie  for  our  sakes  endured  all  the  penalties  charged  against 
our  sins,  and  by  fully  discharging  them  he  made  satis- 
faction to  divine  justice.  But  that  opinion  has  no 
foundation  in  Scripture.  The  death  of  Christ  is  called 
a  sacrifice  for  sin;  but  sacrifices  were  not  payments  of 
debts,  neither  were  they  full  satisfactions  for  sins;  but 
the  penalty  was  gratuitously  remitted  on  condition  that 
the  sacrifice  was  offered."*  .  .  .  "In  this  they  greatly 
err,  because  they  consider  the  price  of  redemption  to  be 
in  all  things  equivalent  to  those  miseries  from  which 
redemption  is  secured.  The  price  of  redemption  was 
determined  by  the  estimation  of  him  who  held  the  cap- 
tive, and  did  not  release  the  captive  on  the  ground  of 

merit."  t 

Curcellseus  says: J  "Christ  did  not,  therefore,  as  is 
commonly  thought,  make  satisfaction  by  suffering  all 
those  penal  evils  which  we  merited  for  our  sins;  for,  in 
the  first  place,  this  does  not  pertain  to  the  nature  or 
purpose  of  sacrifice;  for  sacrifices  were  not  the  payment 
of  debts :  secondly ^  Christ  has  not  suffered  eternal  death, 
which  was  the  penalty  deserved  by  our  sin,  for  he  hung 
upon  the  cross  only  for  a  few  hours,  and  rose  again  the 
third  day.  Even  if  he  had  undergone  eternal  death,  it 
does  not  appear  how  he  could  have  made  satisfaction  for 
all   the  sins  of  the  whole  world;  for  this  would  have 

^  Apol.  Thes.  iii.  21,  6.  f  Ibid.  21,  8. 

X  Institutio  licl.  Cliritst.,  vol,  v.,  chap,  xix.,  I  5. 


PERFECTION   OF   THE   ATONEMENT.  243 

been  only  one  death,  wliicli  never  could  have  equalled 
all  the  deaths  which  individual  men  merited  for  their 
respective  sins.  .  .  .  Fourthly ^  this  opinion  cannot  possi- 
bly be  made  consistent  with  the  gratuitous  remission  of 
all  sins,  which  the  Scriptures  every  where  teach  that  God, 
in  his  infinite  mercy,  concedes  to  us  in  Christ.'^ 

The  Catholic,  Lutheran  and  lleformed  Churches  have 
held,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  penal  satisfaction  made 
by  the  sufferings  of  Christ  to  the  law  and  justice  of 
God  is  in  its  own  intrinsic  value  a  full  equivalent  in  the 
strict  rigour  of  justice  for  the  penal  sufferings  of  all 
men  for  ever,  and  that  God  accepts  and  acts  upon  this 
satisfaction  in  the  justification  of  believers  in  his  capacity 
of  Judge,  not  m  the  exercise  of  sovereign  prerogative, 
acknowledging  its  intrinsic  value  and  full  adequacy 
to  the  end  designed,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  and  not 
by  any  gratuitous  acceptilation  or  gracious  estimation, 
arbitrarily  raising  the  sacrifice  up  to  the  level  of  the 
law,  nor  by  any  sovereign  relaxation  lettmg  down  the 
law  to  the  level  of  the  substituted  penal  sufferings.  We 
do  not  here  appeal  to  the  perfection  of  the  Atonement 
to  prove  the  truth  of  our  view  of  its  nature.  On  the 
contrary,  we  rather  prove  that  our  view,  as  to  its  in- 
liercnt  perfection,  is  correct  from  what  has  been  already 
sufficiently  proved  as  to  its  nature  and  necessity.  If  the 
Atonement  was  absolutely  necessary  in  order  to  satisfy 
the  immutable  justice  of  God,  and  if  it  consisted  in 
Christ's  bearing  in  our  stead  the  literal  penalty  of  the 
law  in  full  rigour,  then  it  is  plain  that,  in  its  intrinsic 
value,  it  was  fully  equal  to  all  that  the  law  demanded 
of  those  for  whom  he  acted.  Since  he  was  a  divine 
person,  Christ  was  o^  course  above  all  the  possible  claims 


244      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

of  law.  In  virtue  of  his  human  nature  a  divine  Person 
was  made  vicariously  under  the  law  for  us.  Hence  his 
obedience,  botli  active  and  passive,  was  evidently,  as  far 
as  he  himself  was  concerned,  a  work  of  supererogation ; 
demanded  not  of  himself;  needed  not  by  himself;  and 
wholly  accruing  to  the  credit  of  those  for  whom  he  acted. 
And  since  he  was  the  eternal  Son  of  God,  who  conde- 
scended to  suffer  and  obey,  to  suffer  terribly  and  shame- 
fully, to  fulfil  all  his  obedience,  the  details  of  "all 
righteousness,"  although  it  were  but  for  a  time,  it  is 
evident  enough  that  the  intrinsic  value  of  his  work  is 
more  than  equal  to  all  that  his  people  could  have  suffered 
and  obeyed  under  any  possible  conditions  for  any  possi- 
ble time.  The  difficulty  which  a  Christian  experiences 
is  surely  not  to  believe  this,  but  rather  to  understand 
why  infinite  wisdom  saw  it  to  be  necessary  to  exact  so 
much  of  SUCH  a  Sufferer. 

II.  The  second  point  debated  concerning  the  perfection 
of  Christ's  satisfaction  relates  to  its  application  or  effect. 
Thomas  Aquinas  taught  that  the  passion  of  the  Re- 
deemer was  not  only  a  sufficient  but  a  superabundant 
satisfaction  for  the  sins  of  men.  The  Romish  Church 
adopted  this  idea,  and  adjusted  it  to  their  hierarchical 
system.  Christ's  merit  is  superabundant.  It  belongs 
to  the  Church,  its  depository  and  authorized  dispenser. 
This  merit  avails  directly,  through  the  instrumentality 
of  baptism,  to  the  removal  of  the  guilt  of  original  sin 
and  of  all  those  actual  transgressions  which  preceded 
baptism.  The  penalty  accruing  for  the  guilt  of  post- 
baptismal  sins  has,  in  virtue  of  Christ's  merit,  been 
transmuted  from  eternal  death  to  temporal  pains,  and  all 
such  temporal  pains  are  accepted  as  sufficient  only  for 


PERFECTION   OF   THE   ATONEMENT.  245 

Christ  s  sake.  Nevertheless,  a  person  guilty  of  post- 
bai)tisiaal  sins  must,  in  order  to  their  forgiveness,  expiate 
tliein  eitlier  by  penances  and  works  of  charity,  or  in  the 
next  world  by  tlie  pains  of  purgatory;  all  of  which  are 
necessary  and  possess,  for  Clirist's  sake,  a  real  expiatory 
virtue.  And  hence  also  the  efficacy  of  sacramental 
grace,  priestly  absolution,  plenary  indulgences,  &c.,  re- 
sults from  the  fund  of  merit  lodged  in  the  Church, 
accruing  from  the  superabundance  of  Christ's  satisfac- 
tion. 

The  advocates  of  the  Governmental  Theory  of  the 
Atonement,  and  indeed  all  the  advocates  of  an  in- 
definite Atonement  generally,  necessarily  hold,  with 
respect  to  the  designed  application  or  effect  of  Christ's 
satisfaction,  that  it  actually  avails  to  save  no  one,  but 
only  by  removing  legal  obstacles  to  make  the  salvation 
of  all  men  possible.  In  this  view,  his  satisfaction  is  only 
one  of  the  conditions  upon  wdiich  the  salvation  of  all 
men  depends,  but  it  is  not  its  great  efficient  cause,  carry- 
ing with  it  as  subordinate  to  it  all  other  causes  and  con- 
ditions. The  work  of  Christ  is  thus  in  itself  considered 
so  far  imperfect  that  it  may  totally  fail  of  any  saving 
effect  in  a  single  case,  and  it  needs  to  be  rendei-ed  per- 
fect as  an  efficient  cause  of  salvation  by  some  co-operat- 
ing cause  ab  extra^  derived  either  (a)  from  the  sov^ereign 
decree  of  God,  or  {b)  from  the  free  wills  of  men. 
In  answer  to  the  Romanists  we  affirm — 
1.  The  Bible  represents  all  the  sufferings  of  believers 
in  this  life  as  disciplinary,  designed  to  advance  their 
moral  and  spiritual  improvement,  and  having  no  respect 
whatever  to  the  expiation  of  guilt.  The  removal  of 
condrmnation  ls  referred  solely  to  the  work  of  Christ 
21  * 


246      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

(Rom.  viii.  1,  33,  34),  and  the  design  of  discipline  is 
referred  solely  to  the  paternal  purpose  of  improving  the 
persons  exercised  thereby,  **for  our  profit,  that  we  may 
be  partakers  of  his  holiness."  Heb.  xii.  5-11. 

2.  The  Scriptures  declare  that  "the  blood  of  Jesus 
Christ  cleanseth  from  all  sin.''  1  John  i.  7.  And  that 
"  by  one  offering  for  sin  he  hath  for  ever  perfected  them 
that  are  sanctified.''  Heb.  x.  12,  14.  And  that  all 
Christians  "are  complete  in  him,  which  is  the  head  of 
all  principality  and  power."  Col.  ii.  10. 

3.  Trust  in  the  one  sacrifice  of  Christ  is  made  the 
sole  condition  of  acceptance  and  favour  at  all  times. 
But  this  act  of  trust  necessarily,  from  its  very  nature, 
excludes  all  dependence  whatsoever  upon  the  expiatory 
value  of  our  own  sufferings,  or  upon  the  merit  of  our 
own  services. 

In  answer  to  the  Protestant  impugners  of  the  absolute 
perfection  of  the  satisfaction  of  Christ  as  the  alone  pro- 
curing cause  of  the  salvation  of  his  people,  I  call  to 
witness,  in  addition  to  what  has  been  cited  against  the 
kindred  position  of  the  Romanists,  the  fact,  that  the 
Scriptures  habitually  and  characteristically,  and  in  every 
variety  of  form,  assert  that  the  satisfaction  of  Christ 
effects  the  deliverance,  the  redemption,  the  salvation,  the 
adoption,  the  sanctification,  &c.,  &c.,  of  his  people. 
Every  reader  of  the  Scriptures  knows  that  they  con- 
stantly declare  that  the  Father  gave  the  Son  to  death, 
and  that  the  Son  submitted  to  die,  for  the  purpose  of 
effecting  these  things.  Every  reader  knows  that  the 
Scriptures  constantly  declare  that  the  obedience  and 
sufferings  of  Christ  actually  effect  these  things.  They 
d^,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  "save  us,"  "redeem  us,"  "recon- 


PERFECTION    OF   THE   ATONEMENT.  247 

cile  us  to  the  Father/^  secure  for  us  "the  adoption  of 
sons,"  "the  indwelling"  and  all  the  "fruits  of  the 
Spirit."  If  this  be  so,  then  unquestionably  Christ,  by 
his  expiatory  sacrifice,  did  not  merely  make  salvation 
possible.  His  sacrifice  must  secure  that  salvation  as  a 
whole,  and  all  tiiat  is  included  in  it.  Not  the  end  with- 
out the  means,  but  the  end  through  the  means;  not  eter- 
nal life  without  faith  and  obedience,  but  fiiith  and 
obedience  in  order  to  eternal  life.  In  this  respect  the 
redemption  of  Christ  is  like  the  eternal  decree  of  God. 
It  does  not  alter  any  natural  relation  sustained  by  the 
several  elements  involved  in  the  believer's  life  to  the 
means  of  grace,  the  exercises  of  free  will,  and  the  neces- 
sity for  gracious  affection  and  obedience,  but  it  does 
render  the  event  it  was  designed  to  secure  certain,  and 
in  order  to  that  end  secures  all  the  antecedents  and  con- 
ditions upon  which  that  event  depends  or  to  which  it  is 
related.  We  will  not  be  saved  without  faith  and  obe- 
dience, but  our  precious  Saviour  left  no  such  conditions 
unprovided  for.  The  faith,  the  obedience,  and  the  per- 
severance to  the  end  were  as  surely  purchased  by  the 
great  all-perfect  sacrifice  as  w«  re  the  remission  of  the 
penalty  and  final  salvation. 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

THE   SATISFACTION    RENDERED    BY    CHRIST    PROVED   TO   EM- 
BRACE HIS  ACTIVE  AS  WELL  AS  HIS  PASSIVE  OBEDIENCE. 

I  PROPOSE  to  prove,  in  conchislorij  that  our  blessed 
I^ord,  having  assumed  our  law-place,  and,  as  our  Sub- 
stitute, become  responsible  for  all  our  obligations  to  the 
law  in  its  federal  relation,  has  discharged  them  by  his 
obedience  as  well  as  by  his  sufferings — having,  by  his 
sufferings,  cancelled  the  claims  of  penal  justice,  and  by 
his  obedience  merited  the  rewards  of  that  original  Cove- 
nant of  Life  under  which  all  men  were  held. 

In  the  third  chapter  I  have  stated  the  reasons  why 
the  word  Atonement  fails  unambiguously  and  compre- 
hensively to  express  the  entire  nature  of  the  work 
wrought  by  our  Lord  for  our  redemption,  (a.)  While 
it  properly,  as  the  English  equivalent  for  the  Hebrew 
*^£)D,  means  to  make  expiation  for  sin  by  means  of  a 
vicarious  infliction  or  endurance  of  the  penalty,  it  is 
nevertheless  used  by  many  to  express  mere  reconciliation, 
at-one-ment.  (6.)  Even  when  it  is  settled  that  the  word 
"to  atone"  is  equivalent  to  the  phrase  "to  make  expia- 
tion," the  difficulty  still  presses,  that  it  is  too  narrow  for 
the  use  to  which  it  is  put,  and  cannot  properly  cover  all 
that  Christ  has  done  for  the  discharge  of  our  legal  obli- 
gations. The  Sciiptures  teach  us  plainly  that  Christ's 
obedience  was  as  truly  vicarious  as  was  his  suffering, 
248 


ACrriVE  AND  PASSIVE  OBEDIEl^Cie.  249 

and  that  he  reconciled  us  to  the  Father  by  the  one  as 
well  as  by  the  other.  Now  the  word  Atonement  sig- 
nalizes only  the  expiation  of  our  guilt  by  Christ's  vica- 
rious sufferings,  but  expresses  nothing  concerning  the 
relation  which  his  obedience  sustains  to  our  salvation,  as 
that  meritorious  condition  upon  which  the  divine  favour 
and  the  2)romised  reward  have  by  covenant  been  sus- 
pended. On  the  other  hand,  the  word  Satisfaction  ex- 
actly and  exhaustively  expresses  all  that  Christ  has  done 
as  our  Substitute,  in  our  stead,  for  our  sakes,  to  the  end 
of  satisfying  in  our  behalf  the  federal  demands  of  the 
law,  and  of  securing  for  us  the  rewards  conditioned  upon 
their  fulfilment.  His  whole  work  was  of  the  nature  of 
a  satisfaction.  As  far  as  it  consisted  of  penal  suffering, 
it  satisfied  the  penalty  of  the  law  and  the  justice  of  the 
Law-giver;  and  as  far  as  it  consisted  of  obedience,  it 
satisfied  the  conditions  of  the  covenant  upon  which  the 
divine  favour  towards  his  people  was  suspended. 

The  great  defect  of  Symington's  otherwise  orthodox 
and  excellent  work  on  the  Atonement  is  that,  while  he 
admits  Christ's  obedience  to  be  vicarious,  and  to  have 
merited  for  us  the  rewards  of  the  Covenant  of  Life,  he 
yet  insists  that  the  work  of  expiation,  under  the  title  of 
"Atonement,"  ought  to  be  discussed  separately,  while 
his  vicarious  obedience,  and  its  relation  to  the  rewards 
of  an  impeccable  moral  character  and  eternal  felicity,  is 
left  out  of  sight.     On  the  contrary,  I  affirm — 

1.  In  opposition  to  Symington— who,  while  admitting 
that  Christ's  obedience  and  sufferings  were  alike  vicari- 
ous and  alike  essential  in  order  to  our  salvation,  yet 
unnaturally  separates  them — that  since  they  are  in- 
separaV  le  parts  of  one  perfect  work  of  satisfaction,  which 


250  THE   NATimE   OF   THE   ATOXEMEXT. 

are  never  separated  either  in  the  mediatorial  work  of 
Christ  or  in  their  effect  upon  the  covenant-standing  of 
liis  people,  therefore,  tliey  cannot  be  properly  separated 
in  any  complete  account  of  his  work.  The  whole 
earthly  life  of  Christ,  including  his  birth  itself,  was  one 
continued  self-emptying  even  unto  death.  His  birth 
and  every  moment  of  his  life,  in  the  form  of  a  servant, 
was  of  the  nature  of  holy  suffering.  Every  experience 
of  pain  during  the  whole  course  of  his  life,  and  emi- 
nently in  his  death  on  the  cross,  was,  on  his  part,  a 
voluntary  and  meritorious  act  of  obedience.  He  lived 
his  whole  life,  from  his  birth  to  his  death,  as  our  re- 
presentative, obeying  and  suffering  in  our  stead  and 
for  our  sakes;  and  during  this  whole  course  all  his 
suffering  was  obedience  and  all  his  obedience  was  suffer- 
ing. The  righteousness  which  he  wrought  out  for  his 
people  consisted  precisely  in  this  suffering  obedience. 
The  righteousness  of  Christ,  which  is  imputed  severally 
to  each  believer  as  the  ground  of  his  justification,  con- 
sists precisely  of  this  obedient  suffering.  His  earthly 
life,  as  suffering,  cancels  the  penalty,  and,  as  obedience, 
fulfils  the  precept  and  secures  the  promised  reward ;  but 
the  suffering  and  the  obedience  were  not  separated  in 
fact,  and  are  inseparable  in  principle,  and  equally  neces- 
sary to  satisfy  the  law  of  the  covenant  and  to  secure  the 
salvation  of  the  elect. 

2.  In  opposition  to  all  those  who  deny  that  Christ's 
obedience  was  vicarious,  or,  strictly  speaking,  any  part 
of  his  work  of  redemption,  I  propose  to  show,  that  his 
obedience  is  an  inseparable  element  of  that  righteousness 
which  he  wrought  in  our  stead,  and  which  is  imputed  to 
j.s  as  the  ground  of  our  justification. 


ACTIVE   AND    PASSIVE    3BEDIENCE.  251 

In  the  sixth  chapter  I  distinguished  the  three  distinct 
relations  which  men  may  sustain  to  the  law — the  natu- 
ral, federal  and  penal.  The  natural  relation  is  that  into 
which  each  moral  agent  is  introduced  by  the  very  fact 
of  his  creation,  and  under  which  he  continues  necessa- 
rily to  exist  as  'ong  as  he  has  being.  It  is  unchangeable 
and  inalienable,  incapable  of  relaxation,  intermission, 
modification  or  transfer;  and  under  it  the  same  law  con- 
tinues perpetually  the  standard  of  moral  character  and 
obligation,  alike  to  angels  and  devils,  to  men  under  pro- 
bation, fallen  and  unregenerate,  in  perdition,  regenerate 
and  confirmed  in  glory.  Tha  federal  relation  is  that  tem- 
j)orary  and  special  relation  under  which  it  has  pleased 
God  to  introduce  all  of  those  orders  of  moral  agents 
with  which  we  are  acquainted  immediately  after  their 
creation.  They  are  brought  under  it  in  the  character 
of  those  created  holy  yet  fallible,  in  a  state  of  unstable 
moral  equilibrium.  The  relation  is  special,  because  it 
has  for  its  end  the  special  design  of  affording  those  sub- 
ject to  it  an  opportunity  of  rendering  obedience,  while 
open  to  the  full  force  of  temptation  and  liable  to  seduc- 
tion, as  the  condition  of  their  being  endowed  by  God 
with  the  supernatural  grace  of  a  confirmed  and  impecca- 
ble moral  character,  and  the  blessedness  thence  resulting 
for  ever.  This  relation  is  temporary,  because  from  its 
very  nature  it  must,  in  every  event,  be  terminated,  ipso 
facto,  either  by  the  first  sin  which  brings  in  the  penalty, 
or  by  the  granting  of  the  promised  reward  when  the 
conditions  upon  Avhich  it  has  been  suspended  have 
been  accomplished.  The  penal  relation  comes  in  when 
the  law  has  been  broken,  and  the  trial  has  ceased.  It 
springs  out  of  the  essential  nature  of  the  law,  and  con- 


252      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

tiniies  in  force  until  that  perfect  righteousness  of  whicr- 
the  penalty  is  the  outward  ex2)ression  is  completely 
satisfied. 

It  is  notorious  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  men  have 
sustained  all  of  these  relations  to  the  law,  and  that  by 
reason  of  sin  they  are  condemned  in  each.  They  are 
under  perpetual  obligation  to  be  conformed  to  the  law 
as  a  standard  of  character  and  as  a  rule  of  action,  but 
they  are  wholly  unable  to  meet  the  obligation.  Their 
liopes  of  eternal  well-being  were  all  suspended  upon  the 
conditions  undertaken  by  the  first  Adam  in  the  garden, 
but  all  this  is  already  and  for  ever  forfeited  by  past  dis- 
obedience. They  are  justly  subject  to  the  penalty  of 
<iternal  death.  They  must  be  restored  to  conformity  to 
the  law,  in  all  these  respects,  by  a  power  exterior  to 
themselves,  or  they  cannot  be  saved.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  believers  are  restored  to  conformity  to  the  law,  in 
its  natural  relation,  as  a  standard  of  character  and  as  a 
rule  of  life,  by  the  Holy  Ghost  regenerating  and  sancti- 
fying them.  But  their  restoration  to  conformity  to  the 
law,  in  its  penal  and  federal  relations,  is  accomplished 
by  Christ  through  his  one  work  of  obedient  suffering 
even  unto  death.  If  he  assumed  our  place,  so  as  to 
suffer  the  penalty  in  our  stead,  he  must,  at  the  same  time, 
have  secured  our  title  to  the  reward  conditioned  upon 
obedience  by  means  of  his  perfect  obedience,  which  was 
inseparably  implicated  with -his  sufferings,  and  which  was 
rendered  in  the  same  covenant  relation  in  our  stead  as 
well  as  in  our  behalf.  All  that  Christ  did  on  earth  he  did 
as  Mediator.  He  was  acting  in  our  stead  while  he  was 
obeying  as  well  as  while  he  was  suffering.  The  active 
juid  passive  righteousness  of  Christ  were  never,  in  fact, 


ACTIVE   AND   PASSIVE   OBEDIENCE.  253 

Beparatcd  from  eacli  other,  and  therefore,  except  in  their 
logical  discrimination,  we  should  never  exhibit  them  as 
separated.  They  were  wrought  together  by  Christ  as 
our  Substitute  as  his  one  work  of  redemption.  It  was 
with  reference  to  both  of  these  conjointly  that  Jesus  is 
called  "the  Lord  our  righteousness."  So  says  John 
Wesley,  as  quoted  by  Richard  Watson.*  Therefore  no 
view  of  the  nature,  relation  and  effects  of  the  one  which 
excludes  all  consideration  of  the  other  can  be  accurate, 
and  much  less  can  it  be  complete.  They  consequently 
should  never  be  separated,  but  should  be  regarded  as 
the  inseparable  parts  of  one  organic  whole,  and  signal- 
ized by  a  title  capable  of  embracing  both.  Satisfaction 
is  the  genus  including  the  two  complementary  species, 
obedience  and  penal  sufferings. 

The  principle  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  this  distinc- 
tion was  first  discriminated  by  Thomas  Aquinas,t  and 
by  him  denoted  by  the  terms  satisfactio  and  meritum. 
By  satisfactio  he  meant  the  complete  fulfilment  of  all 
the  claims  of  law  and  justice  with  respect  to  the  penalty. 
By  meritum  he  meant  that  which  secures,  by  virtue  of 
the  divine  promise,  the  favour  of  God  and  everlasting 
well-being.  Both  the  Lutheran  and  the  Reformed 
Churches,  recognizing  the  validity  of  this  distinction, 
have  maintained  in  their  Confessions  that  Christ,  as  the 
second  Adam,  assumed  all  our  covenant  responsibilities 
precisely  at  that  point  in  the  process  to  which  the  first 
Adam  had  brought  them  when  he  fell.  The  penalty  he 
exhaustively  discharged,  in  strict  rigour  of  justice,  by 
means  of  all  his  life-long  sufferings  culminating  in  his 
death.     And  the  condition  of  perfect  obedience,  on  which 

*  Theo.  liibt.,  vol.  ii  ,  p.  224.  f  Died,  1274. 

22 


254      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

the  promised  reward  was  suspended,  by  the  unfailing  obe- 
dience of  his  entire  life.  Through  the  whole  of  Christ's* 
life  there  ran  an  element  of  infinite  humiliation,  especially 
in  his  death.  Every  act,  therefore,  was,  in  one  aspect, 
an  item  of  vicarious  suffering,  and  in  another  aspect,  an 
item  of  vicarious  obedience  to  the  will  of  his  Father. 
Both  elements  were  necessary,  and  they  are  as  insepara- 
ble as  color  and  surface,  or  as  matter  and  form.  Yet  it 
is  necessary  to  discriminate  them  as  to  both  their  essence 
and  their  effects.  That  is,  the  perfect  and  painful  obe- 
dience of  his  life  and  death  must  be  viewed  (a)  as  a 
guilt-expiating  endurance  of  the  j^enalty  of  the  law  in 
the  stead  of  his  people,  and  (6)  as  that  which  by  God's 
free  promise  has  been  made,  to  all  those  represented 
by  Christ,  the  condition  of  divine  favour  and  of  eternal 
well-being.  In  the  one  aspect,  the  obedience  is  called 
jxissive,  to  signalize  it  as  penal  suffering.  In  another 
aspect,  the  same  obedience  is  called  active,  to  signalize  it 
as  the  doing  of  that  which  is  commanded.  "The  ques- 
tion then  returns,  AYhether  the  satisfaction  rendered  by 
Christ  in  our  place  is  to  be  confined  to  his  death,  or  to 
those  sufferings  which  preceded  and  accompanied  it;  or 
whether  it  truly  embraced  all  those  things  which  Christ 
did  and  suffered  for  us  from  the  beginning  of  his  life  even 
unto  the  end?  AVhich  last  we  affirm."*  The  truth  of 
this  position  is  established  by  the  following  considera- 
tions. 

I.  The  law,  as  a  covenant  of  life,  was  accompanied 

by  two  sanctions :  (a,.)  The  promise  of  divine  favour  and 

eternal  well-being,  conditioned  upon  perfect  obedience; 

and  (6)  the  penalty  of  "death"  suspended  on  disobe- 

*Turretin,  Locus  14,  Quaes.  13. 


ACTIVE   AND   TASSIVE   OBEDIENCE.  255 

dience.  Moses  declared  that  the  legal  condition  of 
salvation  was,  that  'Hhe  man  that  doeth  these  things 
shall  live  by  theni/^  IjCv.  xviii.  5.  Compare  Eom.  x. 
6,  and  Gal.  iii.  12.  Christ  declared  the  principle  of  the 
law  to  the  young  ruler  thus:  "If  thou  wilt  enter  into 
life,  keep  the  conmiandments."  Matt.  xix.  17.  Eternal 
life,  the  adoption  of  sons,  the  eternal  inheritance,  are 
conditioned  only  on  obedience.  The  gospel  does  not 
proceed  upon  the  ruins  of  the  law,  but  "  Christ  is  the 
end  of  the  law  for  righteousness  to  every  one  that  be- 
lieveth,"  and  the  object  for  which  he  came  in  the  flesh 
was  ^^that  the  rigldcoumcHS  of  the  law  might  be  fulfilled 
in  us."  All  the  conditions,  therefore,  must  be  met.  If 
the  whole  work  of  Christ's  satisfaction  ended  in  his 
suffering  in  our  stead  the  penalty  due  our  sins,  his  peo- 
ple, as  a  consequence,  would  be  replaced  and  left  just 
wliere  Adam  was  before  he  fell.  There  are  then  four^ 
and  only  four,  conceivable  alternatives,  one  or  other  of 
which  must  be  true.  (1.)  Either  God  must  alter  the 
conditions  of  human  probation,  and  grant  the  rewards 
of  tlie  Covenant  of  Life  to  sinful  men  on  very  different 
and  far  lower  conditions  than  those  upon  which  they 
were  offered  to  innocent  Adam,  or  to  the  human  race 
originally  in  him,  or  to  any  other  order  of  creatures  as 
far  as  revealed  in  their  several  probations.  (2.)  Or  we 
must  continue  for  ever  destitute  of  any  share  in  those 
rewards  which  were  conditioned  on  obedience,  that  is, 
without  confirmation  in  a  holy  character  and  without 
eternal  blessedness.  (3.)  Or  we  shall  be  left  to  the 
necessity  of  fulfilling  the  conditions  of  the  Covenant  of 
Works  in  our  own  persons,  rendering  therefor  perfect 
obedience  of  heart  and  life,  and  that,  too,  before  we  re- 


256      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

ceive  grace  and  as  the  condition  of  our  reception  of  it. 
(4.)  Or  Christ  must  fulfil  this  part  also  of  the  require- 
ments of  the  law  as  well  as  the  penalty  in  our  stead  and 
behalf. 

As  to  the/?-s^  alternative,  it  is  evident  that  if  eternal 
blessedness  is  granted  on  any  conditions  short  of  perfect 
obedieiice,  then  the  entire  Covenant  of  Life,  God's  own 
ordinance  for  the  human  race,  fails,  and  is  dishonoured 
instead  of  honoured,  is  broken  and  supplanted  instead 
of  being  fulfilled  and  magnified  by  the  gospel.  The 
essential  principles  of  eternal  justice  would  be  violated 
if  to  mankind,  as  one  of  the  consequences  of  their  sin, 
confirmation  in  a  permanent  impeccable  moral  character, 
eternal  life  and  the  favour  of  God,  were  granted  on 
conditions  denied  to  newly-created  angels  and  to  Adam 
in  innocency. 

As  to  the  second  alternative,  it  is  plain  that  we  cannot 
endure  to  remain  destitute  of  those  rewards  which  the 
great  original  ordinance,  which  gives  law  to  all  that  fol- 
low it,  suspended  upon  the  condition  of  perfect  obe- 
dience. Moreover,  the  promises  of  the  gospel  and  the 
experiences  of  Christians,  inspired  and  uninspired,  assure 
us  that  we  are  not  required  to  remain  destitute  of  the 
rewards  so  essential  to  life. 

We  are,  therefore,  shut  up  to  the  choice  presented  in 
the  third  and  fourth  alternatives  above  stated,  the  former 
representing  the  Arminian  and  the  latter  the  Calvinistic 
theories  as  to  the  legal  grounds  upon  which  the  positive 
justification  of  the  believer  in  Christ  proceeds.  The 
Arminian  holds  that,  in  some  way  never  defined,  the 
sufferings  of  Christ  make  it  consistent  with  the  rectoral 
justice  of  God  to  remit  the  penalty  of  the  law  in  the 


ACTIVE   AND   PASSIVE   OBEDIENCE.  257 

case  of  believers,  and  to  offer  tliem  on  tlie  lowered  con- 
ditions of  faith  and  evangelical  obedience  the  same 
blessings  that  were  originally  conditioned  on  perfect 
obedience.  The  Calvin ist  holds  that  Christ,  acting  as 
our  Representative  in  a  strictly  legal  sense,  has  suffered 
in  our  stead  the  penalty  of  the  law,  in  order  lo  free  us 
from  eternal  bondage  to  the  same,  and  obeyed  the  pre- 
cept in  order  to  secure  for  us  the  blessings  so  conditioned. 
There  is  no  third  plan  that  can  be  substituted  in  place 
of  these.  Every  conceivable  plan  of  justification  that 
admits  the  facts  of  the  gospel  at  all,  can,  in  its  last 
analysis,  be  reduced  to  one  or  other  of  these.  All  logi- 
cal Arminians  have  uniformly  chosen  the  former.  Tlie 
Romish  theory  of  co-operative  justification  (Christ's 
merits  and  the  merit  of  good  works)  amounts  to  the 
same  thing.  The  Governmental  Atonement  men,  wdien- 
ever  they  condescend  to  a  definite  statement  of  the  na- 
ture of  the  grounds  of  justification,  must  come  to  the 
same  conclusion.  Emmons,*  for  instance,  maintains  (a) 
that  "justification,  in  a  gospel  sense,  signifies  no  more 
nor  less  than  the  pardon  or  remission  of  sin."  (b.) 
"That  forgiveness  is  the  only  favour  which  God  bestows 
upon  men  on  Christ's  account."  (c.)  "  The  full  and  final 
justification  of  the  believer,  or  their  title  to  their  eternal 
inheritance,  is  conditional.  They  must  perform  certain 
things,  which  he  has  specified  as  terms  or  conditions  of 
their  taking  possession  of  their  several  legacies."  (d.) 
"That  God  does  promise  eternal  life  to  all  who  obey  his 
commands  or  exercise  those  holy  and  benevolent  affec- 
tions which  his  commands  require."  Good  John  Wesley 
and  Richard  Watson  waver  between  the  two  views  of 

*  Vo'.  iii.,  pp.  3-61. 
22  * 


258      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

justification  stated,  alike  unable  to  acquiesce  in  either, 
or  to  find  any  stable  position  between  them.  The  same 
must  inevitably  be  the  case  with  all  those  who,  while 
holding  the  truth  with  respect  to  the  nature  of  sin,  of 
grace  and  of  expiation,  refuse  to  accept,  in  their  plain 
biblical  sense,  the  complementary  truths  with  respect  to 
the  sovereignty  of  God,  the  extent  of  the  Atonement, 
and  the  imputation  of  sin  and  of  righteousness. 

Now  we  maintain  that  the  Calvinistic  side  of  this 
alternative  must  be  true,  (1)  because,  as  proved  in  the 
fourteenth  chapter,  Christ's  righteousness  is  the  ground 
of  justification.  (2.)  Because  faith,  which  includes  trust 
as  well  as  assent,  from  its  essential  nature,  excludes  the 
possibility  of  its  being  itself  the  ground  upon  which 
anything  can  rest,  and  renders  it  certain  that  its  true 
office  is  to  apprehend  as  an  instrument  the  righteousness 
of  Christ  upon  which  the  trust  terminates;  which  right- 
eousness, consequently,  must  be  the  real  ground  upon 
which  the  justification  proceeds.  (3.)  The  law  of  God, 
which  cannot  be  relaxed,  demanded  at  the  beginning,  and 
must  continue  to  demand  to  the  end,  perfect  obedience, 
which,  obviously  enough,  transcends  the  best  gracious 
ability  of  any  saint.  Faith  and  evangelical  obedience 
can  never  take  its  place.  (4.)  Every  Christian  knows, 
in  his  inmost  heart,  that  he  deserves  nothing,  and  that 
the  adoption  of  sons  and  eternal  life  are  given  to  him 
freely,  and  on  identically  the  same  terms  as  the  remission 
of  sins  itself. 

(5.)  The  Scriptures  everywhere  set  forth  the  truth, 
that  the  adoption  of  sons,  eternal  life,  &c.,  are  given  to 
the  believer  freely  for  Christ's  sake,  as  elements  of  that 
purchased  possession  of  which  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the 


ACTIVE  AND   PASSIVE   OBEDIENCE.  259 

earnest  or  first  instalment.  ^' In  Mm  also  we  have 
obtiiined  an  inheritance."  "/?i  ichom  also,  after  that  ye 
believed,  ye  were  scaled  with  the  Holy  Spirit  of  pro- 
mise." Eph.  i.  11-13.  The  Spirit  of  the  Son  is  called 
"the  Spirit  of  adoption,  whereby  we  cry  Abba,  Father; 
and  if  children,  then  heirs;  heirs  of  God  q.x\(\  joint  heirs 
with  Christ.'^  Rom.  viii.  15,  17.  "Who  gave  himself 
for  our  sins,  that  he  might  deliver  us  from  this  present 
evil  world."  Gal.  i.  4.  "Christ  hath  redeemed  us  from 
the  curse  of  the  law  .  .  .  that  we  might  receive  the 
promise  of  the  Spirit  through  faith."  Gal.  iii.  13,  14. 
"Therefore  being  by  the  right  hand  of  God  exalted,  and 
having  received  of  the  Father  the  promise  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  he  hath  shed  forth  this  which  ye  now  see  and  hear." 
Acts  ii.  33.  We  are  said  to  be  blessed  with  all  spiritual 
blessings  in  Christ.  Eph.  i.  3.  "He  gave  himself  for 
the  Church  that  he  might  sanctify  and  cleanse  it,  that  he 
might  present  it  to  himself  a  glorious  Church,  not  hav- 
ing spot  or  wrinkle,  or  any  such  thing;  but  that  it 
should  be  holy  and  without  blemish."  Eph.  v.  25-27. 
"  Not  by  works  of  righteousness  which  we  have  done,  but 
according  to  his  mercy  he  saved. us  by  the  washing  of 
regeneration  and  renewing  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  which 
he  shed  on  us  abundantly  through  Jesus  Christ  our 
Saviour  J'  Titus  iii.  5,  6.  "God  sent  forth  his  Son, 
made  of  a  woman,  made  under  the  law,  that  (tva)  he 
might  redeem  them  that  were  under  the  law,  tJwt  {cua) 
we  might  receive  the  adoption  of  sons."  Gal.  iv.  4,  5. 
We  are  told  to  ask  for  everything  we  desire  for  Christ^s 
sake  alone.  John  xiv,  14,  15,  and  xv.  16.  And  in 
heaven  all  the  redeemed  say  continually,  "Unto  him 
that  loved  us,  and  washed  us  from  our  sins  in  his  own 


260      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

blood,  and  hath  made  us  kIno;s  and  priests  unto  God 
and  his  Father;  to  him  be  glory  and  dominion  for  ever 
and  ever."  Rev.  i.  5,  6,  and  vi.  9,  10. 

II.  The  Scriptures  expressly  declare  that  Christ  saves 
by  his  obedience  as  well  as  by  his  sufferings.  "There- 
fore, as  by  the  offence  of  oug,  judgment  came  upon  all 
men  to  condemnation  ;  even  so  by  the  righteousness  of  one, 
the  free  gift  came  upon  all  men  unto  justification  of  life. 
For  as  by  one  man's  disobedience  many  were  made  sin- 
ners; so  by  the  obedience  of  one,  shall  many  be  made 
righteous.''  This  is  an  explicit  affirmation  of  the 
principle  for  which  we  are  contending.  The  phrase 
"obedience"  of  Christ,  is  evidently  to  be  interpreted  in 
its  natural  sense,  because  it  is  directly  set  in  contrast 
w^ith  the  "disobedience"  of  Adam.  In  the  same  sense 
in  which  the  disobedience  of  the  one  is  the  ground  of 
our  condemnation,  is  the  obedience  of  the  other  the 
ground  of  our  justification. 

III.  Christ  was  a  divine  and  eternal  Person,  and  as 
such  he  was  under  no  obligation  to  obey  the  law.  He 
was  himself,  in  the  essential  ground  of  his  being,  a  law 
unto  the  whole  moral  universe,  and  therefore  could  not 
be,  as  concerns  himself,  conditioned  by  any  law  exterior 
to  himself.  The  divine  nature  is  the  norm  of  all  moral 
principle,  and  the  divine  will  is  the  ground  and  measure 
of  all  those  relations  from  which  many  of  the  obliga- 
tions of  his  creatures  result.  Therefore,  the  divine  Be- 
ing cannot  be  himself  subject  to  any  law  except  the 
spontaneous  law  of  his  own  being.  And  Christ,  who, 
though  embracing  a  human  nature,  was  always  a  divine 
Person,  of  course  always  transcended  the  claims  of  law, 
because  these  claims  necessaily  terminate  upon  persons, 


ACTIVE   AND    PASSIVE   OBEDIENCE.  261 

and  not  upon  mere  natures  as  such.  Yet,  as  our  Repre- 
sentative, lie  bore  in  the  unity  of  his  divine  personality 
our  nature  impersonally  ("a  true  body  and  a  reasonable 
soul "),  in  order  that  he  mi<rht  thus  be  made  vicarioudy 
under  the  law,  to  the  end  that  by  his  purely  vicarious 
obedience  he  might  "  redeem  them  that  were  under  the 
law,  that  we  might  receive  the  adoption  of  sons."  Gal. 
iv.  4,  5.  This  means  necessarily  (a)  that  Christ  was 
made  under  the  law,  that  he  did  not  belong  there  natu- 
rally, but  was  transferred  to  that  position  by  an  act  of 
divine  sovereignty,  (b.)  That  he  was  placed  there,  not 
for  himself,  but  in  owr  stead,  (c.)  That  he  was  made 
under  the  law  for  the  purpose  of  securing  for  us,  not  the 
mere  remission  of  sins,  but  also  the  adoption  of  sons; 
whereby  we  became  ^^leirs  of  God  through  Christ^'  {oca 
Xpcazou),  Gal.  iv.  7;  all  of  which  is  conditioned,  not  upon 
suffering,  but  upon  obedience.  All  that  Christ  did  on 
earth  he  did  as  our  Mediator,  and  all  that  he  did  as 
Mediator  he  did  in  the  stead  of  those  for  wdiom  he 
acted  as  Mediator.  Therefore  he  said  (Matt.  iii.  15), 
"For  thus  it  becometh  us  to  fulfil  all  righteousness 
{iiaaav  otxacoauvfjv),^^  that  is,  all  that  God  requires  of  his 
people. 

IV.  The  inability  of  the  law  to  justify  resulted 
from  the  fact  that  it  necessarily  demands  perfect  obe- 
dience, which  the  weakness  of  the  flesh,  because  of  sin, 
makes  it  impossible  for  the  sinner  to  satisfy.  Rom.  viii. 
3, 4.  God  remedies  the  matter  by  sending  his  own  Son, 
in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and  for  sin,  into  our  law- 
place,  and  executing  the  penalty  upon  him,  and  so  con- 
demning sin  in  the  flesh,  and  also  accepting  his  obedience 
instead  of  our  obedience;  that  thus,  through  our  Sponsor, 


262  THE   NATURE   OF   THE   ATOXEMEXT. 

the  RIGHTEOUS:SESS  OF  THE  LAW  MIGHT  BE  FULFILLED 

IX  US.  Rom.  viii.  3,  4. 

The  phrase  dixmoabvr^^  or  br/juiofxa.  rob  vojiou,  is  used 
in  the  Xew  Testament  to  express  the  totality  of  that 
which  the  law  demands  as  the  condition  of  fav^our.  In 
Adam,  before  he  fell,  the  righteousness  of  the  law  was 
perfect  obedience.  In  the  case  of  all  his  descendants, 
since  the  fall,  the  righteousn(  ss  of  the  law  is  perfect 
obedience  plus  the  suffering  of  the  penalty.  To  justify 
is  to  pronounce  a  man  to  be  just,  righteous,  drxaeot;. 
Righteousness,  dcxatoauvrj,  is  the  character  of  the  dixaco^j 
that  in  him  which  satisfies  the  law.  It  is  that,  there- 
fore, upon  which  justification  proceeds.  Moses  declares 
the  righteousness  which  is  of  the  law  when  he  says, 
"  the  man  that  doeth  these  things  shall  live  by  them." 
Rom.  X.  5.  Since  the  law  demands  of  us  perfect  obe- 
dience and  the  endurance  of  the  penalty,  it  is  perfectly 
impossible  for  us  to  achieve  a  legal  righteousness  by  our 
own  personal  agency.  Hence,  in  the  Scriptures,  the 
" righteousness  of  the  law"  is  unfavourably  contrasted 
with  the  "righteousness  of  fiuth."  Rom.  x.  5,  6.  That 
is,  the  attempted  satisfaction  of  the  demands  of  the  law, 
made  by  the  sinner  in  person,  is  contrasted  with  the 
vicarious  satisfiiction  of  the  same  by  Christ,  wdiich  faith 
apprehends  and  appropriates.  To  the  same  effect  our 
own  righteousness  is  contrasted  with  God's  righteousness. 
Rom.  iii,  20-26,  that  is,  our  method  of  satisfying  the 
law  with  God's  method.  "To  declare  at  this  time  his 
righteousness,  that  he  might  be  just  and  the  justifier  of 
him  that  believeth  in  Jesus."  "For  they,  being  ignorant 
of  God's  righteousness,  and  going  about  to  establish  their 
own  righteousness,  h  ive  not  submitted  themselves  unto 


AcnvE  AND  PASSIVE  obedip:nce.  263 

the  righteousness  of  God."  Horn.  x.  3.  The  grand  require- 
ment of  the  law  was  perfect  obedience  as  the  condition  of 
favour.  Obedience,  therefore,  is  of  the  essence  of  right- 
eousness. But  "Christ  is  tlie  end  of  the  law  for  right- 
eousness to  every  one  that  believeth."  Kom.  x.  4.  By- 
means  of  his  work  "the  righteousness  of  the  law  is 
fulfilled  in  us."  Bom.  viii.  4.  We  are  said  "to  be  made 
the  righteousness  of  God  in  him."  2  Cor.  v.  21.  He  is 
called  "the  Lord  our  righteousness."  Jer.  xxiii.  6.  He 
is  said  to  be  "  made  unto  us  wisdom  and  righteousness." 
1  Cor.  i.  30.  Paul  declares  his  desire  to  "be  found  in 
him,  not  having  my  own  righteousness  which  is  of  the 
law,  but  that  which  is  through  the  faith  of  Christ,  the 
righteousness  which  is  of  God  by  faith."  Phil.  iii.  9. 

V.  Piscator  and  Richard  Watson  object  that  the  Cal- 
vinistic  view  represents  Christ  as  rendering  two  distinct 
satisfactions  to  the  law  in  behalf  of  his  people.  They 
maintain  that  obedience  and  penalty  are  alternatives, 
the  presence  of  one  excluding  the  demand  for  the  other. 
If  Adam  had  rendered  perfect  obedience,  he  would  not 
have  been  required  also  to  satisfy,  by  suffering,  the 
penalty.  Therefore,  they  argue,  if  Christ  has  satisfied 
the  law  by  suffering  the  penalty  due  the  sins  of  his  peo- 
ple, he  cannot  be  also  required  to  render  it  in  their  stead 
the  additional  satisfaction  of  obedience. 

We  hold  this  to  evince  a  very  confused  view  of  the 
case.  God  surely  did  not  give  Adam  the  choice  between 
obedience  and  death,  as  between  two  equally  legitimate 
alternatives.  The  simple  facts  are  (a),  that  God  placed 
Adam  at  his  creation  (and  federally  the  whole  race  in 
him)  in  a  middle  position,  with  a  character  holy,  yet  lia- 
ble to  fall.     Such  a  position   is  a  fair  one.     It  has  its 


264      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

advantages  and  also  its  terrible  risks,  (b.)  God  pro- 
mised Adam  an  advancement  far  above  the  position  into 
which  he  was  created,  on  condition  of  perfect  obedience 
rendered  for  a  definite  period,  (c.)  He  threatened  him 
with  that  penalty  which  is  inseparable  from  all  moral 
law,  of  death  in  case  of  disobedience.  The  endurance 
of  the  penalty,  therefore,  is  required  of  Christ's  people 
in  order  that  their  sin  may  be  expiated.  And  perfect 
obedience  is  required  for  a  definite  period,  in  order  that 
they  may  be  righteously  advanced  to  the  grace  which 
,had,  from  the  beginning,  been  offered  only  on  that  con- 
dition. The  active  and  passive  obedience  of  Christ,  the 
suffering  of  the  penalty  for  the  remission  of  sin,  and  the 
obeying  of  the  law  for  life,  do  not  therefore  constitute 
two  satisfactions,  but  are  one  complete  and  perfect  satis- 
faction of  the  whole  law  in  all  its  relations. 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

THE  IlEFORMED  DOCTRINE  AS  TO  THE  NATURE  OF  THE 
ATONEMENT  PROVED  TO  HAVE  BEEN  THE  FAITH  OF  THE 
ENTIRE    CHRISTIAN  *CIIURCH    THROUGH    ALL   AGES. 

IN  tliis  chapter  I  propose  to  prove  that  the  doctrine 
which  has  been  in  the  preceding  chapters  set  forth, 
in  connection  with  its  scriptural  evidence,  has  in  its 
essential  principles  been  the  faith  of  the  great  body  of 
Vjrod's  people  from  the  beginning;  and  especially  that 
this  has  been  the  case  in  eveiy  particular  age  and  section 
of  the  Church  precisely  in  proportion  to  its  general 
orthodoxy  and  spiritual  vitality.  If  truth  be  an  essen- 
tial prerequisite  in  order  to  holiness,  the  general  fact 
that  a  given  system  of  belief  has  been  found  in  associa- 
tion with  all  the  vital  godliness  that  has  ever  existed,  is 
strong  presumptive  evidence  of  the  truth  of  that  system. 
And  this  presum])tion  is  very  much  strengthened  if  it 
can  be  shown  to  be  historically  true  that,  as  a  general 
fact,  the  evidences  of  spiritual  life  are  obscured  in  ])ro- 
portion  as  the  central  and  characteristic  principles  of  the 
system  are  ignored  or  misconceived,  and  that  they  have 
never  continued  to  exist  at  all  where  these  principles 
have  been  intelligently  denied.  In  order  to  apply  this 
method  of  argument  to  the  subject  we  have  in  hand,  I 
will  attend  to  the  following  points  in  their  order.  1. 
To  state  precisely  the  several  ])Osition,s  whicli  I  believe 
23  265 


266  THE   NATUKE    OF    THE    AT()^'EMENT. 

that  the  historical  evidence  accessi})le  to  us  will  fully 
prove.  2.  To  present,  in  as  condensed  a  form  as  possi- 
ble, quotations  from  representative  theologians,  and 
Church  creeds  which  establish  the  points  proposed  to  be 
proved.  And,  3.  To  apply  the  historical  facts  as  to  the 
general  faith  of  the  Church,  thus  established,  to  our 
main  argument,  indicating  what  inferences  from  the  uni- 
versal consent  of  the  Church  of  Christ  to  the  truth  of 
doctrine  appear  to  be  legitimate. 

I.  I  have,  then,  in  the  first  j)lace,  to  state  the  points 
which  I  believe  can  be  established  with  reference  to  the 
faith  of  God's  people,  as  a  general  and  characteristic  fact, 
in  all  ages,  with  reference  to  the  nature  of  Christ^s  re- 
deeming work. 

1.  It  is  not  pretended  that  the  doctrine  of  Satisfaction 
as  received  in  common  by  the  Lutheran  and  Keformed 
Churches  was  conceived  of  in  all  its  elements  or  stated 
with  scientific  accuracy  in  the  early  ages  of  the  Church, 
or  that  in  this  complete  sense  it  is  possessed  by  all  parts 
of  the  Church  in  modern  times.  Such  a  statement 
would  not  be  true  either  historically  or  actually  of  any 
single  doctrine  embraced  in  the  entire  system  of  revealed 
truth.  All  the  elements  embraced  under  the  heads  of 
Theology  and  Anthropology,  as  well  as  Soteriology, 
were  at  first  conceived  obscurely,  stated  vaguely,  and 
mixed  with  incongruous  and  even  inconsistent  elements, 
and  have  reached  the  mature  form  in  which  they  are 
at  present  embraced  by  all  evangelical  Christians  only 
through  a  process  of  growth.  The  fact  is  admitted  that 
(he  early  fathers  wrote  like  children  in  the  childhood  of 
the  Church  on  this  as  upon  all  other  subjects. 

But,  2.  We  maintain  over  against  the  advocates  of  the 


HISTORY   OF   OPINION.  267 

Moral   Influence  Theory  that  the  following  points  are 
siiswptible  of  historical  proof.   (1.)  There  is  abundant 
evidence  that  from  the  first  the  faith  of  the  true  Church 
lias  uniformly  embraced  Chiist  on  the  cross  as  a  sacrifice 
exj)iating  sin  and  propitiating  God.     It  is  true  that  this 
element  of  their  faith  is  often  left  to  a  remarkable  de- 
gree in  the  background,  and  mixed  up  confusedly  with 
other  elements  of  truth  or  superstition,  but  indubitable 
traces  of  an  objective  bearing    of  the  passion  of  Christ 
upon  obstacles  in  the  way  of  man's  deliverance  exterior 
to  himself  are  always  visible.     (2.)  That  the  doctrine 
that  the  central  design  of  the  Atonement  is  to  produce  a 
subjective  efiect  upon  the  sinner  has  never  prevailed 
among  any  considerable  number  of  people  for  any  length 
of  time.     That,  on   the  contrary,  even  every  false  doc- 
trine which  has  taken  strong  and  permanent  hold  upon 
the  human   mind   has  always  embraced  in   it  precisely 
that  principle  which  the  theory  in  question  excludes, 
viz.,  that  the  sufferings  of  Christ  were  necessary  to  re- 
move obstacles  to  our  salvation  existing  exterior  to  our- 
selves.    This   fact   is   conspicuously  illustrated   in  the 
prevalence  of  the  eccentric  idea  that  Christ  was  delivered 
up  as  a  ransom-price  to  Satan  for  the  purpose  of  redeem- 
ing sinful  men  from  the  power  of  the  usurper,  which  so 
long  confused  and  disfigured  the  ideas  of  ecclesiastical 
writers  upon  the  subject  of  Redemption.     (3.)  We  main- 
tain it  can  be  proved  that  the  doctrine  that  Christ  has 
redeemed  men  from  the  claims  of  divine  justice  by  his 
vicarious  sufferings  has  always  been  more  clearly  con- 
ceived and  more  frequently  and  emphatically  insisted 
upon  in   the  exact  proportion  as  the  Church  has  been 
faithful  in  the  profession  of  other  fundamental  truths 


268      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

and  abundant  in  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit.  The  best  of 
the  earlier  Church  teachers  teach  the  truth  we  contend 
for.  Those  who  were  most  eminent  in  the  defence  of 
tlie  truth  as  to  the  supreme  divinity  of  our  blessed 
Lord,  as  Athanasius  the  Great;  those  who  stood  to  the 
last  faithful  in  resisting  the  inroads  of  Popery,  as  Claude, 
bishop  of  Turin  (821-839);  the  best  of  the  schoolmen, 
as  Anselm,  Hugh  St.  Victor,  Bernard,  Bonaventura  and 
Thomas  Aquinas;  both  of  the  two  great  sections  (Greek 
and  Roman)  into  which  the  Church  divided;  the  great 
evangelical  teachers  who,  in  the  immediately  preceding 
centuries,  prepared  the  way  for  the  Keformation,  as 
Wycliffe  and  John  Wessel ;  the  Vallenses  who,  isolated 
among  the  mountains,  preserved  the  primitive  apostolic 
faith  through  all  the  dark  centuries  of  the  Papal  supre- 
macy; Zwingle  and  Luther  and  Calvin,  each  indepen- 
dent in  his  origin,  drawing  from  different  sources,  and 
marked  by  many  profound  characteristic  differences  from 
the  others;  and  with  them,  all  the  four  great  spontane- 
ous movements  of  reform,  in  Switzerland,  Germany, 
France  and  Britain,  each  of  which  was  so  truly  original, 
and  marked  by  characteristic  differences,  which  still  sur- 
vive after  three  centuries  of  change;  and  finally,  all  of 
the  great  evangelical  denominations  into  which  the 
Churches  of  the  Reformation  have  been  developed,  who 
now  embrace  the  sum  total  of  Christ's  kingdom  on  the 
face  of  the  earth; — all  these,  and  whatsoever  persons  or 
bodies  of  this  kind  have  ever  existed,  in  whatever  else 
they  have  differed,  have  agreed  in  maintaining  that  the 
virtue  of  the  redemption  of  Christ  resides  in  its  power 
to  expiate  sin  and  thus  to  propitiate  God.  (4.)  We 
aiaintain  also,  in  the  fourth  place,  that  true  religion  has 


HISTORY  OF   OPINION.  269 

never  fl)url8lied  when  this  doctrine  of  expiation  has 
been  exj)li<:'it]y  denied,  but  that  the  invaria})Ic  sequence, 
if  not  consequence,  of  its  denial  may  be  read  in  tlie  his- 
tor}^  of  the  ancient  Gnostics  and  Arians,  in  that  of  such 
heretics  as  Scotus  Erigena  and  Abelard  during  the  INIid- 
dle  Age,  of  the  Socinians  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
of  their  successors,  the  Unitarians  of  England  and 
America,  and  the  Neologians  of  Germany,  during  the 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth. 

3.  We  maintain  over  against  the  advocates  of  the 
Governmental  Theory  of  the  Atonement:  (1.)  That  it 
is  susceptible  of  proof  that,  with  few  exceptions,  the 
whole  Church  from  the  beginning  has  held  the  doctrine 
of  Redemption  in  the  sense  of  a  literal  propitiation  of 
God  by  means  of  the  expiation  of  sin.  (2.)  That  this 
view  of  the  nature  of  Redemption  has  been  held  most 
definitely  and  earnestly,  as  a  general  fact,  by  those  men, 
and  in  those  branches  and  ages  of  the  Church  which 
have  exhibited  the  most  decided  evidence  of  the  Saviour's 
presence  and  favour.  (3.)  That  each  one  of  the  great 
sections  into  which  the  Christian  Church  has  been 
divided — the  Greek  and  Roman,  Lutheran  and  Reformed 
— unite  in  maintaining  that  the  gospel  is  founded  upon 
the  expiation  of  guilt.  (4.)  That  all  of  the  later  and  more 
perfect  Confessions,  both  of  the  Lutheran  and  of  the  Re- 
formed Churches,  agree  in  teaching  in  the  fullest  terms 
the  strictly  vicarious  character  of  both  Christ's  active 
and  passive  obedience,  and  the  im})utation  of  that  per- 
fect obedience  to  the  believer  as  the  strictly  judicial 
ground  of  his  justification.  And  (5.)  That  the  origin 
of  the  Governmental  Theorv  of  the  Atonement  anions 
the  semi-Socinian  Dutch  Rempnstrants,  and  its  affilia- 
23* 


270  THE   NATURE   OF    niE   ATONEME^^T. 

tion  with  the  speculations  of  the  heretical  French  Pro- 
fessors of  Saumur,  give  but  a  doubtful  indication  as  to 
its  possible  connection,  for  a  protracted  period,  with 
Sj>i ritual  health  and  fruitfulness. 

II.  I  now  proceed  to  present  the  evidence  which,  [ 
think,  proves  the  points  above  stated.  Let  it  be  remem- 
bered that,  as  a  matter  of  course,  all  that  can  be  pre- 
sented here  is  a  mere  specimen  of  much  more  that 
remains  behind.  Let  it  be  remembered,  also,  that  our 
position,  assumed  in  the  first  statement  of  our  doctrine, 
is  not  that  either  of  the  heterodox  theories  we  are  hei'e 
combating  is  false,  but  that  they  are  each  essentially 
defective.  Hence  it  will  in  no  way  weaken  the  force  of 
our  argument  if  it  be  proved  that  the  positive  principles 
maintained  by  either  or  both  of  them  have  been  taught 
generally  or  uniformly  in  the  Church.  If  the  princi23le 
of  literal  expiation  be  admitted  at  all  in  connection 
with  those  principles  specially  signalized  by  each  of  the 
other  views,  then,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  th( 
fact  of  expiation,  since  it  concerns  God,  must  be  central ; 
and  the  other  principles,  since  they  concern  the  creation, 
must  be  subordinate  to  it.  It  will  be  abundantly  suffi- 
cient for  all  the  purposes  of  my  a:  gument,  therefore,  if 
I  succeed  in  tracing  the  principle  I  contend  for  as  a  con- 
stant element,  more  or  less  clearly  discriminated,  of  the 
faith  of  God\s  people.* 

"  I  have  drawn  the  tefitimonies  cited  from  the  following  sources: 

riagcnhach's  History  of  Doctrines.  Edited  by  Rev.  H.  B.  Smith, 
D.D.,  New  York. 

Shedd's  History  of  Christian  Doctrine.     New  York. 

Dorner's  History  of  Development  of  Doctrine  of  tlie  Person  (if 
Christ.     Clark's  Edinburgh  Edition. 


HISlv)RY   OF   OPINION.  271 

The  Rev.  Dr.  John  Young,  of  Edinburgh,  has  re- 
cently gone  over  the  monuments  of  Patristie  theology, 
&c.,  for  the  purpose  of  triieing  the  history  of  the  origin 
and  growth  of  the  doctrine  of  Satisfaction.  He  claims 
that  there  is  no  trace  of  this  doctrine  in  the  Scripture; 
that  it  has  its  root  in  the  ignorance  and  dc])ravity  of 
human  nature;  that  it  emerged  in  the  Christian  Church 
as  a  manifest  corruption;  and  that  it  was  developed  into 
its  present  portentous  form  only  slowly  and  after  the 
lapse  of  centuries.  His  historical  argument  may  be 
reduced  to  two  heads.  (1.)  He  draws  this  conclusion 
from  the  comparative  silence  of  the  early  writers  on  this 
subject,  even  when  they  were  treating  of  topics  which 
rendered  allusions  to  this  doctrine,  if  it  was  in  fact  be- 
lieved, apparently  inevitable.  (2.)  From  the  imputed 
character,  intellectual  or  moral,  of  certain  men  to  whose 
agency  he  refers  the  origination  and  diffusion  of  the 
corruption;  as,  for  instance,  Athanasius  and  Calvin. 

To  the  first  of  his  points  we  reply  by  confessing  that 
to  an  extraordinary  degree  his  allegation  is  true,  but  that 
(1)  it  is  at  best  but  a  negative  argument,  and  avails  no- 
thing in  opposition  to  the  positive  testimony  presented 

Ullman's  Reformers  before  the  Reformation.  Clark's  Edinburgh 
Edition. 

Neander's  Church  History.     Torrey's  Translation. 

Rev.  G.  S.  Faber's  Ancient  Vallenses  and  Albigenses. 

T)e  Sacrificiis,  Gulielrao  Outramo  Autore. 

"  The  Life  and  Light  of  Men,"  by  John  Young,  LL.P.,  Edinburgh. 

Comparative  Darstellung  des  Lebrbcgriff's  der  Vcrschiedenen 
Cliristliclien  Kircheiiparteien.     Von  Dr.  Geo.  Beiicd.  AViner. 

Hase,  Libri  Symbolici  Eccie.  Evangelicse. 

Niemeyer :  Collectio  Confessionum,  &c. 

Streitwolf :  Libri  Symbolici  Ecclesise  Catholicse,  vol.  i.  and  ii. 


272  THE   NATURE   OF   THE    /ATONEMENT. 

m  the  other  hand.  As  we  have  shown  above,  from  the 
essential  nature  of  the  piincl2)lc  involved,  if  its  presence 
can  be  traced,  however  faintly,  the  conclusion  will  be 
inevitable  that  it  is  an  essential  part  of  the  faith  of  the 
Church,  and  the  central  principle  to  which  all  others 
will  ultimately  be  subordinated  when  all  the  elements 
of  that  faith  are  accurately  discriminated  and  adjusted. 
And  (2)  that  the  force  of  his  objection  is  greatly  abated 
by  the  consideration  of  the  fewness,  and  of  the  fragmen- 
tary condition,  and  the  immaturity  and  confusion  char- 
acteristic of  the  writings  of  the  early  Fathers,  and  the 
crudeness  of  their  views  upon  many  other  subjects  of 
Christian  doctrine. 

To  his  second  point  we  answer,  that  the  position  we 
assume,  as  distinctly  stated  above,  is  7iot  that  certain 
men  have  taught  the  doctrine  of  expiation,  but  that  it  is 
the  doctrine  of  all  the  representative  Church  teachers  of 
all  ages;  that  it  has  again  and  again,  with  amazing  co- 
incidence, been  revived  by  great  and  good  men  acting 
entirely  independently  of  eacli  other;  and  that  it  has 
always  been  the  more  emphasized  the  more  true  spiritual 
religion  has  flourished;  and,  finally,  that  true  spiritual 
religion  has  never  flourished  among  those  who  have  ex- 
plicitly denied  it.  Very  little  light  can  be  thrown  upon 
the  origin  or  value  of  such  a  doctrine  by  criticising  the 
spirit  or  associations  of  individual  men.  The  broad  fact 
would  remain  to  be  accounted  for,  that  the  idea  to  which 
Athanasius,  for  the  first  time,  gives  a  logically  defined 
expression  had  appeared  again  and  again  in  the  writings 
of  the  best  men  who  preceded  him,  and  in  the  devo- 
tional writings  of  Augustine  and  his  followers;  that 
Claude,  Bernard,  Wycliffe,  Wessel,  the  Val lenses,  and 


HISTORY   OF   OriNION.  273 

all  the  best  saints  of  the  ages  preceding  the  Reforma- 
tion, held  the  same;  that  Anselm,  in  the  Latin  Church, 
and  Nicolas  of  Methone,  in  the  Greek  Church,  the  two 
great  systematizers  of  the  Church's  faith  on  this  subject, 
wrought  entirely  independently  of  each  other,  although 
almost  cotemporaneously ;  that  not  only  Luther  ana 
Calvin,  but  Zwingle  also,  the  most  independent  and 
rationalizing  of  the  Reformers,  and  that  all  the  branches 
of  the  Church,  Greek,  Roman,  Lutheran  and  Reformed, 
in  all  their  subdivisions,  hold  the  same  faith.  Any 
attempt  to  account  for  such  facts  as  these  by  reference  to 
the  personal  character  of  individual  men,  however  great 
or  numerous,  is  manifestly  absurd. 

[A.]  The  doctrine  of  Expiation  was  received ,  though  in  a 
crude,  unscientific  form  and  in  connection  with  much  error, 
by  the  ante-Nicciie  fathers.  With  respect  to  the  writers 
of  this  period.  Young  admits  that  "  Injustice  would 
be  done  to  them,  unless  it  be  understood  that  most  of 
them  make  use,  though  not  frequently,  of  the  ]S^ew  Tes- 
tament language  with  regard  to  the  death  of  the  Re- 
deemer, and  also  that  in  some  instances  they  apply 
passages  of  the  Old  Testament — such  as  the  liii.  chapter 
of  Isaiah,  and  the  xxii.  Psalm — to  that  death.  It  is 
fully  admitted  that  the  ultimate  and  real  question  goes 
back  to  the  meaning  of  the  New  Testament  itself.  No 
one  could  fairly  dispute,  that  if  the  doctrine  of  Satisfac- 
tion be  there,  it  is  also  in  the  post-apostolic  writings. 
But  if  it  be  wanting  there,  as  we  have  sought  to  show 
that  it  is,  then  unquestionably  it  has  no  place  in 
them."* 

In  answer  to  this  position,  thus  candidly  assumed, 
*  "  Life  and  Light  of  Men,"  p.  422 


274      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

I  present  the  argument  to  the  contrary  under  the  follow- 
ing heads. 

1.  It  is  unquestionably  a  strong  presumptive  evidence 
in  favour  of  the  truth  of  our  position,  that  the  most 
learned,  impartial  and  minute  students  of  the  original 
sources  of  all  knowledge  on  this  subject,  such  as  Neander, 
Dorner,  Faber,*  Shedd,  SchafF,  &c.,  all  in  effect  bear  inde- 
pendent testimony  to  the  substantial  truth  of  the  judg- 
ment pronounced  by  the  first  named  in  his  Church  history. 
"As  it  regards  the  work  of  Christ  as  the  Redeemer  of 
mankind,  we  find  already  in  the  language  used  by  the 
Church  fathers  on  this  point,  in  the  2>criod  under  consid- 
eration, all  the  elements  that  lay  at  the  basis  of  the  doctrine 
as  it  afterwards  came  to  be  defined  in  the  Church."t 

2.  Young  confesses  that  the  early  Fathers  applied 
to  the  work  of  Christ  the  ordinary  sacrificial  language 
borrowed  from  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  But  in 
chapter  viii.  I  showed  that  Outram  has  presented  evi- 
dence to  saturation  that  the  heathen,  Jews  and  Chris- 
tians of  that  age  all  agreed  in  understanding  this 
sacrificial  language  as  signifying,  in  a  strict  sense,  the 
vicarious  suffering  of  penal  evils  on  the  part  of  the  vic- 
tim in  behalf  of  the  transgressor.  It  will  suffice  for  our 
purpose,  at  present,  to  cite  only  the  testimony  of  the 
great  Metropolitan,  Cosmopolitan,  learned  Controversi- 
alist and  Church  Historian,  Eusebius,  Bishop  of  Caesarea. 
His  words  are  as  follows:  "An  attentive  observer  may 
learn  this  very  thing  also  from  the  law  respecting  sacri- 
fices; which  enjoins  every  one  who  offers  a  sacrifice,  to 
lay  his  hands  on  the  head  of  the  victim,  and  holding  it 

*  George  Stanley  Faber's  "  Primitive  Doctrine  of  Justification." 
f  Neander's  Church  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  640. 


HISTORY   OF   OPINION.  275 

by  the  head  to  bring  it  to  the  priest,  as  offering  the  ani- 
mal instead  of  his  own  head.  Wherefore  its  language 
respecting  every  victim  is,  I^^et  the  offerer  present  it  be- 
fore the  Lord,  lay  his  hands  upon  the  head  of  his 
offering;  and  this  was  ol)served  in  every  sacrifice,  no 
victim  being  offered  in  any  other  way;  whence  it  is  con- 
cluded that  the  lives  of  the  victims  were  given  instead 
of  the  lives  of  the  offerers.  .  .  .  For  as  i)ious  persons, 
who  were  familiar  with  God,  and  had  their  minds  en- 
lightened by  the  Divine  Spirit,  saw  that  they  needed  a 
great  remedy  for  the  expiation  of  deadly  sins,  they  con- 
cluded that  a  ransom  for  their  salvation  ought  to  be 
presented  to  God,  the  disposer  of  life  and  death.  ...  As 
long  as  men  had  no  better  victim,  none  that  was  great, 
valuable  and  worthy  of  God,  it  behooved  them  to  offer 
him  animal  sacrifices  in  ransom  for  their  own  life,  and 
as  substitutes  for  their  own  nature."* 

3.  I  proved,  also,  in  chapter  viii.,  by  arguments  drawn 
directly  from  the  Scriptures,  that  the  Old  Testament 
sacrifices  did  actually  expiate  offences  by  means  of  vica- 
rious penal  sufferings,  and  that  they,  by  God's  apjwint- 
ment,  were  eminent  types  and  symbols  of  the  redemptive 
work  of  Christ.  It  hence  follows  that  the  conditional 
admission  of  Young,  that  "if  the  doctrine  of  Satisfac- 
tion be  there  [in  the  sacrificial  institutions  and  language 
of  the  Old  Testament],  it  is  also  in  the  post-apostolic 
writings,'^  becomes  a  simple  statement  of  unquestionable 
fact. 

4.  In  connection  with  and  in  addition  tothe  foregoincr 
evidence,  our  allegation  is  conclusively  proved  by  the 

*  Demonstr.  Evang.,  L.  1.  c.  10,  pp.  270-340.  Quoted  by  Cutram, 
Dis.  L,  cliax^  xvii. 


276  THE    NATURE  OF   THE  AT0N1;MENT. 

])Ositive  statements  of  many  of  those  early  writers, 
which,  as  will  bo  scon,  involve  in  explicit  terms  the 
essential  elements  of  the  doctrine  of  expiation. 

Polycarp  (a  pupil  of  John),  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Phi- 
lijipians,*  quoted  by  Shedd,  says:  "Christ  is  our  Saviour; 
for  through  grace  are  we  righteous,  not  by  works;  for 
our  sins  he  has  even  taken  death  upon  himself,  has  be- 
come the  servant  of  us  all,  and,  through  his  death  for  us, 
our  hope  and  the  pledge  of  our  righteousness.  The 
heaviest  sin  is  unbelief  in  Christ;  his  blood  will  be  de- 
manded of  unbelievers;  for  to  those  to  whom  the  death 
of  Christ,  which  obtains  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  does 
not  prove  the  ground  of  justification,  it  proves  a  ground 
of  condemnation.  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  suffered  him- 
self to  be  brought  even  to  death  for  our  sins;  ....  let 
us,  therefore,  without  ceasing,  hold  steadfastly  to  him 
who  is  our  hope  and  the  earnest  of  our  righteousness, 
even  Jesus  Christ,  *wdio  bare  our  sins  in  his  own  body 
on  the  tree.'  "f 

Clement  Romanus,  a  disciple  of  Paul,  died  circum 
A.  D.  100.  In  his  Epistola  ad  Cormthos  (quoted  by 
Dornor),  he  writes  thus:  "His  blood  has  been  shed  for 
us,  for  our  salvation ;  he  has,  according  to  God's  will, 
given  his  body  for  our  body,  his  soul  for  our  soul." 
"  Every  interpretation  of  this  passage,"  says  Dorner,  "  is 
forced  which  does  not  recognize  in  it  the  idea  of  substi- 
tution, and  that  as  well  subjective^  Christ's  substitution- 
ary design,  as  objective,  the  actual  fulfilment  of  that 
design,  and  its  objective  results.  There  is  connected 
therewith  the  fact  that  with  Clement,  as  in  the  Epistle 

*  Chapter  i.  8.       f  Shedd's  History  of  Cliristian  Itoctrine,  p.  168. 


HISTORY   OF   OPINION.  277 

to  the  TIe])re\vs,  the  name  'High  Priest'  is  frequently 
ai)j)lietl  to  Christ." 

Justin  Martyr  (A.  D.  114-168),  quoted  by  Neander, 
gays:  *'The  law  pronouneed  on  all  men  the  curse,  be- 
cause no  man  could  fulfil  it  in  its  whole  extent.  Deut. 
xxvii.  26.  Christ  delivered  us  from  this  curse  in  bear- 
ing it  for  us."* 

The  author  of  the  Epistle  to  Diognetus,  which  is  ad- 
mitted by  all  to  date  from  the  early  part  of  the  second 
century,  consequently,  in  the  generation  immediately 
succeeding  the  death  of  the  Apostle  John,  and  which  is 
usually  published  among  the  works  of  Justin  Martyr, 
says,  as  quoted  by  Dorner :  "  Thus  God  delayed,  that  we 
might  be  made  conscious  of  our  own  guilt  and  impo- 
tency.  But  as  that  was  filled  up,  and  it  was  rendered 
manifest  that  punishment  and  death  duly  awaited  us,  the 
one  love  continued  true.  It  hated  not,  it  departed  not, 
it  remembered  not  evil;  but  was  long-suffering  and 
bore;  nay,  itself  took  on  our  sins.  It  gave  his  only 
Son  as  a  ransom  for  us;  the  holy  for  the  unholy,  the 
sinless  for  the  wicked,  the  pure  for  the  vile,  the  immor- 
tal for  the  mortal.  For  what  else  could  cover  our  sins 
than  the  righteousness  of  him?  Whereby  could  the 
unholy  and  ungodly  be  justified  but  by  the  Son  of  God? 
Oh!  sweet  substitution!  Oh!  what  an  unsearchable 
device,  what  unexpected  blessing !  The  unrighteousness 
of  the  many  to  be  hid  by  the  righteous  of  the  One;  the 
righteousness  of  the  One  to  justify  many  sinners!" 

[B.]  The  doctrine  of  vicarioiis  expiation  accomplished  by 
the  suffei'ings  of  Christ  was  professed  yet  more  explicitly ^ 
though  dill  m  a  crude  form  and  mixed  with  much  err  or  j  by 

*  Dial.  c.  Tryph.  Jud.  c.  30,  f.  322. 

24 


278      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

the  Nicene  Fathers  and  their  successors  up  to  the  time  of  the 
Schoolmen.  From  the  commencement  of  this  period  it  is 
well  known  that  a  strange  fancy,  entertained  by  Origen 
(A.  D.  185-254)  and  Irenteus  (t200),  to  the  effect  that 
Christ  was  provided  by  God  to  ransom  his  people  out  of 
the  hands  of  Satan,  as  captives  are  ransomed  by  friends 
from  the  hands  of  pirates,  continued  for  a  long  time  to 
tinge  the  meditations  of  Christian  wTiters  upon  the  subject 
of  Redemption.  This  fact,  both  curious  and  lamentable, 
is,  of  course,  made  much  of  by  all  those  whose  interest,  for 
any  reason,  it  is  to  show  that  the  Church  of  Christ  has 
never  been  committed  to  any  fixed  view  as  to  the  nature 
of  Kedemption,  but  has  always  drifted  among  various 
opinions  of  human  origin,  more  or  less  rational.  With 
respect  to  this  view  I  would  remark  (a)  that  there  is  no 
evidence  that  it  I'epresented  the  definite  and  total  con- 
ception of  any  one  of  the  ancient  Fathers  as  to  the  nature 
of  Christ's  work.  It  was  a  general  and  indeterminate 
form  in  which  that  work  was  conceived  of  in  one  of  its 
aspects,  suggested  by  such  scriptural  passages  as  Col.  ii. 
15,  and  Heb.  ii.  14;  and  however  inconsistent  as  a  mat- 
ter of  logic,  nevertheless  coexisting  in  the  same  mind 
also  with  vague  conceptions  of  the  very  views  which  are 
cojnmon  to  the  modern  evangelical  Churches.  (6.)  This 
view,  grotesque  as  it  is,  involves,  in  common  with  the 
orthodox  Satisfaction  Theory,  a  principle  which  is  utterly 
inconsistent  with  the  Moral  Influence  Theory,  and  that 
principle  is,  that  the  direct  design  and  effect  of  the  suffer- 
ings of  Christ  were  to  redeem  sinners  from  an  obstacle  to 
their  salvation  exterior  to  themselves.  The  prevalence 
of  this  fancy,  therefore,  in  connection  with  more  correct 
views  as  to  the  nature  of  Redemption,  contributes  to 


HISTORY   OF   OPINION.  279 

prove  the  truth  of  our  allofrJition  that  all  Christians 
have  from  the  bc^iiniino',  witliout  cxce}>tion,  fell  the 
need  of  hciiij^  raiisomcd  Iroiii  a  ])o\\^r  under  whieh  tlicy 
were;  held,  and  whieh  thciy  were  ini])otent  to  resist.  The 
Ibllovving  witnesses  also  make  it  evident  that,  in  spite  of 
the  general  prevalence  of  this  form  of  error  for  a  time, 
the  true  doctrine  of  the  need  of  propitiatinti;  divine  jus- 
tice was  never  absent  from  the  iaith  of  the  Church. 

Irena3us  (t202)  says:  ^^We  were  God's  enemies  and 
debtors,  as  Christ  in  his  priestly  work  fulfilled  the  law."* 
And  again,  '^And  on  account  of  this  in  the  last  times  the 
Lord,  through  his  own  incarnation,  restored  us  into 
friendshlj),  having  been  made  Mediator  between  God  and 
man ;  truly  proi)itiatini-  the  Father,  against  whom  we  had 
sinned,  in  our  b('lialf."t 

Eusebius  of  Ca^sarea  (A.  D.  270-340),  quoted  by  Shedd, 
says:  '^IIow  then  did  he  make  our  sins  to  be  his  own, 
and  how  did  he  bear  our  iniquities?  .  .  .  The  Lamb  of 
God  did  not  only  these  things  for  us,  but  he  underwent 
torments,  and  was  punished  for  us;  that  which  he  w^as 
no  ways  exposed  to  for  himself,  but  w^e  were  so  by  the 
multitude  of  our  sins;  and  thereby  he  became  the  cause 
of  tlie  pardon  of  our  sins;  namely,  because  he  under- 
went death,  stripes,  reproaches,  transferring  the  thing 
which  we  had  deserved  to  himself;  and  was  made  a 
ourse  for  us,  taking  to  himself  the  curse  that  was  due 
to  us ;  for  what  was  he  but  a  price  of  redemption  for  our 

souls  rx 

Athanasius    the    Great — champion   of   the    absolute 

*  III.  18;  cited  from  Thoraasius  (iii.  176)  by  Hagenbach,  vol.  i., 
p.  184.  t  Ibid.,  xvii.  1. 

I  Demonstratio  Er  angelica.  Lib.  x.  c. 


280      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

divinity  of  Christ  (A.  D.  278-373),  leading  and  repn'senl- 
ing  a  Church  party  very  different  from  that  represented 
by  the  former  witness,  the  compromising  Eusebius  of  Ca)- 
sarea(as  quoted  by  Dorner) — says:  "The  death,  wliich  is 
termed  his,  the  death  of  the  Logos,  was  a  ransom  for  tlie 
sins  of  men,  and  a  death  of  death."*  "  Laden  with  guilt, 
the  world  lay  under  the  condemnation  of  the  law;  but 
the  Logos  took  the  judgment  [krima)  up  into  himself, 
and  suffering  in  the  flesh  for  all,  he  bestowed  salvation 
upon  all."t  "The  first  and  principal  ground  of  the 
Logos'  becoming  man  was  that  the  condemnation  of  the 
law,  by  which  we  are  burdened  with  guilt  and  eternal 
punishment,  might  be  removed  by  the  payment  of  the 
penalty/'J 

Cyril  of  Jerusalem  (t386),  quoted  by  Shedd,  says: 
"Christ  took  sin  upon  his  own  body.  He  who  died  for 
us  was  no  insignificant  creature,  he  was  no  mere  animal 
victim,  he  was  no  mere  man,  he  was  not  an  angel;  but  he 
was  God  incarnate.  The  iniquity  of  us  sinners  was  not 
so  great  as  the  righteousness  of  him  who  died  for  us;  the 
sins  we  have  committed  are  not  equal  to  the  Atonement 
made  by  him  who  laid  down  his  life  for  us."§ 

Chrysostom  (A.  D.  354-407),  quoted  by  Milner,  says: 
"What  a  saying?  What  mind  can  comprehend  it?  He 
made  a  just  person  a  sinner  that  he  might  make  sinners 
just.  But  the  apostle's  language  is  still  stronger.  He 
doth  not  say  he  made  him  a  sinner,  but  sin,  that  we  might 
be  made,  not  righteous,  but  righteousness,  even  the  right- 
eousness of  God.^T 

*  Contra  Arianos,  1,  45.  §  Catechepes,  lib.  13,  sec.  33. 

t  Ibid.,  1,  GO.  ^  Horn,  ii.,  on  2  Cor.,  chap.  v. 

X  De  Incaruatione,  c.  11-14. 


HISTORY  OF  OPINIOlSr.  281 

The  great  and  good  Augustine  (A.D.  354-430),  spend- 
ing his  whole  strength  upon  tlie  defence  of  the  truth  re- 
veak'd  in  Scripture  as  to  human  sin  and  divine  grace, 
against  able  and  active  opponents,  was  undeniably,  to  a 
great  extent,  in  the  dark  as  to  the  true  nature  of  the  piac- 
uhu'  work  of  Christ.  He  generally  uses  tlie  term  justifica- 
tion in  tlie  general  and  indefinite  sense  in  which  it  is  now 
used  by  the  lloman  Catholic  theologians,  as  including  the 
remission  of  sins  and  the  infusion  of  grace.  Nevertheless, 
as  Young  candidly  acknowledges,  '^we  find,  especially 
in  his  Confessions,  and  in  the  touching  utterances  of  his 
religious  experience,  that  which  plainly  involves  the 
idea,  though  the  distinctive  term  is  not  employed,  of  a 
satisfaction  to  divine  justice  on  account  of  human  sin."* 
As  quoted  by  Milner:  '^He  was  made  sin,  as  we  are 
made  righteousness,  not  our  own,  but  of  God;  nor  in 
ourselves,  but  in  him,  as  he  was  made  sin,  not  his  own, 
but  ours,  nor  was  he  appointed  so  in   himself,  but  in 

us.^t 

"But  Christ  without  guilt  (personal)  took  upon  him- 
self our  punishment,  in  order  that  he  might  thus  expiate 
our  guilt,  and  do  away  with  our  punishment."! 

"All  men  are  separated  from  God  by  sin.  Hence 
they  can  be  reconciled  with  him  only  through  the  re- 
mission of  sin,  and  this  only  through  the  grace  of  a 
most  merciful  Saviour,  and  this  grace  through  the  out 
only  Victim  of  the  most  true^nd  only  Priest."§ 

Gregory  the  Great  (t604),  the  most  distinguished  and 

*  Life  and  Light  of  Men,  p,  445. 

t  Encliirid.  ad  Lauren.,  c.  41. 

t  Contra  Faust.  Manich,  14,  1,  quoted  by  Ilagenbach. 

{  Augustinus,  De  pc,\  mer.,  I.  Ivi. 

24* 


282  THE  NATURvfi   OF   THE  ATONEMENT. 

influential  representative  of  the  Latin  Church  of  his  age, 
in  his  Moralia  in  Jobum,*  quoted  by  Shedd,  says:  ^^ Guilt 
can  be  extinguished  only  by  a  penal  offering  to  justice. 
But  it  would  contradict  the  idea  of  justice  if,  for  the  sin 
of  a  rational  being  like  man,  the  death  of  an  irrational 
animal  should  be  accepted  as  a  sufficient  atonement. 
Hence  a  man  must  be  offered  as  the  sacrifice  for  man ; 
so  that  a  rational  victim  may  be  slain  for  a  rational 
criminal.  But  how  could  a  man,  himself  stained  with 
sin,  be  an  offering  for  sin?  Hence  a  sinless  man  must 
be  offered.  But  what  man  descending  in  the  ordinary 
course  would  be  free  from  sin  ?  Hence,  the  Son  of  God 
must  be  born  of  a  virgin,  and  became  a  man  for  us.  He 
assumed  our  nature  without  our  corruption.  He  made 
himself  a  sacrifice  for  us,  and  set  forth  for  sinners  his 
own  body,  a  victim  without  sin,  and  able  both  to  die  by 
virtue  of  its  humanity,  and  to  cleanse  the  guilty  upon 
grounds  of  justice." 

John  of  Damascus  (t750),  the  greatest  representative  of 
the  Greek  Church  in  his  age,  in  his  Expositio  i^^r7e^,  quoted 
by  Shedd,  says:  "He  who  assumed  death  for  us,  died, 
and  offered  himself  a  sacrifice  to  the  Father;  for  we  had 
committed  wrong  towards  him,  and  it  was  necessary  for 
him  to  receive  our  ransom,  and  we  thus  be  delivered 
from  condemnation.  For  God  forbid  that  the  blood  of 
the  Lord  should  be  offered  to  the  tyrant.^f 

[C]  The  doctrine  of  Redemption  by  the  expiatory  ,wf- 
fei'ings  of  Christ  ivas  held  in  common  by  all  the  prominent 
witnesses  for  pure  Christianity  dinging  the  Dark  Ages, 
including  the  Vcdlenses  of  Piedmont j  and  the  immediate 
I'orerunners  of  the  Reformers ;  and  it  was  positively  rejected 
*  xvii,  46.  f  Expositio  Fidei,  iii.  27. 


HISTORY   CF   OPINION.  283 

(mly  by  such  O)  en  heretics  as  Scofus  Erigena  and  Abelavd. 
Claude,  P>i.shop  of  Turin  (A.  D.  821-839),  the  faithful 
champion  of  the  trutli  against  tlie  inroads  of  the  ever- 
growing^ Papal  superstitions  and  doctrinal  and  ritualistic 
corruptions,  is  a  witness  of  special  interest,  because  he  is 
supposed  to  have  been  immediately  associated  with  thos(? 
heroic  mountaineers  (the  Vallenses)  who  profess  to  have 
j)reserved  their  doctrine  unchanged  from  the  days  of 
primitive  Christianity.  He  says,  in  his  Commentary  upon 
the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,*  as  quoted  by  Neander: 
"Christ  underwent  the  penalty  designed  for  those  who 
failed  to  obey  the  law,  that  he  might  liberate  those  be- 
lieving upon  him  from  all  fear  of  such  penalty."  "Gal. 
iii.  16.  They  are  forced  to  confess  that  man  is  justified 
not  by  works  of  the  law,  but  by  faith."  "Gal.  v.  4. 
Now  he,"  the  apostle,  "comprehends  the  whole  law 
generally,  by  saying  that  they  will  profit  nothing  by  the 
work  of  Christ  who  believe  themselves  to  be  justified 
by  any  kind  of  legal  observance  whatsoever." 

The  Vallenses,  whom  this  faithful  Bishop  of  Turin 
in  his  day  nourished  and  encouraged,  existed  as  a  small 
but  precious  body  of  evangelical  witnesses  long  before, 
and  they  continue  essentially  unchanged  to  the  })resent 
time,  with  their  head-quarters  in  the  same  mountain  city. 
In  the  year  1530  their  teachers  sent  a  deputation  to 
QEcolampadius,  at  Basle,  making,  in  their  Confession, 
presented  on  that  occasion,  the  following  declaration  : 
"  In  all  things  we  agree  with  you,  and  from  the  very 
time  of  the  apostles,  our  sentiments  respecting  the  same 
have  been  the  s^ime  as  your  own."  In  1544  thov  pre- 
sented a  Confession  of  their  Faith  to  Francis  I.,  King 
*  Fol.  151. 


284      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

of  France,  through  Cardinal  Sadolet.  Concerning  it, 
they  aflirm,  that  ^'tliis  Confession  is  that  which  wc  have 
received  from  our  ancestors,  even  from  hand  to  hand, 
according  as  their  predecessors  in  all  times  and  in  every 
age  have  taught  and  delivered.'^  As  to  the  nature  of 
the  Atonement,  they  say:  "We  believe  and  confess  that 
therd  is  a  free  remission  of  sins,  proceeding  from  the 
mercy  and  mere  goodness  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  w1io 
died  once  for  our  sins,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  who  took 
away  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the  cross;  who  is 
our  Advocate  with  God,  the  price  of  our  reconciliation; 
whose  blood  cleanses  our  consciences  from  dead  works, 
that  we  should  serve  the  living  God ;  who  alone  made 
satisfaction  for  the  faithful,  so  that  their  sins  are  not 
imputed  to  them,  as  to  the  unbelieving  and  to  the  repro- 
bate." 

The  first  attempts  to  develop  the  doctrine  of  Re- 
demption in  a  manner  scientifically  accurate  and  com- 
plete were  made  almost  at  the  same  time,  yet  in  entire 
independence  of  each  other,  in  each  of  the  two  great 
divisions  of  the  Church,  by  Anselm,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  in  the  West;  and  Nicholas,  Bishop  of  Me- 
thone,  in  Messenia,  in  the  East.  From  the  fact  that  the 
essential  principles  involved  in  Christ's  work  of  vicari- 
ous expiation  were,  by  these  men  and  their  successors 
during  the  entire  era  of  Scholasticism,  made  the  subjects 
of  a  more  thorough  and  systematic  investigation  than 
ever  before,  the  enemies  of  the  truth  have  often  pre- 
tended to  believe  that  these  principles  were  inventions 
of  the  Schoolmen,  and  have  disjmragingly  designated  our 
doi^trine  the  "Scholastic  Theory  of  Satisfaction."  This 
notorious  fiict  makes  it  unnecessary  for  me  to  quote  the 


HISTORY   or   OPINION.  285 

words  of  tlic  representative  tlieologians  of  those  a^es  to 
prove  that  they  uiulersttKjd  the  work  of  Christ  in  tlie 
same  sense  as  ourselves.  Anselni  of  Caiit(>rl)nrv  and 
Nichohis  of  Methone  acted  as  the  or<;ans  of  a  spontane- 
ous movement  of  the  whole  Church.  It  is  undeniable; 
also,  that  the  advocates  of  the  doctrine  of  the  literal  sat- 
isfaction of  divine  justice  by  Christ,  such  as  Anselm,  IW- 
nard,  Hugh  St.  Victor,*  Bonaventura,  Thomas  Aquinas, 
<fec.,  were,  with  all  their  faults,  the  best,  in  every  Chris- 
tian sense,  of  the  Schoolmen.  It  was  the  Pantheistic  John 
Scotus  Erigena  (ch'cum  860)  who  denied  this  truth.  It 
was  the  semi-Pelagian  Duns  Scotus  (A.  D.  1265-1308) 
who  depreciated  the  value  of  Christ's  vicarious  suiferings, 
and  the  necessity  for  satisfaction — placing  that  necessity 
in  the  optional  will  instead  of  the  immutable  justice  of 
God,  and  making  the  satisfaction  of  Christ  but  putative 
only — a  satisfaction  (so  called)  of  love,  and  not  of  justice. 
And  it  was  the  infamous  Abelard  (A.  D.  1142)  who 
taught  in  precise  terms  the  Moral  Influence  Theory  of 
Socinus  and  Bushnell  and  Young,  and  others.  As 
we  might  expect,  the  latter  was  earnestly  combated  on 
this,  as  upon  other  points  involving  deadly  error,  by  the 
deeply  religious  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  (A.  D.  1153), 
quoted  by  Milner  and  by  Hagenbach.  After  noticing 
Abelard's  Moral  Influence  Theory,  he  says:  "Is  this  the 
whole  then  of  the  great  mystery  of  godliness — this 
which  any  uncircumcised  and  unclean  person  may  easily 
penetrate?  What  is  there  in  this  beyond  the  common 
light  of  nature ?''  "For  if  one  died  for  all,  then  were 
all  dead,  that  the  satisfaction  of  one  might  be  imputed 

*  Christus  ergo  nascendo  debitura  hominis  Patri  solvit  et  moriendo 
reatum  hominis  ezpiavit. — De  Sacram.  cap.  4.    Hagenbach. 


286      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

to  all,  as  he  alone  bore  the  sins  of  all;  and  niw  he  who 
oiFended,  and  he  who  satisfied  divine  justice,  are  found 
the  same,  because  the  head  and  the  body  is  one  Christ." 
Of  such  "  Reformers  before  the  Reformation  "  as  Wy- 
cliffe  (A.  D.  1324-1384)  and  Wessel  (A.  D.  1419-1489) 
Ilagenbach*  testifies  '^  that  they  attached  importance  to  the 
theory  of  Satisfaction  in  its  practical  bearing  upon  evan- 
gelical piety,  and  thus  introduced  the  period  of  the  Re- 
Ibrmation."  Wycliffef  (quoted  by  Baur)  says:  ^^And 
since,  according  to  the  third  supposition,  it  behooves  that 
satisfaction  should  be  made  for  sin,  thcroforo,  it  behooves 
that  the  same  nature  of  man  should  satisfy  for  as  much 
as  it  had  become  indebted  in  its  great  progenitor,  which 
no  man  was  able  to  do,  unless  he  was  at  the  same  time 
both  God  and  man/'  "It  is  a  light  word  to  say  that 
God  might,  of  his  pov/er,  forgive  this  sin  (Adam's) 
without  the  aseeth  (satisfaction)  which  was  made  for  it, 
for  God  might  do  so  if  he  would;  but  his  justice  would 
imt  suffer  it,  but  requires  that  each  trespass  be  punished 
either  on  earth  or  in  hell.  And  God  may  not  accept  a 
person  to  forgive  him  without  satisfaction."^  Milner 
quotes  the  following  sentences  from  an  Apology  for 
Wycliffe,  preserved  in  the  library  of  the  Cathedral 
of  York,  by  Dr.  Thomas  James,  some  time  librarian  at 
Oxford,  the  contents  of  which  are  chiefly  extracts  from 
WyclifFe'sown  manuscripts:  "He  persuaded  men  to  trust 
wholly  to  Christ,  to  rely  altogether  upon  his  sufferings, 
and  not  to  seek  to  be  justified  in  any  other  way  than  by 
his  justice."     "That   unbelievers,   though    they    might 

*  History  of  Doctrines,  vol.  ii.,  p.  47. 

f  De  Ir.carnatione  et  Morte  Christi. 

X  Tracis  and  Treatises  of  Wycliffe,  p.  84. 


HISTORY    OF    OPIMv>N.  287 

perform  works  apparently  ^ood  in  thcii  matter,  still 
■were  not  to  be  accounted  righteous  men ;  that  all  who 
followed  Christ  became  righteous  through  the  participa- 
tion of  his  righteousness,  and  would  be  saved/^ 

John  Wessel,  of  Groningen  (quoted  by  Ullman),  says: 
"According  to  the  second  or  servant  form,  the  Lord 
Jesus  is  not  only  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  but 
is  rather  Mediator  for  man,  between  the  God  of  justice 
and  the  God  of  mercy;  for  it  behooved  that  the  whole 
law  of  justice  should  be  fulfilled  without  failure  of  one 
jot  or  tittle;  and  as  this  has  now  been  achieved  by 
Jesus,  it  is  easy  to  find  the  way  in  which  mercy  can 
flow  forth  in  streams  of  compassion.  The  wisdom  of 
tlie  Father,  however,  made  this  way  by  the  device  of  a 
Mediator."*  "Among  all  the  miracles,  not  the  least  is 
the  same  justice  which  is  armed  with  divine  and  eternal 
laws  against  man,  not  only  restrains  the  sword  in  judg- 
ment, but  also  the  sentence,  and  not  only  absolves  the 
criminal  whom  it  had  determined  to  condemn,  but 
orders  him  to  be  exalted  to  dignity,  honour  and  glory. 
Who  is  not  here  surprised  to  mark  how  the  truth  of  the 
threatenings  has  been  changed  into  the  truth  of  the  pro- 
mises, and  upon  both  sides  the  truth  secured?  These 
things,  so  contrary  to  each  other,  the  gentleness  of  the 
Tiamb  alone  has  blended.  For  Christ,  being  himself 
God,  and  Priest,  and  Sacrifice,  has  satisfied  himself,  foi 
himself  and  by  himself.^f  "Our  loving  Father  haa 
willed  thee  his  loving  Son  to  be  a  Surety,  Sponsor,  Bails- 
man, for  tlie  fully  obeying  and  the  fully  suflPering  {safis- 

*  T)e  Cans.  Tncarnat.,  cap.  17,  p.  453. 
t  D(  Magnitud.  Pass.,  cap.  14,  p.  480. 


288      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

fa<nendo  et  safispcdiendo)y  by  an  equal  pledge  on  account 
of  all  my  disobedience  and  misery."* 

[!).]  At  the  opening  of  the  Reformation^  Zwingle,  Luther, 
Ckilvin,  Knox  and  Cranmer,  the  orgaiis  of  independent 
movements  of  reform  in  five  different  nationalities,  differing 
among  themselves  in  almost  everything  not  essential  to  the 
integrity  of  Christianity,  all,  without  exception,  agree  in 
teaching  the  doctrine  of  vicarious  expiation.  Arid  as  far 
as  this  principle  is  concerned,  the  Greek  and  Roman 
Churches  agreed  with  the  Protestant. 

There  is  no  need  of  illustrating  the  truth  of  this  posi- 
tion by  quotations  from  tlie  Avritings  of  Luther,  Calvin 
or  Knox.  Their  opinions  will  not  be  questioned,  and 
it  will  fully  answer  our  present  purpose  to  show  that 
Zwingle  and  Cranmer  accurately  agree  with  them  on  the 
question. 

Zwingle  (A.  D.  1484-1531)  was  the  first,  as  he  was 
intellectually  the  most  independent  and  rationalistic,  of 
all  the  Reformers.  In  his  Expositio  Christiance  Fidel 
De  Christo  Domino,'\  he  says:  "But  he  suffered,  for  the 
purpose  of  expiating  our  crimes,  a  most  humiliating 
form  of  suffering."  "  Wherever  sin  is,  death  of  neces- 
sity follows.  Christ  was  without  sin,  and  guile  was  not 
found  in  his  mouth.  .  .  .  And  yet  he  died  this  death, 
he  suffered  in  our  stead.  He  was  willing  to  die,  that  he 
might  restore  us  to  life ;  and  as  he  had  no  sins  of  his 
own,  the  all-merciful  Father  laid  ours  upon  him."|  "He 
is  tlie  sacrifice  and  victim,  satisfying  for  the  sins  of  all 
the  world  for  ever."§ 

Archbishop  Cranmer  (A.  D.  1489-1554),  in  his  De- 

*  Seal.  Medit.  Exempli.,  i.,  p.  544.         %  Zwingle,  Oi)p.,  I.,  ^).  204. 
t  Section  6.  'i  Ibid.,  p.  2oo. 


III8TOIIY    OF    OPINION.  289 

fence  of  the  True  Doctrine  of  the  Sacraments,*  says: 
'^  One  kind  of  sacriiice  there  is  which  is  called  a  jjropiti- 
atory  or  merciful  sacrifice ;  that  is  to  say,  such  a  sacrifice 
as  pacifies  God's  wrath  and  indignation,  and  obtains 
m(!rcy  and  forgiveness  for  all  our  sins,  and  is  the  ransom 

for  the  redemption  from  everlasting  damnation 

There  is  but  one  such  sacrifice,  whereby  our  sins 
are  pardoned  and  God's  mercy  and  favour  oljtuined, 
wliicli  is  the  death  of  tlie  Son  of  God,  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ." 

The  "Orthodox  Confession  of  the  Catholic  and  Apos- 
tolic Eastern  Church" — composed  by  Petrus  Mogilas, 
Metropolitan  of  Kiew  (A.  D.  1642),  and  sanctioned  by  the 
Synod  of  Jerusalem  (A.  D.  1672)— says  if  "The  death  of 
Christ  was  of  a  very  different  kind  from  that  of  other 
men  in  these  respects :  first,  because  of  the  weight  of  our 
sins;  secondly,  because  he  wholly  fulfilled  the  priest- 
hood even  unto  the  cross:  he  offered  himself  to  God 
and  the  Father  for  the  ransoming  of  the  human  race. 
Therefore  even  to  the  cross  he  fulfilled  the  mediation 
between  God  and  men." 

"Jesus  Christ,  who,  when  we  were  enemies,  on  account 
of  his  great  love  wherewith  he  loved  us,  merited  justifi- 
cation for  us  by  his  most  sacred  passion  on  the  tree,  and 
satisfied  God  the  Father  for  us." J  "  The  first  and  most 
excellent  satisfaction  is  that  by  which  whatever  is  due 
by  us  to  God,  on  account  of  our  sins,  has  been  paid 
abundantly,  although  he  should  deal  with  us  according 
to  the  strictest  rigour  of  his  justice.  This  is  said  to  be 
that  satisfaction  which  we  say  has  appeased  God  and 

*  Book  v.,  ^3.  t  AViner,  Page  85. 

X  CkKMicil  of  Trent,  Session  H,  chapter  vii. 
25 


290      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

rendered  him  propitious  to  us;  and  for  it  we  are  indebted 
to  Christ  the  Lord  alone,  who,  having  paid  the  price  ot 
our  sins  on  the  cross,  most  fully  satisfied  God/^* 

I'E.']  Luther  and  Calvin,  and  the  Jully  pronounced  Creeds 
of  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed  Churches,  all  teach  the  full 
doctrine  embraced  in  the  statement  given  in  the  second 
cliapter  of  this  book,  to  the  effect  that  the  Satisfaction 
rendered  by  Christ  includes  both  his  active  and  his  passive 
obedie7ice,  and  infallibly  secures  for  the  believer  alike  re- 
mission of  the  penalty  incurred  by  his  sins  and  a  title  to  the 
covenanted  rewards  of  obedience. 

"Another  principal  part  of  our  reconciliation  with 
God  was,  that  man,  who  had  lost  himself  by  his  disobe- 
dience, should  by  way  of  remedy  oppose  to  it  obedience, 
satisfy  the  justice  of  God,  and  pay  the  penalty  of  sin. 
Therefore  our  Lord  came  forth  very  man,  adopted  the 
person,  and  assumed  his  name,  that  he  might  in  his  stead 
obey  the  Father;  that  he  might  present  our  flesh  as  the 
price  of  satisfaction  to  the  just  judgment  of  God,  and  in 
the  same  flesh  pay  the  penalty  which  he  had  in- 
curred."t 

"  When  it  is  asked,  then,  hoAV  Christ  by  abolishing 
sin  removed  the  enmity  between  God  and  us,  and  pur- 
chased a  righteousness  which  made  him  favourable  and 
kind  to  us,  it  may  be  answered  generally,  that  he  accom- 
plished this  by  the  whole  course  of  his  obedience.  .  .  . 
In  short,  from  the  moment  in  which  he  assumed  the 
form  of  servant,  he  began,  in  order  to  redeem  us,  io  pay 
the  price  of  delivei-ance.  Scripture,  however,  the  more 
certainly  to  define  the  mode  of  salvation,  ascribes   it 

■^  ( 'at('d)ismus  iinuianus,  2,  5,  G3. 

t  Calvin's  Institutes,  book  ii.,  chapter  xii.,  I  3. 


HISTORY   OF  OPINION.  291 

peculiarly  and  specially  to  the  death  of  Christ 

8till  there  is  no  exclusion  of  the  other  part  of  obedience 
which  he  performed  in  life."* 

"A  man  will  be  justified  by  faith  when,  excluded  from 
the  righteousness  of  works,  he  by  faith  lays  hold  of  the 
righteousness  of  Christ,  and,  clothed  in  it,  appears  in 
the  sight  of  God,  not  as  a  sinner,  but  as  righteous. 
'I  Ml  us  we  simply  interpret  justification  as  tlie  acceptance 
with  which  God  receives  us  into  his  favour  as  if  we 
were  righteous,  and  we  say  that  this  justification  consists 
in  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  the  imputation  of  the 
righteousness  of  Christ.^f  "Hence  when  God  justifies 
us  through  the  intercession  of  Christ,  he  does  not  acquit 
us  on  a  proof  of  our  own  innocence,  but  by  an  imputa- 
tion of  righteousness,  so  that,  though  not  righteous  in 
ourselves,  we  are  deemed  righteous  in  Christ/'^J 

"By  which  the  apostle  means  that  we  are  accepted  in 
his  (Christ's)  name  by  God,  because  he  has  expiated  our 
sins  by  his  own  death,  and  his  obedience  is  imputed  to 
us  for  righteousness.  For  since  the  righteousness  of 
faith  consists  in  the  remission  of  sin,  and  gratuitous 
acceptance,  we  attain  both  through  Christ."§ 

The  Heidelberg  Catechism — one  of  the  most  generally 
adopted  of  all  the  Reformed  Confessions,  composed  in 
15G3  by  Ursinus  and  Olevianus — in  answer  to  Question 
60,  "How  art  thou  justified  in  the  sight  of  God?" 
says:  "Only  by  a  true  faith  in  Jesus  Christ;  so  that 
though  my  conscience  accuse  me,  that  I  have  grossly 
transgressed  all  the  commandments  of  God,  and   kept 

*  Calvin's  Institutes,  book  ii.,  chapter  xvi.,  ?  5. 

t  Ibid.,  book  iii.,  chap,  xi.,  |  2.  J  Ibid.,  §  3. 

2  Commentary  on  1  Cor.  i.  30. 


292  THE   NATURE   OF   TITE   ATONEMENT. 

none  of  tliem,  and  am  still  inclined  to  all  evil;  notwith- 
standing God,  without  any  merit  of  mine,  but  only  of 
mere  grace,  grants  and  imputes  to  me  the  perfect  satis- 
faction, righteousness  and  holiness  of  Christ;  even  so, 
as  if  I  never  had  had,  nor  committ(^d,  any  sin ;  yea,  as 
if  I  had  fully  accomplished  all  that  obedience  Avhieh 
Christ  hath  accomplished  for  me;  inasmuch  as  I  em- 
brace such  benefit  with  a  believing  heart." 

The  Second  Helvetic  Confession — composed  byBullin- 
ger  in  1564,  and  of  very  high  authority  among  the  lie- 
formed  Churches — says:*  "For  Christ  has  taken  u])oa 
himself  and  borne  our  sins,  and  satisfied  the  divine  jus- 
tice. God,  therefore,  on  account  of  Christ  as  having 
suffered  and  risen,  is  propitiated  with  reference  to  our 
sins,  neither  does  he  impute  them  to  us,  but  reckons  the 
righteousness  of  Christ  as  ours,  so  that  we  are  now  not 
only  cleansed  and  purged,  or  rendered  pure  from  sins, 
but  are  also  endowed  with  the  righteousness  of  Christ, 
so  that  we  are  absolved  from  sins,  death  or  condenma- 
tion;  and,  in  fine,  righteous  and  heirs  of  eternal  life. 
Properly  speaking,  therefore,  God  alone  justifies  us,  and 
he  only  justifies  us  on  account  of  Christ,  not  imputing 
our  sins,  but  imputing  to  us  his  righteousness." 

The  Gallic  Confession  (A.  D.  1559),  Article  18,  says: 
"Therefore  we  utterly  repudiate  all  the  other  grounds 
upon  which  men  think  they  may  be  justified  before  God; 
and  every  thought  of  virtues  or  merits  being  cast  aside, 
and  entirely  rely  upon  the  obedience  of  Jesus  Christ 
alone,  which  is  indeed  imputed  to  us,  so  that  both  are 
all  our  sins  covered,  and  also  we  attain  to  favour  before 
God." 

*  Chapter  xv.,  De  Vera  Justificatione. 


HISTORY   OF   OPINION.  293 

The  Bfilgic  Confession  was  drawn  up  by  Yon  Bros,  in 
15G1.  ^Mn  1571,  it  was  revised  and  adopted  hy  the 
entire  Chureh  of  Holland  in  tlic  sixteenth  century. 
After  another  revision  of  the  text,  it  was  pubh'cly  ap- 
l)roved  by  the  Synod  of  Dort,  1618/'  Article  22 :  " But 
we  by  no  means  understand  that  it  is  faith  itself,  pro- 
])erly  speaking,  which  justifies  us,  or  that  we  are  justified 
on  account  of  faith,  for  that  (faith)  is  only  an  instrument 
by  which  we  apprehend  Christ  our  righteousness.  There 
Christ,  imputing  to  us  his  own  merits,  and  very  many 
most  holy  works,  which  he  accomplished  for  us,  is  our 
righteousness." 

The  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England, 
produced  in  their  present  form  in  1562,  Article  2:  .  .  . 
"  One  Christ,  very  God  and  very  man ;  who  truly  suf- 
fered, was  crucified,  dead  and  buried,  to  reconcile  his 
Father  to  us,  and  to  be  a  sacrifice,  not  only  for  original 
guilt  (noji  tcmtum  pro  culpa  originis)^  but  also  for  all 
actual  sins  of  men."  Article  31:  "The  offering  of 
Christ  once  made  is  that  perfect  redemption,  propitiation 
and  satisfaction  for  all  the  sins  of  the  whole  world,  both 
original  and  actual ;  and  there  is  none  other  satisfaction 
for  sin,  but  that  alone." 

The  Formula  Concordise — drawn  up  by  Andrea  and 
others  (A.  D.  1577),  the -most  scientific  of  all  the  Lu- 
theran Confessions — says:  "That  righteousness  which 
before  God  is  of  mere  grace  imputed  to  faith,  or  to  the 
believer,  is  the  obedience,  suffering  and  resurrection  of 
Christ,  by  which  he  for  our  sakes  satisfied  the  law,  and 
ex})iated  our  sins.  For  since  Christ  was  not  only  man, 
but  Go<l  and  man  in  one  undivided  person,  so  he  was 
not  subject  to  th3  law,  nor  obno:^ious  to  suffering  and 


294      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT, 

deatli  [ratione  suce  personcv)  because  he  was  Lord  of  the 
law.  On  which  account  his  obedience  (not  merely  in 
respect  that  he  obeyed  the  Father  in  his  sufferings  and 
death,  but  also  that  he  for  our  sakes  willingly  made 
himself  subject  to  the  law  and  fulfilled  it  by  his  obe- 
dience) is  imputed  to  us,  so  that  God,  on  account  of  that 
whole  obedience  (which  Christ  by  his  acting  and  by  his 
suffering,  in  his  life  and  in  his  death,  for  our  sake  ren- 
dered to  his  Father  who  is  in  heaven),  remits  our  sins, 
reputes  us  as  good  and  just,  and  gives  us  eternal  salva- 
tion."* "We  are  pronounced  and  reputed  good  and 
just  on  account  of  the  obedience  of  Christ,  which  Christ 
from  his  nativity  until  his  ignominious  death  upon  the 
cross  accomplished  for  the  Father  in  our  behalf  "f 

The  \Yestminster  Confession — (A.  D.  1648)  which  all 
the  Presbyterians  of  Scotland,  Ireland  and  America 
profess  to  embrace  sacredly  and  candidly  as  the  Confes- 
sion of  their  own  personal  faith — says:  "The  Lord 
Jesus,  by  his  perfect  obedience  and  sacrifice  of  himself, 
which  he  through  the  eternal  Spirit  once  offered  up  to 
God,  hath  fully  satisfied  the  justice  of  the  Father;  and 
purchased  not  only  reconciliation,  but  an  everlasting 
inheritance  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  for  all  tliose 
whom  the  Father  hath  given  unto  him."|  "Those 
w^hom  God  effectually  calleth,  he  also  freely  justifieth; 
not  by  infusing  righteousness  into  them,  but  by  pardon- 
ing their  sins,  and  by  accounting  and  accepting  their 
pei'son  as  righteous,  .  .  .  not  imputing  faith  itself,  the 
act  of  believing,  or  any  other  evangelical  obedience  to 

*  Formula  Concordite ;  p.  084,  Ila-^^'s  Libri  Synibolici. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  686, 

t  Weatminster  Confession  chapter  viii,,  §  5. 


HISTORY   OF   OPINION.  295 

tlit'in  as  tlieir  rio;hteou.sness;  hut  hy  imputing  the  obe- 
dience and  satisfaction  of  Christ  unto  them."* 

The  Formula  Consensus  Helvetica — "composed  in 
Zurich  (A.  D.  1675)  by  Heidegger,  assisted  by  Francis 
Turretin  of  Geneva,  and  Gereler  of  Basle,'' and  designed 
to  rebuke  the  errors  introduced  by  the  Professors  of  the 
French  Theological  Seminary  at  Saumur,  who  taught  a 
mixed  system,  in  general  character  the  same  with  that 
system  among  us  styled  "New  England  Theology" — 
says:  "But  bi/  the  obedience  of  his  death,  Christ,  instead 
of  his  elect,  so  satisfied  God  the  Father,  that  in  the  esti- 
mate, nevertheless,  of  his  vicarious  righteousness  and  of 
that  obedience,  all  of  that  which  he  rendered  to  the  law, 
as  its  just  servant,  during  the  whole  course  of  his  life, 
whether  by  doing  or  by  suffering,  ought  to  be  called 
obedience.  For  Christ's  life,  according  to  the  apostle's 
testimony  (Phil.  ii.  7,  8)  was  nothing  but  a  continuous 
emptying  of  self,  submission  and  humiliation,  descending 
step  by  step  to  the  very  lowest  extreme,  even  the  death 
of  the  cross;  and  the  Spirit  of  God  plainly  declares  that 
Christ  in  our  stead  satisfied  the  law  and  divine  justice 
by  his  most  holy  life,  and  makes  that  ransom,  with 
which  God  has  redeemed  us,  to  consist  not  in  his 
suiferings  only,  but  in  his  whole  life  conformed  to  the 
law."t 

When  the  name  of  Edwards  is  spoken,  all  men  think 
of  one  man — President  Edwards,  Sr.,  the  great  writer 
on  the  Will  and  Original  Sin.  Surely  all  honest  use  of 
language  demands  that  if  any  doctrine  be  styled  the 
^^ EdwKirdean  Theory  of  the  Atonement/'  it  should  be  his. 

*  Westminster  Confession,  chapter  xi.,  ^  1. 
f  Formula  Consensus  Helvetica,  canon  15. 


296      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

He,  as  all  his  readers  know,  maintained  on  this  point 
precisely  the  doctrine  of  Luther,  and  Calvin,  and 
Turretin.  Yet  the  prestige  of  his  <j^reat  name  has  un- 
candidly  been  perverted  into  the  support  of  the  Govern- 
mental Theory,  which  he  never  taught.  "As  there  is 
the  same  need  that  Christ's  obedience  should  be  reck- 
oned to  our  account,  as  that  his  atonement  should ;  so 
there  is  the  same  reason  why  it  should.  As,  if  Adam 
had  persevered  and  finished  his  course  of  obedience,  we 
should  have  received  the  benefit  of  his  obedience,  as 
much  as  now  we  have  the  mischief  of  his  disobedience; 
so  in  like  manner,  there  is  reason  that  we  should  receive 
the  benefit  of  the  second  Adam^s  obedience,  as  of  his 
atonement  of  our  disobedience.  Believers  are  repre- 
sented in  Scripture  as  being  so  in  Christ,  as  that  they 
are  legally  one,  or  accepted  as  one,  by  the  supreme 
Judge:  Christ  has  assumed  our  nature,  and  has  so  as- 
sumed all  in  that  nature,  that  belongs  to  him,  into  such 
a  union  with  himself,  that  he  is  become  their  head  and 
has  taken  them  to  be  his  members.  And,  therefore, 
what  Christ  has  done  in  our  nature,  whereby  he  did 
honour  to  the  law  and  authority  of  God  by  his  acts,  as 
well  as  the  reparation  to  the  honour  of  the  law  by  his 
sufferings,  is  reckoned  to  the  believer's  account.''* 

IIT.  It  remains  for  us  now  only  to  indicate  the 
conclusions  as  to  the  truth  of  the  doctrine  we  advo- 
cate, which  the  historical  facts,  now  apjn-oved,  appear  to 
sustain. 

We  have  already  conceded  to  our  opponents  that  the 
facts  show  that  the  mind  of  the  Church  advanced  more 
slowly  in  the  development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Atone- 
*  Edwards'  Works,  vol.  v.,  pp.  399,  400. 


HISTORY   OF   OPINION.  297 

nicnt  than  In  the  case  of  any  other  of  the  great  funda- 
mental doctrines  of  Revelation.  But  we  chiini  that  the 
men  and  confessions  quoted  above  truly  represented  the 
Church  of  their  respective  ages,  and  that  in  their  char- 
acter as  rcj)resentatives  they  fully  prove  that  the  Church 
of  Christ  had,  as  a  general  fact,  always  understood  the 
redemptive  work  of  the  I^ord  to  be  a  vicarious  expiation 
of  sin  in  order  to  propitiate  a  justly-incensed  though 
loving  God  in  behalf  of  sinners.  If  this  be  so,  we 
argue  against  all  who  deny  this  great  truth,  that  it  is 
impossible  that  Christians  should  thus  have  mistaken 
Christianity.  The  question  is  not  whether  grave,  or 
even  fatal,  errors  have  prevailed  in  the  visible  Church, 
nor  whether  true  Christians  may  or  may  not  fall  into 
grievous  misconception  as  to  important  truths.  But  the 
real  question  involved  is,  whether  it  is  possible  that  the 
whole  Church  in  all  ages,  as  a  general  and  characteristic 
fact — and  whether  with  especial  uniformity  the  more 
spiritual  and  fruitful  portion  of  the  Church — should 
have  entirely  mistaken  the  nature  of  that  foundation 
upon  which  their  trust  reposes,  and  of  that  redemption 
of  which  they  have  been  the  subjects. 

As  far  as  the  Moral  Influence  Theory  is  concerned, 
the  adverse  presumption  raised  by  the  history  of  opinion 
on  this  subject  is  overwhelming.  The  spiritual  followers 
of  Christ  have  always  lived  a  life  the  conscious  princi- 
ple of  which  was  faith  in  a  sin-expiating  sacrifice.  So- 
cinians  and  Rationalists  have  believed  in  the  Moral 
Influence  Hypothesis  when  they  have  seen  fit  to  believe 
anything.  Let  the  doctrines  be  judged  by  their  fruits, 
and  by  the  seal  of  the  Holy  Ghost  on  the  hearts  of  their 
respective  professtu's. 


298      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Young  sa)S  of  the  Evangelical  Churches  from  the 
Reformation  down  to  the  present  hour:  "If  there  has 
been  success  anywhere  in  the  spread  of  Christianity,  if 
there  lias  been  manifest  power,  power  for  highest  good, 
anywhere,  it  has  been  in  connection  with  them.  Unde- 
niably God  has  been  in  them  and  with  them,  and  the 
Spirit  of  God  has  marvellously  wrought,  through  them, 
for  the  conversion  and  moral  regeneration  of  the  world."* 
Yet  he  continues  a  few  paragraphs  after:  "That  wild 
and  daring  transcendentalism  which,  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  essentially  affects  evangelical  theology  at  this 
liour,  is  not  by  any  means  the  most  fatal  evil.  The 
doctrine  of  satisfaction  to  divine  justice  is  immeasurably 
worse  in  its  moral  tendency.  .  .  .  This,  beyond  all  com- 
parison, is  the  deadliest  error."  f  This  is  a  sheer 
absurdity.  The  faith  in  the  work  of  Christ  as  an  ex- 
piation of  guilt  has  been  a  constant  element  in  the  liv- 
ing Church.  The  partial  prevalence  of  the  doctrine 
advocated  by  Young  has  been  a  constant  symptom  of 
the  decay  of  spiritual  life  and  fruitfulness  when  these 
have  reached  the  crisis  of  death.  Young  hates  the 
doctrine  of  the  satisfaction  of  justice.  He  will  have 
none  of  it.  But  his  imll,  like  the  Pope's  bull  against 
^he  comet,  is  imi)otent,  as  well  to  expunge  it  from  the 
page  of  history  as  from  the  page  of  revelation. 

The  adverse  bearing  of  this  historical  review  upon 
the  position  of  those  who  advocate  the  Governmental 
Hypothesis  is  not  less  evident.  The  Governmental,  as 
well  as  the  Moral  Theory,  necessarily  denies  that  the 
effect  of  Christ's  death  was  to  expiate  the  guilt  intrinsic 
in  sin,  or  to  propitiate  the  justice  intrinsic  in  God.  Both 
*  "  Life  and  Light  of  Men,"  p.  467.  f  Ibid.,  p.  476. 


HISTORY   OF   OPINION.  299 

these  theories  agree  in  making  the  direct  and  essential 
effect  of  the  Atonement  to  be  simi)ly  exemplary  and 
moral;  a  dhplay  of  princi})lcs,  not  a  veritable  exercise 
of  divine  attributes.  On  the  contrary,  the  history 
proves  beyond  question  (1)  that  the  one  point  held  in 
common  by  all  the  people  of  God  in  all  ages  is  precisely 
this,  that  like  the  function  of  the  ancient  priest  and  the 
virtue  of  the  ancient  sacrifice,  the  effect  of  Christ's 
death  terminates,  not  on  the  sinner  nor  on  the  universe, 
but  on  God.  The  simplest  and  constant  form  of  the 
Confession  is,  that  Christ,  by  his  sacrifice,  has  expiated 
sin  and  propitiated  God.  This  theory  of  Satisfaction,  as 
thus  generally  stated,  is  the  faith  of  the  Greek  and  Ro- 
man, of  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed  and  Arminian 
Churches  in  all  their  branches ;  and  what  is  true  of  the 
Church  to-day  has  been  true  of  the  Church  from  the 
beginning.  (2.)  All  the  creeds  of  the  Lutheran  and 
Reformed  Churches  teach  the  full  doctrine  stated  and 
advocated  in  this  book,  and  they  can,  by  no  amount 
of  ingenuity,  however  able  or  unscrupulous,  be  explained 
away  into  even  a  plausible  conformity  with  the  charac- 
teristic positions  of  the  Governmental  Hypothesis.  Nor 
can  its  advocates  truly  claim  that  while  accepting  and 
conserving  all  that  is  essential  and  valuable  in  the  older 
faith  of  the  Church,  their  doctrine  is  simply  to  be  re- 
garded as  an  "improvement  in  theology"  in  the  line  of 
legitimate  progress.  We  believe  in  such  progress.  We 
thank  God  that  it  has  been  made  by  the  Church  in  its 
comprehension  of  this  very  doctrine  in  the  past.  We 
acknowledge  that  there  is  both  room  and  need  for  more 
such  ])rogress  just  here.  We  hope  that  the  Spirit  may 
soon  lead  us  to  more  truth  in  this  direction  as  in  all 


300      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

others.  But  it  is  absurd  to  propose  that  as  an  improve- 
ment which  essentially  consists  in  the  denial  of  the 
original  and  uniform  faith  of  the  Church  in  the  pre- 
mises. 

When  Grotius,  in  his  celebrated  work,  written  pro- 
fessedly to  defend  the  common  doctrine  of  the  Church 
from  the  attacks  of  the  Socinians,  first  developed  the 
Governmental  Theory,  and  admitted  that  the  Atonement 
was  not  designed  to  satisfy  an  immutable  demand  of  the 
divine  nature,  but  to  produce  a  sin-deterring  effect  upon 
the  universe,  all  saw  that  he  had  betrayed  the  very 
life  of  the  cause  he  had  professed  to  defend.  Even  the 
great  Arminian  theologian,  Limborch,  saw  clearly  that 
this  was  so,  and  said,  in  criticising  the  work  of  Grotius, 
"that  the  gist  of  the  matter  in  respect  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  Atonement  lies  in  the  question,  ^  A71  Christus  morte 
sua,  cirea  Deum  aliquid  effeceritf  ^'*  This  is  indeed  the 
heart  of  the  question.  The  whole  Christian  Church, 
Apostolic  Fathers,  Schoolmen,  Reformers,  Greek,  Roman, 
Lutheran,  Reformed,  and  even  the  Arminian  Churches, 
all  answer  in  one  voice  in  the  affirmative.  The  Arians, 
Socinians,  Rationalists,  and  advocates  of  the  Govern- 
mental Hypothesis,  answer  together  in  the  negative. 
Let  them  not  pretend,  therefore,  that  their  doctrine  i^  an 
improvement  of  that  old  theology  the  root  of  which  it 
destroys.  Their  doctrine  is  as  strange  to  the  history  of 
the  Church  as  it  is  to  the  page  of  Revelation. 

.  *  Shedd's  History  of  Christian  Doctrine,  vol.  ii.,  p.  371. 


CHAPTER    XX. 

THE   riUNCIl'AL    OBJECTIONS    TO    THE  CHURCH   DOCTRINE 
STATED    AND    ANSWERED. 

MY  original  scheme  embraced  the  purpose  of  devoting 
a  separate  chapter  to  the  discussion  and  solution  of 
the  various  objections  which  have  been  brought  against 
the  Church  doctrine  of  the  Satisfaction  rendered  by 
Christ  to  divine  justice,  and  another  chapter  to  the  dis- 
cussion and  refutation  of  the  several  erroneous  views 
held  in  opposition  to  tlie  truth.  I  have,  however,  found 
it  to  be  impossible  to  avoid  noticing  and  answering  these 
objections,  and  stating,  contrasting  and  refuting  these 
rival  theories,  as  they  were  severally  brought  to  notice  in 
the  development  of  the  true  doctrine  at  the  different 
points  upon  which  they  severally  bear.  I  could  not 
define  the  true  doctrine  without  excluding  the  false 
doctrine  coterminous  with  it  at  each  several  point.  .  I 
could  not  prove  the  true  doctrine  without,  eo  ijjso,  dis- 
proving the  false  alternative,  and  solving  the  objections 
which  were  made  to  the  doctrine  we  advocate  or  to  the 
evidences  by  which  it  is  substantiated.  I  will  in  this 
place,  consequently,  do  nothing  more  than  repeat — for 
the  sake  of  perspicuity  and  impression — very  briefly, 
the  principal  objections  made  against  the  doctrine  of 
Satisfaction,  and  the  answers  to  them.  I  wish,  however, 
ill  the  iii'st  plains  to  repeat,  with  emphasis,  the  second  of 
2<3  3Ui 


302      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

the  three  conditions  of  argument  which  I  laid  down  in 
the  Introductory  Chapter  of  this  book :  '^  Reasonable 
objections  against  the  evidences  by  wliich  a  doctrine  is 
established  have  force  and  should  be  duly  considered. 
But  rational -objections  to  any  principle  fairly  established 
by  the  language  of  Scripture  have  no  force  whatever 
unless  they  amount  to  a  palpable  contradiction  to  other 
principles  certainly  known.  And  whenever  this  can  be 
shown,  the  reasonable  inference  is,  not  that  the  teaching 
of  Scripture  is  to  be  modified  in  conformity  thereto, 
but  that  the  Scriptures  themselves  are  to  be  rejected  as 
false.  Nothing  is  more  senseless  than  the  attempt  to 
modify  the  results  of  the  inspiration  of  Jehovah  in 
conformity  with  human  reason.'' 

We  maintain  that  it  is  proved  beyond  gainsaying 
that  the  doctrine  of  the  Christian  Church  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  satisfaction  of  Christ  is  explicitly  taught  in  Scrip- 
ture. Our  opponents  have  only  one  of  three  things  to 
do:  (a)  show  that  the  Scriptures  do  not  teach  our  doc- 
trine; (6)  accept  that  doctrine  themselves;  or  (c)  reject 
the  Scriptures.  We  notice  their  objections  to  the  doc- 
trine, not  for  the  purpose  of  erecting  tlie  demonstration 
of  its  truth  upon  the  demonstration  of  their  insufficiency 
or  total  falsehood,  but  simply  for  the  purpose  of  show- 
ing that  the  teachings  of  God's  word  do  not  contradict 
tlie  teachings  of  that  reason  with  which  he  has  endowed 
us. 

1.  All  our  opponents  deny  that  justice  in  our  strict 
and  absolute  sense  of  the  word  is  a  virtue.  Hence  they 
deny  that  it  is  a  divine  attribute.  Hence  they  object 
that  our  doctrine  revolts  their  moral  sense  by  ascribing 
vindictiveness  to  God. 


OBJECTIONS   STATED   A'SD   ANSWERED.  303 

(1.)  The  advocates  of  the  Moral  Influence  Tlieory  deny 
that  the  disposition  to  ])unisli  every  sin  irrespective  of 
any  ulterior  object  is  an  absolute  perfection  of  the  divine 
nature.  Socinus  said,  "  If  we  could  but  p^et  rid  of  this 
justice,  even  if  we  had  no  other  ])roof,  that  fiction  of 
Christ's  satisfaction  would  be  thoroughly  exposed  and 
wouhl  xaiiish."*  ]*riestly  says  tliat  ''justice  in  the 
Deity  can  be  no  more  than  a  modification  of  that  ij^ood- 
n(\ss  or  benevolence  which  is  his  sole  governing  priuci- 
ple."t  YoungI  denies  that  there  is  any  sucli  thing 
as  rectilineal  justice  in  one  sense  in  God  at  all.  He 
admits  that  God  is  just  in  the  sense  of  never  defrauding 
any  one  of  any  good  thing  due  to  hyn,  l)ut  he  denies 
utterly  that  any  moral  excellence  demands  the  inflic- 
tion of  evil  upon  a  repentant  sinner.  In  like  manner 
Bushnell,§  through  all  his  dishonouring  caricatures  of 
the  faith  of  the  Church,  denies  that  there  is  any  ex- 
cellence in  the  divine  nature  determining  him  to  treat 
sin  according  to  its  intrinsic  ill-desert,  and  that  the 
punishment  which  God  inflicts  upon  sin  is  in  any  way 
different  from  paternal  chastisement  designed  for  the 
good  of  the  offender. 

(2.)  All  the  advocates  of  the  Governmental  Theory 
of  the  Atonement,  although  they  talk  of  justice  in  a 
manner  very  different  from  the  class  just  referred  to,  yet 
hold  an  opinion  which  in  its  last  analysis  comes  to  the 
same  thing.  They  both  deny  that  the  disjiosition  to 
treat  sin  as  it  deserves,  because  of  its  own  intrinsic  evil, 
is  an  excellence,  or  that  it  belongs  to  God.     They  both 

*  De  Servatore,  iii.,  1.  f  Theol.  Eep.,  L,  417. 

t  "  Life  and  Light  of  Men,"  cliap.  4. 

§  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  Part  III.,  chaps,  i.-iii. 


304      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

hold  that  the  sole  motive  for  the  penal  evils  attached  to 
the  violations  of  the  divine  law  is  that  simple  benevo- 
lence "  which,"  in  the  words  of  Priestly,  "  is  God's 
sole  governing  principle."  The  only  difference  is  that 
the  advocate  of  the  Moral  Influence  or  Sociniaii  view  of 
the  Atonement  makes  the  good  of  the  individual  con- 
cerned, in  every  given  case,  the  absolute  end  of  the 
benevolence  of  God  in  his  chastisement,  while  the 
Governmental  Atonement  Theory  makes  the  good  of 
the  subjects  of  God's  moral  government  in  general  the 
the  absolute  end  of  that  benevolence.  Dr.  N.  W. 
Taylor  says:*  ^Mustice,  on  the  part  of  a  perfect  moral 
Governor,  is  a  benevolent  disposition  to  maintain,  by  the 
requisite  means,  his  authority  as  the  necessary  condition 
of  the  highest  happiness  of  his  kingdom."  "Justice 
always  implies  a  correspondent  right  somewhere  to  some 

good  or  benefit  which  is  the  object  of  the  right 

As  punishment  is  in  no  respect  a  good  to  the  trans- 
gressor, it  can  in  no  respect  be  the  object  of  a  right  on 
his  part,  and  therefore  cannot,  in  this  respect,  be  an  act 
of  justice  to  him,  nor  an  act  of  justice  to  him  in  any 
sense,  except  that  he,  by  his  act  of  transgression,  has 
created  a  right  to  his  punishment  on  the  part  of  the 
public;"  that  is,  because  his  punishment  will  directly  or 
indirectly  contribute  to  the  ha])piness  of  the  public. 

That  is,  both  of  these  false  theories  of  the  Atonement 
resolve  justice  into  benevolence.  We  hold  this  to  be  a 
metaphysical  absurdity.  We  challenge  the  world  either 
(a)  to  prove  that  mankind  are  destitute  of  the  ideas  of 
"right,"  of  " oughtnesr.,"  of  "justice,"  &g.,  or  (b)  to  trace 
the  generation  of  either  one  or  all  of  these  ideas  from 
*  Moral  Government,  vol.  ii.,  p.  280. 


OBJECTIONS  STATED   AND   ANSWEI^^D.  305 

the  ideas  of  benevolence  or  of  liappiness.  We  agree 
that  benevolence  respects  the  ha))])iness  of  others,  and 
that  benevolence  is  a  moral  excellence  Avhich  ornaments 
the  divine  nature,  and  which  nuMi  oin/ht  to  j)Ossess  and 
to  exercise.  But  the  idea  of  oui^htness  is  more  (ilemen- 
tal  than  the  idea  of  benevolence,  and  it  cannot  be 
analyzed  into  anything  more  elemental.  It  is  an  inde- 
pendent and  ultimate  idea  which  stands  by  itself.  But 
if  the  idea  of  moral  obligation  is  ultimate  and  inde])en- 
dent,  it  follows,  from  its  very  nature,  that  it  isinfrinM- 
cally  supreme  and  absolute.  Its  dictates  may  coincide 
with  those  of  benevolence,  but  if  not,  they  imtd  take 
precedence  of  them.  The  man  would  ])rove  himself  to 
be  a  moral  idiot  who  could  question  whetlier  that  which 
is  right  ought  to  be  done  in  })reference  to  that  which  is 
the  cause  of  haj)})iness,  no  matter  to  whom.  Besides 
this  fact,  that  no  metaphysician  has  ever  l)een  able 
to  trace  the  genesis  of  the  ideas  of  ^'  rightness," 
^'oughtness,"  ^^justice'^  out  of  either  of  the  ideas  of 
^benevolence'^  or  "happiness,"  ever}^  sane  man  in  the 
spontaneous  judgments  of  his  life  distinguishes  between 
benevolence  and  justice  as  things  generically  distinct. 
Every  human  being  judges  practically  of  sin  in  himself 
and  others  that  it  is  intrhisically  ill-deserving.  A  re- 
pentant sinner  would  deserve  punishment  as  much  if  he 
was  the  only  creature  in  the  universe  as  he  would  in  a 
thronged  world. 

The  form  in  which  the  principle  upon  which  tnis 
objection  to  our  doctrine  rests,  as  entertained  by  the 
advocates  of  the  Governmental  Theory,  is  bad  enough, 
but  it  is  much  worse  as  it  is  pressed  by  the  advocates  of 
the  Moral  Influence  Theory.  Their  sickly  sentiments 
26* 


306      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

are  in  obvious  contradiction  to  all  the  sacred  and  profane 
history  of  God's  providential  dealings  Avith  men  from 
the  beginning  until  now,  to  all  the  moral  judgments 
of  men,  to  the  principles  of  all  human  laws  and  reli- 
gions, and  to  all  the  revealed  ^^rinciples  of  the  Scriptures. 
That  God  does  not  do  all  within  his  power  to  save  all 
men;  that  all  the  penal  consequences  with  which  he 
follows  sin  are  not  designed  to  benefit  the  offender;  that 
God  does  punish  some  sinners  eternally,  and  that  eter- 
nal punishments  cannot  be  designed  to  benefit  the  vic- 
tims upon  whom  it  is  inflicted,  are  facts  absolutely 
certain,  and  unquestionably  inconsistent  with  the  funda- 
mental principles  upon  which  Socinus,  Priestly,  and 
Young  and  Bushnell  push  their  objections  to  the  venera- 
ble faith  of  the  Church.  Vindictiveness  is  a  miserable 
vice  festering  in  the  heart  of  a  sinful  creature,  cherished 
against  a  fellow-creature  because  of  a  jjersonal  injury. 
But  an  inexorable  determination  to  treat  all  6m  accord- 
ing to  its  intrinsic  ill-desert  is  a  peerless  excellence 
crowning  all  the  other  moral  attributes  of  a  wise,  right- 
eous and  benevolent  Ruler. 

2.  In  the  same  spirit  with  the  last  objection  our  oppo- 
nents insist  that  the  theory  of  Satisfaction  excludes  the 
element  of  grace  from  having  any  share  in  the  salvation 
of  men.  Socinus  insisted  that  penal  satisfaction  and 
remission  or  forgiveness  mutually  exclude  each  other. 
If  a  sin  is  punished,  it  is  not  forgiven;  if  it  is  forgiven, 
it  is  not  punished.  This  is  evidently  a  miserable  quib- 
ble, founded  upon  that  very  confusion  of  persons  and 
things  that  they  falsely  charge  upon  us.  The  sin  is 
never  that  which  is  forgiven,  Init  the  sinner  is  forgiven 
and  the  penalty  due  his  sin  not  executed  upon  him.     As 


OBJECTIONS   STATED   AND   ANSAVEEED.  307 

far  as  the  sinner  is  personally  concerned,  his  forgiveness 
is  no- less  free  and  the  remission  of  the  penalty  is  none 
the  less  perfect  because  the  penalty  is  executed  upon  a 
voluntary  Substitute  than  if  it  was  sovereignly  abrogated 
altogether. 

Our  unfriendly  critics  are  very  much  in  the  hal^t  of 
chart»:inp:  us  with  re<z:ardino::  the  Atonement  as  a  mere 
commercial  transaction,  and  then  in  their  criti(.'isms  fall- 
ing into  the  same  miserable  mistake  themselves.  Tims, 
they  argue  that  if  Christ  by  his  obedience  and  sufferings 
fully  satisfied  all  the  federal  demands  of  the  law  in  the 
stead  of  his  people,  then  there  is  no  grace  exercised  in 
the  forgiveness  of  men.  They  assert  that  our  doctrine 
puts  the  Father  and  the  Son  in  very  opposite  attitudes 
in  respect  to  the  salvation  of  mankind.  The  Father 
inexorably  demands  the  payment  of  the  uttermost  far- 
thing of  the  debt  due  to  him,  and  will  relax  his  claims 
not  one  iota  in  order  to  spare  his  helpless  creatures  or  his 
suffering  Son.  The  Son,  in  order  to  propitiate  the  inex- 
orable Father  in  behalf  of  the  helpless  objects  of  his 
displeasure,  takes  pity  upon  them  and  pays  their  debt 
with  his  own  blood. 

This  whole  talk  foolishly  or  wilfully  confounds  a 
pecuniary  with  a  penal  satisfaction.  We  did  not  owe 
God  money.  God  is  not  vindictive,  bent  uj)on  fining 
us  for  a  personal  injury.  God  is  infinite  in  moral  per- 
fection and  must  do  right.  We  are  sinners  and  ought  to 
be  punished.  The  claim  terminates  not  upon  the  thing 
done,  but  upon  the  person  sinning.  Vicarious  satisfac- 
tion does  not,  ijjso  facto,  liberate,  but  can  be  admitted, 
if  at  all,  only  as  a  matter  of  sovereign  grace.  Christ  is 
not  of  a  diflerent  nature  from  the  Father,  but  is  of  one 


308      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

essence,  nature,  feeling,  mind  and  purpose  with  him 
from  all  eternity.  He  did  not  die  to  make  the  Father 
cease  to  hate  us,  but  was  given  bec;ause  God  so  loved 
THE  WORLD,  in  ordcr  to  reconcile  that  infinite  love  with 
his  infinite  justice  in  their  concurrent  exorcises  with  re- 
gard to  their  common  objects — that  is,  those  whom  the 
Father  had  given  the  Son.  God  would  of  necessity 
have  to  sacrifice  either  his  elect,  or  his  Son,  or  moral 
principles.  It  is  self-evident  that  God  shows  immeasura- 
bly more  grace  in  saving  his  elect  at  the  expense  of  his 
"BELOVED  Son"  than  he  could  do  either  by  a  sacrifice 
of  moral  principle,  or,  in  case  it  had  been  ])0ssible  to 
save  us,  without  any  sacrifice  at  all.  No  exhibition  of 
human  depravity  that  has  ever  disgraced  the  earth  is 
more  amazing  than  this  denial,  that  the  self-assumption 
of  the  penalty  of  the  broken  law  of  God  in  the  stead 
of  his  elect  is  an  exercise  of  sovereign  and  disinterested 
love.  Christ  is  the  one  satisfied  as  well  as  the  one  satis- 
fying, the  one  punishing  as  well  as  the  one  punished  ; 
but  he  loves  us  enough  to  punish  himself  in  our  place. 
This  is  THE  wonder  of  eternity.  This  is  the  inexhausti- 
ble theme  of  the  heavenly  song  of  adoration  and  grati- 
tude for  ever. 

3.  By  far  the  most  plausible  objection  that  is  brought 
to  our  doctrine  is  that  the  demands  of  justice  for  penal 
satisfaction  are  essentially  personal.  The  Church  argues 
that  there  is  an  immutable  principle  in  the  divine  nature, 
lying  back  of,  not  determined  by,  but  itself  determining, 
the  optional  will  of  God  demanding  the  just  punishment 
of  all  sin,  and  hence  the  absolute  necessity  of  a  ])enal 
solution  of  the  claims  of  the  law  in  the  case  of  every 
sinner      liut  this  demand  is  that  the  agent  sinning,  and 


OBJECTIONS   STATED   ANr    ANSWERED.  309 

not  another  person,  shall  suffer  therefor.  If  God  is 
able,  in  the  exercise  of  sovereign  prerogative,  to  substi- 
tute person  for  j)erson,  the  objectors  urge,  why  is  he  not 
able,  by  the  same  prerogative,  to  dispense  with  the  pun- 
ishment altogether?  It  is  asserted,  that  in  the  view  of 
the  moral  sense  of  all  men  there  is  and  can  be  no  con- 
nection between  the  ])unishment  of  the  sin  of  one  man 
and  the  sufferings  of  a  different  person.  That  vicarious 
punishment,  in  the  strict  judicial  sense  of  those  terms,  is 
a  simple  absurdity.  How  can  the  demands  of  the  divine 
nature  be  satisfied  by  pains  inflicted  upon  a  person  arbi- 
trarily substituted  in  the  place  of  the  criminal  by  the 
divine  wUlf 

There  is  force  in  this  objection,  and,  I  think,  it  must 
be  conceded  by  all  that  justice  cannot  demand  and  exe- 
cute the  punhhment  of  a  sin  upon  any  party  that  is  not 
truly  and  really  responsible  for  it,  and  that  the  sin  of 
one  person  cannot  be  really  expiated  by  means  of  the 
sufferings  of  another,  unless  they  be  in  such  a  sense 
legally  one  that  in  the  judgment  of  the  law  the  suffer- 
ing of  the  one  is  the  suffering  of  the  other.  The  Real- 
istic doctrine  of  the  numerical  oneness  of  the  race,  and 
the  actual  coagency  of  all  the  race  in  Adam  and  of  all 
the  elect  in  Christ,  was  excogitated  to  meet  this  difficulty. 
We  object  to  it  because  it  makes  the  oneness  to  be  physi- 
cal and  not  moral.  Now,  the  eternal  Logos,  in  council 
with  the  Father  and  Holy  Ghost,  assumed  the  responsi- 
bility of  the  f(!deral  relations  of  his  elect  to  the  law  from 
all  eternity.  They  were  created  and  permitted  to  fall 
to  the  end  of  their  redemption  in  Christ.  All  God's 
dealing  with  them,  from  the  very  beginning,  has  had 
reference  to  their  relation  to  Christ,  and   to   Christ's 


310      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

covenant  responsibility  for  them.  The  conditions  are 
all  absolutely  unique.  The  case  is  without  ])arallel  ex- 
cei)t  in  that  of  Adam,  who  was  made  the  representative 
and  agent  of  the  whole  race  for  their  benefit  in  those 
transactions  upon  which  their  eternal  confirmation  in 
holiness  and  happiness  or  everlasting  loss  depended. 
Surely  in  a  case  embracing  conditions  so  unparalleled,  it 
is  absurd  for  human  reason  to  decide  that  the  God-man 
was  not,  in  the  eye  of  omniscient  justice,  really  and  truly 
penally  responsible  for  the  sins  of  his  people,  and  in 
such  a  sense  morally  one  with  them;  that  is,  his  sufier- 
ing  the  penalty  due  to  their  sins  is  in  full  legal  effect 
equivalent  to  the  execution  of  the  penalty  on  them. 

In  the  body  of  this  book  I  have  shown  that  if  the 
Scriptures  are  true,  then  Christ  does  sustain  this  unique 
relation  to  his  people.  The  negative  decision  of  reason 
in  the  case  ought  to  be  very  direct  and  certain  if  it  is  to 
])e  admitted  as  of  sufficient  force  to  balance  reasonably 
all  the  external  and  internal,  natural  and  supernatural, 
historical,  moral  and  spiritual  evidences-of  the  Christian 
religion. 

4.  Socinus  objected  that  the  temporal  suffering!?  of 
Christ  were  in  no  sense  an  equivalent  for  the  execution 
of  the  penalty  of  the  law  in  the  persons  of  all  sinners. 
Each  and  every  sinner  had  incurred  the  penalty  of  eter- 
nal death  for  himself  severally.  But  Christ  did  not 
suffer  eternal  death,  and  his  temporal  death  is  only  one. 
For  both  reasons,  therefo/e,  because  it  was  temporal,  and 
because  it  was  but  the  death  of  one  man,  it  could  not  be 
intended  to  be  a  satisfaction  to  divine  justice  in  the  stead 
of  the  eternal  death  of  an  incalculable  multitude.  On 
this  ground  Socinus  consistently  rejected  the  atonement 


OBJECTIONS  STATED   AND   ANSWERED.  311 

of  Christ  altogether.  Duns  Scotus  (A.  D.  1308),  Grotius, 
the  jn^rcat  author  of  the  Governmental  Atonement  Theory, 
and  the  Arminian  theologians  Episcopius,  Limborch  and 
Curcellaius,  all  admitted  the  fact  that  the  single  and 
temporal  death  of  Christ  was  no  equivalent  for  the  eter- 
nal death  of  all  men  severally,  but  they  refused  to 
admit  the  inevitable  conclusion  that  therefore  the  for- 
giveness of  sins  was  based  ultimately  upon  a  simple  act 
of  sovereign  j)rerogative,  and  that  justice  was  in  no  sense 
propitiated,  because  it  loas  not  in  strict  rigour  satisfied, 
Scotus  held  that  God  graciously  "accepted"  the  single 
and  temporal  death  of  Christ  as  a  sufficient  satisfaction. 
Grotius  held  that  the  demands  of  the  law  were  so  far 
sovereignly  "relaxed"  by  God  that  the  intrinsically 
inferior  work  of  Christ  was  found  sufficient.  The  Ar- 
minians  said  that  God  graciously  "estimated"  Christ's 
work  for  more  than  its  intrinsic  value. 

The  princij^le  upon  which  this  objection  proceeds  is 
both  rational  and  conclusive  if  the  Socinian  view  of 
Christ's  person  is  true,  but  it  is  both  preposterous  and 
insufferable  from  the  mouth  of  any  one  professing  to 
believe  in  the  supreme  divinity  of  our  Lord.  Christ 
suffered  solely  in  his  human  nature.  But  his  person  is 
infinite  and  divine.  All  legal  relations  and  obligations 
whatsoever,  whether  original  or  vicarious,  are  necessarily 
personal.  We  cannot  of  course  explain  psychologically 
the  relation  between  the  two  natures  and  their  concur- 
rent experiences  and  interactions  in  the  unity  of  the 
theanthropic  Person.  But  this  much  we  do  know — the 
humanity  was  necessarily  impersonal.  It  began  and 
continued  to  exist  only  within  the  eternal  personality  of 
the  Logos.     The  eternal,  august,  supreme,  second  Person 


312      THE  NATUHE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

of  the  Godhead  obeyed  and  suffered  in  the  stead  of  sin- 
ners. The  heavens  darkened  and  the  earth  trembled 
in  the  presence  of  the  amazing  fact.  Away  with  all 
blasphemous  impertinence  with  respect  to  the  "relaxa- 
tion" of  the  law  in  order  to  lower  it  to  the  terms  o^  such 
a  satisfaction,  or  of  the  gracious  "  estimation '^  of  such  a 
satisfaction  in  order  to  raise  it  to  equality  with  the  de- 
mands of  the  law !  On  the  contrary,  the  law  is  "  magni- 
fied" by  such  an  obedience  and  by  such  a  penal  suffering, 
as  it  could  not  be  by  the  several  eternal  sufferings  of  all 
creatures  actual  or  possible;  and  justice  is  not  only  satis- 
fied, but  glorified,  borne  aloft  and  set  ablaze  in  the  crown 
of  God. 

5.  It  is  constantly  objected  by  the  advocates  of  the 
Governmental  Atonement  Theory  that  the  Church  doc- 
trine necessarily  involves  an  absurd  theory  of  imputa- 
tion. They  insist  that  the  "Satisfaction  Theory,"  as 
they  call  it,  has  always  been  associated  with  the  doctrine 
that  the  personal,  sinful  character  of  his  people  was 
transferred  to  Christ,  and  that  the  personal  good  charac- 
ter of  Christ  was  transferred  to  them.  This  objection 
would  be  crushing  indeed  if  it  happened  to  contain  a 
single  grain  of  truth.  But  since  it  is  utterly  false  as  a 
matter  of  history,  and  absurd  as  a  matter  of  criticism, 
its  effect  is  to  be  seen  only  in  its  recoil  upon  its  origina- 
tors. The  Church  doctrine  always  has  been  simply  that 
the  legal  responsibilities  (penal  and  federal)  of  his  peo- 
ple were  by  covenant  transferred  to  Christ,  and  that  he, 
as  Mediator,  was  regarded  and  treated  accordingly. 
The  sinful  act  and  the  sinful  nature  are  inalienable. 
The  guilt  or  just  liability  to  punishment  is  alienable,  or 
no  sinner  can  be  saved.     Our  evil  nature  remains  in- 


OBJECTIONS  STATED   AND   ANSWERED.  313 

alienably  our  own  until  wc  are  changed  by  tlie  Holy 
Ghost  in  regeneration  and  sanctifieation.  The  obligation 
to  2)unishnient,  according  to  the  terms  of  the  eternal 
covenant,  has  been  taken  from  the  elect  and  fully  dis- 
charged in  the  sufferings  of  our  Substitute. 

They  object  that  although  Christ  did  not  owe  punish- 
ment for  himself,  yet  like  every  other  created  nature  his 
liumanity  was  conformed  to  the  law  of  moral  perfection 
as  the  condition  of  its  own  excellence,  and  hence  that  it 
was  incapable  of  any  works  of  supererogation,  and 
hence  he  must  have  been  incapable  of  rendering  a  vica- 
rious obedience  in  the  stead  of  his  people. 

These  objectors  shoidd,  however,  remember  that  that 
obedience  which  Christ  rendered  in  our  stead  was  not 
that  which  the  law  demands  of  all  moral  agents,  un- 
changeably and  inalienably  in  its  natural  relation,  but 
precisely  that  obedience  which  God,  as  Sovereign,  moral 
Governor  and  Guardian  of  all  human  souls,  required  as 
the  probationary  condition  of  their  being  confirmed  in  a 
holy  character  for  ever,  and  being  endowed  with  ^Hhe 
adoption  of  sons."  Christ,  in  his  divine  nature,  is  from 
eternity  the  essential  embodiment  of  this  law  of  absolute 
moral  perfection.  In  his  human  nature  he  was  gene- 
rated by  the  Holy  Ghost  into  perfect  conformity  to  this 
law,  and  ever  since  sustained  therein.  As  to  his  person, 
however,  he  is  absolutely  divine  and  sovereign.  The 
federal  claims  of  law  all  necessarily  terminate  upon  per- 
sons and  not  upon  natures.  The  law  can  claim  nothing 
of  his  divinity,  because  his  nature  is  itself  the  fountain 
of  all  law,  and  his  will  its  rule  and  expression  to  the 
entire  creation.  When  he,  therefore,  condescends  to  be 
"  born  of  a  woman,  to  be  made  under  the  law,'^  and  un- 
27 


314      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

der  the  conditions  of  human  life  thus  "to  fulfil  all  right- 
eousness/^ surely  such  obedience,  performed  with  such 
design,  is,  as  far  as  his  divine  Person  is  concerned,  a 
work  of  su^^ererogation;  that  is,  demanded  by  no  law, 
except  the  free-will  law  of  electing  love;  and  hence  such 
an  obedience  may,  by  the  terms  of  the  covenant  between 
the  Father  and  the  Son,  be  rende  ed  vicariously  by  him 
in  the  stead  and  for  the  benefit  of  his  people. 


CHAPTER    XXI. 

THE  MORAL  INFLUENCE  AND  THE  GOVERNMENTAL  THEORIES 
OP  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT  DISCUSSED  AND  RE- 
FUTED. 

ALL  the  theories  of  the  Atonement  which  men  in  this 
age  of  the  world  have  any  interest  to  consider  may, 
as  I  have  already  several  times  declared,  be  grouped 
under  one  or  other  of  the  following  heads,  (a)  Those 
which  regard  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  as 
designed  solely  to  produce  an  effect  terminating  as  a 
moral  impression  in  the  subjective  condition  of  tlie  indi- 
vidual sinner,  (b)  Those  which,  while  including  the 
preceding  idea,  regard  them  as  chiefly  designed  to  pro- 
duce an  effect  terminating  as  a  moral  impression  in  the 
public  mind  of  the  subjects  of  the  moral  government  of 
God.  (c)  Those  which,  while  including  both  of  the  pre- 
ceding ideas  in  their  order,  regard  Christ's  sufferings  and 
death  as  a  vicarious  penalty,  designed  to  produce  a 
justice-propitiating  effect,  terminating  upon  God.  The 
last  of  these  views  is  that  taught  in  Scripture,  professed 
by  the  Church  of  Christ  in  all  its  branches,  and  advo- 
cated in  this  volume.  The  other  two  I  will  now  very 
briefly  discuss  in  their  order. 

I.  The  general  view  that  the  great  end  of  the  death 
of  Christ  was  to  produce  a  moral  impression  upon  the 
hearts  of  sinners,  aid  thus  lead  to  their  moral   and 

315 


316      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

spiritual  reformation,  has  been  taught  in  various  forms 
by  many  successive  teachers,  and  has  been  uniformly 
rejected  as  a  heresy  by  the  Church.  Hagenbach*  soys 
that  "  Socii  ius  defined  the  object  of  Christ's  death  posi- 
ti/cly  as  follows:  (1.)  The  death  of  Christ  was  an 
example  set  before  men  for  their  imitation.  (2.)  It  was 
designed  to  confirm  the  promises  made  by  God,  thus 
giving  assurance  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  (3.)  It  was 
the  necessary  means,  preparatory  to  his  resurrection,  by 
which  he  entered  into  glory.  ^Christ  died  that  through 
death  he  might  attain  to  resurrection,  from  which  arises 
the  strongest  confirmation  of  the  divine  will  and  the 
most  certain  persuasion  of  our  own  resurrection  and 
attainment  to  eternal  life.'  "f  Thus,  according  to 
Socinus,  the  designed  effect  of  Christ's  death  is  wholly 
a  subjective  impression  upon  the  minds  of  sinners,  to 
stimulate  them  to  emulate  his  heroic  virtue ;  to  prove 
and  to  illustrate  the  love  of  God  and  his  willingness  to 
forgive  sin  upon  the  repentance  of  the  sinner ;  to  con- 
firm the  truth  of  all  the  doctrines  he  had  taucrht  and  of 
the  promises  which  God  had  made  through  tlie  prophets 
or  through  himself;  and  by  giving  opportunity  for  his 
resurrection  from  the  dead  to  demonstrate  the  fact  of  a 
future  life,  and  to  prove  and  illustrate  the  future  resur- 
rection of  his  people.  The  modern  theories  of  Jowett, 
Maurice,  Bushnell,  Young,  &c.,  differ  from  that  of 
Socinus  only  in  being  rhetorical  where  his  is  logical, 
confused  Avhere  his  is  clear,  and  narrow  and  partial 
Avhere  his  is  comprehensive.  The  lines  between  truth 
and  error  with  regard  to  this  central  doctrine  of  the 
gospel  were  already  definitely  drawn  in  the  first  half 
*  Vol.  ii.,  p.  3G0.  t  Cat.  Racov.,  p.  265. 


MORAL   THEORY   OF   THE   ATOJS-EMENT.  317 

of  tlie  twclftli  century,  at  the  very  openiiifr  of  the 
Scholastic  era.  As  to  the  entire  essence  of  tlie  doctrine, 
Ansehn  then  stood  precisely  where  the  whole  Church  of 
Christ  in  all  its  branches  lias  ever  since  stood  ;  and  the 
infamous  Abelard  taught  in  every  essential  respect  the 
doctrine  maintained  by  Socinus,  and  by  Maurice,  Bush- 
nell,  and  Young,  in  our  own  day,  Baur,  as  quoted  by 
Hagenbach,*  says:  "Thus  the  two  representatives  of 
Scholasticism  in  its  first  period,  when  it  developed  itself 
in  all  its  youthful  vigor,  Ansel m  and  Abelard,  were 
directly  opposed  to  each  other  with  respect  to  the  doc- 
trines of  redemption  and  atonement.  The  one  considered 
the  last  ground  of  it  to  be  the  divine  justice,  requiring 
an  infinite  equivalent  for  the  infinite  guilt  of  sin;  that 
is,  a  necessity  founded  in  the  nature  of  God.  The  other 
held  it  to  be  the  free  grace  of  God,  which,  by  kindling 
love  in  the  breast  of  man,  blots  out  sin,  and  with  sin  its 
guilt." 

To  the  same  effect  Bushnell  says:  "The  true  and 
simple  account  of  his  (Christ's)  sufferings  is,  that  he  had 
such  a  heart  as  would  not  suffer  him  to  be  turned  away 
from  us,  and  that  he  suffered  for  us  even  as  love  must 
willingly  suffer  for  its  enemy.^f  "Vicarious  sacrifice 
was  in  no  way  peculiar  to  Christ  save  in  degree."J 
"The  Holy  Spirit  works  in  love  as  Christ  did,  and 
suflPers  all  the  incidents  of  love — compassion,  wounded 
feeling,  sorrow,  concern,  burdened  sympathy,  violated 
patience — taking  men  upon  him,  to  bear  them  and  their 
sins,  precisely  as  Christ  himself  did  in  his  sa(Tifice."§ 
He  "simply  came  into  the  corporate  state  of  evil  (sum 

*  Vol.  ii.,  pp.  47,  48.  J  Ibid.,  p.  107. 

t  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  p.  108.  §  Ibid.,  p.  74. 

27  * 


318      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

total  of  natural  consequences  of  sin),  and  bore  Ifc  with 
us — faithful  unto  death  for  our  recovery."*  He  "came 
simply  to  be  the  manifested  love  of  God."t  "  Christ 
became  incarnate  to  obtain  moral  power"  (that  wliich 
belongs  to  a  developed  character).  "The  understanding 
is  to  obtain  through  him,  and  the  facts  and  processes  of 
his  life,  a  new  kind  of  power;  viz.,  moral  power — the 
same  that  is  obtained  by  human  conduct  under  human 
methods.  It  wdll  be  divine  power  still,  only  it  will  not 
be  attribute  power.  That  is  the  power  of  his  idea  (that 
is  original  power,  intrinsic  to  the  divine  nature).  This 
new  power  is  to  be  tlie  power  cumulative,  gained  by  him 
among  men  as  truly  as  they  gain  it  with  each  other. 
Only  it  will  turn  out  in  the  end  to  be  the  grandest, 
closest  to  feeling,  most  impressive,  most  soul-renovating, 
and  spiritually  sublime  power  that  was  ever  obtained  in 
this  or  any  other  w"orld."f 

To  tlie  same  effect,  also.  Young  writes  over  and  over 
again  in  many  passages  exquisitely  beautiful,  ^d  true 
also  when  accepted  as  an  expression  of  one  side  of  the 
truth — an  inestimably  precious  side  too.  "The  infi- 
nite Father  in  boundless  pity  looked  down  upon  his 
undutiful  children,  and  yearned  to  rescue  them  by  re- 
gaining their  hearts  and  drawing  them  back  to  alle- 
giance and  to  peace.  With  God-like  mercy  he  unveiled 
all  that  was  possible  of  divine  purity,  and  truth,  and 
beauty,  and  sweetness,  and  lovingness,  and  compas- 
sion. He  humbled  himself,  descended  to  the  level  of 
his  creatures,  Avalked  among  them,  spoke  with  them  face 
to  face,  and.  appealed,  as  he,  still  continues  to  appeal,  to 
their  hearts  through  the  gentleness,  the  tenderness,  the 

*  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  p.  514.        f  Ibid.,  p.  HI .        X  Ibid.,  p.  188. 


MORAL  THEORY   OF   THE   ATONEMENT.  319 

wisdc  ra,  the  meekness,  the  patience,  the  sufferings,  the 
tears,  the  blood  and  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ. 

"The  distinction  here  is  radical  and  fundamental. 
The  sacrifice  was  not  offered  up  by  men  at  all  or  by  a 
substitute  in  their  room;  and  it  was  not  required  to 
appease  God's  anger,  or  to  satisfy  his  justice,  or  to  render 
him  propitious.  The  sacrifice  was  not  offered  })y  men  to 
God,  but  was  made  by  God  for  men  and  for  sin,  in  order 
that  sin  might  be  for  ever  put  down  and  rooted  out  of 
human  nature.  This  stupendous  act  of  divine  sacrifice 
was  God's  instrument  of  reconciliation  and  redemption, 
God's  method  of  conquering  the  human  heart,  and  of 
subduing  a  revolted  world  and  attaching  it  to  his 
throne — pure  love,  self-sacrificing  love,  crucified,  dying 
love."* 

The  objections  to  this  view  are  conclusive. 

1.  The  precious  truth  which  it  undeniably  contains 
has  always  been  held  by  the  Church  as  an  integral  part 
of  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  piacular  sacrifice  of 
Christ.  All  that  is  negative  in  the  Moral  Influence 
Theory  is  refuted  by  the  overwhelming  evidence  we 
have  recited  ui  establishing  the  Church  doctrine  as  to 
divine  justic*.  and  vicarious  punishment,  while  all  that  is 
positive  in  that  theory  is  maintained  with  far  greater 
consistency  and  illustrated  with  far  greater  force  on  our 
view  of  the  nature,  necessity,  and  design  of  his  sacrifice 
tlian  on  theirs.  We  believe  that  God  could  have 
changed  man's  subjective  moral  condition  by  the  direct 
action  of  his  Holy  Spirit  upon  the  human  soul,  without 
the  objective  exhibition  of  his  love  by  means  of  .such  a 
sacrifice  as  that  made  in  the  person  of  his  Son.  The 
*  "Life  and  Light  of  Men,"  pp.  301,  302. 


320      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATOXEMENT. 

position  that  this  is  impossible  is  unreasonably  pre- 
sumptuous and  entirely  unsusceptible  of  proof.  If, 
then,  there  remains  the  conceivable  hypothesis  that  God 
might  have  attained  his  end  in  the  moral  regeneration  of 
human  souls  in  some  other  and  less  expensive  way  than 
the  one  chosen,  it  follows  that  the  infinite  love  of  God 
for  man  is  less  luminously  exhibited,  upon  the  suppo- 
sition that  the  necessity  of  his  dying  was  only  as  one  of 
two  or  more  alternative  instrumentalities  to  subdue  the 
distrust  and  alienation  of  the  human  heart,  than  it  is 
upon  the  supposition  that  he  died  because  his  death  was 
the  absolutely  necessary  means  of  removing  obstacles  to 
the  salvation  of  men  posited  in  the  unchangeable  nature 
of  God.  It  is  all  the  greater  love,  because  the  sacrifice 
was  absolutely  necessary  to  attain  its  object.  It  is  all 
the  sweeter  and  holier  love,  because,  while  making  such 
entire  sacrifice  of  self,  it  refuses  all  sacrifice  of  principle. 
As  a  matter  of  practical  experience,  that  view  of  the 
sacrifice  of  Christ  which  maintains  its  strictly  piacular 
character  has  inspired  all  the  hymns  of  the  Church  and 
has  melted  the  hearts  of  all  the  multitudes  either  in 
Christian  or  in  heathen  lands  who  hav^e  been  w^on  by 
the  story  of  redeeming  love  to  the  discipleship  of 
Christ.  It  is  the  Church  doctrine,  and  not  the  Moral 
Influence  understanding  of  the  character  of  Christ's 
death,  which  has  been  preached  in  all  revivals  and  been 
carried  forth  by  all  missionaries,  and  which  has  kindled 
the  flame  in  the  hearts  of  the  Lollards  and  Yallenses, 
Lutherans,  Puritans,  Moravians,  and  Methodists ;  while 
it  is  the  boasted  Moral  Influence  Theory  which  has  just 
claim  to  whatever  of  moral  regeneration  and  spiritual 
life  distinguish    the   history  of  Abelard    and   his   dis- 


MORAT>   THEORY   OF   THE   ATONEMENT.  321 

clplcs,  of  Socliilans,  Unitarians,  Rationalists,  and  what- 
ever other  of  this  sort  Young  and  Bushnell  may  please. 
Biishnell,  with  singular  simplicity,  after  having 
written  a  volume  to  prove  that  the  doctrine  of  piacular 
sacrifice  as  held  by  the  Church  is  revolting  to  the  moral 
sense  and  dishonoring  to  God;  after  insisting  through 
five  hundred  pages  that  Christ's  death  was  a  simple 
martyrdom,  and  its  sole  effect  a  moral  one  on  the  hearts 
of  men,  concludes  by  acknowledging  that  the  Moral 
Influence  Theory  is  unable  of  itself  to  produce  a  moral 
influence  result,  and  hence  the  Church  doctrine  must  in 
idea  be  substituted  in  its  place.  That  is,  he  confesses 
that  his  doctrine,  on  its  own  ground  of  subjective  moral 
influence,  is  not  only  no  more  effective  than  the  repu- 
diated doctrine  of  Christ's  Church,  nor  merely  that  it  is 
less  effective,  but  that  it  is  in  fact,  when  brought  to  the 
test,  absolutely  impotent,  and  must  be  practically  sup- 
planted by  the  other.  '^In  the  facts,  outwardly  re- 
garded, there  is  no  sacrifice,  or  oblation,  or  atonement, 
or  propitiation,  but  simply  a  living  and  dying  thus  and 
thus.  The  facts  are  impressive;  the  person  is  clad  in  a 
wonderful  dignity  and  beauty;  the  agony  is  elocpient  of 
love,  and  the  cross  is  a  very  shocking  murder  trium- 
phantly met;  and  if  then  the  question  rises  how  we  are 
to  use  such  a  history  so  as  to  be  reconciled  by  it,  we 
hardly  know  in  what  way  to  begin.  How  shall  we 
come  unto  God  by  help  of  this  martyrdom?  How  shall 
we  turn  it  or  turn  ourselves  under  it  so  as  to  be  justified 
and  set  at  peace  with  God?  Plainly,  there  is  a  want 
here,  and  this  want  is  met  by  giving  a  thought-form  to 
the  facts  which  are  not  in  the  facts  themselves.  They 
arc  put  directly  into  the  moulds  of  the  altar,  and  we  are 


322  THE   NATURE   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

called  to  accept  the  crucified  God-man  as  our  Sacrifice, 
an  offering  or  oblation  for  us,  our  Propitiation  ;  so  to  be 
sprinkled  from  our  evil  conscience,  washed,  purged, 
purified,  cleansed  from  sin.  Instead  of  leaving  the 
matter  of  the  facts  just  as  they  occurred,  &c.  .  .  .  And 
so  nmch  is  there  in  this  that,  without  these  forms  of  the 
altar,  we  should  be  utterly  at  a  loss  in  making  any  use  of 
the  Christian  facts  that  would  set  us  in  a  condition  of 
practical  reconciliation  with  God.  .  .  .  ^ye  want,  in 
short,  to  use  these  altar- terms  just  as  freely  as  they  are 
used  by  those  who  accept  the  formula  of  expiation  or 
judicial  satisfaction  for  sin;  in  just  their  manner,  too, 
when  they  are  using  them  most  practically.  We  cannot 
afford  to  lose  these  sacred  forms  of  the  altar.''* 

Our  first  argument,  then,  is  that  according  to  the  con- 
fession of  its  ablest  expounders,  that  moral  effect  which 
the  theory  in  question  maintains  is  the  sole  aim  of  the 
redemptive  work  of  Christ  is  at  least  as  well  produced 
by  our  view  of  the  work  of  Christ  as  by  theirs. 

2.  We  go  further  in  our  second  argument,  and  affirm 
that  upon  their  conception  of  its  nature  the  work  of 
Christ  is  in  no  sense  adapted  to  accomplish  even  that 
effect  which  they  represent  to  be  its  sole  design.  Upon 
their  theory  there  is  utter  incongruity  between  the 
att('mj)t  to  produce  such  effects  by  such  means  and  the 
ordinary  and  unchangeable  principles  of  human  nature. 
This  can  be  shown  to  be  true  both  with  respect  to  the 
work  itself  objectively  considered  and  with  respect  to  the 
process  whei  eby  the  mind  of  the  individual  sinner  must 
appropriate  that  work  in  the  aspect  presented,  for  the 
sake  of  the  noral  impression  it  was  designed  to  effect. 
*  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  pp.  533,  535. 


MOKAI.   TUEORY   OF   THE   ATONEMENT.  JZ.i 

(1.)  With  respect  to  the  nature  of  the  work  itself,  it 
is  unquestionably  a  law  of  human  nature  that  wliile 
tragic  suffering  voluntarily  incurred  in  fidelity  to  high 
jirinciple  and  out  of  unquenchable  love  for  us,  in  order 
to  remove  obstacles  to  our  well-being  exterior  to  our- 
selves, has  more  power  over  the  depths  of  the  heart  than 
any  other  conceivable  thing;  on  the  other  hand,  such 
suffering,  intentionally  gotten  up  with  the  design  of  pro- 
ducing a  pathetic  effect  upon  us,  not  as  a  necessary  inci- 
dent to  a  work /or  us,  but  as  a  calculated  part  of  a  work 
upon  uSf  necessarily  defeats  itself  and  excites  disgust.  If 
Christ  had  come,  as  Socinus  was  wise  enough  to  insist  he 
did,  solely  in  the  character  of  a  prophet  to  reveal  the 
will  of  God  to  man,  and  to  afford  an  example  of  eminent 
virtue,  and  if  his  painful  martyrdom  was  an  undesigned 
end  incidental  solely  to  his  persistence  in  his  labour  of 
love,  in  spite  of  the  fierce  opposition  of  his  enemies, 
then  indeed  that  heroic  exhibition  of  truth  and  love 
would  have  been  effective  in  making  a  deep  moral  im- 
pression on  every  susceptible  heart.  But  the  Scriptures 
explicitly  assert  that  Christ  came  into  the  world /or  the 
purpose  of  suffering  and  dying.  The  fact,  the  time, 
many  of  the  detailed  circumstances  and  horrors  of  his 
death,  were  not  only  foreseen,  but  were  for-eordained. 
Matt.  xxvi.  24,  54,  56,  and  xxvii.  9, 10,  35.  The  death 
of  Christ  was  God's  act:  "ffim,  being  delivered  up  by  the 
determinate  counsel  and  foreknowledge  of  God,  ye  have 
taken  and  by  wicked  hands  have  crucified  and  slain." 
Acts  ii.  23.  "But  those  things,  which  God  before  had 
showed  by  the  mouth  of  all  his  prophcfts,  that  Christ 
should  suffer,  he  hath  so  fulfilled.'^  Acts  iii.  18.  "For 
of  a  truth  against  thy  holy  child  Jesus,  whom  thou  hast 


324      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

anointed,  both  Herod  and  Pontius  Pilate,  with  the  Gen- 
tiles and  the  people  of  Israel,  were  gathered  together, 
Jor  to  do  whatsoever  thy  hand  and  thy  counsel  determined 
before  {jipocoptad)  to  be  done.'^  Act  iv.  27  and  28.  If 
the  sole  design  of  the  redemptive  work  of  Christ  is 
to  produce  a  moral  effect  upon  the  sinner,  as  these  men 
insist,  the  glorious  transactions  of  Gcthsemane  and  Cal- 
vary, which  the  Church  has  always  regarded  as  infinitely 
real,  intense  with  divine  attributes  in  action,  are  reduced 
to  the  poor  level  of  scenes  deliberately  contrived  for  effect, 
finding  their  sole  end  in  their  effect  as  scenes.  If  the 
Moral  view  of  the  Atonement  should  prove  true,  our 
astonishment  and  indignation  in  view  of  the  stolid  in- 
diiference  of  men  to  the  moral  power  of  the  cross  would 
need  to  be  materially  abated. 

(2.)  The  utter  inappropriateness  of  the  work  of  Christ 
upon  hypothesis  of  the  truth  of  the  Moral  Theory  to 
effect  the  end  for  which  it  was  designed  is  made  more 
clear  when  we  come  to  consider  the  process  by  which, 
upon  that  view  of  the  case,  the  sinner  must  proceed  to 
appropriate  that  work  for  his  own  benefit.  This  diffi- 
culty is  very  effectively  exhibited  by  Bushncll,  to  whom 
the  Church  is  thus  indebted  for  the  most  conclusive 
refutation  of  his  own  theory  which  this  age  has  pro- 
duced. "  The  principal  reason  for  setting  forth  the 
matter  of  Christ's  life  and  death  as  an  oblation  (piacular 
sacrifice)  remains  to  be  stated,  viz.,  the  necessity  of 
somehow  preventing  an  over-conscious  state  in  the  re- 
ceiver. It  was  going  to  be  a  great  fault  in  the  use,  that 
the  disciple,  looking  for  a  power  on  his  character,  would 
keep  himself  too  entirely  in  this  attitude  of  conscious- 
ness or  voluntary  self-application.     He  would  be  hang- 


MORAL   THEOliY    OF    THE    ATONEMENT.  325 

inj5  around  each  fact  and  scene  to  get  some  eloquent 
moving  effect  from  it.  And  he  woukl  not  only  study 
how  to  get  impressions,  but,  almost  before  he  was  aware 
of  it,  to  make  them.  Just  here  accordingly  it  was  that 
the  Scripture  symbols,  and  especially  those  of  the  altar- 
service,  were  to  come  to  our  aid,  j)utting  us  into  a  use 
of  the  gospel  so  entirely  objective  as  to  scarcely  suffer  a 

recoil  on  our  consciousness  at  all Doubtless  there 

will  be  a  power  in  it — all  the  greater  power  that  I  am 
not  looking  after  power,  and  that  nothing  puts  me 
thinking  of  effects  upon  myself.  .  .  .  Our  subjective 
applications  of  Christ  get  confused  and  grow  ineffica- 
cious.''* Thus  we  see  that  it  is  confessedly  the  Moral 
Influence  Theory  of  the  death  of  Christ  which  fails 
utterly  to  produce  a  moral  impression,  and  that  it  must 
be  disguised  under  the  ideal  forms  of  the  opposite  and 
inconsistent  theory  of  sin-expiating,  God-propitiating 
sacrifice  before  any  corresponding  effect  can  be  attained. 
It  is  a  singular  case,  indeed,  if  a  false  view  of  the 
Atonement  can  produce  a  better  moral  effect  than  a 
true  view,  and  if  a  divine  provision  for  the  salvation 
of  men  can  attain  the  end  God  designed  it  to  effect  only 
by  means  of  a  practical  and  voluntary  misconception  as 
to  its  nature. 

3.  Our  third  argument  is  that  this  view  of  the  nature 
of  Christ's  work  necessarily  proceeds  upon  the  denial 
of  those  great  fundamental  principles  as  to  law  and  jus- 
tice, as  to  the  nature  and  effect  of  the  Jewish  sacrifices, 
as  to  the  nature  of  justification,  &c.,  which  we  have  so 
fully  established  from  Scripture  in  the  preceding  chap- 
ters of  this  volume.     The  establishment  of  the  doctrine 

*  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  pp.  535,  536. 
28 


326      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

of  the  Christian  Church  is,  of  course,  the  virtual  refuta 
tion  of  all  inconsistent  theories. 

4.  The  Scriptures  explicitly  declare  that  Christ  was 
tlie  Saviour  of  those  who  died  before  his  advent  in  the 
flesh  as  well  as  those  who  came  afterward.  If  Christ 
did  suffer  the  penalty  due  to  his  people,  and  so  expiate 
their  sins,  it  is  clear  what  is  meant  when  he  is  called 
"the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world," 
Rev.  xiii.  8,  and  when  he  is  declared  to  be  set  forth  by 
God  to  be  a  propitiation,  through  faith  in  his  blood,  to 
declare  his  (God^s)  righteousness  in  respect  to  the  pass- 
ing over  the  sins  that  were  past  (previous  to  his  advent) 
through  the  forbearance  of  God.  Rom.  iii.  25.  The 
eternal  God  assuredly  may  as  well  act  upon  a  future  as 
upon  a  present  or  a  past  expiation.  But  upon  the 
hypothesis  that  the  sufferings  of  Christ  were  designed 
simply  for  a  moral  effect  upon  men,  it  is  self-evident 
that  he  could  be  a  Saviour  only  after  his  advent  and  the 
fulfilment  of  his  tragedy  to  those  who  witnessed  it,  or 
at  best  to  those  to  whom  an  adequately  graphic  account 
of  it  had  been  reported.  It  will  not  be  pretended  that 
a  man  can  be  saved  by  a  moral  influence  before  it  is  ex- 
erted, nor  that  the  influence  can  be  exerted  before  that 
exists  which  is  to  exert  it.  Hence  it  follows,  if  the 
Moral  Hypothesis  be  true,  that  all  who  died  before  the 
passion  of  Christ  perished,  or  were  saved  in  some  other 
way. 

5.  This  theory  of  Young  and  Bushnell  is  no  novelty — 
in  no  sense,  even  if  true,  "an  improvement  in  theology." 
It  has  appeared  again  and  again.  It  has  been  rejected 
uniformly  in  every  age  by  the  immense  majority  of 
nominal  Christians.     It  has  always  been  associated  with 


GOVERNMENTAL  THEORY   OF   ATONEMENT.      327 

Pelagian  and  Socinian  heresies  and  incipient  infidelity. 
It  has  never  been  associated  among  a  single  body  of 
men  for  a  measurable  period  of  time  with  a  respectable 
degree  of  spiritual  life  and  fruitfulness.  The  principles 
which  it  denies  have,  on  the  contrary,  been  in  vital  con- 
nection with  the  entire  current  of  spiritual  life  issuing 
from  the  person  of  Christ  along  its  entire  course.  Its 
history  condemns  it,  and  ought  to  put  its  abettors  to 
shame. 

II.  The  Governmental  Theory  "places  the  necessity 
of  the  Atonement  of  Christ  in  the  exigencies  of  God's 
moral  government;  not  in  the  demands  of  an  involun- 
tary organic  emotion  of  retributive  justice,  common  to 
God  and  man.  The  Atonement  was  necessary  for  the 
same  reason,  precisely,  that  the  penalty  annexed  to  the 
divine  law  was  necessary;  it  takes  the  place  of  that 
penalty,  in  respect  to  those  who  repent  and  are  forgiven ; 
answers  the  same  end  as  would  have  been  answered  by 
the  infliction  of  the  penalty ;  viz.,  it  maintains  the  law 
and  authority  of  God,  and  by  maintaining  that  law  and 
authority  promotes  those  great  interests  for  which  moral 
government  exists.  Hugo  Grotius  was,  probably,  the 
first  man  who  distinctly  stated  and  defended  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  this  theory.  His  design  was  to 
defend  the  Satisfaction  Theory  against  the  Socinians,  his 
work  being  entitled  ^  Defensio  jidei  Catholiece  de  Satisfac- 
tione  CliristV  The  result,  however,  was  that  he  actu- 
ally rejected  the  foundation  principle  of  that  theory,  and 
argued  that  the  satisfaction  of  Christ  was  rendered,  not 
to  the  distributive  but  to  the  governmental  justice  of 
God.  .  .  .  He  did  not  develop  a  complete  and  consist- 
ent Governmental  Theory  of  the  Atonement;  nor,  after 


328  THE   NATURE   OF   TITE   ATONE>fENT. 

him,  does  there  appear  to  liave  been  any  material  pro 
gress  made  towards  the  full  development  of  such  a 
theory  for  more  than  a  century  and  a  half.  The  Ca- 
tholic view  upon  the  one  hand,  and  the  Socinian  view 
on  the  other,  generally  prevailed.  It  was  reserved  for 
certain  New  England  divines  of  the  last  century,  first 
clearly  to  state  and  defend  as  a  whole  what  has  been 
variously  called  the  New  School  Theory,  the  Edwardean, 
the  Hopkinsian  Theory,  the  Consistent  Theory,  or  more 
commonly  and  appropriately  the  Governmental  Theory. 
To  Jonathan  Edwards,  Jr.,  more  than  to  any  other  man, 
belongs  the  honour  of  giving  to  the  world  this  new 
theory  of  the  Atonement.  His  three  celebrated  sermons 
on  the  subject,  published  in  1785,  which  marked  an  era 
in  the  history  of  this  doctrine,  contain,  perhaps,  the  most 
thorough  exposition  and  defence  of  this  doctrine  which 
has  yet  been  made.  The  elder  Edwards,  and  his  inti- 
mate friends  Bellamy  and  Hopkins,  by  their  suggestive 
discussions  of  the  subject,  while  retaining  the  general 
features  of  the  old  view,  yet  contributed  not  a  little  to 
the  development  of  the  new  view.  Among  those  emi- 
nent divines  who  early  accepted  the  Governmental 
Theory,  and  helped  give  it  currency,  Avere  Smalley, 
Maxey,  Burge,  Dwight,  Emmons  and  Spring,  who, 
while  differing  on  minor  points,  were  yet  agreed  in 
holding  and  advocating  the  essential  princij)les  on  wliich 
the  theory  rests.  It  now  holds  a  recognized  place  in 
that  doctrinal  system  which  is  distinctively  called  the 
<New  England  Theology.' ''* 

The  main  points  of  this  theory  are,  1.  All  moral  ex- 
cellence is  ultimately  reducible  to  benevolence.     "  ' The 

*  Rev.  Daniel  T.  Fiske,  D.D.     Bibliotheca  Sacra,  April,  1861. 


GOVERNMENTAL   THEORY   CF   ATONEMENT.      329 

attributes  of  God  are  not  so  many  distinct  qualities,  but 
one  perftKition  of  excellence,  diversified  in  our  concep- 
tions by  the  diversity  of  the  objects  towards  which  it  is 
manifested/  This  is  a  felicitous  statement  of  the  truth, 
providcnl  that  LOVE  OR  BENEVOLENCE  be  that  'one  per- 
fection of  excellence/  "*  "  All  the  moral  perfections 
of  the  Deity  are  comprised  In  the  pure  love  of  benevo- 
lence."t  2.  God  is  a  wise  and  benevolent  ruler. 
The  origin  and  end  of  the  moral  law  lie  in  the  divine 
purpose  to  promote  by  means  of  it  the  good  of  the 
universe.  The  ultimate  ground  of  the  divine  govern- 
ment as  a  whole,  and  of  both  the  precept  and  the 
penalty  of  the  law  therefore,  is  to  be  found  in  the  bene- 
volence of  God.  The  law  is  a  product  of  pure  bene- 
volence, designed  to  effect  the  highest  good  of  all  its 
subjects  regarded  as  a  whole.  The  annexed  penalty  is 
for  the  purpose  of  vindicating  and  maintaining  the  law. 
Hence  it  follows  (a)  That  the  motive  and  end  of  the  law 
is  also  the  motive  and  end  of  the  penalty;  that  is,  the 
penalty  also  is  a  product  of  benevolence,  designed  to 
effect  the  highest  good  of  the  subjects  of  moral  law  as  a 
whole;  and  [b)  that  "the  sole  function  of  penalty  is 
that  of  a  legal  sanction;"  that  is,  a  violent  motive 
addressed  to  the  intelligent  self-love  of  all  the  subjects 
of  the  law,  inducing  them  to  observe  it  for  the  general 
good.  3.  ''  That  the  sufierings  of  Christ  (the  atonement) 
were  not,  literally  and  strictly,  the  penalty  of  the  law, 
but  a  substitute  for  ity  and  an  eqidvalent;  that  is,  luid  tJie 

•^'  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  vol.  xviii.,  p,  314. 

t  Dr.  Emmons  in  Dr.  E<1  wards  A.  Park's  volume  of  Discourses  and 
TrcatisoB  on  the  Atoneni  ent,  by  Edwards,  Smalley,  Maxey,  Emmoi..?, 
Griffin,    Burge,  and   Weeks,  with    an    introductory    Essay  by  the 
Editor,  p.  116. 
28  * 


330      THE  NATUKE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

same  efficacy  in  resjyect  to  the  divine  law  and  governmeni 
that  the  penalty  was  designed  to  have,  and  would  have 
if  inflicted  in  cases  where  it  is  remitted."  4.  The 
atonement  renders  the  salvation  of  all  men  possible, 
and  it  bears,  from  its  very  nature,  precisely  the  same  re- 
lation to  the  non-elect  that  it  doea  to  the  elect.  Its  sohi 
design  and  effect  is  to  remove  legal  obstacles  out  of  the 
way  of  the  salvation  of  all  men  indifferently.  It 
secures  nothing  more  than  this  for  any  man.  The  prin- 
ciples which  secure  its  actual  application  to  individual 
men,  whether  these  lie  ultimately  in  the  free-will  of  men 
or  in  the  sovereign  election  of  God,  in  either  case  have 
no  place  in  the  atonement  itself.  Emmons*  strives  to 
prove  that  the  only  thing  Christ  purchases  for  man- 
kind is  pardon  on  condition  of  faith,  and  that  after  Ave 
believe  we  are  rewarded  for  our  own  goodness,  on  tlie 
same  principle  that  Adam  would  have  been  if  he  had 
continued  obedient. 

This  theory  has,  upon  tlie  whole,  many  practical  ad- 
vantages over  the  Socinian  view,  (a.)  Because  ft  in- 
cludes and  exhibits  with  far  more  practical  effect  all  the 
elements  of  truth  which  the  Socinian  view  embraces. 
(6.)  Because  in  addition  to  those  elements,  the  ^positive 
principles  signalized  in  the  Governmental  Theory  with 
respect  to  the  bearing  of  the  atonement  upon  the  admin- 
istrative righteousness  of  God  and  the  general  interests 
of  his  moral  government  are  unquestionably  truths  of 
the  very  highest  importance,  (c.)  Because  this  theory, 
although  when  viewed  in  reference  to  a  better  stan(Lird, 
it  is  itself  deplorably  defective  in  these  respects,  yet 

*  Second  Sermon  on  the  Atqneri^ept,  in  the  volume  of  Discoursea 
and  Treatises  on  the  Atonement,  e.Mted  by  Dr.  Park,  pp.  127-13Q. 


GOVERNMENT  AT.   TICEORY  OF    ATONEMENT.       331 

much  excels  the  Moral  view  in  taking  high  ground  with 
regard  to  the  ill-desert  of  sin,  the  punitive  justice  of 
Goa,  and  of  the  necessity  of  the  atonement  a  parte  Dei 
in  order  to  the  remission  of  sin.  (d.)  Because  it  yields  a 
far  more  natural  interpretation  of  Scripture  upon  this 
subject,  recognizing  the  objective  bearing  of  tlie  atone- 
ment as  the  one  to  which  its  subjective  bearing  is  neces- 
sarily subordinate  and  incidental. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  objections  to  this  theory  are 
very  many  and  very  conclusive. 

1.  All  the  positive  truth  which  this  theory  signalizes 
is  far  more  profoundly  taught  and  effectively  presented 
in  the  general  doctrine  of  the  Church.  According  to  the 
Governmental  Theory,  penalty  is  merely  a  sanction  of 
the  law,  designed  to  act  as  a  violent  motive  upon  the 
minds  of  the  subjects  of  the  divine  government,  inclining 
them  to  obey  the  law.  According  to  this,  theory,  the 
Atonement  is  a  substitute  for  the  penalty,  designed  to 
take  the  place  of  the  penalty,  and  to  produce  the  very 
same  effect  as  the  penalty  would  do  if  executed  in  the 
case  of  those  whose  sins  are  forgiven,  and  whose  punish- 
ment is  remitted.  Now,  it  is  self-evident  that  nothing 
can  possibly  so  exactly  take  the  place  of  the  penalty  and 
effect  the  precise  end  for  which  the  penalty  was  designed 
as  the  penalty  itself.  Nothing  in  the  universe  can  so 
express  God^s  hatred  of  sin  as  the  veritable  visible 
exercise  of  his  just  wrath  upon  the  sinner's  Substitute. 
Nothing  else  possible  can  so  effectively  demonstrate  the 
inflexibility  of  the  law  as  its  literal  fulfilment  in  precept 
and  penalty.  Nothing  can  so  act  as  a  sin-deterring  mo- 
tive as  the  demonstration  that  sin  shall  be  punished  in 
every  case  without  exception ;  and  nothing  can  so  tho- 


332      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

roughly  demonstrate  that  sin  sliall  be  punished  witlioiu 
excciAion  as  its  actual  and  vicarious  punishment  in  the 
person  of  the  eternal  Son.  As  we  showed  that  the 
ortliodox  doctrine  far  excelled  the  Moral  Influence  view 
in  producing  the  very  moral  influence  sought,  so  now 
we  show  that  the  orthodox  doctrine  just  as  far  surpasses 
the  Governmental  Atonement  view  in  effecting,  as  a 
governmental  expedient,  the  law-vindicating  and  sin- 
deterring  impression  sought  to  be  effected. 

2.  It  is  utterly  im])ossible  for  the  advocates  of  this 
theory  to  show  the  connection  between  the  sufferings  of 
Christ  and  the  effects  which,  they  say,  flow  from  it. 
They  insist  that  it  is  of  the  essence  of  penalty  that  it  be 
inflicted  upon  the  sinner  in  person.  Fiske  insists  that 
God's  justice  can  no  more  be  satisfied  by  the  vicarious 
suffering  of  another  than  the  sinful  agent,  than  a  man's 
thirst  can  be  slaked  by  another  man's  vicariously  drink- 
ing water  for  him.  We  have  admitted  tliat  this  is  the 
precise  point  in  which  the  scriptural  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement  transcends  human  reason.  But  the  whole 
difficulty  lies  in  our  inability  to  discern  fully  the  grounds 
upon  which  the  legal  oneness  of  Christ  and  his  people 
depends.  But  the  advocates  of  the  Governmental  Theory 
deny  that  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  is  a  poena  vicmia. 
They  say  it  is  a  substitute  for  a  penalty — something  in 
the  place  of  the  penalty  to  effect  the  same  purpose.  But 
(a)  how  can  anything  that  is  not  of  the  nature  of  penalty 
effect  the  same  purpose  as  penalty?  And  (6)  how  can 
sufferings  of  one  person  sustain  any  relation  to  the  sins 
of  another  person  if  the  legal  relations  and  responsi- 
bilities of  the  two  ])ersons  are  not  identical?  Suffering 
has  relation  to  sin  or  it  has  not.     If  it  has  relation  to 


GOVERNMENTAL  TIIEOTIY   OF   ATONEMENT.      833 

sin,  it  must  cither  be  designed  as  chastisement  or  as 
penalty.  The  sufferings  of  Clirist  had  relation  to  sin, 
and  they  were  not  personal  chastisement;  they  must, 
therefore,  have  been  penalty;  of  the  genus  penalty  and 
of  the  species  vicarious  ])enalty.  If  this  be  denied,  l(!t 
some  one  state  definitely  what  they  were,  and  let  it  be 
shown  precisely  how  his  suffering,  which  by  hypothesis 
is  not  penalty,  takes  the  place  and  secures  the  end  of 
the  literal  punishment  of  persons  whore  identical  legal 
obligations  do  not  rest  upon  the  person  suffering.  How 
in  the  name  of  reason  is  it  possible  that  the  undeserved 
sufferings  of  Christ,  which  were  not  the  penalty  which 
the  law  demanded,  should  make  it  consistent  with  God's 
rectoral  justice  to  relax  the  law,  and  omit  the  penalty 
altogether  in  the  case  of  repentant  sinners?  If  God's 
abhorrence  of  sin  is  really  and  adequately  expressed  in 
the  sufferings  of  Clirist,  how  is  it  that  his  distributive 
justice  is  not  strictly  satisfied  therein?  and  how  could 
he  truly  and  really  express  his  abhorrence  of  our  sins 
by  means  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  unless  the  real 
legal  responsibility  for  our  sins  were  first  laid  upon 
Christ,  and  they  were  then  strictly  punished  in  him? 

The  truth  is,  that  this  Governmental  Theory  is  an 
invention  designed  to  escape  the  pressure  of  Socinian 
objections  levelled  against  the  true  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement.  The  point  at  which  rational  objections  to 
the  true  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  are  rcost  efficient  is 
that  which  concerns  the  satisfaction  of  strict  justice  in 
the  person  substituted  in  the  place  of  the  actual  crimi- 
nal. In  order  to  avoid  this  objection,  the  advocates  of 
the  Governmental  Hypothesis  admit  its  force,  deny  that 
Christ  was  punished  in  th  t  place  of  sinners,  or  that  he 


334      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

satisfies  the  demands  of  distributive  justice  at  all,  and 
claim  that  the  death  of  Christ  was  a  contrivance  to  take 
the  place  of  the  penalty  of  the  law,  and  to  make  it  con- 
sistent with  God^s  rectoral  righteousness  to  omit  the 
penalty  in  the  case  of  believers  altogether.  But  Jowett 
says  truly:  ^'This  second  theory  has  no  advantage  over 
the  preceding  (orthodox),  except  that  which  tJie  more 
shadowy  statement  must  ever  have  in  rendeiing  difficidties 
themselves  more  shadowy.^^*  Whenever  they  attempt  a 
precise  statement,  in  opposition  t  -  the  Socinians,  of  their 
positive  belief  as  to  the  manner  in  which  the  sufferings 
of  Christ  are  related  to  the  sins  of  his  people,  and  of 
the  manner  in  which  his  sufferings,  wliich  are  no  penalty, 
avail  to  express  God's  abhorrence  of  sin,  or  to  make  it 
consistent  with  his  rectoral  justice  to  omit  the  penalty 
altogether,  they  always  necessarily  fall  back  upon  the 
fundamental  principles  of  the  Satisfaction  Doctrine. 
And  again,  the  very  moment  they  turn  to  distinguish 
their  position  from  that  Church  doctrine  Avhich  includes 
their  special  theory  as  one  of  its  provinces,  they  always 
necessarily  fall  back  in  their  negations  upon  Socinian 
ground.  They  thus  ceaselessly  oscillate  between  the 
two — orthodox  in  all  they  affirm,  and  Socinian  in  all  they 
deny.  Their  champions  put  one  in  mind  of  a  landless 
laird  straddling  the  line-fence  between  two  farms.  He 
is  always  found  standing  upon  that  leg  which  is  the 
othe)'  side  of  the  fence. 

3.  The  fundamental  principle  which  distinguishes  this 

theory,  namely,  that  in  its  last  analysis,  all  virtue  may 

be  resolved  into  benevolence,  is  both  false  and  pernicious. 

To  resolve  all  colour  into  sound  would  be  theoretically 

*S/.  Paul's  Epistles,  vol.  ii.,  p.  473. 


GOVERNMENTAL  THEORY  OF  ATONEMENT.   335 

to  annihilate  colour,  and  so  to  resolve  all  virtue  into 
benevolence  is  theoretically  to  annihilate  virtue.  The 
idea  of  moral  i3bligation  is  simple,  unresolvable,  ulti- 
mate, because  it  is  utterly  impossible  analytically  to 
resolve  it  into  any  elements  more  simple,  or  synthetically 
to  compose  it  out  of  such  elements.  It  is  plain  that 
neither  a  desire  for  our  own  well-being  springing  out  of 
self-love,  nor  a  disinterested  desire  for  the  well-being  of 
others  by  itself,  yields  the  idea  of  moral  obligation.  It 
is  true  that  these  states  .of  mind  are  obligatory,  but  the 
moral  obligation  which  attaches  to  them  is  something 
which  is  independent  of  the  self-love  or  the  benevolence. 
If  the  question  be  asked  why  we  ought  to  do  right,  no 
other  answer  can  be  given  than  that  moral  obligation  i& 
an  ultimate  fact  of  consciousness,  having  its  own  reasoh 
in  itself,  and  from  its  very  nature  necessarily  supreme. 

Taylor,  Fiske,  and  the  advocates  of  their  theory 
generally,  maintain:  (1.)  That  the  orthodox  vicAV  repre- 
sents the  justice  of  God  as  pursuing  its  gratification 
blindly  like  a  physical  appetite.  Their  doctrine  is  that 
divine  justice  demands  the  punishment  of  the  sinner 
only  as  a  means  to  an  end ;  that  is,  in  order  to  maintain 
divine  government,  the  sole  end  and  purpose  of  which  is 
the  attainment  of  the  best  interests  of  the  subjects  of 
that  government.  But  it  is  very  plain  that  their  view 
only  removes  the  ultimate  end  in  which  justice  '4)lindly" 
terminates  one  step  further.  We  say  that  God  punishes 
sin,  because  it  is  an  ultimate  fact  that  moral  excellence 
demands  that  sin  must  be  punished;  because  it  is  an 
ultimate  fact  that  sin  is  intrinsically  in  obligation  to 
punishment.  They  say  that  sin  must  be  punished  in 
order  to  maintain  moral  government,  and  moral  govern- 


336      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

ment  is  necessary  in  order  to  the  best  interests  of  the 
moral  universe ;  and  it  is  an  ultimate  fact  that  the  best 
interests  of  the  moral  universe  ought  to  be  sought  as  a 
paramount  end.  The  fact  is,  that  intelligence,  moral 
and  personal  agency  are  inconceivable  without  ultimate, 
unrcsolvable  principles  of  action  and  of  thought  for 
Avhich  no  reason  can  be  given.  It  is  just  as  certain  and 
as  intelligent  and  self-luminous  a  proposition  that  right 
is  intrinsically  binding,  and  that  sin  must  be  punished 
because  of  its  intrinsic  ill-desert,  as  that  the  best  interests 
of  the  universe  ought  to  be  secured  at  any  cost.  If  be- 
nevolence is  the  sum  of  all  virtue,  this  benevolence  must 
regard  either  the  happiness  or  the  excellence  of  its  objects 
as  its  ultimate  end.  Hence  it  follows  necessarily  that 
^tlier  happir^ess  or  moral  excellence  must  be  the  ultimate 
end,  and  hence  the  ultimate  motive,  of  moral  action. 
If  the  last  is  true,  it  must  be  because  virtue  is  for  its 
own  sake  intrinsically  the  highest  good  and  vice  intrin- 
sically evil.  Virtue  must  have,  therefore,  the  ultimate 
reason  of  its  attracting  divine  approbation,  and  vice 
the  ultimate  reason  of  its  attracting  divine  displeasure 
in  itself.  In  that  case  the  orthodox  theory  of  the 
Atonement  follows.  But  if  the  first  is  true,  and  ulti- 
mately there  is  "nothing  good,''  as  Taylor  says,  "but 
happiness  and  the  means  of  happiness,  and  nothing  evil 
but  misery  and  the  means  of  misery,"*  then  the  distinc- 
tion between  men  and  swine  is  only  one  of  degree. 

(2.)  Feeling  the  force  of  this  infallible  result  of  their 
system,  these  gentlemen  are  very  fond  of  covering  its 
nakedness  with  the  comely  terms  proper  to  the  funda- 

*  Lectures  on  the  Moral  Oovernmjnt  of  God,  by  Natliauiel  W. 
Taylor,  D.D.,  vol.  i.,  Pi>.  31-35. 


GOVERNMENTAL   TllEOllY   OF   ATONEMENT.      337 

mental  principles  of  the  Cliiireli  doctrine,  and  of  insist- 
ing that  they  also  maintain  that  virtue  is  intrinsically  a 
good  for  its  own  sake,  and  that  sin  deserves  punishment 
as  an  ultimate  fact.  Fiske  says:  "Sin  is  intrinsically 
hateful  and  ill-deserving;  it  is  an  evil  per  se,  and  not 
merely  on  account  of  its  tendencies  and  consequences. 
This  we  hold  to  be  a  fundamental  point  in  all  our  ethi- 
cal and  theological  inquiries."  "The  preceptive  part 
of  the  law  must  require  of  all  creatures  perfect  holiness, 
forbidding  all  sin;  because  perfect  holiness  is  inherently 
right  and  excellent;  and  being  inherently  right  and  ex- 
cellent is  indispensable  to  the  highest  good;  and  because 
sin  is  inherently  wrong  and  evil,  and  being  inherently 
wrong  and  evil,  tends  to  interfere  with  the  highest  good 
of  the  universe."  "The  sole  function  of  penalty  is  that 
of  a  legal  sanction.  Its  sole  value  is  its  efficacy  to 
enforce  the  law  and  maintain  its  authority,  and  so  ulti- 
mately help  promote  the  great  benevolent  ends  of  moral 
government."  This  theory  "harmonizes  with  a  just 
conception  of  the  origin  and  e7id  of  law  (including  pre- 
cept and  penalty),  as  emanating  from  a  divine  purpose  to 
promote,  by  means  of  it,  the  highest  good  of  the  uni- 
verse."* This  is  very  astonishing.  It  seems  that  the 
ultimate^  that  is,  real  end  of  commanding  at  all  is  certain 
consequences  to  be  secured  by  the  commands,  and  yet 
that  virtue  is  commanded  because  it  is  intrinsically  good, 
and  it  is  intrinsically  good  because  certain  of  its  conse- 
quences are  good.  The  real  end  of  forbidding  is  to 
attain  certain  consequences,  and  yet  vice  is  forbidden 
because  it  is  intrinsically  wrong,  and  it  is  intrinsically 
wrong  because  some  of  its  consequences  are  injurious. 

*  Bibliotlieca  SSacia,  vol.  xviii.,  \>\}.  lI'Jo-ol8. 
29 


338      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Vico  is  punished  because  it  is  intrinsically  ill-deserv^ 
ing,  and  yet  the  ultimate  end  of  all  punishment  is 
to  be  found  in  certain  consequences  it  is  designed  to 
effect. 

The  ultimate  end  of  law,  prece})t  and  penalty  is  the 
good  of  the  moral  universe.  The  aole  function  of 
punishment  is,  as  a  sanction  to  law,  to  promote  the 
benevolent  ends  of  moral  government.  All  virtue  is 
benevolence;  that  is,  a  desire  that  all  others  shall  be 
happy  and  virtuous — that  is,  be  haj^py  and  wish  all 
others  happy.  Punishment,  therefore,  is  a  violent  mo- 
tive addressed  to  i\\^  self-love  of  the  subjects  of  law  to 
induce  them  to  wish  all  others  to  be  happy.  Atonement 
is  a  substitute  for  the  penalty,  to  take  its  place  and  to 
produce  precisely  the  same  effect.  Therefore  it  follows, 
according  to  this  boasted  Governmental  Theory,  the 
highest  lesson  of  the  crucifixion  of  the  eternal  Son  of 
God  is  that  "  honesty  is  the  best  policy ! ! !" 

4.  This  theory  is  utterly  intolerable,  because  it  repre- 
sents the  sacred  tragedy  of  Gethsemane  and  Calvary  as 
an  illusive  example  of  punishment  where  there  was  no 
real  punishment — an  ^^  expression ''  of  divine  attributes 
which  were  not  really  exercised  in  the  case.  The  ortho- 
dox doctrine  is  that  Christ  really  satisfied  the  justice  of 
God  by  really  suffering  the  penalty  of  sin  in  our  stead. 
The  Governmental  Theory  is  that  the  sufferings  of 
Christ  were  not  the  punishment  of  sin,  not  the  exercise 
of  divine  justice  upon  Christ,  but  an  examj)le  of  punish- 
ment and  an  expression  of  God's  just  wrath.  "Grotius, 
as  well  as  Socinus,  attached  principal  importance  to  the 
moral  impression  which  the  death  of  Christ  is  calculated 
to  produce,  with  this  difference  only,  that  Grotius  takes 


GOVERNMENTAT.  THEORY  OF  ATONEMENT.   339 

this  principle  negatively,  Sociniis  positively;  for  in  the 
oi>inion  of  Grotius,  tlie  moral  effect  of  Chrisi's  death 
consists  in  the  cxhihition  of  the  j^unishinent  due  to  sin; 
according  to  Socinus,  in  the  moral  courage  which  (.'hrist 
manifested  in  his  death."  It  is  very  grievous  that  the 
sacred  death  of  our  Lord  should  be  thus  characterized 
as  an  attempt  upon  God's  part,  unveiled  and  rendered  for 
ever  inii)()ssible  by  these  very  theorists,  to  impose  upon 
the  moral  universe  an  "expression"  of  attributes  not 
actually  in  exercise,  an  '^exhibition  of  punishment" 
where  there  is  no  punishment,  and  to  make  an  example  in 
which  sin  is  dealt  with  without  punishment  an  emphatic 
demonstration  of  his  purpose  always  to  punish  it. 
Jowett  says  truly:  "This  doctrine  (Governmental)  is  the 
surface  or  shadow  of  the  preceding,  with  the  substance 
or  foundation  cut  away."  "If  this  scheme  avoids  the 
difficulty  of  offering  an  unworthy  satisfaction  to  God, 
and  so  doing  violence  to  his  attributes,  we  can  scarcely 
free  it  from  the  equal  difficulty  of  interposing  a  painful 
fiction  between  God  and  man.  Was  the  spectacle  real 
which  was  presented  before  God  and  the  angels  on 
Mount  Calvary?  This  theory  avoids  the  physical  illu- 
sion of  the  old  heretics,  and  introduces  a  moral  illusion 
of  a  Avorse  kind."* 

"  There  is  certainly  no  manifestation  of  the  excellence 
and  perfection  of  the  divine  law,  or  of  the  necessity  of 
maintaining  and  honouring  it,  if,  in  the  provision  made 
for  pardoning  sinners,  it  was  relaxed  and  set  aside — if 
its  penalty  was  not  inflicted,  if  there  was  no  fulfilment 
of  its  exactions,  no  compliance  with  its  demands."t  The 

*  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  272-275. 

I  Cunningham's  History  of  Theology,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  355,  356. 


340     THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

law  was  cither  literally  fulfilled  or  relaxed.  Sin  was 
either  really  punished  or  the  punishment  was  remitted. 
God  either  poured  out  his  wrath  really  and  truly  upon 
Christ  as  a  vicarious  victim,  or  he  did  not.  And  we 
may  be  most  sure  that  if  there  was  no  exercise  of  justice, 
there  was  no  expression  of  it;  if  there  was  no  punish- 
ment, there  was  no  example  of  it;  if  there  was  no  wrath 
felt,  there  was  no  manifestation  of  it.  Whatever  it  may 
not  have  been,  we  know  that  it  was  the  most  intensely 
real  transaction  this  earth  has  ever  witnessed. 

5.  This  doctrine  is  false,  because  it  involves  the  denial 
of  those  scriptural  principles  as  to  the  nature  of  divine 
justice,  as  to  the  immutability  of  the  law  and  the  abso- 
lute necessity  of  the  Atonement,  as  to  the  nature  and 
design  of  the  typical  sacrifices  and  priesthood,  as  to  the 
full  force  of  the  language  which  teaches  that  Christ 
came  in  our  steadj  as  our  Ransom^  and  that  he  bore  our 
sins,  <S:c.,  which  have  been  so  fully  proved  in  the  previous 
chapters  of  this  volume. 

6.  This  theory  is  untrue,  because  it  teaches  necessarily 
that  Christ  died  indifferently  for  all  men,  and  that  the 
only  effect  of  his  death  was  to  remove  legal  obstacles  out 
of  the  way  of  the  gratuitous  forgiveness  of  all  men  on 
condition  of  repentance.  It  necessarily  teaches  that  all 
which  Christ  purchased  for  any  was  that  pardon  which 
he  purchased  conditionally  for  all,  while  the  application 
of  the  benefits  of  his  work  to  the  individual  is  left  un- 
determined by  the  Atonement  itself.  This  is,  of  course, 
disproved  by  all  those  scriptural  arguments  by  which 
we  have  proved  that  Christ  purchased  for  those  for 
whom  he  died  faith  and  repentance,  the  adoption  of 
sons,  and  an  eternal  inheritance. 


GOVERNMENTAL   THEORY   (  F   ATONEMENT.      341 

7.  It  Is  false,  because  it  is  essential  to  it  that  justifica- 
tion should  l)e  mere  pardon  and  that  faith  shoald  be  the 
divinely-accepted  condition  U])on  which  the  pardon  pro- 
ceeds for  Christ's  sake,  while;  all  other  s[)iritual  gifts  are 
given  us  as  the  gracious  rewards  of  our  own  holy  obe- 
dience. This  leads  to  that  theory  of  co-operative  justi- 
fication which  is  the  fundamental  vice  of  the  Romish 
system,  and  it  is  disproved  very  plainly  by  all  that  we 
have  proved  from  Scripture  as  to  the  nature  of  justifica- 
tion, of  faith  and  of  union  with  Christ. 

8.  If  not  disproved  it  is  greatly  discredited  by  the 
fact,  not  only  confessed  but  paraded,  that  it  is  the  ^'  New 
Theory '^  of  the  Atonement.  AVe  have  proved  suffi- 
ciently (a)  that  the  doctrine  which  maintains  that  the 
sufferings  of  Christ  were  a  true  j)oena  vicaria  has  been 
at  the  heart  of  the  faith  of  the  Church  from  the  be- 
ginning; and  {b)  that  this  Governmental  Theory  is  in 
no  intelligible  sense  a  development  or  improvement  of 
the  other.  It  Is  a  different  faith.  If  then  it  is  '^new^' 
in  this  day,  it  must  withstand  the  tremendous  weight  of 
the  presumption  that  all  God's  dear  children  could  not 
have  continued  under  a  delusion  with  regard  to  the 
meaning  of  Christ's  death  and  the  nature  of  the  gospel, 
which  they  believed  and  preached  for  seventeen  hundred 
years. 

9.  This  theory  is  discredited  by  the  fact  that  it  is  not 
developed  in  the  first  instance  by  a  careful  exposition  of 
and  strict  Induction  from  Scripture.  Its  advocates  do 
not  pretend  that  they  generate  it  out  of  Scripture ;  the 
most  they  claim  Is,  that  having  developed  it  as  a  product 
of  speculation,  they  are  able  to  show  that  it  harmonizes 
with  all  the  facts  of  Scripture.     Barnes  occupies  three 

29* 


342      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

hundred  and  sixteen  pages  with  his  discussion  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  Atonement.  Of  these,  two  hundred  and 
sixty-eight  are  occupied  with  rational  speculation  and 
analogical  reasoning  as  to  what  an  Atonement  need  to 
be,  can  be,  ought  to  be  and  must  be.  The  foundation 
of  this  is  (1)  a  priori  ideas  as  to  what  God  must  be,  or 
at  least  ought  to  be.  "Apart  from  any  revelation,  and 
back  of  any  revelation,  we  form  our  conceptions  of  God ; 
and  we  cannot  think  otherwise  of  him  than  we  do."* 
A  position  which  makes  a  revelation  ridiculously  super- 
fluous. (2.)  This  argument  rests  upon  analogies  drawn 
from  observations  of  human  governments  and  divine 
providence.  And  then  thirty-nine  pages  are  devoted  to 
the  confirmation  of  these  views,  thus  brought  in  by  rea- 
son, with  the  concurrent  testimony  of  Scripture.  The 
same  trait  is  just  as  strikingly  characteristic  also  of  Be- 
man,  Jenkyn  and  Taylor,  and  generally  of  all  writers  of 
this  class.  On  the  other  hand,  I  have  aimed  to  show 
what  the  Church  has  always  believed,  that  the  true 
theory  of  the  Atonement  is  inseparable  from  the  facts 
of  Scripture,  and  therefore  just  as  much  in  Scripture  as 
the  facts  themselves — just  as  much  as  the  Copernican 
system  has  always  been  with  the  stars  in  the  sky.  In- 
telligent observation  and  accurate  interpretation  is  the 
limit  of  legitimate  human  agency  in  both  cases.  The 
Atonement  can  be  known  by  us  only  as  it  is  revealed. 
The  humble,  patient  induction  of  the  law  from  all  the 
data  given  in  Scripture  is  the  only  method  which  in 
such  investigations  can  for  one  moment  be  allowed. 
And  the  pursuit  of  such  a  method  certainly  never  issued 
in  the  Governmental  Theory  of  the  Atonement. 
*  Atonement,  p.  321. 


GOVERNMENTAL  THEORY  OF  ATONEMENT.   343 

10.  There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  in  the  great 
majority  of  instances  the  real  predisposing  cause,  giving 
force  and  currency  to  this  view  of  the  Atonement,  is  a 
prejudice,  not  unnatural,  but  certainly  not  enlightened, 
against  what  is  often  though  erroneously  called  a  limited 
Atonement.  "The  last  objection  we  will  here  urge 
against  this  theory  (Satisfaction)  is,  that  it  leads,  by  a 
logical  necessity,  either  to  the  doctrine  of  a  limited 
Atonement,  on  the  one  hand,  or  to  the  doctrine  of  uni- 
versal salvation,  on  the  other."* 

Now,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  following  chapters,  I  show 
that,  when  thoroughly  analyzed  and  accurately  defined, 
the  true  doctrine,  that  Christ  satisfied  the  retributive 
justice  of  God  by  bearing  the  very  penalty  of  the  law, 
does  not  logically  lead  to  any  consequences  which  can 
be  accurately  expressed  by  the  phrase  limited  Atonement. 
The  expiatory  work  of  Christ  is  (a)  exactly  adapted  in- 
diflPerently  to  each  and  every  man;  (6)  is  sufficient  for 
all;  (c)  is  offered  in  good  faith  to  each  man  to  whom  the 
gospel  comes;  (d)  it  removes  all  legal  obstacles  out  of 
God's  way  to  the  salvation  of  any  one  indifferently  whom 
he  pleases;  (e)  it  makes  salvation  in  an  objective  sense 
possible  to  every  one  to  whom  it  is  offered,  if  he  has,  or 
as  soon  as  he  obtains,  the  necessary  subjective  condition, 
faith.  But  God's  pleasure  is  eternal ;  therefore  he 
pleases  to  save  now  precisely  those  w-hom  he  pleased  to 
save  when  he  gave  Christ;  therefore  he  gave  Christ 
with  the  design  of  saving  those  whom  he  d£>es  save,  in 
other  words,  the  elect;  and  therefore  the  expiatory  work 
of  Christ  was,  not  in  respect  to  the  sufferings  in  them- 

*  Fiske,  Bibliotlieca  Sacra,  vol    sviii.,  p.  305. 


344      THE  NATURE  01  THE  ATONEMENT. 

selves  considered,  but  in  respect  to  Christ's  intention  in 
suffering,  definite  and  not  indefinite  in  its  relation  to 
persons.  The  question  concerning  the  personal  bearing 
of  the  Atonement,  when  analyzed,  yields  but  five  ele- 
ments: (a.)  Its  adaptibility — wliicli  is  unlimited;  (6)  its 
sufficiency — which  is  unlimited;  (c)  its  offer — which  is 
unlifnited ;  (d)  its  intended  application — which  every  Cal- 
vinist  must  admit  is  peculiar  to  tlie  elect;  (e)  its  actual 
application — which  is  peculiar  to  those  who  are  not  lost. 
If  any  Calvinist  disagrees  with  the  above  statement, 
let  him  either  state  wherein  it  fails  to  exliaust  the 
whole  case,  or  let  him  show  how  the  denial  that  the 
^^ intended  application"  of  the  Atonement  relates  only  to 
the  elect  is  consistent  with  the  doctrine  of  unconditional 
election. 

It  is  very  plain,  therefore,  (1)  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
definite  design  of  the  Atonement  is  not  so  revolting  as 
its  opponents  imagine.  I  have  shown  that  the  doctrine 
presented  in  the  little  work  entitled  "Gethsemane"* 
never  was  the  accepted  doctrine  of  the  Reformed 
Churches.  And  it  is  precisely  against  this  perversion 
or  caricature  of  the  old  Calvinism  that  the  objections 
in  question  are  directed.  (2.)  That  the  doctrine  of  the 
definite  design  of  the  Atonement  is  far  more  inseparably 
in  locked  w^ith  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  Calvinism, 
viz.,  the  unconditional  eternal  election  of  individuals  to 
eternal  life,  founded  upon  the  sovereign  good  pleasure 
of  God,  thaji  it  is  with  any  peculiar  views  as  to  the 
strict  vicarious  and  penal  character  of  Christ's  sufferings. 
(3.)  That  it  is  not  necessary  for  men  to  adopt  false  views 

*  Part  ii.,  chiipter  iii. 


GOVEKlSrMENTAL   THEOTIT   OF   ATONEMENT.      345 

as  to  the  nature  of  the  Atonemei  t  in  order  to  support 
them  in  their  i)rejudiee(]  preference  for  confused  views 
as  its  extent.  Let  them  ])refer  to  occupy  the  ground  of 
the  Lutherans — an  honourable  company  of  scholars  and 
saints,  who  hold  at  once  the  strictest  views  as  to  the  sin- 
expiating,  justice-satisfying  nature  of  the  Atonement, 
and  the  broadest  views  as  to  its  indefinite  and  universal 
design. 

IL  The  origin,  history  and  logical  development  of 
this  doctrine  demonstrate  that  it  is  radically  and  neces- 
sarily inconsistent  with  the  system  of  Calvinism.  The 
idea  of  an  integral  element  of  Calvinism  being  generated 
out  of  the  speculative  development  of  Arminianism  is 
as  absurd  as  that  of  looking  for  figs  from  thistles,  or,  if 
you  please,  for  thistles  from  figs.  The  germ  of  the 
Governmental  Theory  was  furnished  by  Hugo  Grotius. 
Coleridge  says  of  what  is  called  Arminianism  that, 
*^  taken  as  a  complete  and  explicit  scheme  of  belief,  it 
•would  be  both  historically  and  theologically  more  accu- 
rate to  call  it  Grotianism,  or  Christianity  according  to 
Grotius."* 

We  have  shown  that  this  theory  leads  to  essentially 
Arminian  views;  (1)  as  to  the  nature  of  justification  in 
chapters  xiv.  and  xviii.;  and  (2)  as  to  an  indefinite  and 
general  Atonement  in  Part  IL,  chapter  iii.  It  is  suffi- 
ciently plain  that  the  adoption  of  Arminianism  on  these 
points  involves  logically  the  definite  adoption  of  Armin- 
ianism as  a  whole,  as  the  immediate  tendency  and 
ultimate  result.  We  are  glad  to  believe  that  the  con- 
viction is  becoming  very  general  among  those  who  have 
been  foremost  in  testing  the  ^'improvements"  that  the 
*  Coleridge's  Works,  Shedd's  Edition,  vol.  i.,  p.  208. 


346      THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Calvinism  of  the  Reformed  Churches  is  a  self-contained 
system  which  must  be  either  received  or  rejected  as  a 
whole.  The  doctrines  of  Satisfaction,  Imputation,  &c., 
are  found  not  to  be  excrescences,  but  in  such  a  sense 
integral  and  inseparable  that  the  system  becomes  untena- 
ble to  those  who  will  not  admit  them. 


PART     II. 

THE  DESIGN  OR  INTENDED  APPLICATION  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

CHAPTER    I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

THE  Dcngn  or  Intended  Application  of  the  Atonement. 
Did  Christ  die  with  the  design  of  makinar  satisfac- 
tion  to  divine  justice  in  behalf  of  all  men,  indiscrimi- 
nately, or  in  behalf  of  his  elect  seed  personally  and 
definitely  ? 

We  consider  this  a  question  whose  interest  is  less 
essential  and  intrinsic  than  derived  from  its  relation  to 
principles  which  are  intrinsically  important,  and  funda- 
mental to  the  system  of  faith  known  as  evangelical.  I 
claim  to  have  established,  on  its  own  independent  evi- 
dence, the  great  question  concerning  the  Nature  of  the 
Atonement,  which  is  the  real  interest  for  the  sake  of 
which  this  book  is  written.  There,  and  not  under  the 
present  head,  lie  the  principles  which  are  the  true  cause 
of  debate  between  us  and  our  present  oi:)ponent.s.  I  take 
ap  this  question  as  to  the  design  and  personal  reference 
of  the  atoning  work  of  Christ  only  as  it  is  subsidiary  to 
the  former,  and  for  the  purpose  chiefly  of  analyzing  the 
question  and  defining  its  real  elements,  and  of  sliowing 

'611 


348  DESIGN   OF   THE  ATONENENI. 

the  necessary  relations  which  they  sustain  to  the  other 
elements  of  the  system  of  faith ;  as,  for  instance,  to  the 
nature  of  the  Atonement,  and  to  the  sovereignty  of  the 
divine  decrees. 

It  is  evident  that  the  opinion  that  the  Atonement  is 
general  and  indefinite  must  be  held  and  defended  by  tlie 
Calvinistic  Universalist  under  conditions  very  different 
from  those  under  which  it  is  comprehended  and  vindicated 
by  the  flir  more  consistent  Arminians.  I  propose,  there- 
fore, in  order  to  clear  the  way  for  the  accurate  under- 
standing of  the  elements  involved  in  this  question  in  all 
their  bearings,  to  consider  for  a  moment  the  design  of  the 
Atonement;  (a)  as  it  is  involved  in  our  controversy  with 
the  Arminians;  and  (6)  as  it  is  involved  in  our  contro- 
versies with  the  abettors  of  the  various  modifications  of, 
Calvinism. 

1.  As  far,  then,  as  this  question  is  involved  in  the 
Arminian  controversy,  we  are  ready  to  admit  the  reality 
of  the  great  importance  wdiich  they  attribute  to  it.  If 
they  could  prove  that  the  love  which  pronxpted  God  to 
give  his  Son  to  die,  as  a  sin-offering,  on  the  cross,  had 
for  its  objects  all  men  indiscriminately,  and  that  Christ 
actually  sacrificed  his  life  with  the  pur2)ose  of  saving  all 
indifferently  on  the  condition  of  faith,  then  it  appears 
that  their  inference  is  irresistible  that  the  central  princi- 
ple of  Arminianism  is  true ;  that  is,  the  principle  which 
makes  the  destiny  of  the  individual  to  dej^end  upon  his 
own  use  of  divine  grace,  and  not  upon  the  sovereign 
good  pleasure  of  God.  It  is  at  this  point,  very  wisely 
as  we  think,  the  Arminian  erects  his  main  citadel.  We 
freely  admit  that  just  here  the  advocates  of  that  system 
are  able  to  present  a  greater  number  and  variety  of  texts 


LNTRODUCrORY.  349 

which  appeal"  tt  favour  tlie  distinguishing  principles  of 
their  system  than  they  are  able  to  gather  in  vindication 
of  any  other  of  tlieir  main  positions.  On  the  topics  of 
divine  decrees,  of  unconditional  election  of  certain  per- 
sons to  faith,  and  thn)uu:h  faith  to  eternal  salvation,  and 
of  efficacious  as  distinguished  from  common  grace,  the 
Scriptures  are  so  obviously  as  well  as  overwhelmingly 
Calvinistic,  that  our  opponents  are  reduced  to  the  defen- 
sive, and  are  able  to  do  little  else  than  api)eal  to  reason 
and  human  conceptions  of  justice,  and  attempt  in  detail 
to  sliow  that  the  passages  of  Scripture  to  which  we  ap- 
peal may  possibly  mean  something  less  than  they  aj)pear 
to  say.  Thus  along  a  greater  portion  of  his  line  of 
defences  the  necessary  tactics  of  the  Arminian  are  as 
negative,  as  purely  defensive,  and  as  much  confined  to  a 
skirmish  in  detail,  as  is  the  enforced  policy  of  the  So- 
cinian  along  his  line  when  the  Scriptures  are  appealed  to 
as  the  medium  of  proof;  while  the  Calvinist  carries  on 
an  aggressive  war  upon  both.  At  this  point,  however, 
supposing  this  to  be  the  weakest  point  of  the  Calvinistic 
defences,  with  their  unwonted  accession  of  scriptural 
texts,  they  turn  the  tables  upon  us,  and  force  us  to  the 
defence  of  showing,  in  our  turn,  why  the  phrases  ^^  all  '^  or 
"  world  ^^  in  their  several  proof-texts  may  not  or  cannot 
be  intended  by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  include  all  and  every 
man  indiscriminately.  Then  gathering  together  their 
scriptural  evidence  for  the  general  and  indefinite  design 
of  the  Atonement,  they  proceed  with  great  appearance 
of  force  to  argue  infereutially  against  the  out-flanked 
Calvinistic  positions  of  unconditional  election  and  effi- 
cacious grace.  In  this  manner  Richard  Watson  in  effect 
puts  the  strain  of  his  entire  argument  upon  this  one 
30 


360  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

position.  He  starts  from  tlie  demonstration  of  the  in- 
definite universality  of  tlie  Atonement,  and  builds  up 
subsequently  from  that  foundation;  thus  practically  rest- 
ing the  weight  of  his  whole  system  upon  it.  We,  on 
the  other  hand,  claim  that  it  is  one  evidence  of  tlie 
superior  biblical  character  of  our  system  that  we  are 
able  to  bring  positive  and  direct  proof  in  evidence  of 
every  doctrine  separately,  without  resting  the  weight  of 
one  upon  its  logical  bearings  on  others.  The  true  doc- 
trine as  to  the  design  of  Christ  in  dying  is  perfectly 
consistent  with  the  true  doctrines  as  to  election  and 
grace,  and  every  other  theory  as  to  the  former  will  be 
found  to  be  logically  inconsistent  with  the  true  doctrine 
as  to  the  latter ;  and  these  consistent  doctrines  must,  in 
virtue  of  that  very  consistency,  yield  mutual  support  to 
one  another.  Nevertheless,  the  doctrine  of  the  Satisfac- 
tion of  Christ,  both  as  to  its  nature  and  design,  is  a  per- 
fect whole  in  itself,  and  is  abundantly  established  by 
direct  scriptural  evidence,  independent  of  any  relation  it 
may  sustain  to  any  other  doctrine.  At  present,  how- 
ever, it  is  no  part  of  the  task  I  have  assumed  to  show 
the  truth  of  the  Calvinistic  or  the  falsity  of  the  Armin- 
ian  systems,  except  in  so  far  as  the  fate  of  these  systems 
may  be  involved  in  the  establishment  of  the  true  doc- 
trine as  to  the  nature  and  design  of  the  Atonement.  I 
have  the  unquestionable  right,  as  far  as  the  present  dis- 
cussion is  concerned,  to  assume  the  truth  of  those  great 
scriptural  principles  which  are  characteristic  of  the  Cal- 
vinistic system  as  a  whole. 

2.  This  will  necessarily  confine  the  discussion  to  that 
form  which  the  question  assumes  when  brought  in  debate 
between  those  who  hold  i^hat  Christ  died  to  secure  the 


INTRODUCrOBY.  351 

salvation  of  tlie  elect  personally,  and  those  who,  while 
maintainini;  tliat  the  design  of  his  death  was  general  and 
impersonal,  nevertheless  more  or  less  fully  adhere  to  the 
other  characteristic  positions  of  Calvinism.  These  last 
again  fall  into  two  classes,  whose  distinguishing  chamc- 
teristics  materially  modify  their  relations  to  us  in  the 
matter  at  present  in  hand,  (a.)  Those,  who  like  Amy- 
raldus  of  Saumur,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  Ward- 
law,*  Balmer,  and  John  Brown,  James  Richardsf  of 
Auburn  Theological  Seminary,  of  the  age  just  past,  hold 
the  true  doctrine  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Atonement  with 
great  accuracy,  and  whose  divergence  from  the  theology 
of  the  Reformed  Churches  is  confined  to  the  single 
point  of  the  pretended  general  reference  of  the  Atone- 
ment. (6.)  Those,  who  like  Jenkyn,  Beman,  Barnes, 
and  others,  in  various  degrees,  yet  materially,  depart 
from  the  true  faith  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Atonement, 
and  whose  views  as  to  its  indefinite  universality  is  a 
necessary  corollary  of  their  views  as  to  its  nature. 

As  far  as  the  former  of  these  parties  is  concerned,  I 
think  that  their  exceptional  position  as  to  the  design  or 
intended  application  of  the  Atonement  is  to  be  referred 
to  a  hardly  conscious  dissatisfaction  with  the  peculiarities 
of  Calvinism,  giving  rise  to  these  first  movements  of  an 
undeveloped  and  hence  unconscious  Arminianism ;  or,  as 
I  hope  is  true  in  a  majority  of  cases,  and  as  can  be  shown 
to  be  certainly  true  in  some  of  them,  their  divergence  on 
this  point  is  to  be  referred  solely  to  an  absence  of  ciear- 

*  "Systematic  Theology,"  by  Ealph  Wardlaw,  D.D.,  vol.  ii.,  cliap- 
ters  xxiii.-xxvi. 

f  *'  Lectures  on  Mental  Philosophy  and  Th  ilogy,"  by  Jaraea 
Richards,  D.D.,  Lecture  xiii. 


352  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

ness  of  thought,  and  consequent  inaccuracy  ir  the  use  of 
terms.  I  believe  it  ought  to  be  a  recognized  principle 
that  when  it  is  certain  that  men  intelligently  and 
honestly  agree  in  maintaining  all  other  peculiarities  of 
Calvinism,  and  especially  accurate  views  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  Atonement,  any  question  as  to  its  design  which  can 
possibly  arise  among  such  men  must  be  regarded  and 
should  be  treated  as  a  mere  dispute  of  words.  The  use 
of  illegitimate  language  here  may  mark  a  tendency,  but 
it  cannot,  under  the  conditions  I  suppose,  mark  an  here- 
tical opinion,  for  at  this  point  and  under  such  conditions 
there  is  no  room  for  a  possible  thinkable  peculiarity  to 
come  in.  This,  however,  does  not  justify  carelessness  in 
defining  either  in  thought  or  words  our  own  position  nor 
indifference  to  the  confusion  of  others.  This  considera- 
tion should  all  the  more  enforce  upon  us  the  necessity  of 
clear  views,  of  exact  use  of  language  and  of  technical 
definitions  upon  a  central  point  from  which  so  many 
roads  diverge,  which,  springing  up  in  apparently  unes- 
sential discriminations,  instantly  lead  to  irreconcilable 
conclusions. 

As  to  the  Icdter  of  the  two  species  of  Calvinistic  Uni- 
versalists,  with  whom  our  argument  in  the  preceding 
part  of  this  volume  has  been  chiefly  concerned,  we 
charge  that  their  position  as  to  the  design  of  Christ  in 
dying  is  only  a  necessary  corollary,  dependent  upon  and 
subordinate  to  their  doctrine  as  to  the  nature  of  his  work. 
The  doctrine  as  to  the  design  of  the  Atonement  is  as  neces- 
sarily and  as  essentially  subordinate  to  the  doctrine  as  to 
its  nature,  with  them  as  it  is  with  us.  The  attempt 
which  is  often  made  to  exalt  the  question  as  to  its  design 
into  a  distinct  and  independent  head  of  doctrine,  the 


INTRODUCTORY.  353 

various  solutions  of  Avhich  distinguish  o.ie  school  ol* 
Calvinistic  tlioologians  from  anotlier,  indubitably  proves 
the*  want  either  of  candour  or  of  competent  knowJege  as 
to  tlie  true  state  of  the  controversy.  We  without  doubt 
intend  to  hold  all  those  who  in  any  way  pervert  or 
obscure  the  true  doctrine  as  to  the  nature  of  Christ's 
redeeming  work  to  the  real  point  at  issue.  This 
involves  the  very  essence  of  salvation  by  Christ.  All 
men  can  see  that  the  differences  which  divide  us  here 
are  of  a  vital  interest.  We  insist,  moreover,  that  honour 
re(piires  that  each  champion  shall  define  the  cause  in 
which  he  appears  both  exactly  and  openly.  None  can 
be  allowed  to  bring  in  surreptitiously  a  defective  view  as 
to  the  nature  of  the  Atonement,  under  pretence  that  he  is 
bringing  in  only  an  unimportant  distinction  as  to  its 
general  reference.  At  present  we  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  evidence  establishing  the  true  doctrine  as  to  its 
nature.  We  assume  that  the  strict  theory  of  Satisfaction, 
as  taught  in  the  symbols  of  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed 
Churches,  has  been  proved  in  the  preceding  portion  of 
this  volume  to  be  the  doctrine  taught  in  Scripture. 

What  I  have  to  say  on  the  present  subject  of  the 
design  of  the  Atonement  will  be  grouped  under  the  fol- 
lowing heads:  (1.)  The  exact  statement  of  the  real 
question  in  debate,  excluding  all  irrelevant  issues,  and 
sharply  defining  the  only  point  about  which  men  can 
difter  on  this  subject.  (2.)  A  discussion  of  the  true  rela- 
tion which  the  question  as  to  the  design  of  the  Atone- 
niert  necessarily  sustains  to  the  previous  and  more 
important  question  as  to  its  nati|re.  (3.)  A  brief  sketch 
in  outline  of  the  history  of  opinion  on  this  subject,  espe- 
cially the  different  forms  the  controversy  has  assumed 
30  * 


354  DESIGN    OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

among  Calviiiists.  (4.)  An  answer  to  the  questions, 
What  were  the  personal  views  of  Calvin?  What  is  Cal- 
vinism? What  is  the  standard  of  that  system  of  faith 
held  by  common  consent  by  the  Reformed  Churches? 
and  especially,  What  doctrine  is  solemnly  professed  by 
all  those  who  adopt  the  Westminster  Confession,  exanimo, 
as  the  confession  of  their  faith?  (5.)  An  exhibition  of 
the  scriptural  evidence  relied  upon  to  establish  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Reformed  Churches  as  to  the  personal  and 
definite  design  of  the  Atonement.  (6.)  An  examination 
and  solution  of  the  several  arguments  presented  by  the 
advocates  of  general  and  indefinite  redemption  as  refu- 
tations of  our  doctrine  and  as  evidences  establishing  the 
truth  of  theirs. 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE   TRUE    DOCTRINE   AS    TO    THE    DESIGN     OF    THE    ATONE- 
MENT  ACCURATELY    STATED. 

I  PROPOSE,  then,  to  give  an  exact  statement  of  tlie 
true  question  at  issue  between  those  who  maintain  tlie 
definite  and  personal  and  those  who  maintain  the  gene- 
ral and  indefinite  design  of  the  vicarious  work  of  Christ. 
Whatever  may  be  the  subject  in  debate,  it  is  evident  that 
the  exact  discrimination  of  the  point  in  question  is  the 
first  thing  to  be  done,  the  well-doing  of  which  is  of 
the  very  highest  importance.  But  this  is  far  more 
than  ordinarily  true  in  the  present  instance,  because  it 
so  happens  that  among  those  who  agree  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  Atonement  and  as  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  divine 
decrees  there  is  no  thinkable  difference  here  possible. 
The  bare  statement  of  the  question  will,  itself,  therefore, 
dissipate  as  irrelevant  the  vast  mass  of  objections  made 
to  the  orthodox  doctrine  by  its  adversaries,  and  mani- 
festly reduces  to  a  mere  contest  of  words  the  only  issue 
which  can  possibly  be  debated  by  intelligent  and  honest 
Calvinists. 

The  question,  then,  (1)  does  not  relate  to  the  suf- 
ficiency of  the  satisfaction  rendered  by  Christ  to 
secure  the  salvation  of  all  men.  The  Reformed 
Churches  have  uniformly  taught  that  no  man  has  ever 
yet  perished,  or  ever  will  perish,  for  want  of  an  atone- 

355 


356  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

menl.  All  Calvinists  agree  in  maintaining  earnestly 
that  Christ's  obedience  and  sufferings  were  of  infinite 
intrinsic  value  in  the  eye  of  law,  and  that  there  was  no 
need  for  him  to  obey  or  to  suffer  an  iota  more  nor  a 
moment  longer  in  order  to  secure,  if  God  so  willed,  the 
salvation  of  every  man,  woman,  and  child  that  ever 
lived.  No  man  can  have  a  moment's  doubt  upon  the 
sul)ject  who  acknowledges  the  supreme  divinity  of  the 
glorious  Victim.  It  is  insisted  u^^on  by  Turretin,  Wit- 
sius,  and  by  John  Owen,*  as  earnestly  as  it  is  by  Jenkyn 
or  Barnes.  It  is  consequently  utterly  irrelevant  to  the 
question  in  hand,  when  Barnes  closes  his  argument 
to  prove  that  Christ  died  in  order  to  make  the  salvation 
of  all  men  indiscriminately  possible,  with  the  plea  that 
after  eighteen  hundred  years  the  stream  of  Atonement 
is  found  unexhausted  alike  in  its  volume  and  its  vir- 
tues. Surely,  this  is  even  less  than  the  glorious  truth. 
It  will  be  none  the  less  true  after  eighteen  millions  of 
years.  But  this  question  has  never  been  debated  by  the 
Keformed  Churches.  We  unite  with  all  other  Christians 
in  glorying  in  the  infinite  sufficiency  of  the  satisfaction 
of  Christ  to  reach  and  to  save  all  men  who  have  been 
or  who  will  be  created  or  creatable. 

2.  The  question  does  not  relate  to  the  applicability 
of  the  satisfaction  rendered  by  Christ  to  the  exact  legal 
relations  and  to  the  necessities  in  order  to  the  salvation 
of  every  lost  sinner  in  the  world.  Christ  did  and  suf- 
fered })recisely  what  the  law  demanded  of  each  man  per- 
sonally and  of  every  man  indiscriminately,  and  it  may 

*  Turretin,  L.  xiv.,  Q.  xiv.,  ?  9.  Owen's  Peath  of  Death,  in  Death 
of  Christ,  B.  iy.,  ch.  i.,  ?  1.  Witsius's  Economy  of  the  Covenants, 
B.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  a  2. 


STATEMENT    OF   DOCTRTNE.  357 

be  at  any  time  applied  to  the  redemption  of  one  man  as 
well  as  to  another,  as  far  as  the  satisfaction  itself  is  con- 
cerned. Putting  these  two  things  together,  therefore,  the 
sufficiency  for  all  and  the  exact  adaptation  to  each,  it  is 
plain  as  the  sun  in  the  heavens  that  the  death  of  Christ 
did  remove  all  legal  obstacles  out  of  the  way  of  God's 
saving  any  man  he  pleases.  In  this  sense,  if  you  please, 
Christ  did  make  the  salvation  of  all  men  indifferently 
possible,  a  parte  Del.  He  can  apply  it  to  any  whomso- 
ever he  will ;  but  since  his  will  never  changes,  there  can 
be  no  distinction  between  his  present  will  and  his  eternal 
design. 

3.  The  question  does  not  relate  to  the  actual  appli- 
cation of  the  saving  benefits  of  Christ's  work  to  each 
and  every  man.  All  who  stop  short  of  maintaining 
universal  salvation  agree  with  us  that  all  those  who  do 
not  cordially  accept  and  appropriate  the  salvation  freely 
offered  to  them  in  the  gospel  must  be  lost.  The  doc- 
trine of  universal  redemption  cannot  be  shown,  after  all 
their  parade  of  its  superior  liberality,  to  extend  the  real 
benefits  of  redemption  to  one  single  soul  beyond  those 
embraced  by  a  definite  Atonement.  We  believe  that 
Christ  died  with  the  intention  of  saving  all  those  whom 
he  actually  does  save.  They  hold  that  the  large  majority 
of  those  whose  salvation  Christ  designed  to  effect  by  his 
death  finally  perish.  This  certainly  fails  to  convey  any 
advantage  to  those  that  perish,  while  it  materially 
detracts  from  the  value  of  Christ's  death  and  from  the 
efficacy  of  his  purpose  to  save. 

4.  The  question  does  not  relate  to  the  universal 
OFFER  in  perfect  good  faith  of  a  saving  interest  in 
Christ's  work  on  the  condition  of  faith.     This  is  ad- 


358  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

mittfed  by  all.  Since,  then,  the  work  of  Christ  is  exactly- 
adapted  to  the  legal  relations  and  need  of  each,  and 
since  it  is  abundantly  cufficient  for  all,  and  since,  in 
])erfcct  good  faith,  it  is  offered  to  all  men  indiscrimi- 
nately, it  necessarily  follows  that  whosoever  believes  on 
111  111,  non-elect  (if  that  were  subjectively  possible)  just  as 
truly  as  the  elect,  would  find  a  perfect  atonement  and 
cordial  welcome  ready  for  him  when  he  comes.  In  this 
sense  we  joyfully  acknowledge  that  not  only  is  the  sal- 
vation of  each  and  every  sin^^er  rendered  legally  and 
morally  possible  to  God,  if  he  wills,  but  the  Atonement 
of  Christ  is  itself  objectively  most  certainly  and  freely 
available  to  each  and  every  sinner  to  whom  it  is  offered, 
upon  condition  thai  he  believes. 

5.  Nor  does  the  question  relate  to  the  design  of  Christ 
in  dying  as  it  stands  related  to  all  the  benefits  secured  to 
mankind  by  his  death.  It  is  very  plain  that  any  plan 
designed  to  secure  the  salvation  of  an  elect  j^ortion  of  a 
race  propagated  by  generation,  and  living  in  association, 
as  is  the  case  with  mankind,  cannot  secure  its  end  with- 
out greatly  affecting,  for  better  or  worse,  the  character 
and  destiny  of  all  the  rest  of  the  race  not  elected.  In- 
deed it  is  impossible  for  us  to  know  what  would  have 
happened  to  Adam  and  Eve  if  that  gracious  system,  the 
meritorious  ground  of  which  is  the  Atonement  of  Christ, 
had  not  been  introduced.  Tlie  instant  damnation  of  the 
heads  of  the  race,  or  the  introduction  of  a  scheme  of 
redemption,  appear  to  be  the  only  possible  alternatives. 
But  the  scheme  of  redemi)tion  is  conditioned  exclusively 
upon  the  expiatory  work  of  Christ.  Hence  all  that 
happens  to  the  human  race  other  than  that  which  is  in- 
cidental to  the  instant  damnation  of  Adam  and  Eve  is 


STATEMENT   OF    DOCriilSE.  359 

part  of  the  consequences  of  Christ's  satisfaction  as  the 
second  Adam.  For  aught  wc  know  the  propagation  of 
the  race  in  all  of  its  successive  generations  may  be  in 
consequence  of  that  work.  The  entire  history  of  the 
human  race,  from  the  apostasy  to  the  final  judgment,  is, 
as  Candlish  says,  '^a  dispensation  of  forbearance"  in  re- 
spect to  the  reprobate,  in  which  many  blessings,  physical 
and  moral,  affecting  their  characters  and  destinies  for 
ever,  accrue  even  to  the  heathen,  and  many  more  to  the 
educated  and  refined  citizens  of  Christian  communities. 
These  come  to  them  through  the  mediation  of  Christ, 
and  coming  to  them  now,  they  must  have  been  designed 
for  them  from  the  beginning.*  We  maintain  the  sim- 
ple and  apparently  self-evident  proposition  that  Christ, 
in  dying,  designed  to  eflPect  by  his  death  all  in  every 
particular  which  he  has  actually  accomplished.  If  he 
be  God,  there  can  be  no  discrepancy  between  his  de- 
sign and  his  accomplishment.  He  must  accomplish 
precisely  that  which  he  designed,  and  he  must  have 
designed  to  effect  precisely  that  which  in  fact  he  does 
effect. 

6.  But  the  question  does  truly  and  only  relate  to  the 
design  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  in  respect  to  the 
persons  for  whose  benefit  the  Atonement  was  made;  that 
is,  to  whom  in  the  making  of  it  they  intended  it  should 
be  applied.  AVe  contend  that  the  following  heads  abso- 
lutely exhaust  every  possible  question  as  to  wliat  is 
called  the  extent  of  the  Atonement:  (a.)  Its  esscDtial 
nature,  involving  its  exact  adaption  to  the  legal  relations 
and  necessities  of  each  and  every  man  indifferently;  (6) 

*  Cunningham's  History  of  Theoloi^y,  vol.  ii.,  p.  332;  Witsins' 
Econ.of  the  Covenants,  B.  II.,  chap,  ix.,^  4;  Turretin,  L.  14,  Q.  14,  ^  11. 


360  DESIGN   OF  THE   ATONEMENT. 

its  intrinsic  sufficiency  for  all ;  (c)  its  honest  and  au- 
thoritative offer  to  all;  (d)  its  actual  application;  (e)  its 
intended  application.  AYe  defy  our  opponents  to  show 
that  this  statement  does  not  exhaust  the  case.  The  first 
threey  all  agree,  are  without  any  limit,  thank  God;  the 
fourth,  all  agree,  is  limited  to  believers;  the  fifth  all 
Calvinists  mud  believe  to  be  limited  to  the  elect.  Now 
the  advocates  of  universal  and  indefinite  redemption 
hold  that  Christ  died  with  the  design  and  effect  of  mak- 
ing the  salvation  of  all  men  possible,  and  nothing  more. 
The  Reformed  Churches  hold  that  he  died  with  the 
design  of  actually  and  certainly  saving  his  elect  people; 
that  is,  for  the  purpose  of  actually  saving  those  whom 
he  does  actually  save. 

Amyraldus  make  a  distinction  between  objective  and 
subjective  grace.  The  former,  rendering  salvation  objec- 
tively available  to  all  men,  he  held  was  universal.  The 
latter,  which  gives  the  gracious  ability  to  accept  the 
gospel,  he  admitted  was  designed  for  the  elect  alone. 
AVe  believe  that  as  far  as  the  heathen  are  concerned,  to 
whom  Christ  is  never  offered,  salvation  is  no  more  objec- 
tively available  than  subjectively  possible.  It  is  true 
that  Christ  did  make  salvation,  as  an  objective  fact, 
possible  to  all  men  to  whom  it  is  offered,  if  they  will 
believe.  But  the  Reformed  Churches  maintain  that  a 
purpose  to  make  salvation  objectively  available  to  those 
who  were  never  intended  to  enjoy  it  must,  in  the  very 
nature  of  things,  not  be  an  independent  purpose  in  itself, 
but  one  purely  subsidiary  to  the  main  design  of  actually 
and  entirely  effecting  the  salvation  of  all  whose  salvation 
was  intended  to  be  in  fact  realized. 

Thw  Schoolmen  were  accustomed  to  affirm  that  Christ 


STATEMENT   OF   DOCTRINE.  06 1 

(Wed  siifficientcr  pro  omnibiis,  fffimentcr  pro  eledis,  and  this 
forij  of  expression  was  adopted  by  Calviu*  and  by  the 
early  lleformed  theologians  previous  to  the  thorough 
sifting  of  this  subject  occasioned  by  the  speculations  of 
the  French  theologians  Cameron,  Aniyraldus,  Testardus, 
&c.  This  Scholastic  expression  is  inaccurate  and  inade- 
quate rather  than  false.  Christ  did  die  sujjicienter  pro 
ommbv.s,  but  as  an  element  of  his  design  this  otherwise 
inoperative  and  futile  purpose  must  have  been  in  thought, 
precisely  as  it  is  in  execution,  altogether  subsidiary  as  a 
means  to  an  end  to  his  real — because  actually  accom- 
plished— purpose  of  effecting  the  salvation  of  his  elect. 
In  other  words,  the  actual  ends  effected  are  the  exact 
measure  of  the  real  ends  designed. 

This  question  is  capable  of  being  stated  in  several 
different  forms,  while  the  identity  of  the  essential  prin- 
ciple involved  is  preserved  and  placed  more  distinctly  in 
view. 

Thus,  (1)  was  it  the  design  of  the  redemptive  work 
of  Christ  that  it  carry  into  effect  the  purpose  of  election, 
or  was  it  the  design  of  God's  sovereign  election  that  it 
should  carry  into  effect,  in  part,  the  general  purpose  of 
redemption?  The  theology  of  the  Reformed  Churches 
was  broadly  characterized  by  its  subordination  of  re- 
demption to  election.  Their  habitual  mode  of  represen- 
tation is  that  God,  having  of  his  mere  good  pleasure 
elected  some  men  to  everlasting  life  and  to  all  the  means 
thereof,  sent  his  Son  to  effect  that  purpose  by  his  obe- 
dience unto  death.  All  the  advocates  of  indefinite  re- 
demption, on  the  other  hand,  must  agree  in  maintaining 
that  God  provided   the  Atonement  for  the  good  of  all 

*  Couimentiuief:  1  Ji'hn  ii.  2. 
31 


362  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

men  indiscriminately,  and  that  election  comes  in  sub- 
ordinately  to  redemption,  either  conditioned  on  foreseen 
faith  (so  the  Armiuians),  or  as  a  sovereign  purpose,  upon 
the  part  of  God,  to  make  certain  the  success  of  the 
general  purpose  of  redemption  at  least  in  the  case  of  the 
persons  elected  (so  the  Calvinistic  Universalists). 

Jenkyn*  represents  the  dispensation  of  sovereign 
electing  grace  as  supervening  to  prevent  the  failure  of 
redemption,  so  far  at  least  as  the  elect  are  concerned. 
"The  ejitire  failure  of  the  Eden  dispensation  would  have 
clouded  the  divine  character  if  it  had  not  been  rescued 
by  the  introduction  of  a  compensative  Atonement;  .  .  . 
the  entire  failure  of  the  Sinai  experiment  would  have 
reflected  dishonour  upon  the  divine  glory,  but  it  was 

redeemed  by  the  establishment  of  a  better  hope 

The  whole  mediatorial  work  of  Jesus  Christ  is  so  worthy 
and  so  meritorious  that  it  deserves  that  measures  should 
be  taken  to  ensure  it  from  entire  failure."  The  italics 
are  his.  On  this  theory,  since  so  many  of  God's  ^^ex- 
perlments'^  ^^ entirely  fail/'  and  since  even  the  awful 
sacrifice  of  his  own  Son  is  barely  prevented  from  entire 
failure  by  special  intervention,  and  after  all  is  an  utter 
failure  as  to  the  larger  part  of  all  it  was  set  to  do,  who 
shall  ensure  us  that  heaven  shall  not  fail,  or  that  the  sal- 
vation of  the  saints  may  not  be  at  last  confounded?  Be- 
hold also  what  this  redemption,  which  these  men  so  glory 
in,  is  worth.  It  saves  no  single  soul.  It  is  prevented 
from  being  an  absolute  failure  by  a  divine  intervention. 
This  view  gives  all  the  glory  of  salvation  to  election. 
The  measure  of  the  virtue  of  redemption  may  be  seen 
in  the  fate  of  the  non-elect. 

*  Jenkyn  on  t\u  Extcn   of  the  Atonement,  pp.  324,  325. 


STATEMENT   OF    DOCTRINE.  863 

(2.)  Was  tlie  motive  which  prompted  God  tc  give  his 
Son  to  die  for  men,  and  which  prompted  Christ  to  die, 
the  highest  conceivable  love  which  God  can  have  for  a 
creature,  making  it  certain  that  he  wnll  also  with  him 
freely  give  the  objects  of  that  love  all  thinr/s,  and  was  it 
a  personal  love  of  certain  definite  individuals  foreknown 
from  eternity,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  was  it  a  general 
and  impersonal  philanthropy,  or  love  of  mankind  in 
general,  coexisting  with  a  good  pleasure  to  allow  the 
majority  of  those  so  loved  to  perish,  some  without  even 
the  knowledge  of  the  redemption  provided  at  such  cost, 
and  others  without  any  saving  interest  in  it?  All  the 
Keformed  Churches  believe  that  the  former  of  these 
alternatives  is  the  true  statement  of  the  motive  prompt- 
ing the  Father  and  the  Son  in  the  work  of  redemption ; 
while  all  the  advocates  of  a  general  and  indefinite 
Atonement  necessarily  maintain  that  the  latter  is  the 
true  statement. 

(3.)  Did  Christ  die  with  the  design  and  effect  of  mak- 
ing the  salvation  of  all  men  indifferently  possible,  and 
the  salvation  of  none  certain,  or  did  he  die  in  pursuance 
of  an  eternal  covenant  between  the  Father  and  himself 
for  the  purpose  as  well  as  with  the  result  of  effecting  the 
salvation  of  his  own  people? 

(4.)  Is  the  irapetration  (sacrificial  purchase — merito- 
rious procurement)  of  salvation  so  connected  in  the  plan 
of  salvation  with  its  gracious  application  that  they  re- 
spect specifically  the  same  persons,  and  the  latter  follows 
certainly  upon  the  first,  or  is  the  impetration  general 
and  indefinite,  while  the  ap})lication  is  personal  and 
limited?  This* is  the  precise  form  in  which  the  question 
was  debated  by  Testardus,  Amyraldus,  Daill^,  Spanheira, 


3G4  DESIGN    OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

RIvetus,  De  Moulin,  Richard  Baxter  and  John  Owen. 
Hence  this  is  the  precise  issue  met  by  the  deliverance  of 
the  Westminster  Assembly  in  the  very  midst  of  these 
controversies:  "To  alt.  those  for  whom  Chiist  hath 
purchased  redemption,  he  doth  certainly  and  effectually 
apply  and  communicate  the  same,  &c/^* 

(5.)  And  finally,  did  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  impetrate 
or  purchase  the  gracious  influences  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
and  all  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  for  those  for  whom  he 
died?  Or  did  he  effect,  by  his  sacrifice,  nothing  more 
than  the  removal  of  legal  impediments  out  of  the  way 
of  their  salvation,  either  leaving  them  to  provide  their 
own  faith  and  repentance,  or  sovereignly  providing  for 
an  exceptional  few,  selected  out  of  the  mass  of  those  for 
whom  he  died,  out  of  a  benevolent  princii)le  altogether 
different  from  that  exercised  in  the  gift  of  redemption? 
The  Reformed  Churches  uniformly  hold  the  former, 
while  the  advocates  of  universal  redemption  necessarily 
hold  th:  latter  of  these  alternatives. 

*  Westminster  Confession,  chapter  viii.,  I  8. 


CHAPTEH    III. 

THE  QUESTION,  WHAT  IS  THE  TRUE  RELATION  WHICH  THE 
PROBLEM  AS  TO  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ATONEMENT  SUS- 
TAINS   TO    THAT    AS    TO    ITS    DESIGN,    EXAMINED. 

HAVING  tluis  presented  an  accurate  and,  as  I  hope, 
clear  statement  of  the  real  question  in  debate,  be- 
tween the  representatives  of  different  schools  of  theoloijy, 
upon  the  topic  in  hand,  I  now  proceed  to  discuss  briefly 
the  true  relation  which  this  question  as  to  the  design  of 
the  Atonement  necessarily  sustains  to  the  previous  and 
more  important  question  as  to  its  nature.  It  is  supposed 
by  many  tliat  there  is  necessarily  such  a  connection  be- 
tween the  two  that  the  views  entertained  as  to  the  one 
must,  in  every  case,  determine  those  entertained  as  to  the 
other.  There  is  indeed  a  good  deal  of  ground  for  this 
opinion,  yet,  in  order  that  we  may  know  exactly  how 
the  matter  stands,  we  must  examine  in  detail  the  bearing 
which  each  separate  doctrine  as  to  the  Jiature  of  the 
Atonement  has  upon  the  question  as  to  its  design. 

1.  It  is  very  obvious  that  upon  the  hypothesis  that 
Christ's  work  was  designed  to  effect  its  end  simply 
by  exerting  a  moral  influence  upon  men,  it  must  have 
been  designed  for  all  men  indiscriminately,  at  least  for 
all  indifferently,  to  whom  it  is  presented.  The  whole 
effect  of  the  Atonement,  according  to  this  view,  is  moral 
and  subjective.  And  the  question  of  its  success,  in  every 
31  *  365 


366  DESIGN   OF   THE  ATONEMENT. 

given  case,  is  determined  by  the  spontaneois  acquies- 
cence, or  the  reverse,  of  the  sinner  himself. 

2.  Again,  the  matter  is  no  less  plain  from  the  point 
of  view  entertained  by  the  advocates  of  the  Govern- 
mental Theory  as  to  the  nature  of  Christ^s  work.  If 
Christ  died  only  as  an  example  of  punishment,  if  his 
sufferings  were  made  a  governmental  expedient  by 
means  of  w^hich  it  is  rendered  consistent  with  the  gene- 
ral interests  of  the  divine  government  for  God  to  remit 
the  punishment  of  all  those  who  either  elect  to  believe 
or  are  by  him  sovereignly  elected  to  believe,  then  it 
necessarily  follows  that  this  work  can  have  no  special 
reference  to  one  man  more  than  another.  All  that  it 
can  do  for  any  it  has  done  for  all.  It  has  removed  legal 
obstacles  out  of  the  way  of  all,  and  hence  has  indiffer- 
ently rendered  possible  the  salvation  of  each. 

3.  If  the  view  presented  in  a  little  work  entitled 
"  Gethsemane,"  published  in  England,  and  republished 
in  Philadelphia  early  in  this  century,  is  accepted  as  true 
— that  is,  if  the  vicarious  work  of  Christ  is  conceived  of 
strictly  as  a  commercial  transaction — then,  of  course,  the 
doctrine  that  the  Atonement  is  limited  in  the  proper 
sense  of  that  word  necessarily  follows.  If  the  sufferings 
of  Christ  were  in  exact  proportion  to  the  number  of  liis 
elect  and  to  the  amount  of  heinousness  of  their  sins;  if 
Christ  would  have  suffered" less  had  he  expiated  the  sins 
of  a  smaller  number,  and  if  he  would  have  needed  to 
suffer  more  in  order  to  atone  for  more,*  then  it  is  \  lain 
enough  that  the  Atonement  is  limited  as  to  its  very 
essence,  just  as  in  a  commercial  contract  between  men  the 
purchasing  power  of  a  hundred  dollars  is  limited  to  one 

*  Gethsemane,  pp.  28,  29. 


STATEMENT   OF    DOCTRINE.  367 

hundred  dollars'  worth.  It  has  been  very  convenient  for 
our  op])onents  to  char^^e  this  view  upon  the  Reformed 
Churches.  That  this  is  altogether  a  false  representation 
I  have  shown  above  hy  reference  to  chapter  and  section 
of  the  testimony  of  such  representatives  of  Calvinism  as 
Turretin,  AVitsius,  John  Owen  and  William  Cunning- 
ham. 

4.  The  entire  Lutheran  Church  agrees  with  the  Re- 
formed as  to  the  nature  of  the  Atonement.  They  hold 
that  Christ  by  his  active  and  passive  obedience  fully 
satisfied  all  the  demands  of  law  upon  those  in  whose 
place  he  acted,  and  that  he  purchased  for  them  the  ope- 
rations of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  all  the  fruits  thereof;* 
and  yet  they  hold  that  Christ  died  in  this  sense  indis- 
criminately in  behalf  of  all  men.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  great  mass  of  learned  and  able  Lutheran  theo- 
logians have  explicitly  held  both  of  these  views.  This 
is  certainly  a  practical  proof  that  both  sides  of  their 
doctrine  may  be  intelligently  held  as  true  in  the  same 
.Tiind  at  the  same  time.  And  yet  it  is  no  less  plain  that 
the  several  positions  they  adopt  as  to  sin,  human  ability, 
divine  grace,  foreknowledge,  predestination,  redemption, 
<fec.,  are  obviously  incajmble  of  being  reduced  even  to 
the  appearance  of  logical  consistency.  They  teach  that 
Christ  purchased  faith  and  repentance  for  all  for  whom 
he  died.  If  any  man  repents  and  believes,  they  deny 
his  co-operation  with  grace  previous  or  in  order  to  his 
regeneration,  and  they  attribute  the  result  solely  to  the 
grace  of  God  given  for  Christ's  sake.  If  any  man  does 
not  repent  and  believe,  they  deny  that  Christ  has  done 
any  less  for  him,  and  attribute  the  result  solely  to  his 

*  Formula  Concordioe,  Part  I.,  chap,  ii.,  and  Part  II.,  chap.  ii. 


368  DESIGN   OF   THE   AT    .NTEMEXT. 

own  sin.  But  the  question  must  be  answered,  Who 
mak&s  the  difference  f  If  both  liave  from  Adam  the  same 
absolute  inability,  and  if  both  have  as  tlie  purchase  of 
Christ  the  same  grace,  what  is  the  differentiating  factor 
in  the  case?  What  determines  the  infidelity  of  the  one 
and  the  faith  of  the  other?  The  Arminian  grants  to  all 
men  sufficient  ability  to  co-operate  with  grace,  and  hence 
consistently  makes  the  free  self-determination  of  the 
sinner's  own  will  the  seat  of  difference  between  the 
believer  and  non-believer.  The  Calvinist,  denying  the 
ability  to  co-operate  with  grace  alike  to  all  men,  con- 
sistently makes  a  sovereign  discriminating  grace  the  seat 
of  the  difference  between  them.  The  Lutheran  holds 
that  all  men  are  alike  impotent;  that  all  men  have  alike 
the  same  grace;  that  the  cause  of  faith,  wherever  it  ex- 
ists, is  wholly  to  be  attributed  to  grace,  and  the  cause  of 
unbelief  to  sin;  yet,  while  there  is  such  difference  be- 
tween faith  and  unbelief,  there  is  no  difference  among 
men  either  as  to  sin  or  grace.  But  we  answer.  If  it  be 
grace  alone  that  makes  one  believe,  then  the  other  has 
not  the  same  grace  or  he  also  would  believe.  And  if 
Christ  purchased  spiritual  graces  for  all  those  for  whom 
he  died,  he  could  net  have  died  for  those  who  fail  to 
receive  the  grace. 

5.  The  doctrine  of  the  Reformed  Church  is  that  there 
is  no  limit  whatsoever  in  the  Redemption  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  (except  that  which  resides  in  the  eternal  purpose 
of  God  to  save  thereby  the  elect  and  none  others.  A 
divine  person  suffered  the  penalty  due  to  human  sin, 
and  obeyed  that  law  obedience  to  which  was  made  the 
condition  of  man's  well-being.  Pie  did  this  because  of 
his  divinity  exhaustively  and  witliout  limit  as  to  in- 


STATEMENT   OF   DOOTRINE.  369 

trinslc  sin-expiating  and  justice-satisfying  sufficiency. 
If  the  work  itself,  therefore,  l)e  viewed  separately 
from  the  intention  with  which  it  was  undertaken,  it 
plainly  stands  indifferently  related  to  the  case  of  each 
and  every  man  that  ever  lived  and  sinned.  It  is  not  a 
piicuniary  solution  of  debt,  which,  ipso  factOy  liberates 
upon  the  mere  payment  of  the  money.  It  is  a  vicarious 
penal  satisfaction,  which  can  be  admitted  in  any  case 
only  at  the  arbitrary  discretion  of  the  sovereign;  and 
which  may  have  a  redemptive  bearing  upon  the  case  of 
none,  of  few,  of  many,  or  of  all ;  and  upon  the  case  of 
one  and  not  of  another,  and  upon  that  elect  case  at 
whatsoever  time  and  upon  whatsoever  conditions  are  pre- 
determined by  the  mutual  understanding  of  the  Sove- 
reign and  of  the  voluntary  substitute.  The  relations  of 
the  Atonement  as  impersonal  and  general  or  as  personal 
and  definite  do  not  spring  from  considerations  of  the 
degree,  duration  or  kind  of  suffering  or  acts  of  vicarious 
obedience  which  Christ  rendered,  but  solely  from  the 
purpose  he  had  in  rendering  them. 

The  Arminian  holds  consistently  that  the  purpose  of 
Christ  was  to  satisfy  divine  justice  in  behalf  of  all  men 
foi  the  violation  of  the  rule  of  righteousness  embodied 
in  the  old  Covenant  of  Worlds,  and  so  enable  God  to 
introduce  a  new  covenant,  offering  salvation  upon  the 
lowered  terms  of  faith  and  evangelical  obedience — con- 
ditions to  be  provided  by  men  themselves  with  the  assist- 
ance of  that  common  grace  furnished  indifferently  unto 
all.  This  is  a  perfectly  self-consistent  scheme.  C^hrist 
designed  to  secure  the  salvation  of  all  men  indifferently. 
It  is  the  free  will  of  each  man  alone  that  makes  the 
difference. 


370  DESIGN   (  F   THE  ATONEMENT. 

Calvinists,  on  the  other  hand,  believe  that  an  absolute 
Sovereign,  in  that  eternity  which  is  without  beginning, 
end  or  succession,  foreordains  whatsoever  comes  to  pass. 
They  acknowledge  that  if  the  decrees  of  God  are  eternal, 
tliey  must  be  one,  single,  changeless,  all-comprehending 
intention.  They  profess  to  believe  that  as  of  his  mere 
good  pleasure  God  has  chosen  out  of  the  great  mass  of 
men,  equally  guilty,  some  men  to  eternal  salvation,  "so 
hath  he  foreordained  all  the  means  thereunto.  Where- 
fore, they  who  are  elected,  being  fallen  in  Adam,  are 
redeemed  in  Christ,  &c."*  Redemption  must  be  in 
order  to  accomplish  the  purpose  of  predestination,  be- 
cause, as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  does  precisely  accomplish 
that  purpose.  On  the  contrary,  a  sovereign  election  of 
some  cannot  be  in  order  to  accomplish  the  purpose  of  the 
general  redemption  of  all,  because,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  does  not  at  all  accomplish  it.  If,  then,  redemption  be 
in  order  to  accomplish  the  purpose  of  the  sovereign  elec- 
tion of  some,  then  it  is  certain  that  Christ  died  in  order 
to  secure  the  salvation  of  the  elect,  and  not  in  order  to 
make  the  salvation  of  all  men  possible.  St.  Augustine 
and  all  consistent  Augustinians,  Calvin  and  all  the  Re- 
formed Churches,  held  that  redemption  is  in  order 
TO  accomplish  the  purpose  of  election. 

*  Westminster  Confession,  chap,  iii.,  I  6. 


CIIAPTEll    IV. 

HISTORY    OF    OPINION    AJIONQ   CALVINISTS    UPON    THE   QUES- 
TION   AS    TO    THE    DESIGN    OF    THE    ATONEMENT, 

I  PROPOSE  now  to  give  a  very  brief  and  general 
sketch  of  the  history  of  opinion  uj)on  this  subject, 
prc})aratory  to  a  more  particular  inquiry  as  to  tlie 
opinions  of  Calvin,  and  the  general  consensus  and  au- 
thoritative standard  of  doctrine  among  the  Reformed 
Churches. 

Let  the  fact,  already  carefully  noticed,  be  remembered 
that  all  parties  agree — (1.)  That  the  Scriptures  use  gene- 
ral and  indefinite  terms  when  speaking  of  the  design  of 
Christ's  death,  as  well  as  personal  and  definite  ones. 
John  said  "that  the  Father  sent  the  Son  to  be  the 
Saviour  of  the  world,"  1  John  iv.  14;  and  Christ  said, 
*'l  lay  down  my  life  for  the  sheep/'  John  x.  15.  (2.) 
That  Christ  died  with  the  design  as  well  as  effect  of 
securing  many  benefits,  short  of  salvation,  for  the  non- 
elect  as  well  as  for  the  elect.  (3.)  That  since  his  work 
is  sufficient  for  all,  exactly  adapted  to  the  needs  of  each, 
and  offered  indiscriminately  to  all,  it  follows — (a.)  That 
all  the  legal  obstacles  in  God's  way  of  saving  any  are 
removed,  and  hence  the  salvation  of  all  is  now  legally 
possible,  a  _/)a/-^e  Dei.  (6.)  That  in  a  strictly  objective 
sense  the  Atonement  is  as  freely  available,  on  the  condi- 
tion of  laith,  to  the  gos]>el-heariug  non-elect  as  it  is  to 

371 


372  DESIGN   OF   THE  ATONEMENT. 

the  elect.  (4.)  Hence  it  follows  that  if  we  look  down 
the  line  of  purpose  and  causation  from  God  toward  man- 
kind, it  is  plain  that  Christ  could  have  had  no  other  pur- 
pose in  dying  than  to  save  those  whom  he  actually  does 
save.  But  if  we  look  upwards  from  the  position  of  the 
sinner,  to  whom  the  universal  offer  of  a  personal  interest 
in  the  Atonement  of  Christ  is  brought,  it  is  evident  that 
Christ  did  so  die  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world  that  if 
any  man  hears  the  offer  and  is  willing  to  accept  it,  a  free 
and  perfect  Atonement  is  his  for  the  taking.  Hence  it 
follows,  that  in  all  ages  many  of  the  most  rigid  predes- 
tinarians  have  said,  in  the  words  of  Calvin  himself, 
^'Passus  est  Christus  pro  peccatis  totius  mundi/^  while  it 
has  been  only  very  superficial  critics  who  have  inferred 
therefrom  that  these  men  intended  to  decide  against  the 
doctrine  of  the  Reformed  Churches,  which  is  that  Christ 
designed  in  his  death  to  secure  tlie  salvation  of  his  elect,  and 
of  none  others.  The  phrase  that  Christ  died  for  the  whole 
world  may  be  taken  in  three  senses:  (a.)  That  he  died 
for  Jews  as  well  as  Gentiles,  for  a  people  elect  out  of  all 
nations  and  generations,  (b.)  That  he  died  to  secure 
many  advantages  for  all  men  from  Adam  to  the  last 
generation,  especially  for  all  citizens  in  Christian  lands. 
(c.)  That  he  died  to  secure  the  salvation  of  each  and 
every  man  that  ever  lived;  that  is,  that  he  died  in  the 
same  sense  for  the  non-elect  as  for  the  elect.  The  first 
two  we  affirm;  the  latter  we  deny.  And  we  maintain 
that  the  meaning  intended  by  men  in  the  use  of  general 
expressions,  like  that  above  quoted  from  Calvin,  can  be 
determined  only  by  means  of  a  comparison  of  all  their 
expressed  opinions  on  the  subject. 

All  Arians,  Pelagians,  semi-Pelagians,  Socinians  and 


OPINION   OF   CAI.VINIS'rS.  373 

Armin/'ans,  have  in  perfect  ooii.sistency  with  their  seve- 
ral syslems,  maintained  the  general  and  indefinite  refer- 
ence of  the  Atonement,  wliile,  on  the  other  hand,  as  was 
to  be  expected,  all  true  Augustinians  and  Calvinists 
have  necessarily  held  that  Christ  died  definitely  and 
personally  for  the  elect.  Jenkyn  claims  that  Bishop 
Davenant  has  trinmphantly  proved  that  the  great  Au- 
gustine himself,  ^Hhe  masterly  champion  of  predestina- 
tion against  Pelagius,''  was  an  advocate  of  an  indefinite 
Atonement.  But  Wiggers,  one  of  the  most  capable  and 
impartial  witnesses  that  even  Germany  has  produced  in 
this  century,  in  his  "Historical  Presentation  of  Augus- 
tinianism  and  Pelagianism,''*  says:  "As  by  the  predes- 
tination theory,  only  a  definite  number  of  elect  would 
obtain  salvation,  Christ's  redemption  could  extend  only 

to  those  whom  God  had  destined  to  salvation 

According  to  Augustine,  therefore,  redemption  was  not 
universal.  God  sent  his  Son  into  the  world,  not  to  re- 
deem the  whole  sinful  race  ot  men,  but  only  the  elect. 
Augustine  says :  "  By  this  Mediator  God  showed  that  those 
whom  he  redeemed  by  his  blood  he  makes  from  being 
evil  to  be  eternally  good.^f  "  Every  one  that  has  been 
redeemed  by  the  blood  of  Christ  is  a  man,  though  not 
every  one  that  is  a  man  has  been  redeemed  by  the  blood 
of  Christ." J  "No  one  perishes  of  those  for  whom 
Christ  died."§  Sometimes  Augustine  uses  indefinite 
language  after  the  familiar  example  of  Scripture,  but  no 
inference,  drawn  from  that  fact,  can  for  one  moment 
withstand  the  force  of  such  clear  and  precise  statements 
of  liis  opinion  as  those  given  above  by  Wiggers. 

""  Pages  254  and  255.         %  Book  on  Adulterous  Marriages,  c.  15. 
t  De  Cor.  et  Gr.  11.  §  Ibid.,  1G9,  c.  1. 

32 


374  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

Those  of  the  Schoohiien  who  followed  Augustine  Avere 
in  the  habit  of  saying  that  Christ  died  for  all  men,  but 
in  a  sense  very  different  from  that  in  whicli  he  died  for 
his  elect.  Their  formula  was  "  Christus  passus  est  suffir- 
cknter  pro  omnlbits,  efficienter  pro  electisJ'  This  we 
regard  as  a  statement  inaccurate  in  terms,  and  more 
likely  to  confuse  than  to  clear  the  question,  yet  as  very 
near  the  truth,  and  very  different  from  the  positively 
false  position  of  those  who  hold  that  Christ  died  indlffei^- 
ently  for  each  and  every  man. 

At  the  time  of  the  Reformation  the  attention  of  the 
great  Reformers  was  absorbed  by  questions  fundamental 
to  the  very  life  of  the  Church,  and  they  were  thence 
precluded  from  the  deliberate  consideration  of  secondary 
matters  involved  rather  in  the  symmetry  and  perfection 
than  in  the  integrity  of  the  evangelical  system.  Zwin- 
gle  and  Calvin,  the  founders  of  the  Reformed  Churches, 
while  they  never  made  the  question  as  to  the  design  of 
the  Atonement  a  subject  of  special  study,  nevertheless 
habitually  taught,  through  the  spirit  and  form  of  their 
entire  system,  that  redemption  was  subordinate  as  a 
means  to  an  end  to  the  eternal  decree  of  election,  and 
therefore,  of  course,  had  the  same  objects  and  the  same 
end.  The  same  characteristics  mark  also  the  earlier 
Reformed  Confessions — redemption  is  habitually  subor- 
dinated to  election ;  but  no  explicit  deliverance  is  given 
as  to  the  icsign  of  the  Atonement.  In  all  the  later 
Reformed  Confessions,  however — viz.,  in  the  Gallic 
(A.  D.  1576)  and  Belgic  (A.  D.  1571)  Confessions,  the 
Canons  of  the  Synod  of  Dort  (A.  D.  1618,  1619),  the 
Canons  of  the  French  Synods  of  Alez  (A.  D.  1620)  and 
of  Charenton  (A.  D.  1623),  the  "Westminster  Confession 


OPINION   OF   CALVIN ISTS.  375 

(A.  D.  1648),  tlie  Formula  Consensus  Helvetica  (A.  D. 
1675),  the  Savoy  C^onfession  (A.  D.  1658),  and  the  Bos- 
ton Confession  (A.  1).  1680) — all  explicitly  taught  the 
definite  and  personal  design  of  the  vicarious  work  of 
Christ. 

During  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  thei*e 
aj)peared  two  prominent  attempts  to  engraft  the  notion 
of  a  general  redemption  upon  the  Calvinistic  system  by 
those  who  retained  nevertheless  orthodox  views  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  Atonement. 

1.  The  first  of  these  was  the  product  of  the  specula- 
tions of  Cameron  and  of  his  pupils  Amyraldus  and 
Testardus,  in  connection  with  the  theological  school  of 
Saumur,  France,  during  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  The  two  latter,  in  whose  writings  this  pecu- 
liarity was  specially  developed  and  made  public,  over  and 
over  again  professed  their  cordial  acquiescence  with  the 
rigidly  Calvinistic  deliverances  of  the  Synod  of  Dort, 
and  their  irreconcilable  opposition  to  Arminianism. 
Their  own  system  was  generally  styled  Universcdismus 
Hi/2)otheticuSj  an  hypothetic  or  conditional  universalism. 
They  taught  that  there  were  two  wills  or  purposes  in 
God  in  respect  to  man's  salvation.  The  one  will  is  a 
purpose  to  provide,  at  the  cost  of  the  sacrifice  of  his 
own  Son,  salvation  for  each  and  every  human  being  with- 
out exception  if  they  believe — a  condition  foreknowed  to 
be  universally  and  certainly  impossible.  The  other  will 
is  an  absolute  purpose,  depending  only  upon  his  own 
sovereign  good  pleasure,  to  secure  the  certain  salvation 
of  a  definite  number,  and  to  grant  them  all  the  gifts  and 
graces  necessary  to  that  end.  "This  synthesis  of  a  i-eal 
paHiculansm  with  a  merely  ideal  ^nuversalis^m  (not  really 


376  DESIGN    OF   THE    ATONEME^1. 

saving  a  single  individual),  that  is,  the  addition  of  a 
merelv  ideal  universalisni  to  the  orthodox  acknowledged 
Calvin istic  Dordrecht  system  of  doctrine,  is  the  pecu- 
liarity of  Amyraldism."* 

In  the  controversies  consequent  upon  the  appearance 
of  these  views  it  was  customary  to  contrast  the  different 
conceptions  entertained  by  the  two  parties  as  to  the 
divine  purpose  in  the  following  manner:  The  great 
body  of  the  Reformed  theologians  conceived  that  the 
eternal  purpose  of  God  as  to  man's  salvation  might  be 
represented  thus:  He  puq^osed  to  create  man;  then  to 
permit  him  to  fall;  then  out  of  the  great  mass  of  fallen 
and  equally  guilty  and  helpless  men,  he,  moved  by  an 
unparalleled  personal  love,  out  of  the  mere  good  pleasure 
of  his  will,  elected  some  to  eternal  life  and  to  all  the 
means  thereof;  and  then,  in  order  to  accomplish  this 
purpose  of  electing  love,  he  gave  his  Son  to  redeem  his 
people  by  his  death. f  Here  all  is  consistent.  There 
are  no  two  inconsistent  purposes;  no  inefficacious  will ; 
no  love  making  infinite  sacrifices  for  its  objects,  yet  sus- 
pending their  participation  in  the  benefits  thereof  upon 
conditions  known  to  be  impossible;  and  no  conditional 
decrees  in  the  infinite  God;  but  one  single,  consistent 
sovereign  purpose  logically  pursued  from  beginning  to 
end. 

Amyraldus,  on  the  other  hand,  unfolded  his  concep- 
tion of  the  divine  purposes  in  this  manner:  God  pur- 
posed to  create  man,  then  to  permit  him  to  fall,  then  out 
of  a  general  love  for  all  men  he  gave  his  Son  to  die  for 
all,  and  to  secure  their  salvation  on  the  condition  of 

*  Schweizer  in  Herzog's  Encyclopaedia. 
t  Turretin,  L.  iv.,  Q.  18,  § 


OPINION   OF   CALVINISTS.  377 

their  believing  on  him;  but  fores(;eing  that,  if  left  to 
themselves,  not  one  of  the  whole  race  would  believe, 
and  thus  the  redemj^tion  of  Christ  utterly  fail  of  its  end, 
and  moved  by  a  special  jKirsonal  love  for  the  eleet, 
sovereignly  determined  to  give  them  special  grace  to 
lead  them  to  faith,  and  hence  certainly  to  secure  their 
salvation.*  According  to  this  view,  there  are  two  dis- 
tinct purposes  re,s])ecting  salvation  in  the  divine  mind 
from  eternity — the  general  purpose,  which  concerns  the 
human  race  as  a  whole  without  making  any  discrimina- 
tion of  persons;  the  S2)ecial  purpose,  selecting  out  of 
the  mass  certain  persons  and  appointing  them  to  salva- 
tion. The  general  purpose  has  respect  to  objective  grace, 
which  it  gives  to  all  alike.  The  special  purpose  has 
respect  to  subjective  grace,  which  it  gives  alone  to  the 
elect.  The  general  purpose  respects  the  removing  that 
external  impediment  to  salvation  out  of  the  way  of  all 
which  results  from  their  inability  to  satisfy  divine  jus- 
tice. The  special  purpose  respects  the  removing  out  of 
the  way  of  the  elect  that  internal  impediment  which 
results  from  their  inability  to  believe.f 

This  view  represents  God  as  loving  the  non-elect 
sufficiently  to  give  them  his  Son  to  die  for  them,  but  not 
loving  them  enough  to  give  them  faith  and  repentance. 
It  represents  him  as  purposing  that  all  men  should  be 
saved  on  condition  of  faith — a  condition  known  to  be 
impossible;  and  at  the  same  time  purposing  that  a  large 
proportion  of  the  race  redeemed  at  such  cost  should 
remain  in  ignorance  of  the  gosjiel,  and  of  the  conditions 

*  Dissert.    Theol.  Quatuor,     Salm,   1645.     Exercitatio  de  Gratia 
Universali.     Salm,  1640. 

t  Turretiu,  L.  iv.,  Q.  18,  §  13. 
32'^ 


37S  DESIGN    OF   THE    A'.  ONEMEN  F. 

upon  which  participation  in  its  benefits  are  suspended 
It  represents  the  all-perfect  sacrifice  as  saving  no  one. 
and  as  depending  upon  a  subsequent  decree  of  election 
for  its  very  partial  success.  It  represents  God  as  will- 
ing at  the  same  time  that  all  men  be  saved  and  that 
only  the  elect  be  saved.  It  denies,  in  o])position  to  the 
Arniinian,  that  any  of  God's  decrees  are  conditioned 
upon  the  self-determined  will  of  the  creature,  and  yet 
puts  into  the  mouths  of  professed  Calvinists  the  very 
catch-words  of  the  Arminian  system,  such  as  tmiversal 
gr(tce,  the  conditional  will  of  God,  universal  redemptionj 
&c.,  &e.  Although  this  scheme  has  been  held  by  some 
men  of  talent,  who  have  been  at  the  same  time  honest 
professors  of  the  Calvinistic  system  and  of  the  true 
doctrine  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Atonement  in  particular 
— ^as,  for  instance,  Amyraldus,  Bishop  Davenant  and 
Richard  Baxter,  &c. — yet  the  judgment  of  the  Methodist 
theologian,  Richard  Watson,  is  unquestionably  true, 
that  "it  is  the  most  inconsistent  theory  to  which  the  at- 
tempts to  modify  Calvinism  have  given  rise.''*  In  the 
case  of  men  otherwise  candid  and  intelligent  j^rofessors 
of  orthodoxy,  these  distinctions  amount  to  nothing  but 
Avords;  and  therefore  do  not  indicate  a  state  of  faith  to 
which  the  predicate  heretical  properly  applies.  When 
Amyraldus  and  Testardus  were  brought  before  the 
Synod  of  Alengon  (A.  D.  1637)  to  answer  for  the 
"Novelties"  wherewith  they  had  greatly  disturbed  the 
peace  of  the  Reformed  Churches,  they  explained  away 
their  distinctions  in  terms  which  satisfied  the  most 
orthodox.  "They  declared  that  Jesus  Christ  died  for 
all  men  sufficiently,  but  for  the  elect  only  effectually; 
*  Institutes,  vol,  ii.,  p.  411. 


OPINION    OF    CALVINI8TS.  379 

and  that  consequently  his  intention  was  to  die  for  all 
men  in  respect  to  the  sufficiency  of  his  satisfaction,  but 
for  the  elect  only  with  respect  to  its  quickenino-  and 
saving  virtue  and  efficacy And  as  for  the  condi- 
tional decree,  they  declared  that  they  never  did  under- 
stand anything  than  God's  will  revealed  in  his  word  to 
give  grace  and  life  unto  believers."*  This  declaration 
reduces  the  whole  matter  to  the  old  Calvinistic  common- 
place that  the  work  of  Christ  is  sufficient  for  all,  adapted 
to  all,  and  honestly  offi^red  to  all,  but  not  intended  for 
all,  nor  provided  for  the  sake  of  all.  When  used  by 
men  otherwise  orthodox  this  "Novelty"  is,  therefore, 
not  heresy,  but  an  evidence  of  absurdly  confused  thought 
and  disordered  language  upon  the  subject.  The  serious 
objection  to  it  is  that  it  necessarily  involves  the  use  of 
language  whieh  properly  and  by  common  usage  is  signifi- 
cant of  Arminian  error.  Its  use  generally  marks  a  state 
of  transition  from  comparative  orthodoxy  to  more  serious 
error.  It  often  covers  a  secret  sympathy  with  heresies 
not  distinctly  avowed.  In  latter  years  it  has  been  gene- 
rally associated  with  radically  defective  views  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  Atonement.  It  is  of  no  use,  for  if  it 
means  no  heresy,  it  relieves  the  hardness  of  no  truth. 
Every  competent  thinker  knows  that  the  whole  difficulty 
as  well  as  strength  of  Calvinism  lies  in  the  conception 
of  an  eternal,  all-comprehensive,  absolute  purpose,  de- 
termining all  things,  alike  physical  and  moral.  The 
gloss  we  are  considering  fails  to  conciliate  Socinians  or 
Arminians,  while  it  alienates  true  Calvinists.  The  ex- 
perienced shun  it,  because  they  know  he  w  often  it  con- 
ceals serious  error.  In  France  the  national  development 
*  Quick's  Synodicon,  vol.  ii.,  p.  354. 


380  DESIGN   OF  THE   ATONEMENT. 

of  this  error  was  cut  sliort  by  the  revocation  of  the 
Edict  of  Nantes  (A.  D.  1685),  while  in  England,  Scot- 
land and  America,  the  same  language  and  the  same 
arguments  arc  used  to  mark  the  boundary-lines  of  a 
system  of  error  which  exi)lorcrs  have  discovered  to 
transect  all  the  zones  of  modified  Calvinism,  Arminian- 
ism  and  radical  Pelagianism. 

2.  The  famous  work  entitled  "IMarrow  of  Modern 
Divinity'^  was  published  in  England  in  1646.  In  1718 
it  was  republished  in  Scotland  w^itli  a  recommendatory 
prefiice  by  the  Rev.  James  Hogg,  of  Carnock,  and  again  in 
1 726  with  copious  exjdanatory  notes  by  the  Rev.  Thomas 
Boston,  of  Ettrick;  which  last  edition  was  reproduced  a 
few  years  ago  by  our  Board  of  Publication.  This 
excellent  and  orthodox  book  became  the  occasion  of  a 
protracted  controversy,  styled  the  ^'^larrow  Contro- 
versy," which  conspired  with  other  and  deeper  causes  to 
eifect  that  alienation  which  issued  in  the  formation  of 
the  Secession  Church.  There  were  good  and  sound  men 
on  both  sides,  but  the  most  eminent  Christians  and  theo- 
logians of  that  age  were  ranked  among  the  "^larrow 
men,''  such  as  the  Rev.  James  Hogg,  Thoma.s  Boston, 
Ralph  and  Ebenezer  Erskine,  &c.  We  have  at  present 
nothing  to  do  with  the  general  course  or  merits  of  this 
controversy.  I  refer  to  it  only  for  tlie  purpose  of  noti- 
cing the  peculiar  language  Avhich  these  men  used  with 
res})ect  to  what  they  called  the  "double  reference"  of 
the  Atonement — a  peculuirity  which  consequently  for  a 
long  time  unhappily  distinguished  the  theology  of  the 
vSecession  Churches  from  that  of  the  great  current  of  the 
Reformed  Churches.  The  lanmiao-e  of  the  "Marrow 
men"  was  far  less  philosophical  and  profound  than  that 


OPINION  OF   OALVINISTS.  381 

used  for  very  much  the  same  purpose  by  Amyialdus 
and  Baxter  in  the  preceding  century,  while,  perliaps,  for 
the  same  cause  tlieir  speculations  were  far  more  innocent. 
The  characteristic  interest  of  the  professors  of  Saumur 
was  speculative,  while  that  of  the  "Marrow  men''  was 
practical  and  moral.  The  one  party  was  composed  of 
professors  of  theology,  the  other  of  preachers  of  the 
gospel.  The  one  sought  to  define  the  order  of  the 
Divine  Decrees,  the  other  sought  to  establish  firmly  the 
Wan-ant  of  Faith. 

The  statement  in  the  Marrow  from  which  they  took 
their  departure  is  as  follows:  "I  beseech  you  to  consider 
that  God  the  Father,  as  he  is  in  his  Son  Jesus  Christ, 
moved  by  nothing  but  his  free  love  to  mankind  lost, 
hath  made  a  deed  of  gift  and  grant  unto  all  men,  that 
whosoever  shall  believe  in  his  Son  shall  not  perish,  but 
have  eternal  life."*  The  "  Marrow  men  "  were  all  sound 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  Atonement,  and  as  to  the  great 
Calvinistic  principle  that  Christ  died  in  pursuance  of  an 
eternal  covenant  with  the  Father  in  order  to  secure  the 
salvation  of  his  elect.  As  far  as  the  bearing  of  the 
Atonement  upon  the  elect  was  concerned,  their  writings 
were  marked  by  no  peculiarity.  Their  distinction  was 
that  they  insisted  that  the  Atonement  had  also  a  de- 
signed general  reference  to  all  sinners  of  mankind  as 
such.  The  early  "Marrow  men"  were  accustomed  to 
Bay  that  although  Christ  did  not  die  for  all— that  is,  to 
save  all— yet  that  he  is  dead  for  all,  that  is,  available 
for  all  if  they  will  receive  him.  That  God,  out  of  his 
general  philanthropy,  or  love  for  human  sinners  as  such, 

*  Marrow  of  Modern  Divinity,  p.  126. 


382  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONFMEXT. 

has  made  a  Deed  of  Gift  of  Christ  and  of  the  benefits 
of  ]iis  redemption  to  all  indifferently,  to  be  claimed  upon 
the  condition  of  faith.  This  general  love  of  God  is 
styled  his  "giving  love,"  and  is  distinguished  from  his 
"electing  love,"  of  which  only  the  elect,  and  his 
"comj)lacent  love,"  of  which  only  the  sanctified  are 
the  objects.  This  Deed  of  Gift  or  Grant  of  Christ  to 
all  sinners  as  such,  they  held,  is  not  to  be  merely  re- 
solved into  the  general  offer  of  the  gospel,  but  is  to  be 
regarded  as  the  foundation  ujion  which  that  general  offer 
rests.  It  is  a  real  grant;  universal;  an  expression  of 
love;  conditioned  on  faith;  the  foundation  upon  which 
the  ministerial  offer  of  salvation  rests;  and  it  is  the 
"warrant"  upon  which  the  faith  of  every  believer  rests, 
and  ])y  which  that  faith  is  justified. 

As  late  as  1843,  Dr.  Balmer  and  the  late  learned  and 
excellent  Dr.  John  Brown,  professors  in  the  United  Se- 
cession Church,  were  examined  as  to  their  doctrinal 
views  under  suspicion  of  heresy.  After  Balmer's  death 
Brown  was  libelled  for  heresy  before  the  Synod  in  1845. 
The  statement  then  made  by  Brown  of  his  views  as  to 
the  extent  of  the  Atonement  was  in  substance  as  follow's: 
'•'The  proposition  Hhat  Christ  died  for  men,'  had  been 
Held  in  three  senses.  In  the  sense  <  f  the  Universalist, 
that  Christ  died  so  as  to  secure  salvation,  I  hold  that  he 
died  only  for  the  elect.  In  the  sense  of  the  Arminian, 
that  Christ  died  so  as  to  purchase  easier  terms  of  salva- 
tion and  common  grace  to  enable  men  to  comply  with 
those  terms,  I  hold  that  he  died  for  no  man.  In  the 
sense  of  the  great  body  of  Calvlnists,  that  Christ  died 
to  remove  legal  obstacles  in  the  way  of  human  salvation, 


OriNION    OF   CALVINISTS.  383 

by  making  perfect  satisfaction  for  sin,  I  hold  that  he 
(lied  for  all  men."* 

Now,  doubtless,  as  held  by  these  men,  all  this  was  con- 
sistent with  strict  orthodoxy.  They  meant  no  more  than 
that  incidentally  to  his  great  design  of  saving  the  elect, 
and  in  order  to  that  end,  God  had  made  certain  pro- 
visions which  were  sufficient  for  all,  adapted  to  each, 
and  freely  offered  them  to  all.  But  all  their  forms  of 
expression  were  confused  and  their  laborious  distinctions 
utterly  ])rofitless.  AVhat  is  the  significancy  of  making 
a  sjiecial  head  of  that  "giving  love"  which  makes  an 
actual  grant  of  salvation  upon  conditions  known  to 
be  absolutely  impossible,  and  which  makes  no  provision 
for  its  application,  and  which  never  intended  the  salva- 
tion of  its  objects?  What  real  idea  is  signalized  by  the 
verbal  distinction  between  the  bona  fide  oflfer  of  the  gos- 
pel to  all,  and  the  "Deed  of  Gift"  of  Christ  upon  which 
it  is  said  to  rest?  What  is  i\\Q  virtue  of  a  "Deed  of 
Gift  or  Grant"  which  actually  conveys  nothing,  and 
which  was  eternally  intended  to  convey  nothing?  Be- 
sides this,  this  language  is  injurious,  because  it  leads  to 
the  perversion  of  scriptural  language  upon  this  subject, 
and  to  the  great  emptying  of  its  proper  force.  W^e  have 
proved  that  the  Scriptures  teach  that  the  designed  effect 
of  Christ's  death  was  to  "save  his  people  from  their 
sins,"  and  not  simply,  as  Brown  intimates,  to  remove 
legal  obstacles  out  of  the  way  of  all  sinners  indifferently. 
In  Scripture  language  the  purpose  of  Christ  in  his  death 
cannot  fail.  According  to  the  implications  of  Brown's 
language,  that  designed  effect  is  left,  as  respects  the  vast 

*  Plistory  of  Atonement  Controversy  in  tlie  Secession  Church,  by 
the  Kev.  Andrew  Kobertsju. 


384  DESIGN    OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

majority  of  its  objects,  suspended  upon  the  contingency 
of  second  causes.  In  Scripture  language  God's  "giving 
love"  is  that  highest  and  most  wonderful  form  of  love 
which  "spared  not  his  own  Son,"  and  therefore,  a 
fortiori  J  will  infallibly  secure  with  him  the  gift  of  "all 
things"  necessary  for  salvation.  John  iii.  16;  Gal.  ii. 
20;  Eph.  ii.  4;  v.  25;  Rom.  viii.  32;  1  John  iii.  16; 
iv.  9.  In  the  language  of  the  "Marrow  men"  God's 
"giving  love"  signifies  a  general  benevolence  towards 
all  human  sinners  as  such,  consistent  with  his  purpose 
that  a  large  portion  of  them  shall  be  left  to  the  inevita- 
ble consequences  of  their  own  sin. 

In  this  century  a  few,  like  AYardlaw  and  James 
Ricliards,  have  held  the  doctrine  of  the  general  reference 
of  the  Atonement  in  connection  with  strict  orthodoxy  as 
to  other  points.  The  great  majority,  however,  of  the 
Calvinistic  advocates  of  a  general  redemption  have  been 
the  professors  of  the  New  England  or  Edwardean 
Theology  generally,  such  as  Emmons,  Taylor,  Park, 
Beman  and  Barnes.  The  language  of  Amyraldus,  the 
"  Marrow  men,"  Baxter,  Wardlaw,  Richards,  Brown  and 
others  is  now  used  to  cover  much  more  serious  departures 
from  the  truth.  All  really  consistent  Calvinists  ought 
to  have  learned  by  this  time  that  the  original  positions 
of  the  great  writers  and  confessions  of  the  Reformed 
Churches  have  only  been  confused,  and  neither  improved, 
strengthened  nor  illustrated,  by  all  the  talk  with  which 
the  Church  has,  in  the  mean  time,  been  distracted  as  to 
the  "double  will"  of  God,  or  the  "double  reference" 
of  the  Atonement.  If  men  will  be  consistent  in  their 
adherence  to  these  "Novelties,"  they  must  become  Ar- 
miniaurt.     If  tluy  would  iiuld  consistently  to  the  esseii- 


OriNION    OF    CAJ.VINISTS.  385 

tial  principles  of  Calvinism,  tliey  must  discard  the 
<^  Novelties." 

It  has  always  been  a  marked  characteristic  of  the 
Arminians,  in  their  controversies  witli  Calvinists,  that 
thoy  insist  U})on  the  importance  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  Impetration  and  the  A})plication  of  Redemp- 
tion. The  former,  they  insist,  is  general;  the  latter, 
they  admit  to  be  limited  to  believers.  Professed 
Calvinists  of  a  certain  school  insist  upon  the  same  dis- 
tinction. The  Atonement,  they  maintain,  is  general, 
Avhile  they  admit  that  Redemption,  including  the  actual 
application  of  grace,  is  confined  to  the  elect.  They 
urge  us  to  consider  "the  Atonement  in  itself,"  apart 
from  all  thought  of  its  application.  But  if  you  separate 
all  thought  of  purpose  and  design  from  the  sufferings 
of  Christ,  you  would  have  of  course  nothing  more  than 
calamities  devoid  of  all  moral  significance.  He  died 
for  a  purpose.  The  question  is,  What  did  he  aim  to 
accomplish  in  his  death?  I  challenge  any  one  to  show 
(1)  how  the  intended  application  of  the  Atonement 
could  have  been  any  more  general  than  its  actual  appli- 
cation? And  (2)  if  the  intended  application  is  admitted 
to  have  been  limited  to  the  elect,  what  remains  to  the 
general  reference  of  the  Atonement  except  (a)  the  in- 
trinsic sufficiency  ;  {h)  the  exact  adaptation  ;  and  (c)  the 
bona  fide  offer — all  which,  it  is  agreed  on  all  hands,  is 
without  any  limit  at  all? 

The  question  we  debate,  and  which  the  Reformed 
Church  has  decided,  is  as  to  the  intended  appliccdion  of 
the  Atonement.  If  any  man  insists  uj^on  our  abstract- 
ing that  intended  a]>plieation,  and  considering  apart 
from  it  the  sulicrings  of  Christ  by  themselves,  we  have 


386  DESIGN    OF    THE    ATONEMENT. 

no  objection  to  acknowledge  that  when  considered  apart 
from  all  design  or  intention  whatsoever,  the  mere  literal 
suffering  which  remains  is  indifferently  as  well  adapted 
to  the  case  of  one  man  as  to  that  of  another. 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE  QUESTIONS,  WHAT  WAS  THE  OPINION  OF  CALVIN  AS  TO 
THE  DESIGN  OF  THE  ATONEMENT? — WHAT  IS  THE  STAN- 
PARD  OF  CALVINISM  ? — AND  WHAT  IS  THE  DOCTRINE  ON 
THIS  SUBJECT  OF  THE  WESTMINSTER  CONFESSION  AND 
CATECHISM  ?    CONSIDERED  AND  ANSWERED. 

WE  come  now  to  consider  the  questions,  What  was 
the  opinion  of  Calvin  as  to  the  design  of  Christ 
in  dying?— What  is  the  standard  of  that  system  of  faith 
held,  by  common  consent,  by  the  Reformed  Churches? 
— and  especially.  What  doctrine  on  this  subject  is 
solemnly  professed  by  all  those  who  adopt  the  West- 
minster Confession  as  the  confession  of  their  faith  ? 

Many,  in  our  day,  who  hold  very  imperfect  views  as 
to  the  nature  of  the  Atonement,  and  as  to  the  design  of 
God  in  it,  fall  back  upon  some  of  the  vague  statements 
as  to  the  latter  point  which  they  are  able  to  glean  out 
of  Calvin's  voluminous  works,  and  under  cover  of  his 
great  name  claim  that  their  various  specialties  come 
legitimately  under  the  category  of  genuine  Calvinism. 
Jenkyn,  in  words  borrowed  from  Bishop  Horsley,  chal- 
lenges the  advocates  of  definite  and  personal  redemption 
to  remember  that  "those  who  boast  in  the  name  of 
Cai.vin  should  know  what  Calvinism  is."  What  I 
have  to  say  as  to  Calvin  and  the  standard  of  Calvinism 
wil   be  presented  under  the  following  heads. 

387 


388  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

1.  It  has  been  a  very  old,  and  is  still  a  very  common 
trick  of  errorists  to  seek  to  cover  themselves  witli  the 
authority  of  the  general  and  unscientific  statements  of 
eminent  theologians,  written  before  any  particular  doc- 
trine in  question  has  been  consciously  considered  and 
clearly  discriminated  and  defined  by  the  responsible 
representatives  and  organs  of  the  Church.  Thus  Arians, 
Socinians  and  Pelagians  have  of  old,  for  their  own  justi- 
fication, paraded  fragments  torn  out  of  the  unsystematic 
writings  of  the  Fathers,  who  wTote  before  the  times  of 
the  Council  of  Kice  or  of  the  controversies  of  Augustine 
with  Pelagius.  Papists  find  a  large  measure  of  material 
apparently  justifying  their  distinguishing  positions  in 
the  writings  of  the  best  theologians  preceding  the  era 
of  the  Reformation,  even  in  the  writings  of  Augustine 
himself.  Arminians  quote  much  that  they  find  to  their 
mind  in  the  books  of  all  the  Fathers,  especially  those  of 
the  early  Church.  In  like  manner  the  advocates  of 
self-styled  "improvements  in  theology,'^  on  occasion, 
find  it  to  their  interest  to  quote  the  general  and  indefinite 
language  of  Reformers,  who  wrote  without  ever  con- 
sciously entertaining  the  precise  points  in  question,  such 
as  those  developed  by  means  of  the  "Novelties"  sub- 
sequently introduced  by  the  school  of  Saumur — special 
questions,  for  instance,  involved  in  the  nature  of  justifi- 
cation, the  method  and  grounds  of  imputation,  and  the 
design  of  the  Atonement.  Let  the  fact  be  well  noted, 
Ihercfore,  that  Calvin  does  not  ap})ear  to  have  given  the 
qiiestion  we  are  at  present  discussing  a  deliberate  con- 
sideration, and  has  certainly  not  left  behind  him  a  clear 
and  consistent  statem  3nt  of  his  views. 


OPINION   OF   CALVIN'.  389 

2.  I  liavo  already  sufficiently  proved  that  Calvin  hold 
the  SatisiUetion  Theory  of  the  Atonement  in  its  strictest 
sense,  and  all  the  world  knows  that  as  a  predestinarian 
he  went  to  the  length  of  Supralapsarianism,  from  which 
such  theologians  as  Turretin,  Witsius  and  Owen,  and 
the  Synod  of  Dort,  and  the  Assembly  of  Westminster, 
recoiled.  When  the  advocates  of  a  general  atonement 
claim  to  stand  by  Calvin,  they  ought  to  be  well  prepared 
for  the  arduous  undertaking.  The  entire  analogy  and 
spirit  of  Calvin's  system  was  as  a  whole  broadly  charac- 
terized by  the  subjection  of  Redemption  to  Election  as  a 
means  to  an  end.  The  able,  learned  and  impartial  F. 
Christian  Baur,  in  his  History  of  the  Atonement  (A.  D. 
1838),  says:  "Zwingle  and  Calvin  did  indeed  adhere  to 
the  dogma  of  Satisfaction  in  its  traditional  form;  but 
from  their  point  of  view  the  Satisfaction  itself  was  sub- 
sumed under  the  idea  of  the  absolute  decree,  in  relation 
to  which  the  satisfaction  of  Christ  was  not  the  catisa 
meritovia  of  salvation,  but  only  the  causa  instnimentalis 
carrying  out  the  purpose  of  redemption.''  That  this  is 
true,  so  far  as  it  represents  Calvin  subordinating  the 
purpose  of  redemption  to  the  purpose  of  election,  every 
student  of  his  Institides  and  of  his  Consensus  Gaievensis 
knows,  and  that  this  conclusively  settles  the  present 
debate  every  competent  theologian  will  confess.  He 
declares  the  gift  of  Christ  is  the  result  of  his  infinite 
love  to  the  persons  for  whom  he  is  given  ;*  that  Christ 
really  merits  eternal  life  and  all  spiritual  graces  for  those 
for  whom  he  died  ;t  that  Christ  is  to  us  both  the  clear 
mirror  and  the  pledge  and  security  of  the  eternal  and 

*  Institutes,  book  ii.,  chap.  xvi. 
f  Ibid.,  boo]<:  ij.,  ohnp,  xvii. 
33  « 


390  DESIGN    OF   THE    ATONEMENT. 

secret  election  of  God,*  that  God,  eternally  anterior  to 
their  creation  and  irrespective  of  their  character,  loved 
the  elect,  and  hated  the  non-elect,  predestinating  the  first 
to  holiness  and  happiness,  and  ihe  other  to  sin  and 
misery  for  ever.f  It  is  true  thai  at  times  Calvin  uses 
general  terms  with  respect  to  the  design  of  Christ's 
death  in  a  more  unguarded  manner  than  would  now  be 
done  by  one  of  his  consistent  disciples.  See  Rom.  v.  18. 
But  at  other  times  he  explicitly  denies  that  he  believes 
in  an  indiscriminate  Atonement  in  the  sense  of  Barnes 
and  the  great  majority  of  the  modern  advocates  of  Gene- 
ral Redemption.  And  let  it  be  remembered  that  one 
deliberate  statement  Jimit'mg  the  design  of  Christ's  death 
is  sufficient  to  define  the  sense  of  any  finite  number  of 
vague  and  indefinite  expressions,  such  as  that  referred  to 
above  in  his  comment  on  Rom.  v.  18.  Thus  in  his 
comment  on  1  John  ii.  2,  he  declared  his  adhesion  to  the 
Scholastic  formula  that  "Christ  died  sufficiently  for  all, 
but  efficiently  only  for  the  elect,"  which  is  very  different 
from  the  opinion  of  those  who  hold  that  Christ  died  for 
the  purpose  of  removing  legal  obstacles  out  of  the  way 
of  all  men  indifferently.  And  at  the  same  time  he 
denies  utterly  that  the  apostle,  in  saying  that  Christ  is 
the  "propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world''  {tothis 
mundi)  could  have  meant  to  include  the  reprobate. 
"Such  a  monstrous  thing  deserves  no  refutation.  The 
design  of  John  was  no  other  than  to  make  this  benefit 
common  to  the  whole  Church.  Then  under  the  word 
all  or  whole,  he  does  not  include  the  reprobate,  but 
designates  those  who  should  believe,  as  well  as  those 

*  Consensus  Genevensis,  Nienieyer,  p.  270. 
f  Institutes^  book  iii.,  chnn   xxiii. 


STANDARD    OF    CALVrXISM.  391 

wlio  were  thoii  scattered   tliron<!;]i   various  parts  of  tlie 
world. '^     Commentaries  1  John  ii.  2.* 

3.  But  whatever  the  personal  opinions  of  Calvin  may 
have  been,  the  second  question  as  to  what  is  Calvinism? 
is  entirely  independent  of  them.  The  title  Calvinism  has 
— whether  with  propriety  or  not,  nevertheless  as  a  fixed 
fact — been  given  to  a  definite  system,  which  possesses  an 
identity  of  character  and  of  history  independent  of  any 
sinojle  man  that  ever  lived.  It  is  doubtless  convenient, 
but  it  is  eminently  unscholarly,  to  attempt  to  settle  the 
theology  of  the  lieformed  Churches  by  reference  to  the 
writings  of  a  single  man.  There  are  two  ways  of  de- 
termining what  several  elements  legitimately  belong  to 
this  system:  (1.)  By  an  analysis  and  comparison  of  all 
the  elements  of  the  system,  trying  each  proposed  element 
by  the  fundamental  principles,  the  general  spirit,  logical 
relations  and  analogy  of  the  whole.  This  has  been,  I 
suppose,  sufficiently  done  in  the  preceding  analysis  and 
statement  of  the  question.  (2.)  The  second  method  is 
an  historical  appeal  to  the  common  consent  of  that  great 
family  of  Churches  who  agree  in  professing  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  that  system,  as  this  consent  is  ex- 
pressed by  their  great  representative  Confessions  and 
classical  theological  writings,  prepared  after  the  topics 
in  question  have  been  consciously  and  specifically  dis- 
cussed and  defined. 

■'^In  his  treatise,  De  Vera  Participatione  Cbristi  in  Coena,  in  reply 
to  Heshusius,  a  violent  Lutheran  defender  of  the  corporeal  presence 
of  Christ  in  the  Eucharist,  this  passage  occurs:  "I  would  desire  to 
know  how  the  impious,  for  whom  he  was  not  crucified,  could  eat  the 
ilesh  of  Christ,  and  how  they  can  drink  his  blood  for  the  expiation 
of  whose  sins  it  was  net  shed;'  G  nningliim's  Theology  of  the 
Reformation,  p.  396. 


392  DESIGN   OF    THE   ATONEMENT. 

All  tlic  Nvorkl  knows  tliat  the  seventeenth  century, 
including  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth,  was  the  era 
when  all  the  elements  of  all  the  great  systems  of  theo- 
logy were  subjected,  by  means  of  controversies,  to  a 
tli()i"<)ugh  analysis  and  adjustment,  when  each  system 
was  elaborated  with  a  distinctness,  and  defined  with  an 
accuracy,  and  discussed  with  a  power,  and  received  each 
by  its  entire  circle  of  adherents  with  a  unanimity  which 
surpasses  all  the  subsequent  as  much  as  all  the  precedent 
achievements  of  the  Church.  This  was  the  age  wdiich, 
taken  in  its  wide  limits,  produced  the  Roman  Catholic, 
Kobert  Bellarmine;  the  Unitarian,  Crellius,  and  the 
other  authors  of  the  Bihliotheea  Frntrum  Polonoruni ; 
the  Lutheran,  Gerhard,  Calovius,  Quenstedt;  the  Ar- 
minian,  Arminius,  Episcopius  Limborch  and  Grotius  ; 
the  Calvinistic  Universalists,  Cameron,  Placaeus,  Amyr- 
aldus,  Daill^ ;  the  Reformed  Synods  of  Dort,  Alez  and 
Charenton,  the  Westminster  Assembly,  the  Formula 
Consensus  Helvetica,  the  Savoy  Confession,  &c.,  &c., 
&c.  We  lay  it  down,  therefore,  as  a  canon,  which  no 
student  of  historical  theology  will  care  to  deny,  that  the 

COMMON     CONSENT     OF     THE     REFORMED     ChURCHES, 

during  the  seventeenth  century,  as  witnessed 
in  their  creeds  and  in  the  writings  of  their 
representative  theologians,  is  the  standard  of 
Calvinism. 

The  only  other  point  which  our  argument  requires 
us  to  establish  is  that  the  decisions  of  the  Reformed 
Churches,  during  the  seventeenth  century,  were  univer- 
sally and  explicitly  in  confirmation  of  our  view  of  the 
Atonement  a.s  definite  and  personal.  Both  of  the  learned 
and  impartial  critics,  Wener  and  Fl  agenbach,  agree  that 


STANDARD    OF   CALVINISM.  893 

the  deliverances  of  the  Bclgic*  and  Galliot  Confessions 
(A.  D.  1571),  and  of  the  Synod  of  Dort  (A.  D.  1619), 
expressly  teach  a  definite  /Vtonement.  ''For  this  was 
the  most  free  council,  and  gracious  will  and  intention 
of  God  tiie  Father,  that  the  life-giving  and  saving  cfli- 
cacy  of  the  most  })reci()us  death  of  his  own  Son,  should 
exert  itself  in  all  tlie  elect,  in  order  to  give  them  alone 
justiiying  faith,  and  thereby  to  lead  them  to  eternal 
life;  that  is,  that  God  willed  that  Christ,  through  the 
blood  of  the  cross  (by  which  he  confirmeth  the  new 
covenant),  should  out  of  every  people,  tribe,  nation  and 
language,  efficaciously  redeem  all  those,  and  those  only, 
who  were  from  eternity  chosen  to  salvation,  and  given 
to  him  by  the  Father.J"   Under  the  head  of  the  rejec- 

*Conf.  Belg.,  Art.  36. — Credimus,  Deuiu,  posteaquam  tota  Adami 
progenies  sic  in  perditionem  et  exitium  prinii  honiinis  culpa  prro- 
cipitata  fuit,  Deuin  se  talem  demonstras«o,  qualis  est,  niniirum  niise- 
ricordem  et  justuni,  misericordem  quiden),  eos  ab  haee  perditione 
liberando  et  servando,  quos  seterno  et  immutabili  sno  consilio  i>ro 
gratuita  sua  bonitate  in  Jesu  Christo  elegit  et  selegit,  absque  ullo 
operura  ipsoruni  respectu  ;  justuni  vero,  reliquos  in  lapsu  et  perdi- 
tione, in  quam  sese  ipsi  praecipitavcrant,  relinquendo. 

fConf.  Gall.,  Art.  12. — Credimus  ex  corruptione  et  daninatione 
universali,  in  qua  omnes  homines  natura  sunt  submersi,  Deum  alios 
quidem  eripere,  quos  videlicet  ffiterno  et  immutabili  suo  consilio, 
sola  sua  bonitate  et  miseracordia  nulloque  operum  ipsorum  respectu 
in  Jesu  Christo  elegit;  alios  vero  in  ea  corruptione  et  damnatione 
relinquere,  in  quibus  nirairum  juste  suo  tempore  damnandisjustitiara 
suam  demonstret,  sicut  in  aliis  divitias  misericordise  suae  declarat. 
Nee  enim  alii  aliis  sunt  meliores,  donee  illos  Deus  discernat  ex  im- 
mutabili illo  consilio,  quod  ante  seculorum  creationem  in  Jesu 
Christi  determinavit:  neque  posset  quisquam  sua  vi  sibi  ad  bonum 
illud  aditum  patefacere,  qunm  ex  natura  nostra  ne  unum  quidem 
rectum  motum  vel  affectum  seu  cogitationem  habere  possimus,  donee 
nos  Deus  gratis  prieveniat  et  ad  rectitudinem  format. 

X  Articles  of  the  Synod  of  l\)rt,  chapter  ii.,  ^  8. 


394  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

tion  of  eirors  concerning  redemption,  "  The  Synod 
rejects  the  errors  of  those  who  teach  Hhat  God  the 
Father  destined  his  own  Son  unto  the  death  of  the  cross, 
w  ithont  a  certain  and  definite  counsel  of  saving  any  one 

l)y  name/ For  this  assertion  is  contumelious  to 

the  wisdom  of  God  and  the  merit  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
is  contrary  to  Scripture,  as  the  Saviour  says, '  I  lay  down 
my  life  for  the  sheep,  and  I  know  them/  John  x.  15, 
27."*  "AV'ho  teach  that  'Christ,  by  his  satisfaction, 
did  not  with  certainty  merit  that  very  salvation  and 
faitli  by  which  this  satisfaction  of  Christ  may  be  effec- 
tually applied  unto  salvatiDn.'"!  Here  the  doctrine  of 
definite  Atonement  is  taught  with  singular  fulness  and 
variety  of  statement.  Thus  (a)  it  is  stated  that  Christ 
died  to  secure  the  salvation  of  the  elect,  and  the  elect 
only.  (6.)  That  Christ  died  in  pursuance  of  a  definite 
covenant  arrangement  between  the  Father  and  the  Son. 
{c.)  That  Christ,  by  his  death,  actually  merited  and 
secured  faith  and  spiritual  grace  for  those  for  whom  he 
died.  Hence,  tlxose  who  never  received  the  gift  of  faith 
are  proved  not  to  be  those  for  whom  he  died. 

The  Westminster  Confession  was  prepared  in  1648. 
There  has  been  in  this  generation  a  very  uncandid 
attempt  made  by  some  who  profess  to  receive  this  Con- 
fession, ex  aniiiio,  as  the  fit  expression  of  their  faith,  to 
filiow  that  it  does  not  explicitly  affirm  a  specific  and  per- 
sonal redemption  of  the  elect  to  the  exclusion  of  a  gene- 
ral redemption  of  all.  These  parties  admit  that  the 
Confession  may  be  chargeable  with  the  sin  of  omission 
in  re8i>ect  to  the  failure  to  affirm  that  redemption  is 
general  and  indefinite.  But  they  deny  that  it  affirms 
*  Articles  of  the  Syi  :>d  of  Dort,  ^  1.  f  Ibid.,  §  3. 


STAISTDAED  OF   CALVINISM.  395 

the  contrary.  It  is  said  that  the  Confession  is  very 
careful  to  trace  out  the  relation  of  Christ's  work  to  the 
elect,  while  it  leaves  the  way  open  to  all  to  indulge  what 
opinions  they  please  as  to  its  relations  to  the  non-elect. 
This  is  obviously  a  mistake.  Our  Confession  explicitly — 
and  precisely  in  those  forms  of  statement  most  signifi- 
cant and  emphatic,  when  viewed  in  connection  with  the 
state  of  the  controversy  on  this  question  at  that  time — 
affirms,  that  the  redemptive  work  of  Christ  was  personal 
and  definite,  and  therefore  not  impersonal  and  indefinite, 
"They  who  are  elected,  being  fallen  in  Adam,  are  re- 
deemed by  Christ,  are  effectually  called  unto  faith  in 
Christ  by  his  Spirit  working  in  due  season;  are  justified, 
adopted,  sanctified  and  kept  by  his  power  through  faith 
unto  salvation.  Neither  are  any  other  redeemed  by 
Christ,  effectually  called,  justified,  adopted,  sanctified 
and  saved,  but  the  elect  only.^'*  Here  it  is  explicitly 
declared  that  the  elect  are  redeemed,  and  that  only  the 
elect  are  redeemed  by  Christ.  "The  Lord  Jesus,  by 
his  perfect  obedience  and  sacrifice  of  himself,  which  he, 
through  the  eternal  Spirit  once  offered  up  unto  God, 
hath  fully  satisfied  the  justice  of  the  Father;  and  pur- 
chased not  only  reconciliation,  but  an  everlasting  in- 
heritance in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  for  all  those  whom 
the  Father  hath  given  him.^f  Here  it  is  explicitly 
said  that  the  atoning  work  of  Christ  secures  for  those  in 
whose  behalf  it  was  offered  reconciliation — not  reconcilia- 
bility — and  that  it  purchases  for  them  an  everlasting 
inheritance  in  heaven.  They,  therefore,  who  never  re- 
ceive the  reconciliation  nor  the  inheritance  cannot  be 

*  Westminster  Confession,  chapter  iii.,  ^  6. 
f  Ibid.,  chapter  viii.,  ^  5. 


396  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

those  for  wlioin  tlicy  were  purrliased.  "To  all  for 
Wlio^r  Christ  hath  purchased  redemption  he  doth  cer- 
tainly and  effectually  apply  and  communicate  the  same, 
making  intercession  for  them,  and  revealing  unto  them, 
in  and  by  the  word,  the  mysteries  of  salvation,  effec- 
tually persuading  them  by  his  Spirit  to  believe  and 
ol)(y."*  Here  it  is  expressly  said  that  Christ  actually 
saves  all  those  for  whom  he  died,  and  it  follows,  of 
course,  that  he  shed  his  blood  for  none  whom  he  does 
not  actually  save.  "This  statement  contains,  and  was  in- 
tended  to  contain^  the  true  status  qua^stionis  in  the  contro- 
versy about  the  extent  of  the  Atonement,  It  is  to  be  explained 
by  a  reference  to  the  mode  of  conducting  this  controversy, 
between  the  Calvinists  and  the  Arminians  about  the 
time  of  the  Synod  of  Dort,  and  also  to  the  mode  of  con- 
ducting the  controversy  excited  in  France  by  Cameron, 
and  afterwards  carried  on  by  Amyraldus  in  France  and 
Holland,  and  by  Baxter  in  England.^f 

The  Formula  Consensus  Helvetica  was  prepared  in 
1675  by  Heidegger  and  Turretin  for  the  express  purpose 
of  opposing  the  "Novelties"  of  the  school  of  Saumur, 
and  it  received  the  suffrages  of  all  the  Swiss  Churches 
of  that  age.  "Accordingly  in  the  death  of  Christ,  only 
the  elect,  who  in  time  are  made  new  creatures  (2  Cor.  v. 
17),  and  for  whom  Christ  in  his  death  was  substituted 
as  an  expiatory  sacrifice,  are  regarded  as  having  died 
with  him  and  as  being  justified  from  sin;  and  thus,  witli 
the  counsel  of  the  Father,  who  gave  to  Christ  none  buf 
the  elect  to  be  redeemed,  and  also  with  the  working  <>i 
the  Holy  Spirit,  who  sanctifies  and   seals  unto  a  living 

*  Westminster  Coiifesnion,  chapter  viii.,  ^  8. 

t  Cuiininghani'b  llistoiy  of  Theology,  vol.  ii.,  p.  328. 


STANDARD   OF   CALVINISM.  397 

hope  of  eternal  life  none  but  the  elect,  the  will  of  Christ 
who  died  so  agrees  and  amicably  conspires  in  perfect 
harmony,  that  the  sphere  of  the  Father's  election,  the 
Son's  redemption,  and  the  Spirit's  sanctification  is  one 
and  tlie  same."* 

The  decrees  of  the  Synod  of  Dort  were  accepted  with 
unparalelled  unanimity  by  all  the  Reform(jd  Churches. 
They  were  adoi)ted  again  and  again  by  the  National 
Synod  of  the  Reformed  Church  of  France,  at  Alez,  in 
1620;  at  Charenton,  in  1623;  and  at  every  subsequent 
session  until  they  ceased  to  meet.  Again  and  again  the 
French  Synod  examined  this  very  question,  and  decided, 
as  I  showed  above  from  the  minutes  of  the  Synod  ot 
Alengon  (A.  D.  1637),  that  Christ  died  with  the  inten- 
tion of  saving  only  the  elect,  while  his  work  is  freely 
offered  to  all.  The  theological  faculty  of  Geneva,  the 
successors  of  Calvin,  only  eighty  years  after  his  death, 
unite  with  the  theological  faculties  of  Leyden,  Sedan, 
Franeker  and  Gronegen,  in  writing  earnestly  to  the 
Synod,  protesting  against  the  doctrines  of  Amyraldus, 
calling  them  "novelties,"  "upstarted  opinions,"  "new 
doctrines,"  &c.,  and  recommending  the  work  written  to 
refute  them  by  that  "famous  divine  Andrew  Rivet," 
pastor  and  professor  at  Leyden. 

The  Savoy  Confession  (A.  D.  1658)  adopted  by  the 
English  Independents  agrees  with  the  Westminster  as  to 
the  design  of  redemption.  The  Boston  Confession  (A.  D. 
1680)  explicitly  teaches  the  same  doctrine.  The  Cam- 
bridge Synod  (A.  D.  1648),  when  they  formed  the  Cam- 
bridge Platform,  solemnly  adopted  the  Westminster 
Confession  as  their  doctrinal  symbol.     The  Synod  of  the 

■^"  Formula  Consensus  Helvetica,  canon  13. 
84 


398  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

Connecticut  Clmrches,  which  formed  the  Saybrook  Plat- 
form in  1703,  adopted  the  Boston  Confession  of  1680 
for  their  doctrinal  symbol.  The  Westminster  Confession 
has  been  subsequently  adopted  as  the  doctrinal  Confes- 
sion of  all  the  Presbyterians  and  Independents  of  British 
descent  in  the  world.  This  much,  at  least  in  common 
honesty,  ought  to  be  held  as  settled,  that  whatever  may 
be  the  case  as  to  the  teachings  of  Scripture,  it  is  not  an 
open  question  what  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Reformed  Qmrches 
as  to  tlie  design  of  the  Atonement.  There  is  no  question 
whether  the  International  Synod  of  Dort;  the  National 
Synods  of  France  and  Westminster;  the  Formula  Con- 
sensus Helvetica;  the  theological  schools  of  Geneva, 
Sedan,  Leyden,  Franeker  and  Gronegen  ;  the  theologians 
Beza,  Voetius,  Diodati,  Gomarus,  Pi  vet,  Du  Moulin, 
Spanheim,  Heidegger,  Turretin,  Cocceius,  AVitsius,  Vit- 
ringa,  Van  ^lastricht,  Marckius,  De  Moor,  Pictet  and 
Owen, — there  is  no  question  whether  these  represent  truly 
and  fully  the  theology  of  the  Reformed  Churches.  Tlie 
cofisens  s  of  these  is  the  standard  of  Calvinism. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

THE     ARGUMENTS     STATED      UPON     WlllCn    THE      REFORMED 
DOCTRINE  AS  TO  THE  DESIGN  OF  THE  ATONEMENT  RESTS. 

TT7E  are,  under  this  fifth  head,  to  consider  the  evidence 
T  T  relied  upon  by  Calvinists  as  establishing  the  truth 
of  their  view  of  the  Atonement  as  personal  and  definite. 
I  believe  that  the  general  principles  of  Calvinism,  and 
the  Satisfaction  Theory  of  the  Atonement  in  particu- 
lar, being  assumed  as  true,  the  only  question  as  to  the 
design  of  Christ's  work  that  remains  possible  is  fully 
disposed  of  by  a  discriminating  and  exhaustive  state- 
ment of  the  points  at  issue.  Having  spent  so  much 
time  in  rendering  such  a  statement,  I  propose  now  to 
present  the  positive  arguments  establishing  our  view  of 
the  question  in  a  very  cursory  manner. 

1.  That  the  design  of  the  Atonement  was  the  salva- 
tion of  the  elect  personally  and  definitely,  we  think, 
certainly  follows  from  the  very  nature  of  the  Atonement 
itself,  which  has  been  fully  demonstrated  in  the  former 
part  of  this  volume. 

(1.)  We  then  proved  that  Christ  wrought  our  salva- 
tion as  our  Substitute  in  the  strict  sense  of  that  term, 
and  that  his  suffering  and  obedience  was  strictly  vica- 
rious. He  occupied  our  law-place,  and  the  sentence  dur 
to  the  principals  was  executed  on  him.  Now  this  fact, 
we  do  not  believ^e,  involves  any  calculation  as  to  tht 


400  DESiG:y  df  the  atonement. 

kind  or  amount  of  suffering.  Whether  a  Siibstitute  for 
few  or  for  many,  a  divine  Person  might  surely,  by  tlie 
same  actions  and  in  the  same  time,  discharge  all  the 
obligations  of  all  indifferently.  But  a  strict  substitution 
of  person  for  persons,  and  the  infliction  on  the  one  ])art, 
and  the  voluntary  suffering  on  the  other,  of  vicarious 
punishment  surely  implies  a  definite  recognition,  on  the 
part  of  the  Sovereign,  and  of  the  Substitute  of  the  per- 
sons for  whom  the  Substitute  acts,  whose  sins  he  bears 
and  whose  penal  obligation  he  discharges.  The  very 
conception  of  substitution  necessarily  involves  definite, 
personal  relations. 

(2.)  We  have  also  clearly  proved  that  the  work  of 
Christ  as  our  Substitute  was  a  complete  Satisfaction, 
fully  discharging  all  the  demands  of  the  law  as  a  broken 
covenant  of  works.  The  demands  of  the  law  terminate 
upon  persons.  Its  demands  can  be  satisfied  only  with 
respect  to  certain  definite  persons,  and  not  with  respect 
to  a  mass  indefinitely.  The  law,  moreover,  has  no 
further  demands  upon  those  persons  with  re^pect  to 
whom  all  its  conditions  hav^e  been  once  fully  satisfied. 
It  hence  follows,  that  all  of  those  for  whom  Christ  has 
in  this  sense  made  a  perfect  satisfaction  must  be  saved. 
This  does  not  imply  at  all  that  the  sinner  himself  has 
any  claim  upon  the  grace  whereby  he  is  saved,  nor  that 
God  is  any  the  less  an  absolute  Sovereign  in  giving  it 
to,  and  in  withholding  it  from,  whomsoever  he  will. 
The  whole  matter  lies  in  the  intention  of  the  Father  in 
giving  the  Son,  and  the  intention  of  the  Son  in  dying. 
The  demands  of  the  government  Avith  relation  to  an 
individual  are  satisfied  when  the  services  of  another  as 
his  substitute  are  credited  to  his  account.     It  depends 


TRUTH   OF   THE   REFOR-d:ED   DOCTRINE.  401 

simply  upon  the  will  of  the  substitute  and  upon  tlie 
pleasure  of  the  government  wliether  these  serviees  shall 
be  credited  to  one  or  to  another.  For  whoms  )ever  they 
are  designed,  they  avail  to  cancel  their  obligations  If 
God's  will  in  the  matter  should  change,  the  persons  to 
whom  the  law-satisfying  righteousness  would  be  credited 
would  change  also.  Yet,  even  in  that  case,  the  changed 
destination  would  make  no  difference  as  to  the  personal 
and  definite  reference  of  the  satisfaction.  But  since  God 
cannot  change,  the  same  persons  whom  God  in  the  be- 
ginning chose  to  eternal  life  are  the  persons  for  whom 
Christ  made  satisfaction,  and  the  i)ersons  for  whom  he 
made  satisfaction  are  the  persons  whom  he  now  justifies, 
and  will  hereafter  glorify. 

(3.)  Every  form  which  it  is  possible  for  the  General 
Atonement  Theory  to  assume  necessarily  involves  the 
hypothesis  that  in  its  essential  nature  the  Atonement 
effects  only  the  removal  of  legal  obstacles  out  of  the 
way  of  the  salvation  of  men,  making  God  reconcilable, 
not  actually  reconciling  him  ;  making  the  salvation  of 
all  men  possible,  not  actually  saving  any.  But  the 
Scri})tures  teach  that  Christ  actually  came  to  save  those 
for  whom  he  died — "  The  Son  of  God  came  to  save  that 
which  was  lost."  Matt,  xviii.  11  ;  Luke  xix.  10.  2  Cor. 
v.  21  :  ^*For  he  hath  made  him  to  be  sin  for  us,  who 
knew^  no  sin  ;  that  ice  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of 
God  in  him."  Gal.  i.  4  :  "  He  gave  himself  for  our  sins, 
th(d  he  might  deliver  us  from  this  present  evil  world, 
accnxling  to  the  will  of  God."  Gal.  iv.  5:  "He  was 
made  under  the  law,  that  he  might  (7va)  redeem  them  that 
are  under  the  law,  that  ice  might  {r>a)  receive  the  adop- 
tion of  sons.     1  Tim.  i.  15:  "This  is  a  faithful  saying, 

34* 


402  DESIGN   OF  THE   ATONEMENT. 

.  .  c  .  that  Christ  Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  save 
sinners/'  Again  the  Scriptures  declare  that  the  effect 
of  Christ's  death  is  reconciliation  and  justification. 
Rom.  V.  10:  "For  if  Avhen  we  were  enemies  we  were 
reconciled  to  God  by  the  death  of  his  Son,  much  more, 
being  reconciled,  we  shall  be  saved  by  his  life."  Eph. 
ii.  16:  "Christ  died  thcit  he  might  reconcile  both  unto 
God  in  one  body  by  the  cross."  The  design  of  Christ, 
moreover,  was  to  secure  for  those  for  whom  he  died  the 
direct  efiPect  of  remission  of  sins,  peace  with  God,  and 
deliverance  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  from  wrath,  from 
death,  from  sin,  &c.  In  whom  we  have  redemption 
through  his  blood,  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  Eph.  ii.  14: 
"  For  he  is  our  peace  who  hath  made  both  one."  1 
Thess.  i.  10:  "Even  Jesus,  which  delivered  us  from  the 
wrath  to  come."  Heb.  ii.  14:  "That  through  death  he 
might  destroy  him  that  had  the  power  of  death,  and 
deliver  them,  who  through  fear  of  death,"  &c.  Gal.  iii. 
13:  "Christ  has  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law, 
being  made  a  curse  for  us."  1  Pet.  i.  18:  "Forasmuch 
as  ye  know  that  ye  were  not  redeemed  with  corruptible 

things, but  with  the  precious  blood  of  Christ." 

But  to  make  salvation  possible,  to  make  possible  purifi- 
cation, deliverance,  reconciliation,  is  something  very 
different  indeed  from  actually  saving,  purifying,  deliver- 
ing or  reconciling.  No  man  has  a  right  to  empty  the 
glorious  terms  in  which  the  gospel  is  revealed  of  all 
their  saving  power.  It  i?  not  we  who  teach  a  limited 
atonement,  but  our  opponents.  That  must  be  a  limited 
redemption  indeed  which  leaves  the  majority  of  those 
for  whom  it  was  designed  in  hell  for  ever;  ^hich  only 
makes  salvation  possible  to  all  men  in  such  a  iense  that 


TRUTH   OF   THE   REFOmiED   DOCrRINE.  403 

it  continues  absolutely  impossible  to  all  until,  by  a 
sovereign  grace  which  is  antecedent  to  and  indej)endent 
of  all  redemption,  it  is  made  subjectively  possible  to  a 
few. 

2.  None  of  the  advocates  of  a  general  and  indefinite 
Atonement  can  believe  that  Christ  purchased  repent- 
ance, faith  or  obedience  for  those  for  whom  he  died,  for 
in  that  case  all  for  whom  he  died  must  repent,  believe 
and  obey.  But  the  Scriptures  teach  that  Christ  did 
purchase  those  blessings  for  those  for  whom  he  died. 
This  is  plain  (1)  because  men  have  no  natural  power  to 
furnish  those  conditions  themselves.  The  Scriptures 
everywhere  ascribe  the  whole  ground  and  cause  of  our 
salvation  to  Christ.  But  if  the  differentiating  grace 
whicli  distinguishes  the  believer  from  the  unbeliever  is 
to  be  attributed  to  any  cause  exterior  to  Christ's  redemp- 
tion, then  that  cause,  and  not  his  redemption,  is  the 
cause  of  salvation.  (2.)  Faith  and  redemption  are  ex- 
pressly said  to  be  gifts  of  God.  Eph.  ii.  8:  "For  by 
grace  are  ye  saved  through  faith;  and  that  not  of  your- 
selves ;  it  is  the  gift  of  God."  Acts  v.  31 :  "Him  hath 
God  exalted  to  be  a  prince  and  a  Saviour,  to  give  re- 
pentance to  Israel  and  forgiveness  of  sins.''  (3.)  They 
are  given  to  us  for  Christ's  sake  as  the  purchase  of  his 
blood.  In  Phil.  i.  29  it  is  said  to  be  given  us  in  behalf 
of  Christ  to  believe  on  him.  Eph.  i.  3,  4:  "Blessed  be 
the  God  and  Father  of  our  I^ord  Jesus  Christ,  who  hath 
blessed  us  with  all  spiritual  blcssinr/  in  heavenly  things 
in  Christ:  according  as  he  hath  cliosen  us  in  him  before 
the  foundation  of  the  world,  tiiat  we  should  be  holy 
and  without  blame  before  him  in  love."  Titus  iii.  5,  6: 
"Not  by  works  of  righ^*eousness  which  we  have  done, 


404  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

but  according  to  his  mercy  he  saved  us,  by  th(»  washing 
of  regeneration  and  renewing  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  which 
he  shed  on  us  abundantly  through  Jesiis  Christ  ow 
SavioirJ'  Gal.  iii.  13,  14:  "Christ  redeemed  us  from 
the  curse  of  the  law  .  .  .  that  we  might  receive  the  pro- 
mise of  the  Spirit  through  faith."  Acts  ii.  33:  "There- 
fore being  by  the  right  hand  of  God  exalted,  and  having' 
received  of  the  Father  the  promise  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
he  hath  shed  forth  this  which  ye  now  see  and  hear." 
Emmons,  the  logical  advocate  of  a  general  Atonement, 
asserts  that  the  only  benefit  we  receive  from  Christ  is 
forgiveness  of  sins  on  condition  of  faith.*  But  the 
Scriptures  over  and  over  again  declare  that  Christ  died 
with  the  design  and  effect  of  procuring  for  those  for 
whom  he  died  the  subjective  grace  of  sanctification,  in- 
cluding faith,  as  well  as  the  objective  grace  of  forgiveness 
conditioned  on  faith.  "Who  gave  himself  for  us  that 
he  might  redeem  us  from  all  inicjuity,  and  purify  to  him- 
self a  peculiar  people  zealous  of  good  works."  Titus 
ii.  14.  "Christ  also  loved  the  Church  and  gave  him- 
self for  it:  that  he  might  sanctify  and  cleanse  it  with 
the  washing  of  water  by  the  word,  that  he  might  pre- 
sent it  to  himself  a  glorious  Church,  not  having  spot  or 
wrinkle  or  any  such  thing:  but  that  it  should  be  holy 
and  without  blemish."  Eph.  v.  26,  27.  "Who  of  God 
is  made  unto  us  wisdom,  and  righteousness,  and  sanctifi- 
cation, and  redemption."  (4.)  All  whom  the  Father 
gave  to  the  Son  believe,  and  none  others.     "All   that 

the  Father  giveth  to  me  shall  come  to  me, and 

this  is  the  Father's  will,  that  of  all  which  he  hath  given 

me  I  should   lose  nothing."    John  vi.   37,   39.     "My 

*  Emmons'  Works,  vol.  iii.,  p.  IS. 


TRUTH  OP  THE  REFCRMED  DOCTRINE.    405 

sheep  hear  my  voice  and  I  know  them,  and  they  follow 

me,  and  I  give  to  them  eternal  life My  Father 

which  gave  ti'iem  me  is  greater  than  all.''  John  x.  27,  28. 
Christ  said,  in  the  tenth  chapter  of  John,  "I  lay  down 
my  life  for  the  sheep,"  and  then  said  to  the  Jews,  "Ye 
believe  not  because  ye  are  not  my  sheep."  John  x.  26. 
"As  many  as  were  ordained  to  eternal  life  believed." 
Acts  xiii.  48.  Christ  said  to  his  disciples,  "To  you  it  is 
given  to  know  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
but  to  them  it  is  not  given."  Matt.  xiii.  12. 

If,  then,  as  the  Scriptures  teach,  Christ  purchased  all 
spiritual  graces  for  those  for  whom  he  died,  all  those  for 
whom  he  died  must  believe.  If  the  object  for  which  he 
died  was  to  sanctify  and  cleanse  those  for  whom  he  died, 
then  that  great  mass  of  men  who  live  and  die,  eaten  to 
the  core  with  every  form  of  corruption,  cannot  be  those 
for  whom  Christ  died. 

3.  All  the  advocates  of  general  redemption  believe 
that  Christ,  moved  by  an  impersonal  and  indiscriminate 
philanthropy  or  love  of  men  as  such,  died  in  order  to 
make  the  salvation  of  all  men  possible  to  them  on  the 
condition  of  faith.  But  the  facts  of  the  case  are — (a)  that 
Christ  died  after  generations  of  men  had  been  going  to 
perdition  during  four  thousand  years.  Whh  regard  to 
that  half  of  the  race  who  perished  before  his  advent  it 
is  hard  to  see  the  bearings  of  a  general  redemption. 
And  if  it  had  no  bearing  upon  their  case,  it  is  hard  to 
see  in  what  sense  the  redemption  is  general,  (b.)  That 
the  condition  upon  which  it  is  said  Christ  died  to  save 
them  he  has,  for  two  thousand  years  since  his  woik  of 
atonement  was  finished,  withheld  from  the  knowledge 
of  three-fourths  of  the  race.     It  is  hard  to  see  in  what 


406  DESIGN  OF   THE    A.TONEMENT. 

sense  the  death  of  Christ  made  the  salvation  of  the 
heathen  possible,  or  how  he  died  on  purpose  to  save 
thorn  on  the  condition  of  faith,  when  he  has  never 
revealed  to  them  his  purpose  of  salvation,  nor  the  con- 
ditions upon  which  it  is  suspended.  And  if  the  Atone- 
ment has  no  reference  to  the  salvation  of  the  untaught 
hoatlicn,  it  is  very  hard  indeed  to  see  in  what  sense  it  is 
general. 

4.  Christ  died  in  execution  of  the  terms  of  an  eternal 
Covenant  of  Redemption  formed  between  the  Father 
and  the  Son.  The  conditions  assumed  by  Christ  on  his 
jjart  were  that  he  should,  in  living  and  dying,  by  action 
and  suffering,  fulfil  all  the  legal  obligations  of  his  peo- 
ple. The  conditions  promised  by  the  Father  were  that 
Christ  should  "see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul  and  be 
satisfied.'' 

That  there  was  such  a  covenant  formed  in  eternity  is 
plain.  (1.)  God  always  acts  ou  a  plan,  and  there  must 
therefore  have  been  a  mutual  counsel  and  design  on  the 
part  of  the  several  persons  of  the  Godhead  distributing 
their  several  functions  in  the  economy  of  redemption. 
(2.)  The  Scriptures  exj^licitly  state  all  the  elements  of  a 
true  covenant  in  this  relation,  giving  the  mutual  pro- 
mises and  conditions  of  the  two  parties.  "I  the  Lord 
have  called  thee  in  righteousness,  and  will  hold  thy 
hand,  and  will  keep  thee,  and  give  thee  for  a  covenant 
of  the  people,  for  a  light  of  the  Gentiles;  to  open  the 
blind  eyes,"  &c.  Isa.  xlii.  6,  7.  "I  have  made  a  cove- 
nant with  my  chosen,  I  have  sworn  to  David  my  servant 
.  .  .  thy  seed  will  I  establish  for  ever,  and  build  up  thy 
throne  to  all  generations."  Ps.  Ixxxix.  3,  4.  "When 
his  soul  shall  make  an  offering  for  sin,  he  shall  see  his 


TRUTH  OF  THE  REFORMED  DOCTRINE.    407 

seed,  .  .  .  and  the  pleasure  of  the  Lord  shall  prosper  in 
his  hand.  He  shall  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul  and 
be  satisfied :  by  his  knowledge  shall  my  righteous  servant 
justify  many ;  for  he  shall  bear  their  iniquities.  There- 
fore will  I  divide  him  a  portion  with  the  great/'  <fec. 
Isa.  liii.  10,  11.  (3.)  Christ,  while  accomplishing  his 
work  on  earth,  makes  constant  reference  to  a  previous 
commission  he  had  received  of  the  Father  whose  will  he 
has  come  to  execute.  "  I  came  to  do  the  will  of  him 
that  sent  me.''  "This  commandment  I  have  received 
of  my  Father."  "As  my  Father  hath  appointed  unto 
me."  (4.)  Christ  claims  the  reward  w^hich  had  been 
conditioned  upon  the  fulfilment  of  that  commission.  "I 
have  glorified  thee  on  the  earth;  I  have  finished  the 
work  that  thou  gavest  me  to  do.  And  now,  O  Father, 
glorify  thou  me  with  thine  own  self,  with  the  glory 
which  I  had  with  thee  before  the  world  was.  I  have 
manifested  thy  name  to  those  whom  thou  hast  given  me 
out  of  the  WT)rld.  I  pray  for  them :  I  pray  not  for  the 
world,  but  for  them  that  thou  hast  given  me."  John 
xvii.  4-9.  (5.)  Christ  constantly  speaks  of  those  that 
believe  as  having  been  previously  given  him  by  the 
Father.  His  Father  had  given  them — "He  laid  down 
his  life  for  the  sheep."  John  x.  15.  They  were  given 
him  by  the  Father.  He  knows  them.  They  hear  his 
voice.  They  shall  never  perish.  The  reason  that  the 
reprobate  do  not  believe  is  because  they  are  not  his 
sheep.  John  x.  26.  He  prays  not  for  the  world  ;  he 
prays  only  foi  those  the  Father  had  givc^i  him  out  of 
the  world. 

If  he  died  in  pursuance  of  a  mutual  understanding 
between  himself  and  the  Father,  if  he  shall  see  of  the 


408  DESIGN    OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

travail  of  his  soul  and  be  satisfied,  and  if  every  one 
that  the  Father  gave  him  in  that  covenant  shall  be 
saved,  then  surely  those  who  are  not  saved  are  not 
those  for  whom  he  died. 

5.  The  Scriptures  habitually  affirm  that  the  motive 
which  led  the  Father  to  give  his  Son,  and  the  Son 
to  die,  was  not  a  mere  general  pJiilcmthropy,  but  the 
highest,  most  peculiar  and  personal  love.  Christ's  true 
purpose  in  dying  can  certainly  have  no  more  exact  and 
complete  expression  than  his  outpourings  of  soul  in  the 
ear  of  his  Father  on  the  terrible  night  preceding  his 
sacrifice,  recorded  in  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  John. 
If  ever  the  real  design  of  his  death  was  uppermost  in  his 
heart  and  speech,  it  must  have  been  then.  If  ever  the 
motives  which  led  to  his  dying  were  in  strong  action,  it 
must  have  been  then.  But  all  that  he  says  of  the  world 
is  that  he  does  not  pray  for  it.  All  the  unutterable 
treasures  of  his  love  are  poured  forth  upon  those  whom 
the  Father  gave  him  out  of  the  world.  ^^ For  their 
saJces,'^  he  said,  ^^I  sanctify  myself" — that  is,  devote 
myself  to  this  awful  service.  John  xvii.  13:  "That 
they  may  have  my  joy  fulfilled  in  themselves."  "Greater 
love  hath  no  man  than  this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his 
life  for  his  friends."  John  xv.  13.  "  God  commendeth  his 
love  toward  us,  in  that  while  we  wore  yet  sinners,  Christ 
died  for  us."  Rom.  v.  8.  "That  ye  may  be  able  to 
comprehend  with  all  saints,  what  is  the  breadth  and 
length,  and  depth  and  height,  and  to  know  the  love  of 
Chi-ist  which  passeth  knowledge,  that  ye  may  be  filled 
with  all  the  fulness  of  God."  Eph.  iii.  18,  19.  "Hereby 
perceive  we  the  love  of  God."  "In  this  was  manifested 
the  love  of  God,  because  he  sent  his  only-begotten  Son 


TRUTH   OF   THE   REFORMED   DOCTRINE.  409 

into  the  world,"  &c.  1  John  ill.  IG;  iv.  9,  10.  This 
love  of  Christ  for  liis  Churcli  has  for  its  type  the  per- 
sonal and  exclusive  love  of  the  husband  for  the  wife. 
E|)h.  V.  25-27. 

It  is  inconceivable  that  this  highest  and  most  peculiar 
love,  which  moved  God  to  give  his  only-begotten  and 
Avell-beloved  Son  to  undergo  a  painful  and  shameful 
death,  could  have  had  for  its  objects  the  myriads  from 
whom,  both  before  and  after  Christ,  he  had  withheld  all 
knowledge  of  the  gospel;  or  those  to  whom,  while  he 
gives  them  the  outward  call  of  the  word,  he  refuses  to 
give  the  inward  call  of  his  Spirit.  Can  such  love  as  the 
death  of  Christ  expresses,  welling  up  and  pouring  forth 
from  the  heart  of  the  omnipotent  God,  fail  to  secure  the 
certain  blessedness  of  its  objects?  Paul  expresses  his 
opinion  upon  this  precise  point:  "He  that  spared  not 
his  own  Son,  but  delivered  him  up  for  us  all,  how  shall 
he  not  with  him  also  freely  give  us  all  things  f^  Rom.  viii. 
32.  Surely  it  is  a  profane  defamation  of  this  love  to 
say  that  its  eflPects  may  be  measured  in  God's  providing 
a  salvation  for  all  men  to  accrue  to  them  upon  conditions 
known  and  intended  in  the  case  of  most  to  be  impossi- 
ble. It  is  surely  an  abuse  of  Scripture  to  say  that  the 
elect  and  the  reprobate,  "those  appointed  to  honour" 
and  "those  appointed  to  dishonour,''  those  who  "be- 
fore were  of  old  ordained  to  this  condemnation"  and 
those  who  were  "  ordained  unto  eternal  life,"  those  whom 
God  "hardeneth"  and  those  upon  whom  he  "hath 
mercy,"  the  "world"  and  those  "chosen  out  of  the 
world,"  are  all  indiscriminately  the  objects  of  this  amaz- 
ing, this  heaven-moving,  this  soul-redeeming  love. 

6.  Tlic   Scriptures    habitually  represent   the  dofii>ito 

35 


410  DESIGN   OF  THE   ATONEMENT. 

design  of  the  death  of  Christ  to  be  the  saving  of  "  many," 
the  redemption  of  "  his  s/ieep,"  "  his  Church/^  "  his  peo^ 
pie,''  "his  children/'  the  ''elect."  "And  thou  shalt  call 
his  name  Jesus,  for  he  shall  save  his  people  from  their 
sins."  Matt.  i.  21.  "The  good  shepherd  giveth  his  life 
for  the  sheep."  "  I  lay  down  my  life  for  the  sheep." 
John  X.  11,  15.  "The  Church  of  God  which  he  hath 
purchased  with  his  own  blood."  Acts  xx.  28.  "Hus- 
bands, love  your  wives,  as  Christ  also  loved  the  Church 
and  gave  himself  for  it,  that  he  might  sanctify  and 
cleanse  it ;  .  .  .  .  that  he  might  present  it  to  himself  a 
glorious  Church,  not  having  spot  or  wrinkle  or  any 
such  thing,  but  that  it  should  be  holy  and  without 
blemish."  Eph.  v.  25.  26,  27.  Christ  is  said  (John  xi. 
51,  52)  to  have  died  to  gather  together  in  one  the  chil- 
dren of  God  who  are  scattered  abroad.  "  He  that  spared 
not  his  own  Son,  but  delivered  him  up  for  us  all,  how 
shall  he  not  with  him  also  freely  give  us  all  things? 
Who  shall  lay  anything  to  the  charge  of  God's  elect  ? 
It  is  God  that  justifieth;  who  is  he  that  condemneth?  It 
is  Christ  that  died,  yea  rather  that  is  risen  again,  who  is 
even  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  who  also  maketh  inter- 
cession for  us.  Who  shall  separate  us  from  the  love 
of  Christ?"  Rom.  viii.  32-35. 

Now,  many  plausible  reasons  may  be  assigned  why,  on 
the  supposition  of  a  personal  and  definite  Atonement, 
general  terms  should  be  used  on  some  occasions  to  illus- 
trate the  fact  that  the  redemption  is  suited  for  all,  suffi- 
cient for  all,  offered  to  all ;  that  the  elect  are  chosen  out 
of  every  family,  tribe  and  nation  under  heaven,  and 
from  every  successive  generation ;  and  that  finally  the 
whole  earth  shall  be  redeemed  I'rom  the  curse,  the  gos- 


TRUTH  OF  THE  REFORMED  DOCTRINE.    411 

])(;!  triumph  amoiiG^  all  nations^  and  the  saints  Inhent 
the  regenerated  world.  But  we  affirm  that,  on  the  eon- 
trary  hypothesis  of  a  general  and  indefinite  Atonement, 
no  plausible  pretext  can  be  given  for  the  use  of  the 
definite  language  above  quoted.  If  Christ  loved  the 
whole  -world  so  as  to  die  for  it,  why  say  that  the  motive 
for  his  dying  was  that  his  sheep  should  be  saved? 

7.  Christ's  work  as  High  Priest  Is  one  w^ork,  accom- 
plished in  all  its  parts  with  one  design  and  with  one 
effect,  and  having  respect  to  the  same  persons.  The 
work  of  the  high  priest,  as  I  showed  in  Chapter  ix..  Part 
I.,  included  sacrifice  or  oblation  and  intercession.  I 
proved  also  (a)  that  the  work  of  the  ancient  priest 
secured  the  actual  and  certain  remission  of  the  sins  of 
all  for  whom  he  acted,  and  that  it  bore  a  definite  refer- 
ence to  the  persons  of  all  those  whom  he  represented, 
and  to  none  others,  {b.)  That  the  ancient  priest  offered 
intercession  for  precisely  the  same  persons — for  all  of 
them,  and  for  none  others- — for  whom  he  had  pre- 
viously made  expiation.  This  argument  I  will  not  here 
repeat.     It  will  answer  our  purpose  to  notice — 

(1.)  That  the  Scriptures  declare  that  the  ancient  priest 
was  in  all  these  respects  a  type  of  Christ.  Our  Lord, 
having  made  expiation  in  the  outer  court,  went  within 
the  veil  to  make  intercession.  "Neither  by  the  blood 
of  goats  and  calves,  but  by  his  own  blood,  he  entered  In 
once  into  the  holy  place,  having  obtained  eternal  re- 
demption for  us.  For  Christ  is  not  entered  into  the 
holy  plaees  made  wdth  hands,  which  are  the  figures  of 
the  true;  but  into  heaven  itself,  now  to  appear  in  the 
presence  of  God  for  us.  Where  he  ever  iiveth  to  make 
intercession  for  us."  Heb.  vii.  25;  ix.  12,  24. 


412  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

(2.)  But  Christ  interceded  only  for  his  "  sheep.'^  This 
is  certain,  (a)  because  it  is  always  effectual.  He  inter- 
cedes as  ^^a  priest  upon  his  throne."  He  says  his  "Fa- 
ther heareth  him  always."  His  form  of  intercession  is, 
"  Father,  I  will  that  they  also  whom  thou  hast  given  me,'' 
&c.  John  xvii.  24.  (b.)  He  expressly  declares  the  fact 
that  he  intercedes  only  for  the  elect — "  I  pray  for  them ; 
I  pray  not  for  the  world,  but  for  them  which  thou  hast 
given  me."  John  xvii.  9.  "Neither  pray  I  for  these 
alone;  but  for  them  also  which  shall  believe  on  me 
through  their  word."  John  xvii.  20.  "Other  sheep  I 
have  which  are  not  of  this  fold ;  them  also  I  must  bring, 
and  they  shall  hear  my  voice,  and  there  shall  be  one  fold 
and  one  shepherd."  John  x.  16. 

(3.)  But  if  Christ  makes  intercession  for  the  elect 
only,  he  can  of  course  have  died  for  them  alone.  As 
proved  before,  the  ancient  priest  made  intercession  for 
all  for  whom  he  made  expiation.  The  priestly  work 
was  one  in  design  and  effect  in  all  its  parts.  It  is  simply 
absurd  to  suppose  that  the  priest  acted  as  a  mediator  for 
one  party  when  he  made  the  oblation,  and  for  another 
when  he  made  the  intercession.  This  is  the  view  cer- 
tainly that  Paul  took  of  the  matter — "Who  shall  lay 
anything  to  the  charge  of  God's  elect?  Who  is  he  that 
condemneth?  It  is  Christ  that  died,  yea  rather  that  is 
risen  again,  who  is  also  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  who 
•ilso  maketh  intercession  for  us.  Who  shall  separate  us 
from  the  love  of  Christ?"  &g.  Here  it  is  plain  that  the 
argument  establishes  the  security  of  the  "elect."  The 
ground  upon  which  that  security  rests  is,  that  Christ  died 
for  them  and  intercedes  for  them.  Plair  ly  the  dying  and 
the  intercession  have  one  and  the  same  personal  object. 


TRUTH    OF   THE    IlEFOKMED   DOCTRI>  E.  413 

(4.)  This  is  rendered  more  certain  by  tlie  very  nature 
of  that  perpetual  intercession  which  Christ  offers  in 
behalf  of  his  elect.  "For  us  it  is  now  perfected  in 
heaven ;  it  is  not  an  humble  dejection  of  himself,  with 
cries,  tears  and  supplications;  nay  it  cannot  be  con- 
sidered as  vocal  by  the  way  of  entreaty,  but  merely  re«/, 
by  the  presentation  of  himself,  sprinkled  with  the  blood 
of  the  covenant,  before  the  throne  of  grace  in  our  behalf. 
With  his  own  blood — to  appear  in  the  presence  of  God 
for  us.  Heb.  ix.  12,  24.  So  presenting  himself  that 
his  former  oblation  might  have  its  perpetual  efficacy, 
until  the  many  sons  given  him  are  brought  to  glory. 
And  herein  his  intercession  consisteth,  beinoj  nothing:  as 
it  were  but  his  oblation  continued.  He  was  the  ^Lamb 
slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world.'  Rev.  xiii.  8. 
Now  his  intercession  before  his  actual  oblation  in  the 
fulness  of  time  being  nothing  but  a  presenting  of  the 
engagement  that  was  upon  him  for  the  work  in  due  time 
to  be  accomplished,  certainly  that  which  follows  it  is 
nothing  but  a  presenting  of  what,  according  to  that 
engagement,  is  fulfilled;  so  that  it  is  nothing  but  a  con- 
tinuation of  his  oblation  in  postulating,  by  remembrance 
and  declaration  of  it,  those  things  which  by  it  were  pro- 
cured. How,  then,  is  it  possible  that  the  one  of  these 
should  be  of  larger  compass  and  extent  than  the  otlier? 
Can  he  be  said  to  offer  for  them  for  whom  he  doth  not 
intercede,  when  his  intercession  is  nothing  but  a  j^resent- 
ing  of  his  oblation  in  the  behalf  of  them  for  whom  he 
suffered,  and  for  the  bestowing  of  those  good  things 
which  by  that  were  purchased."* 

8.  The   relation  which   this  question   sustains  to  the 

*  Owen's  Death  of  Death  in  the  Death  of  Christ,  B.  L,  chap.  vii. 
S5* 


414  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

doctrine  of  Election  is  self-evident.  The  Calvinistic 
doctrine  that  God  of  his  mere  good  pleasure  has  from 
eternity  infallibly  predestinated  certain  persons  out  of 
the  mass  of  fallen  humanity  to  salvation  and  to  all  the 
means  thereof,  and  that  in  so  doing  he  has  sovereignly 
passed  over  the  rest  of  mankind  and  left  them  to  the 
natural  consequences  of  their  sin,  necessarily  settles  the 
question  as  to  the  design  of  God  in  giving  his  Son  tc 
die.  It  is  purely  unthinkable  that  the  same  mind  that 
sovereignly  predestinated  the  elect  to  salvation,  and  the 
rest  of  mankind  to  the  punishment  of  their  sins,  should, 
at  the  same  time,  make  a  great  sacrifice  for  the  sake 
of  removing  legal  obstacles  out  of  the  way  of  those 
from  whose  path  it  is  decreed  other  obstacles  shall  not 
be  removed.  Schweitzer,  in  his  article  in  Herzog's  En- 
cyclopgedia,  says  that  Amyraldus,  towards  the  close  of 
his  life,  came  to  see  that  there  was  nothing  real  in  all 
the  new  distinctions  with  which  he  had  been  attempting 
to  smooth  the  harshness  of  Calvinism,  and  to  obviate 
some  of  the  more  specious  objections  to  it.  Unquestion- 
ably there  is  no  compromise  between  Arminianism  and 
Calvinism.  Those  who  attempt  to  stand  between  must 
content  themselves  with  treading  the  air  while  they 
receive  the  fire  of  both  sides.  We  do  not  object  to  Cal- 
vinistic Universalism  (that  is,  universal  particularism, 
or  particular  universalism)  because  of  any  danger  with 
which — when  considered  as  a  final  position — it  threatens 
orthodoxy.  We  distrust  it  rather  because  it  is  not  a 
final  position,  but  is  the  first  step  in  the  easy  descent  of 
error. 

9.  Our  view  has  the  capital   advantage  of  agreeing 
with  and  harmonizing  all  the  facts  of  the  case,  and  of 


TEUTH  OF  THE  REFORMED  DOCTRZNE.    415 

representing  Christ  as  having  designed  to  accomplish 
by  his  death  precisely  what  in  the  event  is  accomplished, 
and  nothing  else.  We  believe  that  he  designed  to  ac- 
complish by  his  death  the  following  ends:  (1.)  Evidently 
as  the  end  to  which  all  other  ends  stand  related  as 
means,  the  only  end  which  affords  any  adequate  reason 
for  what  he  did,  he  purposed  to  secure  certainly  the  sal- 
vation of  his  own  peo})le,  those  whom  the  Father  had 
given  unto  him.  (2.)  To  secure  that  end  he  designed 
to  purchase  for  them,  and  then  efficaciously  to  commu- 
nicate to  them,  faith  and  repentance  and  all  the  fruits 
of  the  Spirit.  (3.)  In  order  to  the  great  end  above 
stated  he  purposed  to  purchase  many  temporal  and  other 
blessings  short  of  salvation  for  all  mankind,  and  in 
various  degrees  for  individual  men,  just  as  they  are 
actually  experienced  under  the  dispensations  of  Provi- 
dence. (4.)  In  order  also,  as  a  further  means  to  the 
same  end,  to  lay,  in  the  perfect  sufficiency  of  the  Atone- 
ment for  all  and  its  exact  adaptation  to  each,  a  real 
foundation  for  the  bona  fide  offer  of  salvation  to  all  men 
indiscriminately  on  the  condition  of  faith.  The  design 
has  the  elect  for  its  sole,  ultimate  end,  and  it  in  any  way 
respects  the  non-elect  only  as  the  method  which  God  has 
chosen  for  the  application  of  redemption  to  the  elect  neces- 
sarily involves  the  bringing  to  bear  upon  the  non-elect, 
among  whom  they  live,  influences,  moral  and  otherwise, 
which  in  various  degrees  involves  their  characters  and 
destinies. 

The  hypothesis  of  a  general  and  indefinite  Atonement 
admits  but  of  two  distinct  positions,  that  ol  the  Ar- 
minian  and  that  of  the  Calvinistic  Universal ist.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Arminian  view,  the  Father  and  the  Son  did 


416  DESIGX   OF  THE   ATONEMENT. 

all  that  properly  belonged  to  either  of  them  to  dc  tc 
secure  the  salvation  of  all  men.  The  Holy  Spirit  als  » 
im2)artially  gives  common  grace  to  all  men.  Each  of 
the  divine  Persons,  therefore,  is  baffled  in  the  mutual 
design  as  far  as  the  multitude  of  the  lost  is  concerned. 
As  far  as  the  intrinsic  efficacy  of  the  Atonement  is  con- 
cerned, it  might  have  failed  in  every  case,  as  it  has  failed 
in  a  majority  of  the  cases  for  which  it  was  designed. 
Indeed,  the  Atonement  has,  properly  speaking,  secured 
the  salvation  of  no  one — has  been,  on  the  contrary,  de- 
pendent in  every  case  upon  the  self-determined  choice 
of  sinful  men  for  w^hatever  measure  of  success  it  has 
attained.  There  is,  moreover,  upon  this  view,  a  myste- 
rious want  of  conformity  between  God's  dispensation 
of  redemption  and  his  dispensation  of  providence.  In 
liis  dispensation  of  redemption  and  grace  he  has  done 
all  he  could  to  accomplish  his  design  of  saving  all  men 
indifferently;  while  in  his  dispensation  of  providence 
he  has  withheld  those  essential  conditions  of  knowledge, 
without  which  salvation  is  simply  impossible,  from 
three-fourths  of  the  people  living  on  the  face  of  the 
earth. 

According  to  the  view  of  the  Calvinistic  Universalist, 
God  loved  all  enough  to  give  his  Son  to  die  for  them, 
and  yet  loved  only  the  elect  enough  to  give  them  his 
Spirit.  He  designed  in  the  sacrifice  of  his  Son  to  make 
the  salvation  of  all  men  possible,  while  at  the  same  time 
he  sovereignly  intended  that  only  the  elect  should  be 
saved.  His  decree  of  redemption  is  conditional,  but 
the  conditions  were  intended  to  be  impossible.  His 
decree  of  election  is  unconditional.  God  went  to  work 
at  great  cost  to  make  the  salvation  of  all  men  objectively 


TRUTH   OF   THE   REFORMED   DOCTRINF  417 

possible,  while  he  at  the  very  same  time  intf/iided  that 
the  salvation  oftlie  majority  should  continue  subjectively 
im2)ossible.  God  the  Redeemer  died  that  all  men  might 
be  saved  if  they  would  believe  after  half  of  them  were 
already  in  perdition,  while  God  the  providential  Ruler 
left  two-thirds  of  the  other  half  permanently  ignorant 
of  the  fact  that  any  salvation  was  provided,  or  of  the 
terms  upon  which  it  might  be  secured.  At  present  this 
is  the  view  of  '^advanced  thinkers." 


CHAPTER    YII. 

THE  OBJECTIONS  BROUGHT  AGAINST  THE  REFORMED  VIEW 
OF  THE  DESIGN  OP  THE  ATONEMENT  STATED,  AND  THE 
ANSWER    TO    THEM    INDICATED, 

WE  have  now  come  in  conclusion  to  consider  the 
principal  arguments  which  the  advocates  of  a 
general  and  indefinite  Atonement  rely  upon  as  refuting 
our  doctrine  and  as  establishing  their  own.  By  far  the 
most  considerable  of  these  arguments  are  those  founded 
(1)  on  the  admitted  fact  of  the  indiscriminate  offer  of  the 
gospel  to  all  men.  (2.)  On  those  passages  of  Scrij^ture 
which  say  in  general  terms  that  Christ  "  bore  the  sins 
of  the  world/'  and  "suffered  for  all."  (3.)  And  on 
those  passages  which  speak  of  the  possibility  of  those 
dying  for  whom  Christ  died. 

1.  It  is  claimed  that  if  Christ  did  not  die  for  the 
purpose  of  providing  salvation  for  all  men  indifferently, 
then  the  indiscriminate  offer  of  salvation  made  in  the 
gospel  to  all  men  is  an  empty  form,  offering  the  non- 
elect  an  atonement,  when,  as  far  as  he  is  concerned,  no 
atonement  has  been  made.  There  is  unquestionably  a 
difficulty  in  this  neighborhood,  but  it  will  require  some 
discrimination  to  determine  exactly  the  point  upon  which 
the  difficulty  presses.  There  are  three  distinct  respects 
in  which  a  personal  and  definite  Atonement  appears  to 
be  inconsistent  with  the  indiscriminate  offer  of  salvation, 
418 


OBJECTIONS   ANSWERED.  419 

which  are  sometimes  distinctly  stated,  but  are  generally 
jumbled  together  in  a  confused  charge  of  inconsistency. 
These  are,  (a)  that  if  the  Atonement  was  designed  only 
for  the  elect,  it  is  not  consistent  with  truth  that  God 
should  offer  salvation  to  all  men.  (b.)  That  in  such  a 
case  there  is  no  solid  warrant  for  the  ministerial  offer 
of  salvation  to  all  men.  (c.)  That  in  such  a  case  there 
is  no  solid  warrant  for  any  man,  who  is  not  privately 
and  infallibly  assured  of  his  own  election,  to  rest  his 
trust  upon  that  Atonement,  which,  although  offered  to 
all,  was  intended  only  for  the  benefit  of  the  elect. 

As  to  the  warrant  for  the  ministerial  offer  of  salvation 
to  all,  it  must  be  found  alone  in  the  great  connnission 
with  which  every  minister  is  sent  out  by  the  authority 
of  the  Master  himself.  No  matter  what  may  be  the 
nature  or  the  design  of  the  Atonement,  no  servant  has 
any  right  to  go  back  of  his  commission,  and  insist  upon 
understanding  his  Master's  secret  purposes  or  aims.  No 
matter  what  else  is  true  or  not  true,  the  command  to 
"go  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel  to  every 
creature"  is  the  entire  and  all-sufficient  warrant  for  the 
ministerial  offer.  Even  if  the  Atonement  can  be  de- 
monstrated to  be  universal,  our  right  to  offer  it  to  all 
men  cannot  rest  upon  that  demonstration,  but,  as  said 
before,  upon  the  plain  terms  of  that  commission  which 
we  already  have. 

As  to  the  warrant  of  personal  faith  upon  the  part  of 
men  who  can  know  nothing  as  to  their  election,  the  case 
is  precisely  similar.  Tlie  warrant  rests  sufficiently  and 
exclusively  in  the  indiscriminate  invitations,  commands 
and  promises  of  the  gospel.  If  we  were  all  assured  of 
the  absolute  universality  of  redemption,  or  if  we  could 


420  DESIGN   OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

read  plainly  every  name  recorded  in  the  Lamb's  book  of 
life,  the  case  would  be  no  plainer  and  no  more  certain 
than  it  now  is.  The  absolutely  righteous,  the  infinitely 
wise  and  powerful  God  solemnly  declares  that  'Uchosoever 
will  may  take  of  the  water  of  life  freely,"  and  that 
^^ whosoever  comes  he  will  in  no  wise  cast  out."  Any 
other  warrant  than  this  is  inconsistent  with  the  nature 
of  faith.  To  demand  any  other  warrant  is  sheer  ration- 
alism and  rebellion. 

With  respect  to  the  warrant  for  God's  acting  as  he 
does  in  the  case,  we  might  surely  content  ourselves  with 
referring  to  the  infinite  perfections  and  absolute  sove- 
reignty of  God  upon  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  entire 
ignorance  of  man  upon  the  other.  But  in  order  that  we 
may  locate  the  difficulty,  which  every  one  vaguely  feels, 
at  the  precise  point  to  which  it  belongs,  observe  that  the 
definite  and  personal  design  of  the  Atonement,  and  the 
unconditional  and  personal  election  of  some  men  to 
eternal  life,  are  identically  one  and  the  same  in  their 
bearing  upon  the  indiscriminate  offers  of  the  gospel. 
Viewing  the  matter  from  the  Arminian  stand-pointy  we 
challenge  our  opponents  to  show  why  the  sovereign 
election  of  some  men,  and  the  sovereign  leaving  of  others 
to  the  natural  consequences  of  their  own  sins,  are  any 
more  inconsistent  with  the  good  faith  of  God  in  the  in- 
discriminate offers  of  salvation  to  all  than  is  that  divine 
infallible  foreknowledge  which  the  Arminians  admit. 
If  God  certainly  foreknows  that  to  the  vast  mass  of 
those  to  whom  the  offer  of  salvation  is  brought  it  will 
be  only  a  savour  of  death  unto  death,  awfully  aggravat- 
ing their  doom,  how  is  it  consistent  with  his  supposed 
desire  and  labour  to  save  all  men  alike  that  he  should 


OBJECriOXS  ANSWERED.  421 

tliiis   knowingly   aggravate   the   condemnation   of   the 
majority  of  those  he  })rofesses  to  desire  to  save. 

Besides  this,  the  declaration  of  purpose  which  God 
makes  in  the  universal  offers  of  the  gospel  is  all  literally 
true,  election  or  no  election.  It  is  every  man's  duty  and 
interest  to  repent  and  believe  whether  he  will  or  not. 
It  is  God's  purpose  to  receive  and  save  all  that  believe 
on  his  Son,  elect  or  not.  It  is  every  word  true.  Neither 
does  the  salvation  of  the  elect  make  the  case  of  the  non- 
elect  any  worse.  Nor  is  the  indiscriminate  offer  of 
salvation  to  all,  including  the  non-elect,  a  wanton  or 
improper  mockery  of  their  case,  because  (a)  the  offer  is 
real  and  sincere;  (b)  the  only  reason  they  do  not  benefit 
by  it  is  their  own  wilful  rejection  of  it;  (c)  it  is,  there- 
fore, an  admirable  test  of  their  character,  displaying  the 
inveteracy  of  their  sin,  and  justifying  the  righteous  judg- 
ments of  God  (Ps.  li.  4;  John  iii.  19);  (d)  it  is  an 
essential  and  admirably  efficient  part  of  God's  plan  to 
gather  his  elect  into  the  fold. 

Viewing  the  matter  from  the  stand-point  of  the  Cal- 
vinistic  Uiiiversalists,  we  challenge  our  opponents  to  show 
us  wherein  there  is  any  more  inconsistency  with  the  good 
faith  of  the  indiscriminate  offer  of  an  interest  in  the 
redemption  of  Christ  upon  our  view  that  it  was  designed 
only  for  the  elect,  than  there  is  upon  their  view  that 
God  foreknew  and  intended  that  the  conditions  upon 
which  it  is  offered  to  all  men  should  be  impossible.  Re- 
member that  the  question  between  them  and  us  respects 
the  single  point  as  to  the  design  of  the  Atonement.  AVe 
believe  as  fully  as  they  do  (a)  that  the  Atonement  is 
sufficient  for  all,  ih)  exactly  a<lapted  to  each ;  and  hence, 
('•)  that  aij   ]e)j:Ml  oU>ta«*l<'s  :n«'  rrin<tvpd  out  of  the  wav 


422  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

of  God's  saving  whomsoever  he  pleases;  and  (d)  that  it 
is  sincerely  offered  to  all  to  whom  the  gospel  is  preached; 
and  hence,  (e)  in  a  purely  objective  sense,  salvation  is 
available  to  all  if  they  believe.  What,  then,  is  the  objec- 
tion if  God,  having  prepared  a  feast  for  his  friends, 
should — there  being  enough  and  to  spare — if  it  pleased 
him,  invite  his  foes  to  come,  whether  they  will  or  not. 
God  can  save  whomsoever  he  pleases  now;  but  since  his 
mind  changes  not,  he  pleases  to  save  now  precisely  those 
whom  he  designed  to  save  when  he  sacrificed  his  Son. 

An  indiscriminate  offer  of  an  interest  in  the  Atone- 
ment has  been  made  for  two  thousand  years  since  Christ 
died.  But  remember  that  the  same  indiscriminate  offer 
was  made  for  four  thousand  years  before  he  died.  The 
offer  then  was  that  if  men  would  believe  upon  a  Christ 
to  be  sacrificed  hereafter  they  should  be  saved.  Now,  is 
it  sense  or  nonsense  to  ■believe  that  at  the  end  of  those 
four  thousand  years  Christ  died  for  the  purpose  of  sav- 
ing those  who  had  already  rejected  him,  and  who  had 
consequently  gone  to  their  own  place  ?  Would  it  not 
have  met  the  precise  case  of  all  who  lived  on  earth  be- 
fore his  advent  if  he  had  promised  them  that  at  the  end 
of  time  he  would  die  to  save  all  those  who  had  pre- 
viously believed  ?  Would  there  have  been  any  propriety 
in  his  promising  to  die  also  for  those  who  had  previously 
rejected  his  kind  offers  and  been  lost?  As  far  as  the 
design  of  the  Atonement,  the  purpose  to  be  attained 
by  his  death,  is  concerned,  what  conceivable  difference 
does  it  make  whether  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  be  offered  at 
the  beginning,  the  middle  or  the  end  of  human  history? 
If  he  had  died  at  tlie  end,  he  certainly  could  not  die  for 
those  who  had  previously  rejected  his  offers  and  j>erished 


OBJECTIONS   ANSWEREE.  423 

therefor.  And  since  he  did  die  in  the  middle,  why  may 
not  tlie  gospel  be  ofiercd  on  the  same  terms  to  all  men, 
as  well  after  as  before  his  death?  The  only  difficulty 
lies  in  the  fact  that  finite  creatures  are  utterly  unable 
to  comprehend  the  sovereign  will  and  the  unchangeable 
all-knowledge  of  God,  which  absolutely  shuts  out  all 
contingency  in  relation  to  the  hojxis,  the  fears,  the 
doubts,  the  responsibilities,  the  struggles  of  human  be- 
ings. Events  are  contingent  in  themselves.  But  there 
is  no  contingency  in  relation  to  the  divine  purpose.  One 
event  is  conditioned  upon  another,  but  there  are  no  con- 
ditions in  the  divine  decree.  God's  purpose,  his  design 
of  redemption,  like  every  other  divine  purpose,  is  time- 
less. What  has  been  and  what  will  be,  who  have 
believed  and  who  will  believe,  are  all  the  same  to  him. 
To  him  the  believers  and  the  elect  are  identical.  His 
design  in  the  Atonement  may  with  absolute  indifference 
be  stated  either  as  a  design  to  save  the  elect,  or  as  a 
design  to  save  all  who  had  believed  or  who  would 
believe  on  his  Son.* 

2.  It  is  claimed  that  that  large  class  of  Scripture 
passages  in  which  in  general  terms  it  is  said  that  Christ 
"suffered  for  all,"  and  gave  his  life  for  the  "world,''  ex- 
pressly teach  that  the  design  of  the  Atonement  was 
general  and  impersonal.  These  passages  are  such  as  the 
following:  "For  there  is  one  God  and  one  Mediator 
l)etween  God  and  men,  the  man  Christ  Jesus;  who  gave 
1  imself  a  ransom  for  all,  to  be  testified  in  due  time."  1 
Tim.  ii.  5,  6.  "And  if  any  man  sin,  we  have  an  Advo- 
cate with  the  Father,  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous:  and 

*See  "Hypothesis  of  a  Postponed  Atonement,"  in  Candlish  on 
Atonement,  Part  II.,  chapters  viii.  and  ix. 


424  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

he  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins;  and  not  for  ours  only, 
but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world."  1  John  ii.  1,  2. 
"God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his  only-begotten 
Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not  perish, 
but  have  everlasting  life."  John  iii.  16.  "For  this  is 
good  and  acceptable  in  the  sight  of  God  our  Saviour; 
who  will  have  all  men  to  be  saved,  and  to  come  unto  the 
knowledge  of  the  truth."  1  Tim.  ii.  3,  4.  "That  he 
might  taste  death  for  every  man."  It  is  confessed  on 
all  sides  that  these  phrases  "all"  and  "world"  do  not 
of  themselves  necessarily  settle  the  question.  When  it 
is  said  that  "a  decree  went  out  from  Caesar  Augustus 
that  all  the  world  should  be  taxed"  (Luke  ii.  1),  no  man 
understands  that  the  term  "all  the  world"  is  to  be  taken 
absolutely.  It  is  evident  that  the  only  way  in  which 
this  controversy  can  be  settled  is  to  take  up  the  phrases 
severally  in  which  these  general  terms  are  used,  and 
subject  them,  in  connection  with  their  context,  to  a 
thorough  critical  examination,  in  order  to  determine  the 
intent  of  the  inspired  writer  in  each  passage  taken  as  a 
whole;  then  to  do  the  same  thing  with  each  of  those 
passages  in  which  it  is  asserted,  as  shown  above,  that 
Christ  died  for  the  elect ;  and  then,  by  an  impartial  com- 
parison of  the  two  classes  of  passages  thus  examined,  to 
determine  which  class  is  to  be  taken  absolutely,  and 
which  is  to  yield  to  the  other.  For  a  work  of  this  kind 
I  have  neither  the  space  nor  the  taste,  nor  is  it  proper, 
since — as  Prof.  Moses  Stuart  says  in  a  passage  to  be 
quoted  below — such  is  the  state  of  the  question  as  to  the 
usage  of  the  words  "all"  and  "world"  in  such  passages 
that  it  cannot  be  decided  by  any  appeal  to  grammar  or 
lexicons,  and  belongs  rather  to  the  field  of  the  theologian 


OBJECTIONS   ANSWERED.  425 

than  of  the  commentator.  Believing  that  I  have  settled 
the  question  on  the  former  ground,  in  the  discussion  just 
closed  above,  I  will  now  coutent  myself  with  referring 
tlu>  reader  to  the  triumphant  proof  afforded  by  Cand- 
lish  in  the  third  cha])ter  of  the  first  part  of  his  admira- 
ble work  on  the  Atonement,  that  these  passages,  when 
rightly  interpreted,  do  not  in  the  least  contradict  our 
doctrine  of  a  definite  Atonement,  and  with  making  the 
following  remarks. 

(1.)  I  would  recall  a  remark  made  above,  that  every 
man  familiar  Math  the  usage  common  to  all  human 
languages  with  respect  to  general  terras,  will  acknow- 
ledge that  particular  and  definite  expressions  must  limit 
the  interpretation  of  the  general  ones,  rather  than  the 
reverse.  It  is  plainly  far  easier  to  assign  plausible  rea- 
sons why,  if  Christ  died  particularly  for  his  elect,  they 
being  as  yet  scattered  among  all  nations  and  generations, 
and  undistinguishable  by  us  from  the  mass  of  fallen 
humanity  to  whom  the  gospel  is  indiscriminately  offered, 
he  should  be  said  in  certain  connections  to  have  died  for 
the  world  or  for  all,  than  it  can  be  to  assign  any  plausi- 
ble reason  why,  if  he  died  to  make  the  salvation  of  all 
possible,  he  should  nevertheless  be  said  in  any  connec- 
tion to  have  died  for  the  purpose  of  certainly  saving  his 
elect. 

(2.)  Moses  Stuart — who,  as  a  theologian,  believed  in  a 
general  and  indefinite  Atonement — was  too  well  informed 
as  an  exegete,  and  too  candid  as  a  man,  to  build  his 
faith  on  the  class  of  scriptural  passages  to  which  I  am 
referring.  In  his  comments  on  Heb.  ii.  9,  he  says: 
"'^Tnep  TcavTo^  means,  all  men  icitJiout  distindmi,  that  is, 
both  Jew  and  Gentile,     The  same  view  is  often  given 

36* 


426  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONIMEXT. 

of  the  death  of  Christ.  See  John  iii.  14-17;  iv.  42; 
xii.  32;  1  John  ii.  2;  iv.  14;  1  Tim.  ii.  3,  4;  Titus  ii. 
11;  2  Pet.  iii.  7.  Compare  Rom.  iii.  29,  30;  x.  11-13. 
In  all  these  and  the  like  cases  the  words  all  and  all  men 
evidently  mean  Jew  and  Gentile.  They  are  opposed  to 
the  Jewish  idea  that  the  Messiah  was  connected  appro- 
priately and  exclusively  with  the  Jews,  and  that  the 
blessings  of  the  kingdom  were  appropriately,  if  not  ex- 
clusively, theirs.  The  sacred  WTiters  mean  to  declare 
by  such  expressions  that  Christ  died  really  and  truly  as 
well  and  as  much  for  the  Gentiles  as  for  the  Jews;  that 
there  is  no  difference  at  all  in  regard  to  the  privileges 
of  any  one  who  may  belong  to  his  kingdom;  and  that 
all  men  without  exception  have  equal  and  free  access  to 
it.  But  the  considerate  interpreter,  who  understands 
the  nature  of  this  idiom,  will  never  think  of  seeking,  in 
expressions  of  this  kind,  proof  of  the  final  salvation  of 
efvery  individital  of  the  human  race.  Nor  do  they,  when 
strictly  scanned  by  the  usus  loquendi  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, decide  directly  against  the  views  of  those  who 
advocate  what  is  called  a  particular  redemption.  The 
question  in  all  these  phrases  evidently  respects  the  offer 
of  salvation,  the  opportunity  to  acquire  it  through  a 
Redeemer;  not  the  actual  application  of  promises;  the 
fulfilment  is  connected  only  with  repentance  and  faith. 
But  whether  such  an  offer  can  be  made  with  sincerity  to 
those  who  are  reprobates  (and  whom  the  Saviour  knows 
are  and  ^vill  be  such),  consistently  with  the  grounds 
which  the  advocates  for  particular  redemption  maintain, 
is  a  question  for  the  theologian  rather  than  the  commen- 
tator to  discuss.'' 

(3.)  Their  own  canon  of  interpretation  goes  too  far 


OBJECTIONS   ANh-WERED.  427 

for  evangelical  Arrainians  and  Calvinistic  advocates  of  a 
general  Atonement.  It  is  certain  that  tl  e  principle  of 
interpretation  which  make  the  Scrii)tures  teach  universal 
atonement  infallibly  brings  out  in  company  with  it  abso- 
lutely universal  salvation.  "For  as  in  Adam  all  die, 
even  so  in  Christ  shall  all  he  made  alivej'  1  Cor.  xv.  22; 
Col.  i.  20;  2  Cor.  v.  14;  John  xii.  32;  Eph.  i.  10; 
Ilom.  V.  18,  &c.  The  Arminians  say  all  believers.  But 
the  instant  they  do  so  they  abandon  their  high  ground 
that  the  language  of  Scripture  in  such  cases  is  to  be 
taken  absolutely  and  literally. 

(4.)  Remember  what  we  have  over  and  over  again 
affirmed,  (a)  Christ  did  literally  and  absolutely  die  for 
all  men,  in  the  sense  of  securing  for  all  a  lengthened 
respite  and  many  temporal  benefits,  moral  as  well  as 
physical;  (b)  his  Atonement  was  sufficient  for  all;  (c) 
iexactly  adapted  to  the  needs  of  each ;  (d)  it  is  offered  in- 
discriminately to  all ;  hence,  as  far  as  God's  preceptive 
will  is  concerned,  the  Atonement  is  universal.  It  is  to 
be  preached  to  all,  and  to  be  accepted  by  all.  It  is  for 
all  as  far  as  determining  the  duty  of  all  and  laying 
obligations  upon  all.  And  practically  it  makes  salvation 
objectively  available  to  all  upon  the  condition  of  faith. 
God's  deo'etive  will  or  design  in  making  the  Atonement 
is  a  very  different  matter. 

3.  It  is  claimed  by  our  opponents  that  those  passages 
which  speak  of  the  possibility  of  those  dying  for  whom 
Christ  died  are  inconsistent  with  our  doctrine  that  the 
design  of  his  death  was  to  secure  the  salvation  of  his  elect. 
The  passages  in  question  are  such  as — "•  There  shall  be 
false  teachers  among  you,  who  shall  bring  in  damnable 
heresies,  even  denying   the   Lord   that  bought  them." 


428  DESIGN   OF   THE   ATONEMENT. 

2  Pet.  ii.  1.  "But  if  thy  brother  be  grieved  with  thy 
meat,  now  walkest  thou  not  charitably.  Destroy  not 
him  with  thy  meat,  for  whom  Christ  died."  Rom.  xiv. 
15.  "  And  througli  thy  knowledge  shall  the  weak 
brother  perish,  for  whom  Christ  died?"  1  Cor.  viii.  11. 
These  passages  arc  just  like  those  constant  warnings 
which  are  addressed  in  Scripture  to  the  elect,  which  are 
designed  as  means  to  carry  out  and  secure  that  perse- 
verance in  grace  which  is  the  end  of  election,  and  there- 
fore are  in  no  sense  inconsistent  with  its  certainty.  "If 
those  passages  are  consistent  with  the  certainty  of  the 
salvation  of  all  the  elect,  then  this  passage  is  consistent 
with  the  certainty  of  the  salvation  of  those  for  whom 
Clirist  specifically  died.  It  was  absolutely  certain  that 
no  one  of  Paul's  companions  in  shipwreck  was,  on  that 
occasion,  to  lose  his  life,  because  the  salvatiT)n  of  the 
whole  company  had  been  predicted  and  promised ;  and 
yet  the  apostle  said  that  if  the  sailors  were  allowed  to 
take  away  their  boats,  those  left  on  board  could  not  be 
saved.  This  appeal  secured  the  accomplishment  of  the 
promise.  So  God's  telling  the  elect  that  if  they  aposta- 
tize they  shall  perish  prevents  their  apostasy.  And  in 
like  manner  the  Bible  teaching  that  those  for  whom 
Christ  died  shall  parish  if  they  violate  their  conscience 
prevents  their  transgressing  or  brings  them  to  repentance. 
God's  purposes  embrace  the  means  as  well  as  the  end. 
If  the  means  fail,  the  end  will  fail.  He  secures  the  end 
by  securing  the  means.  It  is  just  as  certain  that  those 
for  whom  Christ  died  shall  be  saved  as  that  the  elect 
shall  be  saved.  Yet  in  both  cases  the  event  is  spoken 
of  as  conditional.  There  is  not  only  a  possibility,  but 
an  absolute  certainty,  that  they  will  perish  if  they  fall 


OBJECTIONS   ANSWERED.  429 

away.  But  this  is  precisely  what  God  has  promised  to 
prevent."*  Falling  away  (a)  is  the  natural  tendency  of 
the  human  heart,  and  (6)  the  natural  result  of  those  sins 
from  which  the  Scriptures  warn  us.  God  has  left  his 
blood-bought  elect  for  the  present  mixed  indistinguish- 
ably  to  human  eye  with  the  mass  of  h umanity.  To  all  men 
the  presumption  is  that  Christ  died  for  himself  and  for 
each  other  man  until  final  reprobation  proves  the  reverse. 
Therefore  we  are  all  under  obligation  to  carry  ourselves, 
and  to  regard  and  treat  all  other  men  as  those  for  whom 
Christ  died  until  the  contrary  is  proved.  And  God  pre- 
vents the  natural  tendency  of  his  elect  to  apostatize,  in 
part  at  least,  by  means  of  the  passages  in  question,  warn- 
ing them  truly  of  the  natural  and  certain  effect  of  sin. 
Children  ought  to  know  that  God's  sovereign  and  eter- 
nal decrees  carry  the  means  as  well  as  the  end.  If  the 
non-elect  believes,  he  will  be  none  the  less  saved  because 
of  his  non-election.  If  the  elect  does  not  believe  and 
persevere  to  the  end,  he  will  none  the  more  be  saved 
because  of  his  election. 

*  Hodge's  Commentary,  1  Cor.  viii.  11. 


INDEX. 


Abelard,  269,  285. 

Acceptilation,  doctrine  of,  241. 

Active  and  Passive  Obedience.     See  Obedience. 

Adam,  Federal  Headship  of,  78-121 ;  Realistic  Theory  of  our  union  with, 
99-107;  President  Edwards'  theory  of  our  relation  to,  108,  109;  Re- 
formed Doctrine  of  our  relation  to,  stated,  112-114. 

Augustine,  102,  272,  281,  373. 

Amyraldus,  351,  360,  363,  375,  376,  378,  384. 

Andrea,  293. 

Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  273-277. 

Anselm,  268,  273,  284,  285,  317. 

Application  of  Redemption  as  distinguished  from  its  Impetration,  40-43, 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  43,  235,  244,  253,  268,  285. 

Arians,  269,  372. 

Arminians,  373. 

Athanasius,  268,  271,  272,  279. 

Atonement,  statement  of  the  doctrine,  25-31 ;  Points  involved  in  the  doc- 
trine of,  severally  stated,  44-47 ;  God's  motive  in,  29,  409-411;  The 
nature  of,  29;  The  effect  of,  30,  179-197;  Meaning  and  Usage  of  the 
term  defined,  33;  Usage  of  the  term  as  distinguished  from  the  term 
Redemption,  41-43;  A  very  definite  doctrine  of,  accurately  taught  in 
Scripture,  194-196;  In  what  sense  necessary,  234,  235;  The  necessity 
of,  proved,  234-239;  The  nature  of,  proved  from  the  fact  of  its  abso- 

,  lute  necessity,  236 ;  The  perfection  of,  240-247  ;  Secures  its  own  appli- 
cation in  every  case,  246,  247  ;  401—405. 

The  Orthodox  Doctrine  of,  does  not  involve  the  imputation  of  vin- 

dictivencss  to  Qod,  302-306 ;  Does  not  exclude  grace,  306,  307  ;  Com- 
prehends the  whole  truth  taught  by  the  other  theories,  and  provides 
fo  •  the  production  of  a  moral  etfcct  far  better  than  the  "  Moral  Theory," 

431 


432  INDEX. 

319-325  ;  And  it  provides  for  tho  production  of  a  governmental  effect 
far  better  than  the  "  Governmental  Theory,"  331-332. 

Atonement,  the  Governmental  Theory  of,  28,  64,  150,  151,  193,  210,  245,  269, 
298,  299,  303^  Doctrine  stated,  328,  329 ;  History  of,  327,  328  ;  Theory 
discussed,  325-346 ;  Advantages  of,  330 ;  Objections  to,  stated, 
331-346 ;  Rests  on  a  false  theory  of  virtue,  331— 338 ;  represents 
the  .sacrifice  of  Christ  as  a  moral  illusion,  338,  339 ;  Disproved 
by  its  history,  341 ;  Developed  not  from  Scripture,  but  from  reason, 
341,  342 ;  necessarily  connected  with  a  false  view  as  to  Justifica- 
tion, 341 ;  And  with  a  false  view  as  to  the  Design  of  the  Atonement, 
340,  343,  344,  366 ;  It  is  as  an  historical  fact  Arminian,  and  not  Cal- 
vinistic,  in  its  origin,  345,  346. 

Hopkinsian  or  New  England  Theory,  328. 

"Moral  Influence,  Theory  of,"  28,  150,  193,  209,  210,  212,  231,  240, 

266-268,  297,  303 ;  The  Theory  discussed  and  refuted,  315-337;  As 
stated  by  Socinus,  316;  As  stated  by  Bushnell,  317;  As  stated  by 
Young,  318;  Fails  to  account  rationally  for  the  production  of  tho 
moral  eflFect  intended,  319-325 ;  Fails  to  provide  for  the  salvation  of 
those  who  died  before  Christ,  326 ;  It  is  condemned  by  its  history,  326, 
327. 

Socinian  Theory  of,  316. 

The  Design  of.     See  Design  of  the  Atonement. 


Bahr,  127,  128. 

Baird,  Dr.  S.  J.,  99. 

Balmer,  351,  380. 

Barnes,  55,  63,  165-169,  351,  356,  384. 

Baur,  F.  Christian,  389. 

Baxter,  Richard,  364,  378,  884. 

Beecher,  Dr.  Edward,  80,  95-97. 

Beman,  351,  384. 

Bernard,  268,  272,  285. 

Beza,  121,  398 

Bonaventura,  268,  285. 

Boston,  Thomas,  380. 

Brown,  Dr.  John,  351,  380,  381,  384. 

Burge,  328. 

Bushncll,  D.  D.,  Horace,  123, 125,  129, 161,  162, 177, 178,  303,'316, 317,  321. 

Butler,  Bishop,  126. 

Caiamn,  268,  271,  273,  288,  289,  291,  374,  387;  His  doctrine  as  to  tho  De- 
sign of  tlip  Atonemei«S  3«7  391. 


INDEX.  438 

Calviniflm,  What  is  its  standard?  391,  392,  398. 

Calvinistio  Universalists,  their  position  shown  to  be  illogical,  416. 

Calamities,  how  distinguished  from  Chastisements,  37. 

Cameron,  375. 

Candlish,  423,  425. 

Catechismus  Roraanus,  289. 

Charenton,  the  Synod  of,  90. 

Christ  the  Substitute  of  his  people,  76,  77,  163,  164;  Our  sins  were  laid 
upon  him,  169-178  ;  He  is  the  Surety,  Head  and  Advocate  of  his  peo- 
ple, 206,  207;  He  secures  for  his  people  more  than  pardon,  223;  His 
righteousness  includes  active  as  well  as  passive  obedience,  248-264 ; 
His  work  as  High  Priest  was  one  work,  he  intercedes  for  all  those  and 
only  for  those  for  whom  he  died,  411-413;  The  obedience  of.  See 
Obedience. 

Churches,  the  Greek,  the  Roman,  the  Lutheran,  the  Reformed,  269,  273, 
289. 

Chrysostom,  280. 

Claude,  Bishop  of  Turin,  268,  272,  283. 

Clement  Romanus,  276. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  345. 

Confessions  of  the  Greek  Church,  289:  The  Second  Helvetic  Confess.,  292; 
Gallic  Confess.,  292,  374,  393  ;  Belgic  Confess.,  293,  374,  393  ;  Westmin- 
ister Confess.,  104,  294,  364,  374;  Canons  of  the  Synod  of  Dort,  374, 
394;  French  Synod  of  Alez  and  Charenton,  374;  Formula  Consensus 
Helvetica,  103,  104,  295,  375,  396,  398 ;  The  Consensus  Genevensis, 
389,  390. 

Council  of  Trent,  Decrees  and  Canons  of,  289. 

Covenant  of  grace  between  the  Father  and  the  Son  in  eternity,  406-408. 

Cranmer,  288. 

Creationism,  103,  115,  116. 

Cunningham,  D.  D.,  William,  339,  359,  367,  391,  396. 

Curcelleeus,  242. 

Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  280. 

Daill^.  375. 

Davenant,  Bishop,  373,  378. 

Definition  of  technical  terms  in  their  established  sense,  32-43. 

De  Moor,  498. 

Design  or  Intended  Application  of  the  Atonement,  347-429 ;  As  involved 

in  the  Arminian  controversy,  348-350  ;  As  involved  in  the  controversy 

with   Calvinistic    ITniversalists.  350-354;   The   Orthodox  Doetririo  of, 

Stat tvl,  355- 36J    384;   The  question   shown   not  to  relate  to  the   suffi- 

37 


434  INDEX. 

ciency  of  the  Atonement,  356 ;  nor  to  its  universal  applicability,  356 ; 
nor  to  its  universal  oflfer,  357,  358 ;  The  question.  How  the  problem  as 
to  the  Design  of  the  Atonement  is  related  to  the  problem  as  to  its 
Nature,  discussed,  365-370,  399-403;  Doctrine  of,  as  held  by  the 
Reformed  Churches,  368 ;  And  as  held  by  the  Arminians,  369 ;  His- 
tory of  the  doctrine  of,  among  Calvinists,  371-386;  Augustine's 
opinion  of,  373 ;  View  of,  held  by  the  French  Professors  at  Saumur, 
375-380;  View  of,  taught  by  the  "Marrow-men,"  380-384;  View 
of,  entertained  by  Calvin,  387-391 ;  The  doctrine  of,  common  to 
all  the  Reformed  Churches,  stated  and  historically  established,  392- 
398;  Doctrine  of,  explicitly  taught  by  the  Westminster  Confession 
demonstrated,  394-396;  The  Orthodox  doctrine  of,  proved  to  be  true, 
399-417 ;  Objections  to  the  Orthodox  doctrine  of,  considered,  418-429. 

Diognetus,  Epistle  to,  277. 

Disinterested  benevolence  not  the  whole  of  virtue,  54,  55,  338. 

Divine  Law  absolutely  immutable,  58-67  ;  Its  precepts  intrinsically  good, 
59,  60 ;  Penalty  an  essential  part  of,  62  ;  Penalty  literally  and  strictly 
suflfered  by  Christ,  65,  66 ;  As  a  whole  fulfilled  by  Christ,  66. 

Doctrinal  definitions  necessary,  18-22. 

Dorner,  274. 

Du  Moulin,  364. 

Dwight,  President,  88,  328. 

Edwabds,  Sr.,  President,  108,  109,  295. 

Edwards,  Jr.,  Dr.,  88,  328. 

Election,  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of,  settles  the  question  as  to  the  Extent 

of  the  Atonement,  414. 
Emerson,  87. 

Emmons,  88,  328,  384 ;  Doctrine  of  Justification  of,  257. 
Error  always  partial  truth,  17. 
Erskine,  Ebenezer,  380. 
Erskine,  Ralph,  380. 
Eusebius  of  Csesarea,  274,  279. 
Expiation,  term  defined,  39. 

Faber,  G.  S.,  274. 

Faith  the  instrumental  cause,  not  the  ground  of  justification,  226,  227,  232; 
"  In"  or  "  on"  Christ  the  single  condition  of  salvation,  229  ;  includes 
trust,  228,  229  ;  Effects  of,  230 ;  Scriptural  doctrine  of,  shown  not  to  bo 
consistent  with  the  Moral  Theory  of  the  Atonement,  231  ;  Nor  with 
the  Governn  ental  view,  232, 

Federal  Relation  to  the  law,  72-77    Headship  of  Adam,  78-121. 


INDEX.  436 

Piske,  D.  D.,  Daniel,  T.,  60,  63,  835,  343. 

Formula  Concordiae,  293 ;  Consensus  Helvetica,  103, 104,  295,  375,  396,  398. 

Gknkral  reference  of  the  Atonement  as  held  by  the  "  Marrow-men,"  380- 

384. 

*'  Gethscmane,"  306. 

God,  his  ultimate  motives  to  action  always  self-derived,  48 ;  Holiness  an 
essential  attribute  of  his  nature  as  well  as  of  his  will,  50 ;  His  hatred 
of  sin  proved,  51 ;  The  different  reasons  assigned  why  he  punishes  sin 
discussed,  53;  Propitiation  of,  180-184;  Immutability  not  inconsistent 
with  the  doctrine  of  Propitiation,  187. 

Gomarus,  398. 

Grace  intrinsically  optional,  57. 

Gregory  the  Great,  281. 

Grotius,  Hugo,  241,  300,  327,  338,  339,  343 ;  His  idea  of  law,  58. 

Quilt,  technical  meaning  of  term  defined,  40. 

Heobl,  87. 

Heidegger,  396. 

Heidelberg  Catechism,  291. 

History  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Christian  Church  from  the  second  to  the 

eighteenth  century,  265-300;   of   the  Atonement  controversy  in  the 

Secession  Church,  by  Rev.  Andrew  Robertson,  383. 
)Iogg,  James,  380. 
Hopkins,  Samuel,  88. 

Impetration,  term  defined,  40 ;  Of  redemption,  how  distinguished  from  ap- 
plication of  the  same,  40,  384  ;  Of  righteousness  necessarily  secures  its 
application,  246,  363,  364,  401-405. 

Impreventability  of  sin,  the  theory  of,  85,  86. 

Imputation  of  Adam's  sin,  89,  112;  Immediate  and  antecedent,  not  medi- 
ate and  consequent,  89-92 ;  New  England  theory  of,  88-94 ;  Reformed 
doctrine  of,  stated,  112-114 ;  Of  our  sin  to  Christ,  174,  175  ;  Of  Christ's 
righteousness  to  us,  226 ;  Orthodox  doctrine  of,  does  not  involve  the 
absurd  figment  of  the  transfer  of  moral  character,  312. 

Incense  offering,  the  symbolical  design  of,  154. 

Innate  corruption  and  guilt,  79-81. 

Irenaeus,  279. 

Jenktn  on  the  Atonement,  351,  356,  362,  373. 
John  of  Damascus,  282, 
Jowott,  125,  126-128,  129,  316,  339. 

Justice  not  optional  with  God,  57;  Essential  attribute  of  the  divine  nature, 
301-306. 


436  INDEX. 

Justification  essentially  forensic,  212-217;  the  doctrine  of  the  great  prin- 
ciple of  the  Reformation,  217,  218;  Not  equivalent  tci  Sanctification, 
217;  view  of,  held  by  the  advocates  of  the  Governmental  Theory, 
219-221,  257  ;  That  it  is  not  mere  pardon,  proved,  221-224  ;  Founded 
on  the  righteousness  of  Christ,  imputed,  224-227 ;  It  is  by  means  of, 
but  not  founded  upon,  faith,  227 ;  Calvinistic  view  cf,  proved,  258, 
259  ;  Arminian  view  of,  256. 

Justin  Martyr,  277. 

Knox,  John,  288. 

Law.  See  Divine  Law.  Ceremonial  and  Moral,  see  distinction  between, 
61 ;  The  Natural,  Federal  and  Penal  relations  of,  distinguished,  72-77, 
251 ;  Can  be  satisfied  only  with  a  perfect  righteousness,  225  ;  Not  re- 
laxed by  the  introduction  of  the  scheme  of  redemption,  241-243 ; 
Christ  owes  no  personal  obedience  to,  313. 

Limborch,  300. 

Litton  on  the  nature  of  a  type,  and  the  distinction  between  a  type  and  a 
symbol,  143. 

Lollards,  320. 

Luther,  268,  273,  288,  290;  Misrepresentations  of  his  doctrine  of  Justifica- 
tion, exposed,  175. 

Lutherans,  320 ;  Doctrines  of,  as  to  human  inability,  as  to  divine  grace, 
and  as  to  the  indefinite  design  of  the  Atonement,  shown  to  be  mutually 
inconsistent,  367,  368. 

Manichjeism,  84,  85. 

Marckius,  398. 

Marrow  of  Modern  Divinity,  380. 

Maurice,  Rev.  Frederick,  123,  125,  128,  316,  317. 

Maxey,  328. 

Mediatorial  oflBce  of  Christ,  nature  of,  defined  by  his  character  as  High 

Priest,  163,  164. 
Meritum,  meaning  of  term  defined,  43. 
Methodists,  320. 
Miller,  Hugh,  120. 
Moravians,  320. 

Motive  of  God  in  giving  his  Son  to  die,  29,  409-411. 
Miiller,  Julius,  95,  97. 

Neander,  274. 

Necessity  of  the  Atonement  founded  on  the  essential  attributes  of  the 

divine  nature,  236-239 ;  And  proves  the  Orthodox  doctrine  as  to  its 

nature  to  hi  true,  234-239. 


IKDEX.  437 

Nevin,  J).  T>..  John  W.,  94. 
New  England  Theolo<,'y,  8S-94,  384. 
"  New  Enjjlandcr,"  54, 
Nicene  Fathers,  277-282. 
Nicolas  of  Methone,  273,  284,  285. 

Obedience,  active  and  passive,  43;  Active  and  passive,  hew  distinguished 
248,  2G4;Active,  inseparable  from  passive,  249,  250;  Active  and  pas. 
sive,  do  not  constitute  two  distinct  satisfactions  to  the  law,  but  one 
perfect  satisfaction,  263 ;  Perfect,  demanded  by  the  law,  225  ;  Both 
active  and  passive,  rendered  by  Christ  in  behalf  of  his  people,  248- 
264;  Christ  did  not  owe  any  for  himself,  262,  313. 

Objections  to  the  Orthodox  doctrine  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Atonement 
stated  and  answered,  301-314;  To  the  Moral  Theory  of  the  Atone- 
ment exposed,  319-327;  Also  those  to  the  Governmental  Theory 
stated,  327-346  ;  To  the  Orthodox  doctrine  of  the  design  of  the  Atone- 
ment considered,  418-429. 

Objective  and  subjective  grace,  distinction  proposed  by  Aniyraldus,  360, 
377. 

Offer  of  the  gospel  to  all  men  indiscriminately,  what  is  involved  in  it,  418- 
423. 

Olevianus,  291. 

Order  of  the  divine  decrees,  376-380. 

Origen,  95,  278. 

Outram,  274. 

Owen,  John,  356,  364,  367,  389,  413. 

Park,  Prof.,  384. 

Parker,  Theodore,  87. 

Pelagius,  373. 

Pelagians,  372. 

Penal  satisfaction  of  Christ  a  full  equivalent  for  the  penal  obligation  of 

his  people,  243. 
Penalty  defined,  and  difference  between  calamities,  chastisements  and  penal 

evils  pointed  out,  37-39 ;  The  vain  imagination   of  "  a  substitute  for 

a  penalty,"  64;  An  essential  part  of  law,  62  ;  Was  literally  suffered  >y 

Christ,  65,  66. 
Perfection  of  the  Atonement,  240,  247. 
Piscator,  263. 

Placaeus,  Joshua,  89,  90, 109. 
Poena  vicaria,  what,  40. 
Polycarp,  270. 

Pre-existence,  theory  of,  95-97. 
37* 


438  INDEX. 

Priests,  the  effect  of  the  work  of,  terminated  on  God,  151-154;  And 
directly  effected  remission  of  sin,  155 ;  And  had  definite  respect  to 
certain  persons,  155,  166. 

Priesthood,  essential  nature  of,  proved,  151-155 ;  Two-fold  function  of, 
154 ;  Of  Christ,  real  and  not  metaphorical,  156-159  ;  Inferences  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  Atonement  drawn  from  that  fact,  159,  160. 

Priestly,  Dr.,  303. 

Probation,  a  period  of  instable  moral  equilibrium,  73,  74. 

Propitiation,  term  defined,  39;  Of  God,  181-184; 

Puritans,  320. 

Quick's  Synodicon,  379. 

Ransom,  191. 

Rationalists,  372. 

Realistic  theory  of  our  union  with  Adam,  99-107;  Proved  not  to  be  tho 
doctrine  of  the  Reformed  Churches,  101-104. 

Reatus,  or  guilt,  definition  of  term,  40. 

Reconciliation  of  God  to  man,  179-184. 

Redemption,  biblical  usage  of  the  phrase,  190,  193 ;  Not  to  be  taken  in  a 
commercial  sense,  191,  192  ;  How  related  to  Atonement,  195-197  ;  Sub- 
ordinate and  in  order  to  the  decree  of  election,  361,  362,  370,  375-380, 
389-392. 

Remonstrants,  269. 

Richards,  D.  D.,  James,  351,  384. 

Righteousness  of  Christ  proved  to  be  the  ground  of  justification,  224-227; 
Of  Christ  includes  his  active  as  well  as  his  passive  obedience,  248-264 ; 
of  the  law,  what,  261,  262. 

Rivet,  364,  398. 

Sacrifice  of  Christ  proved  to  have  been  of  the  same  nature  as  those  ap- 
pointed by  the  Mosaic  ritual,  144-147 ;  And  declared  to  produce  the 
same  effect,  147. 

Sacrifices,  their  divine  origin,  122-124;  The  ancient  were  expiatory,  125; 
Their  universality  expressing  the  universal  sentiment  of  mankind, 
126;  The  Mosaic  were  piacular,  127-143;  And  were  typical  of  Christ, 
]43_148,  159;  Different  kinds  of  bleeding,  130,  131 ;  The  occasions  of 
sin  and  trespass,  132;  Qualifications  prescribed  for,  133;  Significant 
designations  of,  133  ;  Ritual  of,  133-137  ;  The  promised  effect  of,  137- 
140  ;  Imposition  of  hands  and  confession  of  sins,  134-136 ;  Testi- 
mony of  the  prophets  and  apostles  and  ancient  Jews  and  Christians 
to  the  piacular  character  of,  140-143. 

Satisfactio,  term  defined,  43 ;  As  distinguished  from  Meritum,  253 ; 


INDEX.  439 

Satisfaction  of  Christ,  tho  effect  not  tho  cause  of  the  lore  of  God,  188 ; 
Orthodox  doctrine  of,  does  not  involve  tritheistic  views  of  God,  188- 
190;  Of  Christ  includes  his  active  as  well  as  passive  obedience,  248- 
264;  Definition  and  usage  of,  34;  Secures  faith,  sanctification  and  eter- 
nal life  for  all  for  whom  ho  died,  401—405;  Penal  and  pecuniary,  tlio 
distinction  defined,  34r-37;  Of  Christ  always  secures  the  designed 
effect,  39,  246-248. 

Saumur,  270. 

Schaff,  274. 

Schoolmen,  284,  360,  361,  374. 

Schweizer,  376,  414. 

Scotus,  Duns,  241,  285. 

Scotus  Erigena,  269,  285. 

Semi-Pelagians,  372. 

Shedd,  D.  D.,  W.  G.  T.,  99,  100,  274. 

Sin  intrinsically  involves  ill-desert,  52-54;  And  demands  punishment  for 
its  own  sake,  55;  Why  God  punishes  it,  different  reasons  discussed, 
53 ;  Remission  of,  in  order  to  sanctification,  70 ;  Original,  involves 
both  innate  corruption  and  guilt,  79-81 ;  Different  theories  as  to  the 
source  of,  stated  and  classified  and  discussed,  83-121 ;  Its  pretended 
impreventability,  85,  86  ;  Pantheistic  theory  of,  87  ;  Different  senses  in 
which  the  word  is  used,  170;  The  imputation  of,  170-174;  The  bear- 
ing of  the  scriptural  usage  of  the  term  considered,  176,  177 ;  The  ex- 
piation of,  184,  190. 

Smalley,  328. 

Socinus,  285,  306,  310,  316,  317,  338,  339. 

Socinians,  372. 

Souls,  different  theories  as  to  the  origin  of,  discussed,  114-116. 

Spanheim,  363. 

Spring,  328. 

Stapfer,  109. 

Stuart,  Moses,  425,  426. 

St.  Victor,  Hugo,  268,  285. 

Substitute,  defined  by  Barnes,  165,  169. 

Substitution,  definition  of,  39. 

Sufferings  of  Christ,  though  finite  and  temporary^  a  /u^^  equivalent  for  tho 
penalty  of  the  law,  and  why,  310. 

Surety,  usage  of  the  term,  207. 

Symington,  249. 

Synod  of  France,  National,  374,  378,  379. 

Taylor,  John,  88,  127. 

Taylor,  D.  D.,  N.  W.,  54,  304,  335,  384. 


440  INDEX. 

Testardus,  363,  375,  378. 

Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England,  293. 

"To  bear  sin,"  scriptural  usage  of  the  phrase,  176,  177. 

Traducianism,  103,  115,  116. 

Turretin,  Francis,  72,  102,  103,  356,  367,  376,  389,  396. 

Twisse,  Dr.,  53,  235. 

Type,  what,  and  how  distinguished  from  symbol,  143. 

Union,  different  kinds  of,  20;  Of  Christ  with  his  people,  197-211;  Nature 

of,  207,  208. 
Unitarians,  321. 
Universal  offer  of  the  gospel  not  inconsistent  with  the  definite  design  of 

the  Atonement,  358,  418-423. 
Universalismus  Hypotheticus,  doctrine  of,  375. 
Ursinus,  116,  291. 

Vallenses,  268,  272,  283,  320. 

Vicarious,  meaning  of  term  defined,  39;  Bushnell's  definition  of,  161,  162; 
Used  in  the  strictest  sense  when  applied  to  the  work  of  Christ,  165- 
168 ;  Vicarious  penal  sufferings  not  unjust,  198-201. 

Virtue,  the  true  theory  of,  defined,  54-55. 

Wardlaw,  351,  384. 

Warrant  of  Faith,  what,  381,382,419,420;   Of  the  ministerial  offer  of 

salvation  to  all  men,  what,  419. 
Watson,  Richard,  253,  263,  378. 
Wesley,  John,  253. 
Wessel,  John,  268,  272,  287. 
Westminster  Confession,  104,  294,  364,  374,  395,  396;  The  doctrine  of,  as 

to  the  design  of  the  Atonement,  stated  and  proved,  394-396. 
Wycliffe,  268,  272,  286. 
Wiggers,  373. 
Witsius,  356,  367,  389,  398. 
Works,  all  kinds  of,  excluded  as  a  ground  of  justification,  325. 

Young,  L.L.D.,  John,  54,  67,  125-129,  186,  188,  218,  219,  271,  273,  274, 
275,  298,  303,  316,  317,  318,  326. 

ZwiNGLE,  268, 273,  274,  288,  289. 

THE   END.