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ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
First Edition
Reprinted
Reprinted
Reprinted
6s. Net Edition
February 1901
July 1 901
. October 1902
November 1906
. March 1907
ATONEMENT AND
PERSONALITY
BY R. C. MOBERLY, D.D.
LATE CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, REGIUS PROFESSOR OF PASTORAL
THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
NEW YORK
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
1907
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Printed in Great Britain.
TO
THE CHURCH
ONE HOLY CATHOLIC
THE BODY OF THE SPIRIT
OF JESUS CHRIST
VERY GOD OF VERY GOD
INCARNATE
WHICH IS
THE REGENERATION AND HOPE
OF THE WHOLE WORLD
281G77
PREFACE
Atonement is a reality much too fundamental to human
consciousness, to be capable of any ready explanation.
Our explanations, at their best, are still always partial
explanations. It is always more than our understanding
of it.
From this there follow two direct results. The first is a
certain duty of what has been called " reverent agnosticism."
Our insight into the doctrine may be adequate. That it
should be exhaustive is inconceivable. All explanations
must be given with this reserve. They are not, and never
can be, the whole truth. There is always more than human
logic can express, or human imagination conceive. " Quod
si aliquatenus quaestioni tuae satisfacere potero, certum esse
debebit, quia et sapientior me plenius hoc facere poterit;
imo sciendum est, quidquid homo inde dicere vel scire possit,
altiores tantae rei adhuc latere rationes." ^
The second result is that human explanations, being all,
of necessity, aspects which are less than complete, must from
time to time vary and be re-adjusted. Atonement can, and
must, become intelligible, to different stages of human
intellect. It can, and must, express itself in the terms of
thought of different generations, and to some extent
different philosophies.
^ St Anselm, Car Deus Homo, ch. ii«
X PREFACE
The fact of such historical variations is a witness to the
stability, not the instability, of the underlying truth. So
far as the intellectual illustration which meets the needs of
our own generation may differ from that of our predecessors
the difference condemns neither us nor them. St Anselm
may correct, but he does not condemn, those who had gone
before him. Nor do later theologians condemn St Anselm
when they show where his explanations will not hold. If
we differ a good deal from some earlier explanatory theories
we do not therefore hold that they were all false. On the
contrary, it is of some importance to insist that in their own
time, and their own way, they were all true. As real and
living theories they did represent real aspects of the great
reality. By their truth they lived. But by the incomplete-
ness of their truth, or the disproportioned statement of it,
they in time decayed.
But if our own explanations in turn have a temporary
character, if they too will be felt in time to be incomplete,
or are not free from some strain of disproportion, this does
not mean that we ought to, or could possibly, live without
them. On the contrary, explanations are, in each age, in-
dispensable. Without illustrative explanation we cannot
apprehend or hold the truth, which it is vital to hold and
to apprehend ; even though our illustrative explanations be
none of them in the long run — as they none of them can
be — fully adequate. It is not only true, on what may be
called the negative side, that difficulties which are them-
selves the creation of intellect must be intellectually dis-
posed of. This is true indeed, and important. And in fact
the intellectual objections which are felt to the doctrine of
atonement are all of this character. They are logical
fictions, which must be answered by logic. And this alone
PREFACE xi
would more than justify the intellectual treatment of the
doctrine in every generation. But besides this more nega-
tive or apologetic necessity, it is true also positively, in every
generation, that to be held at all by those who on all
grounds dutifully wish to hold it, the doctrine must be,
however incompletely, yet positively and really, apprehended
by the intellect. We must needs, in each generation, so
interpret it to ourselves as both to meet and answer intel-
lectual objections, and also to possess, for our own lives, a
positive, tangible, and living, conception of the meaning of
Atonement.
The following pages would hardly have assumed their
present shape, if the writer had not been, for his own part,
convinced of two principles, which it may be worth while
to mention here. The first is that the difficulties which are
generally felt about Christian atonement arise neither from
the Evangelical history of the Cross itself, nor even from
anything in the original apostolic proclamation of the fact,
or of the doctrine, of the Cross ; but rather from the
inadequacy of certain more or less current explanations,
logical and inferential, of the original apostolic doctrine.
Such inferential structures (the most untrue of which has
considerable relation to truth) are precisely the things which
ought to be closely re-examined and reconstructed. They
are no part of the original tradition. They are practically
almost unknown in the earliest ages of Christianity. They
are the work of human intellect, honest, instructive, — and
visibly inadequate. They are stages in the human assimila-
tion of a truth more fundamental and inclusive than the
assimilating power of human intellect. It does not take
any exceptional knowledge of the history of the doctrine,
especially in the earUest Christian centuries, to detach them
xii PREFACE
from the doctrine itself; and, if not fully to correct them,
at least to see the elements in them which are most
obviously open to question and correction. Some rather
fragmentary dealing with the history of the doctrine, suffi-
cient, as it is hoped, for this particular purpose, has been
attempted in an appended chapter, which is rather sub-
sidiary to, than an integral part of, the effort of the present
volume.
The second conviction is that, for our minds at least,
current difficulties about atonement are largely bound up
with, and inseparable from, current — and questionable-—
conceptions of personality. There are presuppositions
about personality which have so aggravated the moral
difficulty as to make it appear to many minds insuperable.
And it is the correction of such presuppositions about per-
sonality which will be the natural solution of the difficulties.
Two principles may be mentioned, which our thought is
apt to assume ; first, that the essentia of personality is
mutual exclusiveness, or (in vivid metaphor) mutual im-
penetrability : and the second that (as a corollary from the
first) what was done by another, being vital in him not in
us, cannot make an essential contrast of content or character
within ourselves. Our distinctness from one another, and
from Christ, regarded as primary, essential and final, and
exaggerated to a point at which distinctness becomes not
distinctness only but mutual separation, exclusiveness, in-
dependence, — perhaps even antithesis: this is a fundamental
root of much difficulty that is felt, whether consciously or
unconsciously, upon the whole subject It is a difficulty
which has grown up out of the developed assumptions of
human intellect. It is hardly inherent or original. But is
the assumption true ? Is this really an axiom, involved in
PREFACE xiii
self-conscious recognition of personality ? The question is
one which it concerns us, at this particular moment, to point
out rather than to discuss. It belongs to the following
chapters to vindicate, if they can, the position that is taken
about it. For it is upon this that the real argument of the
volume depends.
It has seemed therefore only right to give to these pages
the title " Atonement and Personality " ; and that, not only
in order to emphasize the belief that no explanation of atone-
ment can be adequate which is not, at every point, in terms
of personality ; but also, and perhaps even more, because it
seemed to become increasingly clear, on analysis of thought,
that neither could any explanation of personality be ade-
quate, which was not, in point of fact, in terms of atone-
ment.
If this saying sounds hard or abrupt, we may make it
perhaps more intelligible by saying that personality cannot
be explained except in terms of that self-identification of
the Christian with the Spirit of Christ, — that constitution
of Christian selfhood by the Spirit of Christ, — which is the
key to the explication of atonement, and without which
atonement remains incapable, not of being received, indeed,
but of being explained. But if that which alone makes
atonement intelligible is itself the explanation of personality ;
if, in explaining personality, it explains atonement ; and
only by that which is involved in, and expressed as, atone-
ment, makes its explanation of personality coherent and
clear ; then it is hardly an audacious mode of speech to say
that personality is explained in terms of atonement.
The conception of these pages as a whole is one which,
as I cannot but believe, needs to be explicitly stated at the
present time. And I trust they may serve at least to make
xiv PREFACE
clear the coherence of the several parts of the conception
At point after point in the detail of the several parts, I can-
not but be painfully aware of the inadequacy of what has
actually been said. But after all it is the conception as a
whole, it is the relation of the parts of the thought to one
another, rather than the elaborate completeness of the parts
in themselves, which will probably constitute the value, if
any there be, of the present contribution. And it is possible
that any elaborated attempt to present the several parts in
more adequate detail, even if it were in any measure success-
ful, might rather obscure than assist the clear presentment
of their relation to each other.
Slight, then, though in many ways the filling in of the
outline sketch may be, yet, such as it is, I submit it — with,
as I believe, a real sincerity of submission, — to the con-
science and judgment of the Church of Christ.
I greatly regret that the volume on Personality, by the
Rev. Wilfrid Richmond, did not appear in time for me to
make any use of it in my own writing, or at least to
examine my own writing in the light of it. But the general
line of Mr Richmond's thought was not unfamiliar to me ;
and I am conscious that my debt to it is great. He speaks,
no doubt, as a philosopher to philosophers: and will, in
that region, be well able to maintain his own position. I
will only express a hope that in the things which I have
tried to say in this present volume (in a way far unlike the
minuteness of an expert in philosophy) nothing may be
found to be untrue in substance to that central principle of
truth which I believe that I have learned from him.
Among the many obligations which I owe to the — con-
scious or unconscious — help of many friends, I must express
my special gratitude to Dr Sanday, for the generosity with
PREFACE XV
which he has endeavoured, at certain points, to preserve me
from blundering ; and has been willing to lend to me some
fragments of the richness of his special knowledge. He has
done this none the less, although there is no single state-
ment throughout the volume for which he is responsible ;
and indeed it remains to be seen whether he will, or will
not, be able to look upon it as a whole with approval.
I must also thank my kind colleague of former years, the
Rev. R. B. Rackham, for his ungrudging sympathy in all
ways, and for not a little of the special help of his singular
accuracy, in the exposure of errors in detail.
Christ Church,
Advent, I9aa
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PUNISHMENT
PAGS
All our experience is of imperfect punishment (or penitence, or
forgiveness). The object is to see what these would mean
— not as imperfect, but in their own reality ... i
What is punishment? Dr Dale's View. Pain — inflicted —
because of wrong. Further statement ; Pain — related to
the sufferer's capacity of self-consciousness of wrong — as
an effect of righteousness. It is only possible in a person,
or explicable in reference to personality. It is a moral
means to a moral end. The " retributive" aspect belongs to
the necessary imperfectness of human justice. Justice that
is not omniscient can only be a very rough figure of what
absolute justice would be. The "equation" theory is a
corollary from the imperfectness of the " retributive " . . 3
Is there, then, no punishment which is not restorative ? This
view contradicts both experience on earth, and the possi-
bility of Hell. But all punishment begins as moral
discipline, and only in proportion as it fails to moralize,
becomes ultimately " vengeance." Different as these are,
the difference lies in the reception of punishment by the
punished, not in the punisher. Limits within which it is
right to conceive of a "punisher" at all . . . . 11
Guilt has two streams of consequence, {a) vengeance, {p)
remorse. Endurance of vengeance, as such, has no atoning
tendency whatever. But even such endurance can become
an element, or education, towards penitence. Punishment
taken up into the suffering personality as penitence, really
tends to diminish guiltiness. Such penitence, however
little it can on earth avert punishment, can quite trans-
form its inner character. Punishment is meant to be trans-
b «^
xviii CONTENTS
muted into penitence ; and it is only as penitence that it
has any restorative or atoning quality 17
Punishment, as retribution, cannot be predicated of Christ.
Our own attitude towards punishment .... 23
CHAPTER II
PENITENCE
Penitence is as wide as humanity — yet distinctively Christian.
It can only be personal— a condition of personality, under
sin, yet made for, and capable of, righteousness. All
conscious wretchedness is capacity of penitence. Penitence
as love : and as belief. Penitence is a real change of self.
It is the triumph of righteousness within .... 26
All experienced penitence is imperfect. Sin has affected the
central self, past, present, and future. Real deliverance
from sin must touch all three. How the present includes
the future and the past. Perfect penitence would be such
a change of self, as would, by contradiction, make the past
dead, and re-identify the self with righteousness. Ex-
perienced penitence, though imperfect, bears clear witness
to the nature of penitence. Its climax would be personal
self-identity with holiness ; and righteousness and love
would be one in embracing it 31
Such penitence is impossible. Sin once for all has marred the
capacity of it. Its climax would only be really possible to
one who, personally, was really sinless .... 41
On second thoughts, it is not only the climax of penitence, but
any reality of it, that is, to sinful nature, impossible. Yet
Christian experience is so full of it, that it may almost
be said to constitute Christian experience. And the ex-
perience of its unconsummated reality is the pledge of the
real possibility of its consummation 44
Whence then comes it? It is the indwelling Spirit of the
Crucified 46
CHAPTER III
FORGIVENESS
All Christian hope — and duty — hinges on "forgiveness." What
is forgiveness ? " Remission of penalty " a first stage of
thought, which experience must begin with, and must
CONTENTS xix
transcend. The true forgiveness is right forgiveness, i.e.
the forgiveness of Righteousness 48
Forgiveness is not simply not punishing : or treating as if
innocent : or regarding as innocent. These things are not
even moral, apart from a justifying cause. Forgiveness is
only possible towards a person ; and must have its justifi-
cation in his personality. It is exactly correlative to
" forgiveableness " ; not arbitrary nor optional but (as it
were) self-acting 53
Does this empty the word "forgiveness" of all meaning? not if
man's *' forgiveableness " is itself God's work, not man's.
In any case the logical difficulty is not greater on this
view than on any which makes God's forgiveness other than
irrational. But in fact all experienced forgiveness is pro-
visional — a means to an end. The unforgiving servant.
Forgiveness is not a transaction, but an attitude. It is=
love. But love is called " forgiveness " just in the stage
when it is still anticipatory, i.e. just when, and because,
it provisionally outruns the capacity of deserving, or of any
real correspondence with love 58
Human forgiveness is to correspond with Divine. The nearest
analogue is a parent's forgiveness of a little one. Postulates
involved in this. They do not directly apply to the case
of a man outraged by his fellows. What is forgiveness in
him ? — {a) a turning from them to God, {b) a looking, and,
if possible, a working, towards their personal recovery to
holiness. His relation may possibly become almost
parental 63
Forgiveness not finally consummated till the consummation of
holiness. Then it is wholly merged in love. All Christian
hope of "forgiveness" must necessarily mean hope of
personal holiness 71
CHAPTER IV
THE PERSON OF THE MEDIATOR
That the unholy may become holy, how can any mediation be
relevant? In experience, which is deeper than logic, a
friend who will bear is the best practical hope of the
sinner's reformation 74
The impossibility seems most absolute in the forensic atmosphere.
Some mitigations of it perhaps just conceivable even here
CONTENTS
— In proportion as he who would suffer is (a) uniquely
capable of identification with the punished, and (d) uniquely
capable of identification with the punisher > ... 77
Illustration of a father with an erring child, and the mother
between them bearing the weight of penitence, carries our
thought further — yet breaks down at the point ; for each is
still not the other 80
Just here Catholic doctrine comes in. Christ IS God — not generi-
cally but identically. Tendency of thought to fall short of this
truth. Popular Tri-theism. Dread of Sabellianism deters
" orthodox " thought from adequate insistence on the unity
of Deity 81
Again, there is a real unity of humanity ; and Christ IS Man —
not generically but inclusively. Only Adam besides could
ever be Man inclusively : and even Adam in an inferior
sense. The Humanity of Christ is the Humanity of Deity.
Hence its unique capacity of universal relation— through
Spirit. If we realize very imperfectly what this means, so
we do what our own personal being means. Yet the prin-
ciple that Christians are one with, and are /«, Christ, is
inseparable from the whole New Testament ; and is the
basis of the Sacramental, which is the characteristic,
worship and life of the Church 86
Christ then is not an intervening third term ; because He is
simply identical with the first, and simply identical with the
second also 92
CHAPTER V
THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST
Jesus Christ is God as man. His Humanity not impersonal.
Himself Personally expressed in and through humanity • 93
This Personal expression of Deity in humanity is always vt
terminorum a human expression. In Incarnation He is
never not Incarnate — not two, but One— God as man,
rather than God and man. He is therefore a real revelation
not only of the truth of Divine character, but also of the
truth of human character 95
Christ as the revelation of human nature. His life of obedience
— its main characteristic, dependence. His Personal char-
acter as man, consists in being the reflection of Another.
Dependence inwardly, as meditation and prayerfulness.
Dependence in outward action, as obedience. The obedi-
CONTENTS xxi
ence always to God. Contrast between this and His sub-
jection at Nazareth 98
The phrase " not of Myself." Importance of this. Capacity,
in a sense, of independent selfhood. The complete self-
repression no mere phrase, but an intense moral reality . 104
The relation to the Father asserted by Himself in Incarnation,
is the relation of the Incarnate more directly than of the
pre-existent 107
CHAPTER VI
THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST
Christ " was made " sin ; " condemned " sin. Reality of His
relation to sin. Perfection of holiness, and perfection of
contrition — the two impossibilities which would restore man
to God — both realized in Him 109
Christ the perfect reflection of God, — in moral character,
prayerful dependence, active obedience. Even for the per-
fecting of these, the necessary climax of His life was death.
The death of Christ unique even as the climax of discipline,
and of temptation. His power to save Himself, with the
will not to use it iii
But it is also, in reference to past sin, an atoning and undoing.
Perfect penitence requires an identity of the very self with
holiness which is possible only to the personally sinless.
Vicarious penitence, in some sort, a profound truth of ex-
perience. Personalities not so distinct as we assume — often
for sheer lack of unselfish will. Personality completed less
in itself than in the reflexive correspondence of other per-
sonalities 116
Is the penitence of the good really possible ? It is more possible
than the penitence of the evil, which is reached through it.
The case of a mother whose heart is broken for the sin of
her child. Her capacity of this depends not upon her own
possible share in the guilt ; but upon the completeness of
{a) her own holiness, and {b) the love in her which makes
her one with her child. Such oneness is {a) of nature, —
which does not include actual sin, but does include natural
capacity of temptation to sin, and {h) of love, which perfects
the capacities of community in nature. Both these things
only at most approximate in any mother . . . .121
But both deliberately assumed by Christ ; and realized in their
perfectness only by Him whose love was quite literally
xrii CONTENTS
infinite, and whose consciousness of the nature and measure
of sin was that of one who gazed upon the undimmed vision
of the Holiness of God. With eyes full open to God He
realized the fulness of the (otherwise unimaginable) con-
sciousness of sin — within that bodily nature which had been
the instrument, and was open to the galling access, of sin.
Within the consciousness of sin He realized the appalling
character, which is also the doom, of sin ; while by His
own inherent self-identity with holiness He attained to the
(otherwise impossible) conditions of a perfectly atoning
penitence 126
Thus was penitence consummated, at the cost of a gradual,
and voluntary, dissolution of Himself. Punishment, or pain,
in any other sense but this, would not really have had an
atoning character at all. But the destruction, by inches,
of that nature in Him which constituted the avenue, or pos-
sibility, of sin — and therefore also the instrument for the
conquering of sin — was the absolute destruction of sin. In
His death, sin was dead : and human penitence, which
involves human holiness, once for all an accomplished fact 129
Note.— On the Cry upon the Cross 134
CHAPTER VII
OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE
The problem of the relation of the historic atonement to our-
selves. Difficulty in the fact that it is historic ; and there-
fore anterior to, and outside of, our personal history.
Truth in the subjective plea against a transaction that is
merely outward. Failure of the subjective plea, if nothing
happened in outward history at all. Objective and sub-
jective are terms mutually correlative — and inseparable.
What either would mean apart from the other . . .136
The atonement was objective first that it might become
subjective : historical fact that it might become personal
experience. How ? preliminary answers, — belief ; con-
templation ; love. To " love " and to " be in love with "—a
person or a cause. Love does transcend exclusions. What
we really love is never wholly without us . . . .143
But {a) is the atonement, then, merely an appeal to our
emotions? Or {b) is any adequate response from our
emotions within our possibility? The answer to both is
" No." On these conditions the whole would quite certainly
CONTENTS xxiii
fail. The failure is within the meaning, and incapacity, of
the personal " I " 148
The answers hitherto, then, are merely preliminary and sug-
gestive. What is needed is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
Calvary without Pentecost is Calvary not yet in vital rela-
tion with ourselves. The relation of atonement to man is
incapable of explanation except in terms of Pentecost— the
indwelling Spirit of Christ reconstituting and characterizing
151
CHAPTER VIII
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN RELATION TO THE BEING OF GOD
The unity of God is the basal truth. Revelation of Divine
" Persons " explains and expands, but does not contradict,
unity. Personality not to be defined by distinction in terms of
negation. Nor does God work in several " parts." 'Tir6(rTa<rtj
and Persona. Value of the word Person. If personality
is only intelligible to persons ; can Tri-Personal be intelligible
to uni-personal consciousness? Mutual personality in-
herent in Divine Being. Our position wholly incompatible
with Sabellianism. Unity of comprehensiveness, and of
love, higher than unity of exclusion, or of number. Why
this sounds a paradox to us. The sense limited in which
we can say that one Person of the Trinity " is not " another.
The presence of the Spirit is the presence of the Son
and of the Father 154
Analogies to the Trinity in creation, — and in man. Their value
— and limitation. Risk of distinguishing the Divine
Persons as diverse qualities. The analogy of a man (i) in
himself, (2) in his bodily expression, (3) in his effective
operation — the response which he has produced to himself. 170
Orthodox desire to believe in His Personality should not prevent
our understanding the Spirit as fully as we can as Response,
Gift, etc. — ^just as the Theist reaches a higher conception of
Divine Personality by dropping, for a time, personal terms.
It is by making the most of the aspects we do understand
that we rise, through them, to what is higher . . .176
The Paraclete revealed, historically, as explaining the perpetuity
of the Presence and work on earth of the Incarnate. Thus
the revelation both of " Son " and of " Spirit " is a result of
Incarnation. In what sense Father, Son, and Spirit, are
all words of metaphor— and in what sense the complex fact
xxiv CONTENTS
FAGB
of the Incarnation seems to be implied in, and to underlie,
the whole sacred terminology i8i
New Testament language and thought entirely dominated by
the fact of the Incarnation of God. The phrase "from
God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ" — the
Epistle to the Ephesians — the salutations of all the Epistles
in the New Testament. The reference is not to the pre-
existent Trinity : but to God the Eternal and God the
Incarnate. And the realization of them is God the Holy
Spirit ; — the Spirit of the Incarnate, and therefore of the
Eternal also 185
It is as the Spirit, or perpetual inward presence, of the
Incarnate^ that He is primarily revealed. Passages which
expressly so speak of Him, particularly Rom. viii. and Eph.
iii. The presence of the Spirit of the Incarnate is the
presence of the Incarnate, — which is the presence of
the Eternal, God. It is God, the Father, through the Son,
in the Spirit. The witness of i John to this theology . 195
Summary and conclusion 202
Note A. St Augustine's caution against distinguishing the
Persons of the Trinity in terms of separate qualities . . 206
Note B. Question to what extent the word " Son " is directly
applied to the Logosjas pre-incarnate, with special reference
to Hippolytus (against Noetus) and to Marcellus of Ancyra 208
CHAPTER IX
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN RELATION TO HUMAN PERSONALITY
Speculation, starting from the conscious self, is apt to assume
that selfhood at least is both complete and unchanging.
This has been markedly assumed in theories of atonement
Atonement only rightly intelligible if personality is con-
ceived aright. Reason, Free Will, and Love — three strands,
or proofs, of personality 216
I. Free will — we cannot but claim it : yet our will is largely not
free. What is free will ? («) It is not equal power of doing
evil or good. Power to sin is a mark of will not really free.
ip) Nor is it, exactly, power to make whatever we do wholly
our own — to be an adequate cause to oneself But {c) it is
power to make wholly one's own what is wholly on the lines
of one's own truest self To realize it, then, is to be possessed
by the Spirit of Christ : to be a mirror of human perfect-
CONTENTS XXV
ness. It is obedience — to God, not to man. Fallacies
about obedience, in the nursery or the convent. The
obedience of Christ. Only, then, as obedience (in the true
sense) is will really free or true selfhood realized . . 220
II. Reason — it means not ratiocinative machinery, but true
insight into truth. Individualism is the reverse of corre-
spondence with truth. The more complex is the higher
truth : moral higher than abstract ; and spiritual than
moral. Spiritual insight not non-rational, but the highest
possibility of reason. Reason therefore not perfected till
it is spiritually informed. Its real development is apt to be
its apparent sacrifice. Its consummation is the indwelling
Spirit of Christ. The paradox explicitly Scriptural. In their
consummation free will and reason so coalesce as aspects of
one whole, that they cease to be even distinguishable . 233
III. Love — it is inherently within our nature, yet so imperfectly
that it is only through refusal and sacrifice that it realizes
its ultimate character as love : and that only, at last, as
realization of the Spirit of Christ 245
Thus none of the claims of selfhood are realized apart from
Christ. Persons good and evil do not equally illustrate
what true personality means. The inherent presence of
the Spirit of Christ is not merely a gift or adornment, but
the realization, for the first time, of what selfhood inherently
and always had meant. " I yet not I but Christ " a formula
for Christian personality . . . • • • . 248
CHAPTER X
THE CHURCH AND SACRAMENTS
All religion implies " dependence on another " in the form, at
least, of {a) meditation and prayer, and {b) obedience in act
as correlative with these. These are at their highest in the
Church of Christ: but absorbed and transcended in that
Sacramental life which differentiates the Church. The
Church is the region, or expression, of the Spirit of Christ.
It is relatively to that region, or capacity, of Spirit, that
Her ordinances are what they are ..... 256
Baptism, as admission into Spirit. The analogy of birth.
Baptism and Confirmation theologically one initiation.
Initiation into Spirit is initiation into Christ — once for all . 260
Holy Communion, as living on Christ — in Spirit. His Flesh
xxvi CONTENTS
and Blood=His Humanity ; and especially in respect of its
atoning sacrifice. The analogy of food in Scripture — its
meaning. Such " feeding " is as indispensable within, as it
is impossible without, the region of " Spirit." The literal
use of the Sacrament is identified, rather than identical,
with this feeding upon the Flesh and Blood. The whole
sacramental language and practice are emphatic vindica-
tion of the bodily side of spiritual life : yet no less
emphatically spiritual in their reality. Insidiousness of
tendencies to materialize the spiritual .... 265
The position, then, set out in the ninth Chapter, is entirely
corroborated in the Church of Christ, and the sacraments
which characterize the Church. The whole sacramental
system means nothing else than personal identification,
of the Church and all Her members, in the region and
method of Spirit, with Christ . . < . . . . 275
CHAPTER XI
RECAPITULATION
Atonement cannot be a fictitious transaction, nor punishment a
merely retributive pain : real penitence is not compatible
with continuance in evil, nor real forgiveness with condona-
tion of evil. But ideally, on analysis, punishment is found
to involve the idea of penitence ; and penitence that of
perfect holiness ; and forgiveness to be love's embrace of
holiness 277
Christ is whole God in whole man. His life and death were
the actual holiness (holiness as responsive obedience, and
the holiness of ideal penitence), in, and of, human nature 279
The Pentecostal Spirit is the perpetuation of Christ's Presence
in human nature, which is = the Church. This is the atone-
ment of man ; and our own self-identity with this is atone-
ment in each one of us 281
The realization of Christ's Spirit in us is not the loss, but the
consummation, of personality — the real attainment of
ourselves 284
This is the one real meaning of Christ's Church and
Sacraments 285
Our atonement, then, is Christ in us : ourselves realized in
Christ . 286
CONTENTS xxvii
CHAPTER XII
OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION
PAGE
The real difficulty of our exposition is its apparent failure in life 287
Shall we acquiesce in lowering our ideal ? No. The view of the
world is wrong in fact. To spiritual insight the atonement
is not a failure. What the real drama of life and history
consists of 289
Immense value, for practical life, of ideal beliefs in general, and
of belief in the atonement in particular .... 294
The failure of conventional Christianity — secularizing of ideals
— "poisoning the springs " — non-communicant Churchman-
ship — cynicism — indifference to evil — lack of zeal for
missions — the real spiritual deadness 299
The power of any fearless appeal to the standard of Christ.
The indirect witness of spiritualism 306
Mysticism, its indispensable positive truth ; only out of propor-
tion when treated as an exceptional compartment of
experience 311
The consciousness of saints. Their faith is the real insight of ex-
perience. Yet though — or because — they know themselves
in Christ, it is they who are the real penitents . . . 316
Atonement, then, is objective and separate, only till the subjective
identification with it is consummated. St Paul's " self" and
" not self." The consummation never reached on earth.
Even here it is, and is to be, discerned by aspiring faith ;
yet the curtain of death falls upon man still adoring — in
faith not fruition — the figure of the Crucified . . . 319
SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER
THE ATONEMENT IN HISTORY
Purpose of this historical chapter. History of a doctrine not
always helpful, as history 324
References in the Apostolic Fathers — slight but instructive,
and with no touch of later misconceptions. Clement,
Ignatius, Barnabas, Epist. ad Diognetum .... 326
The New Testament. Christ's Death, its place, and meaning.
Sacrifice and Priesthood. "For us." Three groups of
illustrative phrases. Older misconceptions mainly mis-
interpret the first group. Use and misuse of the word
"metaphorical." Protestant misconceptions mainly mis-
interpret the second group. The third group not worked
out enough 332
xxviii CONTENTS
Irenaeus and Origen. Their illustrations, so far as untenable,
enter but little into their own real thought, and still less into
that of the Church's worship 343
Athanasius. Essential relation of the Logos to humanity. Only
Deity within humanity could restore it, by living through
death, and bringing man into unity with God. In the death
of the Incarnate Logos all died : and His exaltation was the
exaltation of all : because the Spirit was His : and He is
in us by His Spirit 349
The misconceptions which sometimes seem to us immemorial,
grew into Christian thought very gradually. Not for a
thousand years did they constitute a serious burthen to
worship or faith 366
Anselm's Cur Deus Homo f Its value. Its failure — a necessary
result of the way in which the question is stated . . . 367
Abaelard. Conforms largely to current language ; though his
own real thought is different. " The love of Christ in us."
Abaelard to Heloissa. The injustice of Bernard. How
near Abselard's thought comes to the truth. Why it fails
after all 372
Present thought. Mr Maurice. The late Master of Balliol.
Dr Dale. His real work the assertion, against Latitudi-
narianism, of the objective reality of the Sacrifice. His
failure to correlate objective and subjective. The Cry on the
Cross, and the " actual penalty of sin." Total omission of
the Holy Spirit. His exegesis of Romans stops short of
Chapter viii 382
Dr Macleod Campbell. Atonement not the cause, but the
effect, of God's love. Forgiveness — Punishment. Christ's
death the perfect repentance of humanity — the Amen in
humanity to God's judgment on sin. Not suffering, but
righteousness, is its true essentia. Penitence the true
atonement 396
Yet the identification of Christ with humanity imperfectly
conceived. The very statement of it lays too much stress
on distinctness, and contrast. Minimizing phrases —
"dealing with the Father" — "confessing our sins." Minimiz-
ing explanations of the " shame " and the Cry on the Cross.
The Pentecostal Church, and sacramental life, have no place
in his exposition of atonement 402
Archdeacon Wilson ; an impertinent suggestion . . .410
CONCLUSION .....••.. 411
ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
CHAPTER I
PUNISHMENT
An obvious preliminary to any serious attempt to give
an explanation of the doctrine of Atonement is a careful
examination of the terms which are, and cannot but be,
freely used in any discussion of the subject. Some of
these claim a place at once so immemorial in human
experience, and so fundamental to any conception of the
doctrine itself, that it is apt to be assumed that they are,
as it were, already current coin ; that is to say, that they
may be made use of, on all hands, without examination
or definition, as having already stamped on them an in-
disputable meaning or value, which will at once be intel-
ligible, and intelligible in the same sense, to all who use
them.
It seems worth while to begin by an attempt to cross-
examine, one after another, three such primary terms
or thoughts, so as at least to be clear, for further pur-
poses, what we do, or do not, understand them to mean.
The three are Punishment, Penitence, and Forgiveness.
In each case it will perhaps be obvious to thoughtful
people that it is easier to use these words, with general
acceptance, than to define them exactly, — to others, or
even to ourselves. In each case it may be no rashness
1
lA^f''
>'J/?'.' ": ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
to suggest that current thought is apt to be confused in
respect of the teaching which makes use of these words,
in great measure at least because it is first confused as
to its own meaning in the words themselves.
There is one general suggestion, which equally applies
to all three, which may be stated here. It is this : that
whereas, in our experience, we are familiar with every
one of these three things, punishment, penitence, and for-
giveness, in a certain inchoate or imperfect condition, but
with none of them in its own consummation of perfectness ;
we are apt to frame our notions of what the words even
ideally and properly mean, on the basis of our imperfect
realization of them; and so to introduce elements and
aspects, which belong only to their failure, into our ideal
conceptions of what they themselves, in their own true
nature, really are. No doubt, if all our experience is of
their imperfectness, and all our conceptions must be based
on experience ; it may be said, with a certain verbal exact-
ness, that all our conceptions must be framed on the basis
of imperfectness. But if we realize the fact of imperfect-
ness ; if, even within the imperfect experience, we discern
the tendency and direction in which (though we fail to
attain it) the consummation of these experiences would
ideally be found ; we may, on the basis of imperfect
experience, approximately attain a true conception of what
perfect realization would mean. This is the true use to
make of imperfect experience. It is indeed only thus that
we can discern the true meaning of free will, of love, of
personality ; — of everything, indeed, to which our own con-
sciousness bears inherent witness, but whose perfectnesb
none of us has attained. This is to distinguish, in our
experience, what it is that belongs to the lines of our true
nature, and what to our own imperfect realization of it.
This is the precise distinction which it is the aim of the
present inquiry to make. But this is a widely different
L] PUNISHMENT 3
thing from taking the imperfect experience as we find it ;
and, without distinction, assuming blindly that whatever
we there find, — in human free will, for instance, or in
human penitence, — is itself a necessary element in what the
words " free will " or " penitence " properly mean.
It follows that our inquiry is ideal even more immedi-
ately than it is practical. We desire not so much to find a
working theory, say, of punishment, for our own ordinary
use of it, as to find its ultimate meaning in the highest
possibilities of human consciousness. Rudimentary experi-
ence of punishment comes in chiefly as supplying the data
for a theory which will certainly transcend all present
experience ; but which, as the goal towards which even the
earliest experience is working, will really illuminate and
explain, as certainly as it transcends, all its own rudi-
mentary beginnings.
But it is time to come face to face with our inquiry.
What, then, first of all, is to be the real meaning, for us, of
the word " punishment " ?
As a preliminary answer let us take what will embody
at all events a good deal of the popular feeling as to the
meaning of punishment. Punishment, according to this,
may be described as pain ; deserved pain ; avenging pain ;
pain that is, as pain, inflicted, from without, by another, —
because of, and in proportion to, wrongdoing. The cause
is the wrongdoing of the person punished. The action is
the action of another. The object of the action is to hurt.
And the hurt constitutes a kind of equation with the
wrongdoing. If the person has been rather wicked, he has
to be hurt a little. If he has been very wicked, he has to
be hurt a great deal. If the question be asked, what is the
further object to be gained by the suffering of the guilty
person, the answer will be that there is no object within
the person himself: that the object of punishment regarded
as punishment is a public declaration or manifestation on
4 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
behalf of righteousness. It expresses the righteousness of
the punisher ; it exhibits righteousness to all those who
stand by and look on. But, in respect of the punished, the
direct object of the punishment, as punishment, is simply
that he should suffer.
I may say that in these descriptive words, I have before
me the view of punishment which I understand to be taken
by Dr Dale, a view which the position commonly accorded
to his volume on the Atonement would appear to stamp as
at least a general and representative view. Not reforma-
tion, he insists, but retribution is the essential view of
punishment. It is not, to quote his own words, " a painful
process to effect future reformation ; it is the suffering
which has been deserved by past sin. To make it any-
thing else than this is to destroy its essential character." ^
Again, " the only conception of punishment which satisfies
our strongest and most definite moral convictions" ....
" represents it as pain and loss inflicted for the violation of
a law."^ "Suffering inflicted upon a man to make him
better in the future is not punishment, but discipline." ^
" By some external force or authority he is being made to
suffer the just consequence of his past offences. Whatever
moral element there is in punishment itself — as punishment
— is derived from the person or power that inflicts it." *
I propose to criticize and to disallow the position which
these phrases represent. But, before going further, I
should like to point out that whilst these expressions of
Dr Dale's tend certainly too much to an idea of punish-
ment as an external transaction of an arithmetical or
quantitative kind, there are, nevertheless, on analysis, at
least three positive strains of thought underlying them,
which we may, without hesitation, accept. The three are
these : first, whatever its ultimate rationale may be,
punishment takes the form of suffering : suffering of body,
^ P. 376. 2 p, 383, » p. 383. 4 p. 386.
I.] PUNISHMENT 5
perhaps, but suffering anyhow, whether through the body
or not, of mind and spirit. Secondly, this suffering is
addressed to, and has direct correspondence with, a sense
of guilt. It has no meaning, except in relation to the
capacity, in the sufferer, of a consciousness of guilt. If I
am to receive punishment as punishment, and to put some
meaning into that word punishment as distinct from the
merely physical sensation of pain, I must absolutely have
some sense of right and wrong ; some capacity at least of
self-judgment, and of saying of myself, in the light of what
is right, that I am identified with wrong. Even at this
stage I cannot help remarking in parenthesis that to
correlate punishment with a capacity of self-consciousness
in wrongdoing is not the same thing as to correlate it with
wrongdoing simply — apart from consciousness of wrong;
and that the difference between the two will work out very
importantly in the result. Thirdly, it follows from what has
been said about self-consciousness of wrong in the light of
what is right, that the pain which is recognized as punish-
ment is thereby recognized as somehow representing and
proceeding from righteousness : it is a manifestation or
mode of righteousness : it is, in some way, the effect or
operation of righteousness declaring and effecting itself
upon (at least) if not within, me. It is, then, not simply a
hurting, but the hurting of righteousness , the assertion
of righteousness in the form of the chastisement of
unrighteousness.
Now so far I have endeavoured to put, in my own way
rather than in Dr Dale's, three thoughts which seem to be
implied in Dr Dale's conception. But there is a fourth
consideration, clearly indeed implied in the way in which
the three have been stated, which should be emphasized
as cardinal for any real understanding of punishment.
It is then of real importance to insist that, whatever
punishment means, it is impossible to punish anything
6 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [cHAr.
other than a conscious personality. Punishment only
has meaning in — and in reference to — a person punished.
You can break to pieces a stick that has hurt you:
you can burn to ashes a paper that contains a slander
against you : but you cannot punish anything inanimate.
If you talk of punishing an animal, or try to punish
it in fact, you can still do this only so far as you first
endow it, or assume it to be endowed, with personal
qualities for the purpose. You assume self-conscious
identity, you assume continuous memory, you assume
a power of moral discrimination. It is not of course
to my present purpose to ask how far the assumption
may be true, or what is the relation of animal con-
sciousness to personality ; but I repeat that the word
punishment as applied to an animal only has meaning
just so far as you tacitly assume certain personal
characteristics; and the lower you go in the scale of
animal life, the more totally unmeaning would the word
become. It will be felt perhaps that it is possible for
man to punish any animal that is capable, and so far
as it is capable, of really caring for man. No doubt. But
this is only to repeat the same principle in other words.
Perhaps the root of personality is capacity of affection.
At all events, to say that punishment is possible in
proportion to capacity of affection is to make it correlative
to a personal possibility.
Now directly we set all this in the forefront of our
thought about punishment, the question begins to
present itself more forcibly than ever, whether we can
simply acquiesce in the statement with which we began.
If punishment is, in its real truth, an operation of
righteousness, which is personal, dealing with moral
personality, can it be anything like an adequate state-
ment of the truth to say that punishment has exclusive
reference to the past? or that pain, as pain, is in itself
I.] PUNISHMENT 7
an object? or that there is any real equation between
the pain, as pain, and the evil to which it relates ?
There is always a certain verbal inexactness whenever
we speak of the punishment of sin. It is the sinner
who is punished, not the sin. So long as men think
chiefly of punishment as the punishment of sin, the
simply retributive and equational aspect may seem to
be the prominent one. The amount of hurt inflicted
is the simple expression, and measure, of the necessary
antithesis of righteousness against unrighteousness. An
eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, is a maxim
which explains itself, with mathematical precision and
clearness. But directly you begin to substitute the
idea of punishing the sinner, the equation aspect
ceases to be the dominant one. It gives place more
and more to the thought of that moral purpose towards
the sinner, of which the severity of punishment, the
severity of the manifested antithesis against unrighteous-
ness, is itself a necessary stage and part.
It is true that punishment still takes the form of pain.
But if pain is in any sense an immediate object, must
it not be — in an operation of personal righteousness
upon moral personality, — that the pain is of the nature
of a means to an end?- — a moral means working to a
moral end? And must not the true character and
meaning of the punishment be found in the moral end
to which it is a means?
We are going now some way from Dr Dale ; and
may perhaps easily be tempted to state, with too much
breadth, the opposing view. But to say the very least,
has not room — full room — to be made for this conception
of punishment ? Turn for a few minutes to the thought
exclusively of human punishment — the punishment of
man by man. Is it not plain that we should have to
exclude from the word "punishment" a very large
8 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
percentage — nay almost the whole — of what is ordinarily
administered as punishment, — if we did not expressly
include the idea of pain inflicted by righteousness upon
the potentially righteous, with a view to making their
potential righteousness actual? In the case of a parent
punishing a little child, or the master punishing an
ordinary schoolboy, this comes near to being the whole
account of the matter. Of course the master or the
parent may lose his temper, and become himself quite
unideal. But so far as he represents truly the ideal
action of righteousness, his action in punishing may
itself be called the necessary mode of the operation,
under the existing conditions, of love. It is the love —
itself another aspect of righteousness — the love which,
fixing its eyes upon the unseen possibilities of the child's
true nature, discerns through what passage of pain he,
though now marred by identification with unrighteousness,
can be weaned and won from what he is to what he ought
to be.
But what is true so broadly of the parent, and true
to a large extent of the ideal schoolmaster, by no means
ceases to be true when we think of the relation of the
judge to the prisoner standing in the dock for sentence.
Even here it is true that punishment is rarely inflicted
without the hope, at least, and desire, and purpose, that
the punishment may be a means of moral good.
It may be said, perhaps, that, at least in the case of the
magistrate, any purpose such as this is only subsidiary
and incidental : that here at least, punishment, in its
primary significance, is directly retributive ; and, what
is more, that the principles of retributive punishment,
as judicially administered, imply the conception of what
may fairly be called an equation between the quantum of
past guilt and the quantum of inflicted pain.
It may therefore be worth while to insist that both these
u] PUNISHMENT 9
aspects, the retributive aspect, and the equation aspect, of
human justice, belong indeed in fact to human justice ;
but belong to it not as it is justice, but as it is human ;
belong, that is, and can be seen directly to belong, to the
necessary imperfectness of such corporate and social justice
as is possible on earth. Thus it is true even of a school-
master's justice, and much more of that administered by
magistrates under the letter of statute law, that discipline
must be administered by even-handed rule. What is the
practical meaning of even-handed rule? It means that
cases which themselves may be ever so diverse, if you look
below the surface, must be treated in classes, as substanti-
ally alike. It means in a word that the individual must
be sacrificed to the community. Within narrow limits
no doubt there is a modifying power. But speaking
broadly it means that again and again a punishment
must be inflicted upon an individual with a view to
surrounding society, — that is to its general effect upon
other people, — which would certainly not be the wisest,
the best, or the justest, — if there were nothing whatever
to be considered but the inner truth of the personality
of the offender himself. Divine justice is exactly just
to the individual. But then Divine justice presupposes
omniscience. The attempt to conduct human justice on
Divine principles, but with human faculties, would end
simply in the overthrow of all justice whatever. Human
justice, to be justice at all, must necessarily under human
conditions, be rough, inexact, — that is (too often) unjust
And yet human justice broadly represents, even when, in
close detail, it travesties, the Divine. It is one of those
instances in which a Divine reality is represented by a
human counterpart ; but only on condition that the human
counterpart maintains keen consciousness of its distinction
from, in the last resort even its fundamental contrast with,
that Divine which indeed it represents, but represents only
lo ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
in rough figure, through incompetent material. Now it is
exactly this inherent impossibility of being perfectly just,
which fastens upon human justice the retributive as its
most characteristic aspect. In justice that was ideal,
because Divine, retribution would not (to say the least)
be the one simple differentia of punishment.
And the equation theory is only a further adaptation of
the retributive. It is only when our thought is dealing
with guilt or punishment as counters — that is, as imaginary
existences abstracted from the personalities of the guilty
or the punished, that the equation theory even appears to
explain anything. Remember that sin means a condition
of a personality, and that punishment is a treatment of a
personality ; and at once it is felt that equivalence between
sin and punishment, even if it were possible to establish
any measure of equivalence, would have no meaning and
lead to no conclusion at all. No one, indeed, who views
these things from the point of view of personality and
personal character, even professes to believe in such an
equivalence. No schoolmaster really supposes that the
bad boy, however adequately punished, is a good boy, or
even is, by virtue of the mere quantum of punishment, any
whit the less bad than he was. It may be quite right and
wise to treat what may be called his " school account " as
closed. But this only brings into relief the really obvious
fact that this " school account " is a very external thing,
and is far from wholly coinciding with that inward reality
which it outwardly, no doubt, represents. We may say of it,
as we said of human justice, that it is a sort of symbol or
parable of something which it only symbolizes truly, so
long as it does not claim identity with it.
From this point of view we may recognize that all
human punishment, the sentence passed by the judge
upon the prisoner, no less than the treatment of the
refractory schoolboy, aims at, and at least outwardly re-
I.] PUNISHMENT n
presents and symbolizes, a certain change in the culprit's
own personality. Whether the culprit is at all inwardly
changed by it, is another question. But outwardly at
least and symbolically, the prisoner standing for sentence
is made to occupy the attitude of a penitent accepting
discipline. If his punishment really effects its proper
object — its only proper object, so far as the prisoner
personally is concerned — it does so not by the quantum
of pain endured by him, but by the extent to which that
pain is in him taken up into the change of self which we
call penitence.
Now the object, for several pages past, has been to try
and break down the verbal antithesis, quoted just now,
between discipline and punishment. I hold that we must
emphatically claim that punishment, inflicted as discipline,
is punishment. To rule out from the word " punishment "
all suffering inflicted or accepted, in the name of righteous-
ness, and unto righteousness as an end — to rule out all
personal discipline meant for personal holiness — would be
to rule out at least the far larger part of all that any of us
has, in fact, ever known or meant by punishment.
May we, then, go at once to the other extreme ? May
we say that we know no punishment which is not dis-
cipline? May we say broadly that the suffering in
punishment is always, and only, a means? and that its
whole real essence is restorative? It is precisely the
premature tendency to embrace such an overstatement as
this, which is in all probability the chief justification for the
overstatement on the opposite side.
To say that there is no punishment which is not restora-
tive will not account even for all the facts familiar in
human experience. It is plain that if we begin to punish
with a moral intention in respect of the punished, hoping
for his amendment ; our hopes may utterly fail. More and
more, it may be, the depraved man becomes a human tiger.
12 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
Then we punish, if we have the power, not the less but the
more. If all hope should die down utterly, it is then that
punishment would reach its supreme culmination. It
would be the final mark and seal of the consummated
impossibility of forgiveness. Even indeed from the very
first we punish — if it is ours to punish,— alike the hopeful
and the unhopeful criminals : and certainly do not punish
those who seem obdurate less than those of whom we have
good hope. And human experience herein is in analogy
with the revelation of God. We dare not explain away the
awful word " Hell," as meaning only a purgatory. We dare
not, until the possibility of Hell has been authoritatively
explained away, deny the ultimate possibility of the idea
of a punishment which is not restorative.
How, then, do we now stand? It may be agreed,
perhaps. First, that all punishment is of necessity
exercised upon a moral personality, a personality, that is,
which either is, or has been, capable of righteousness :
which either still is to be won to righteousness, or has only
become incompatible with righteousness through its own
resolutely immoral will. Secondly, that all punishment
takes the form of distress and pain, whether chiefly of body
or of mind. Thirdly, that this penal distress is correlated
with wrongdoing, which is in the wrongdoer, and of which
the wrongdoer is, or is capable of being, personally
conscious. Fourthly, that this correlation of pain, in a
conscious moral personality, with wrong, is itself an opera-
tion or effect of righteousness, which it manifests and
vindicates.
But even when we agree upon these four points, we are
met with a distinction, of crucial importance, between two
contrasted ways in which such righteousness may be
manifested, in an erring personality, as pain. It may be
manifested within the personality, in the direction of a
gradual re-identifying of the personality with righteousness.
I.] PUNISHMENT 13
Or it may be manifested upon, and at the expense of, the
personality ; — the personality being regarded as something
which righteousness can only be righteous by condemning
with inexorable condemnation. The point at present
chiefly urged is that of these two contrasted alternatives,
neither may be excluded from our thought of possibility,
and neither may be excluded from our use of the word
" punishment." The word is applicable alike in the one
case and the other, however different its import may
become. And we may venture to suggest that attempts
to conceive of punishment have too often broken down,
because the conceptions really applied only to the one, or
only to the other, of the two diverse characters of which
punishment is capable.
But there is something more to be said about the dis-
tinction. Let us begin by asking what it is upon which
the distinction turns. The answer is that it altogether
turns upon the reception of punishment by the person
punished. But this suggests another point about the
character of the distinction. We have put the two senses
of punishment as sharply contrasted. A process of love is
indeed very different from a process of damnation. But it
may not unreasonably be asked — How should the one
word mean two such different things? And then, in
another form, the same answer comes back ; that different
as they are in their result, in origin and inception they are
not different. They begin as one thing. As far as the
chastising righteousness is concerned, they would also
continue as one. The difference comes in, not so much
from the different action of the punisher, as from the
difference in the personality that receives the punishment.
In other words, all punishment begins as discipline. In
so far as my disciplinary suffering educates me towards
penitence, it is itself a mode of my progressive capacity of
righteousness. It is a process — as inchoate and imperfect
14 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
as you please ; but still it is a process, the ultimate climax
of which, supposing that it could ever reach its ultimate
climax, would be the real and consummated triumph of
righteousness within myself.
The antithesis of righteousness against unrighteousness
is, of course and always, absolute and irreparable. And
one aspect of punishment, from its most rudimentary up to
its gravest stages, may be said to be the manifestation of
this antithesis. But the very manifestation of this
antithesis, in the way of punishment, in whatever inter-
mediate sense it may be viewed as retributive, has, for its
ultimate object, the welfare, not the hurt, of the sinner who
is punished. Its latent retributive character (if the word
may be used legitimately for the moment) is yet latent and
secondary in reference to the primary purpose of punish-
ment, which is a purpose of beneficent love. Only in
proportion as this fades out of sight, through the sinner's
determined impenitence, does the punishment begin to be
characterized at all primarily as retributive pain.
This purpose of beneficent love is, we may venture to
suggest, the proper character and purpose of punishment.
But this purpose, or process, may be defeated, by
the obdurate wickedness of the person punished. Then
the punishment, whose purpose was discipline, has failed of
its purpose. The punishment, which has failed in its
purpose as discipline, remains as vengeance. There always
was this aspect, or possibility, about punishment. From
the first it was true that, just in proportion as punish-
ment was not, as discipline, effective : — ^just in proportion as
it was not taken up into the character as penitence : — just
in proportion (in other words) as it was not transmuted,
within the personality, from an outward infliction of pain
into an inward correspondence with righteousness : — ^just
in that proportion it stood, — or was ready to stand, — as
retribution pure and simple. And if the personality
u] PUNISHMENT 15
should become, at last, the final antithesis to all capacity
of penitence or righteousness, then the awful climax of
punishment would be reached, when it is the inexorable
manifestation of righteousness, — no longer, less or more,
within the personal character, but at the expense of the
personality, proved finally incompatible with righteousness.
Righteousness, inexorably righteous, at the cost, — to the
ruin, — of all that the very word " I " means, or can ever
mean ; this is indeed the extreme damnation of hell.
Hitherto we have been content to make use of such
phrases as the " infliction " of punishment, by a " chastis-
ing" righteousness. It is obvious, of course, that in all
the lower analogues of punishment with which human
experience is familiar, a punishment implies a punisher,
exercising, with effect, the will to punish. But it is well to
remember that infliction from without, by another, so far
from being an essential element in all thought of punish-
ment, tends more and more completely to disappear, as
having no longer even an accidental place, in those deeper
realities of punishment, which human punishings do but
outwardly symbolize. The more we discern their process
and character, the more profoundly do we recognize that
the punishments of God are what we should call self-acting.
There is nothing in them that is arbitrary, imposed, or, in
any strict propriety of the word, inflicted. As death is the
natural consummation of mortal disease, not as an
arbitrary consequence inflicted by one who resented the
mortal disease, but as its own inherent and inevitable
climax ; so what is called the judgment of God upon sin is
but the gradual necessary development, in the consistent
sinner, of what sin inherently is. The whole progress of
sin is a progressive alienation from God ; and the climax
of such a progressive alienation is that essential incompati-
bleness with God which we call hell. "The lust, when
it hath conceived, beareth sin ; and the sin, when it is
i6 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
full-grown, bringeth forth death." ^ Nothing is further
necessary for man's damnation, than that man, being in
himself identified with sin, should be left by God alto-
gether to himself.
It is of considerable importance to insist upon this
spontaneous or inherent character of the consequence of sin,
in face of a tendency to emphazise the idea of the inflic-
tion, and the inflicter, as part of the ultimate analysis of
punishment ; and still more, whenever practical corollaries
are drawn, representing God in the character of a merciless
avenger, who has once pronounced, and will not be
persuaded to withdraw, the sentence of His arbitrary doom.
But apart from false imaginations such as these, the wrath
of God, and the judgment of God, are themselves emphati-
cally scriptural phrases. And if it is an aspect of the
nature and being of God, as indeed it is, that (since
righteousness is life, and life is righteousness) therefore
sin must work out its own inevitable consummation as
death ; it is plain that there is a sense in which the doom of
sin may be truly called the judgment, because it is a
corollary of the being, of God. But however legitimate,
in their own way, such phrases may be, it is clear, on the
practical side, that they can easily be pressed to the point
of very serious error ; and clear that, if examined theologi-
cally, they have (to say the least) to be qualified by
conceptions in which the intervention of an external
punisher has, from first to last, no place. The chastising,
or avenging, of righteousness, may still be legitimate, or,
indeed, indispensable, phrases ; but in the use of them it is
certainly necessary to bear jealously in mind the very
considerable qualification of meaning, without which they
would still be liable to mislead.
But if the word punishment is capable of these two —
so widely diverging — developments and interpretations, it
1 Jas.i. i5(R.V.)
I.] PUNISHMENT 17
is well to consider, a little further, the character of the
contrast between the two. Let us take a case of
conspicuous wrongdoing. A man is guilty of a cowardly
murder. What are the penal consequences of his guilt ?
No doubt in various ways the proper consequences may be
averted or delayed. But (perversions apart) there are at
least these two streams of proper consequence ; on the one
hand, the police and the magistrate, pursuit, arrest,
judgment, the gallows, all which might naturally be
summed up as vengeance : and on the other hand, wholly
apart from anything of this kind, the sting of inward
guilt, the penal misery, inherent, progressive, — in the end
(it may be) stifling even to life, — the penal misery of a
murderer's consciousness.
These two things, of course, are perfectly separable.
Indeed we naturally think of them as separate. Consider,
then, first, the vengeance of the gallows by itself. Of
all such vengeful punishment it must be observed that,
however righteous (in many aspects) the infliction
of the vengeance may be, it does not, of itself, the
least affect, or tend to affect, the criminal's character.
There is indeed, in the public infliction of disgrace
and punishment, a certain sense of homage rendered to
righteousness. This homage to righteousness which the
personal endurance (of whatever kind) represents, would be
realized perfectly in the perfect contrition of the criminal.
Where there is no such contrition, the true homage to
righteousness in his external disgrace, is, so far as he is
concerned, only symbolized, not attained. But only when
all idea of his penitence is eliminated, does the punishment
become purely and simply the retaliation of vengeance,
inflicted from without by another: and the homage to
righteousness is in no sense within, but at the expense of,
the personality of the criminal.
The murderer, because duly hanged, is not the less
B
i8 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
a murderer. Vengeance as such, whatever its degree, does
not make, or tend to make, an equation with guilt. No
conceivable equality between wrong done and pain
suffered, could in itself so compensate as to cancel, or
atone for, wrong. Regard the wrong done as debt, and it
may be compensated. Regard it as a crime of which
human law takes cognizance ; and the hold which human
law has, or ought to have, upon it, may by a certain
endurance be exhausted. But regard it as moral taint, a
perversion of the self of the sinner ; and it is plain that no
endurance of punishment can, in itself, change the fact of
moral perversion. Of vengeful punishment, as such, it is
strictly true, that " whatever moral element there is " in it,
is in the punisher only, not in the punished. As far as the
person of the sufferer goes, there is in it no moral effect, or
even tendency: there is no affinity with righteousness:
need we add that what is neither moral nor righteous can
have no shadow of atoning capacity either? We have
said that the murderer is not, merely because he is hanged,
the less a murderer. It may have been right to inflict the
extreme penalty upon him ; but the essence of the " he "
is not, thereby, necessarily touched. Vengeance, as such,
hell, as such, has nothing of satisfaction or atonement
about it.
But, we shall ask, was he not touched ? Did not some-
thing come home to his heart ? Did not the spirit within
begin, however dimly, to soften and change, in the lonely
cell or on the scaffold ? If so, in however feeble or faint a
degree, that is a thing, at once, essentially and altogether
different in kind. We distinguished just now outward in-
fliction from inward misery of conscience. Of course they
are distinguishable. But, it is to be observed, that there is
no element of outward infliction which may not minister to
sorrow of conscience. Short of hell itself, we may say that
all inflicted pain is, or may be, a contribution, though
I.] PUNISHMENT 19
coming from without, and rough as yet and unshaped,
towards what properly belongs to the sphere of remorseful
penitence. All vengeful punishment in this life may be
translated, as it were, by the fulness of its acceptance,
from the side of vengeance to the side of penitence. It
may be transmuted into penitence ; it may become the
way of forgiveness. But in itself, as infliction from with-
out, it symbolizes not forgiveness but vengeance. The
gallows can in no sense be called a form of absolution. In
themselves, so far from being an expression of forgiveness,
they are the express antithesis to forgiveness. They are
the final setting of the seal to the fact that the transgression
is not forgiven. Yet even the gallows may minister, if
indirectly, to contrition, and only just so far as they do so,
have they any — even the smallest — tendency to diminish
guilt, or to satisfy or to educate righteousness within.
But the possibilities of penitence are inexhaustible.
Consider, for a moment, the possible thought of a murderer
for once ideally penitent. Now directly disgrace and
punishment from without begin to be no longer inflictions
merely from without ; directly they begin to be taken up
and assimilated within ; the man has begun to go over (as
it were) from the side of his sin to the side of the con-
demnation of his sin. And if his penitence should be all
that we are able in imagination to conceive its being;
behold ! the punishment which he suffers, — no longer now
as merely passive suffering, but as a subjective homage, as
a willing sacrifice within the soul, — is transfigured, and
touched with something of the light of what we may dare
to call atoning satisfaction. Not the suffering in itself, but
the inward acceptance of the suffering ; the homage to
righteousness which is offered as suffering ; the self-
consecration to sacrifice ; this, so far as it is true, is a real
approach towards re-identification of self, in sacrifice, with
righteousness.
20 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
In vengeful punishment, as such, there was, so far as the
person of the sufferer was concerned, no moral meaning or
tendency. For this very reason, all vengeful punishment
of sin, all determined infliction, by the will of another, of
suffering just in order to make suffer, all, that is to say,
which is not an element or ingredient in the discipline of
human penitence, — being, as it is, not a condition of, but
the final antithesis to, forgiveness, — would, upon the
hypothesis, and in proportion to the possibility, of a
penitence really adequate, really perfect, become not
merely unnecessary or dispensable, but, in the sight of
Him in whom truth and righteousness and love are
inseparably one, not only unloving, but unrighteous, and
untrue.
Is the man, then, still punished? That may be. In
human justice probably he is. But this is partly at least
because human justice contemplates not so much the
individual as the society, and must think primarily of the
effect of its action, not on the criminal but on other men ;
and partly the infliction, even upon the penitent, of that
full penalty which symbolizes the utter refusal of
forgiveness, would find justification in the fact that
humanity knows no standard by which to try, and has
no proper right to accept, perfection of penitence. More-
over it may be that the penitence could not as penitence
reach its own consummation without this outward infliction
of discipline ; an infliction which at the very moment in
which, in the outward sphere to which it belongs, it seems
symbolically to contradict forgiveness, does also, in
the inner sphere of spiritual consciousness, inwardly
serve to consummate the conditions which make a real
forgiveness possible. In this regard the very gallows can
become the consecration of a consummated penitence.
Otherwise, except in this aspect as consummating
penitence, and so far as the penitence could, as penitence,
I.] PUNISHMENT ai
be perfected completely without them, the very gallows,
however humanly necessary, would have become, in inner
truth, unjust.
We cannot but observe that, the more ideally complete
his penitence ; the more he accepts the penalty, renouncing
it with full purpose of righteous will against himself as a
murderer; the less is he in reality a murderer now. It
would be another thing to say that human judgment could
ever test, or ever be warranted in accepting, the full com-
pleteness of a murderer's penitence. Nay, we may still
doubt whether it is within the capacity of human penitence
to be within measurable distance of such completeness.
We need not say that even on the — perhaps impossible —
hypothesis of a penitence absolutely perfect, the man
ought, in human justice, not to be hanged. It may be still
men's duty, on other grounds, to hang him, as it is certainly
his righteousness to accept being hanged. But we do say
that, if he still is hanged even upon that hypothesis —
extreme, or, if you will, impossible — the hypothesis of a
penitence quite absolutely perfect and complete ; this
would, upon the hypothesis, only belong to the fact that
human justice necessarily is a most external and unideal
thing. It might be, in the rough ways of human justice,
right to inflict the vengeful punishment still. But those
who did so would, even in doing it, know that vengeance
without mercy had already become, in the Diviner sphere
of perfect justice and truth, a thing untrue and unjust ;
that, in the unerring exactness of the truth of God,
vengeance is not the due meed of a soul in which past sin
has no longer any part, of a soul by grace really made one
with holiness.
Is he, the most penitent of penitents, still sent to his
doom ? It may be ; but at least in such a case, observe
how largely it is true that, what was punishment, is itself
now so far transfigured, that we stand in some doubt
22 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
whether still to call it punishment. He suffers still? yes,
but he blesses suffering; he chooses suffering: suffering
now is the very expression of the effort of goodness in
him. He is indeed the person who suffers. But he is,
even more, the person who condemns sin, by passing
sentence upon it even in himself: himself in inexorable
contradiction against it, inexorable therefore towards
himself, in that himself is identified with sin. This
penal suffering in him can no longer be described as a
retaliatory infliction by the will of another; for it has
now become absolutely his own, the expression of his
own extreme contradiction against any shadow of presence
of wrong in himself; and just because it is his own will,
rather than another's, therefore it is in him the very
identification of himself with righteousness, the consum-
mation, in himself, of an absolute antithesis against sin.
Are we talking only of ideals, which no one has realized ?
We shall indeed be obliged, with each one of our first three
topics, to talk of ideals, if we wish really to see, in punish-
ment, or in penitence, or in forgiveness, what the thing
itself really is, and not merely what our imperfect realiza-
tion of it has attained. What then, in this ideal case,
is found to be the nature of the punishment ? Observe
how more and more absolutely it tends to lose its aspect
as vengeance inflicted by another from without. Its
rationale cannot be found in this. So far as it was dis-
tinctively from without, it is now all taken up, and
translated into the expression, from within, of detestation
of sin. It is the man's own inward homage to righteous-
ness. As such, it ceases to find its character as inflicted
pain.
In addition, then, to the considerations already formu-
lated, we may claim perhaps to have reached these further
positions now; first, that it is only so far as it is not
transfigured into a personal self - identification with
I.] PUNISHMENT 23
righteousness, that punishment remains in the aspect of
retribution ; secondly, that it is just in proportion as it is
a process of self-identity with righteousness, that there
is atoning capacity in the bearing of punishment; but
thirdly, that precisely so far as it retains its character
as inflicted retaliation, it has no atoning or restorative ten-
dency whatever. The power of punishment to discipline,
to sanctify, or to atone, is in it just in proportion as
punishment, according to our ordinary language, ceases
to be punishment, and becomes a mode of penitence
instead ; for, if penitence were all perfect, there would
be no penal suffering which was not, in the fullest sense,
self-chosen. Either the suffering of punishment is more
and more absolutely identified with penitential painfulness ;
or it has nothing atoning or restorative about it.
If things like these are true at all, the conclusion must
certainly be suggested, that it is only with the greatest
caution, and exactitude of definition, that the word
"punishment" can be safely applied to the atoning
sufferings of Christ. We need not indeed deny that it
may be verbally possible to use the word " punishment "
either of penitential or of retributive suffering ; either
therefore of the inconceivable painfulness of an infinite
contrition, or (so far indeed as the thought is conceivable
at all) of the infliction, in anger, of an infinite vengeance.
But wherever the word is verbally identified with this
latter sense, the sense of retributive vengeance inflicted
by another; there, and so far, we should certainly be
justified in protesting against its use in connection with
the doctrine of atonement, or the Person of Jesus Christ.
For ourselves, in the meanwhile, it is sufficiently clear,
(i) that all our punishment presents itself at first to our
unreflecting thought under the aspect of retribution,
objective and external ; (2) that, on reflection, we recognize
that all our punishment has really the disciplinary motive
24 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
and meaning ; that is, it is really a means, so to change
personalities which are now potentially righteous but
actually sinful, as to make them, in consummated anti-
thesis against sin, actually righteous: (3) that in propor-
tion as our punishment realizes its own meaning, its out-
ward hardness tends to fade into an inner severity of will ;
retribution more and more is merged in contrition ; penal
suffering comes ever increasingly to mean the suffering of
penance rather than of penalty : but (4) that in proportion
as it fails in that essential purpose which made it what
it was, it does acquire more and more that simply
retributive character, whose climax is not Calvary but
Hell.
This is the great alternative for ourselves. Either the
sense and touch of penal suffering becomes more and more,
within the spirit of the punished, a bracing of strength, a
deepening of the personal homage to God, a progressive
expression of contradiction against sin, a progressive
identification of the real self with righteousness ; or else
it is, as mere pain, futile and helpless, having in it
no satisfying or restorative element, but destined only,
in the last resort to become the extreme opposite — the
precise alternative and antithesis — to any possibility of
forgiveness.
If we believe that the value and glory of punishment
is in proportion as it becomes self-chosen, — taken up into
personal abhorrence of sin ; it is possible that our own
instinctive attitude may be modified towards all that
familiar penal discomfort which we now have, or are likely
to have, to bear. The leading instinct may by degrees
be rather — not to shrink, to avoid, to beg off, to groan
with self-pity ; but rather to accept, to use, and to make
the most of it, as indispensable — as invaluable — means
of beauty and of power. It is the punishment which the
I.] PUNISHMENT 25
will wholly accepts, which is really, in quality, purifying.
It is possible that, with such a fixed conviction, men
might be really the readier to receive punishment, — that is,
the pain and sorrow which may serve as discipline ; and
more eager, by acceptance, to translate — or rather, duti-
fully, to allow and accept the translation of — the pains
and sorrows which do fall upon them, into the salutary
sorrow and pain of the sacrince of penitence.
CHAPTER II
PENITENCE
What shall we say that we mean by Penitence? It is
something, no doubt, the germ of which lies deep within
the universal experience of the human heart. Yet it is
something which is, to natural experience, so incomplete,
so unexplained and so inexplicable, — until it finds in
Christianity its appropriate place, its divine explanation,
and (we may add) its divine beauty and sweetness ; that
we may with more exact truth describe it as a character-
istic experience of the Christian consciousness. And
its place in the Christian consciousness can hardly be
exaggerated. Wherever the Christian consciousness is at
all come, or coming, to itself, there penitence is at home.
It is hardly too much to say that penitence is itself an
inalienable aspect of the Christian consciousness.
It was impossible, while speaking of punishment, to
make any serious attempt to examine the ideas which
were involved in it, without implying a good deal also
as to the content of the word penitence. Yet there
remains very much more to be said.
The first thing to be said is very important, and would
bear minute analysis, though it must be said shortly here.
It is that we must necessarily conceive of penitence as a
condition of a personality ; a personality which has affinity
with, and is capable of, righteousness ; a personality which
at the same time has self-consciousness of sin. So much is
presupposed as a foundation for the possibility of penitence.
26
CHAP. iL] PENITENCE a;
Penitence is an aspect, a climax, of conscience of sin. But
conscience of sin would not be exactly conscience of sin,
save in a personality which was capable of righteousness ;
nay more, a personality of which righteousness was, in
some way, the proper nature and necessity. Capacities of
personal character, made in, and for, yet fallen beneath,
God's image ; only on the assumption ot these can the
word penitence have its distinctive meaning at all.
Now wherever there is underlying Divine capacity,
marred by the consciousness of moral evil, with which the
personality is self-identified ; the first and simplest result
is wretchedness. And even while our thought is at this
stage, we may perhaps legitimately look out upon the
whole vast sea of human wretchedness, and claim it all
as something which in itself is directly correlative to
possibilities that are only Divine. Wretchedness, indeed,
as mere wretchedness, is not penitence. How dumb it
often is, and pitiful, and perplexed, and ignorant of its
own nature, and less than germinal ! There is nothing,
with which, if we try to look out upon life from the
Christian point of view, we should find ourselves more
intimately familiar, than the wide, seething, restless dis-
comfort and discontent of spiritual nature, which is not
indeed, but which might be, and is to be, penitence. And
we know how small a change, — nay, no change at all in
outward circumstance — may transform the whole scene.
A little turning of the face to the east, a little melting of
the stiffness of heart, a little kindling of a new desire, a
little lighting of the flame of the spirit, — and behold ! a
new tinge faintly begins to flush upon, and to light up,
what was nothing but gloom. The waves and the clouds
are the same ; but they were mere leaden darkness, and
they are the very material of the sunset glory. Mere
sorrow has much to learn. But even in the sorrowing
heart, as sorrowing, there is at least an implicit noble-
28 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
ness. We might say indeed much more than this. The
sorrowing heart, as sorrowing, contains implicitly the whole
mystery of penitence, which is the mystery of human per-
sonality, and its inherent possibility of divinely spiritual
life. Sorrow of heart is the signal prerogative of man ;
and it marks his origin and his destiny, as, in real truth,
divine.
Again, to keep still to phenomena which are familiar,
we recognize that penitence, in proportion as it is penitent,
must be an emotion of love. If penitence expresses itself
in sorrow, the spring and the cause of penitent sorrow is
love. And not the spring and cause only. Love does not
only make the tears first to begin. But, all through, they
are love. Love is their essence. Love is their character.
The first tear, and the last, is a sign, is an utterance, is
an act, of love. " Behold a woman in the city which
was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in
the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,
and stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and began to
wash His feet with her tears, and did wipe them with the
hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them
with the ointment." ^ What is the explanation ? " For she
loved much." The sorrow is no mere accompaniment : it
is the form which such love must necessarily take. If
penitence is sorrow, it is so far like the lover's sorrow ;
the lover who is in love with one whom he feels to be
hopelessly far above him, perhaps in station, at least in
goodness and love. It is not to him love and pain. But
the love is the pain. And the pain, — he would not for
worlds be free from it ; for it is the necessary condition,
it is the evidence, under present conditions at least it is
of the essence, of his love. An anodyne which would kill
the pain, would benumb the love : slackened pain would
be love's decaying: only living pain is living love. So
* Luke vii. 37, 38.
II.] PENITENCE 39
penitent sorrow is a sorrow that is blended with, and
proceeds out of, love : sorrow that is the sign, the act,
the utterance, and the relief, of love. Sorrow has become
love's instinct, love's necessity. It is love which itself is
heartbroken because of its own outrage against love.
Here too, it is not love and sorrow: but sorrow which
can be recognized as love, love which, just because it still
loves, cannot but be sorrow.
Again, we recognize sorrowing love, on another side, as
itself a manifestation of vivifying belief. " Jesus, remember
me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom." ^ These are the
words of grace in one who will bear, as long as this world
lasts, the undying title oi^^\hQ penitent thief." And nothing
in his penitence appeals to our imagination with such extra-
ordinary force as the limitless power of faith which it in-
volves. In spite of conditions physically the most cogent
and most crushing, out of the midst of the terrible realities
of literal crucifixion, he can look up and see, in one who to
the merely outward eye is but another criminal in his death
agony, the LORD of death and of life. This is no dream
dreamed softly in moments of ease. It is faith, without
any help of outward sense, transcending and transforming
the most appalling realities of outward sense. It is faith
which sees at last, and (in spite of extremest disabilities)
embraces as wholly real, the very thing which is most
essential reality. It is a supreme triumph and marvel
of belief. Belief, it may be said, should come before
love: for love implies a basis, first, of belief. Yes, in
logic perhaps it does ; but does it so always in life ?
Often perhaps it is love which draws, towards goodness
and towards God, those who, till they love, hardly believe ;
and who now feel that they believe because they love.
But after all, it is rather that we may not seem to have
omitted them, that we glance now at these familiar aspects
^ Luke xxiii. 42.
30 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
of a deepening Penitence. These are full indeed of their
own deathless interest. Yet these are not the lines of
thought about penitence, which it most concerns our
purpose at present to pursue. We want now to ask not so
much of this or that aspect of penitence, however significant
in itself, or however touching, as of the whole, and the
meaning of the whole as whole. What we want to con-
sider is the fullest import of the word /-leravoia, — containing
sorrow, love, faith, and whatever besides, — as a real changed-
ness of the life and the mind : nor indeed of the life and
mind only — or anything else which can be even abstractly
detached and considered apart from the unifying self; as a
real changedness, then, not only of life or mind, but of the
very self that lives and wills.
In speaking of punishment we endeavoured to distin-
guish, as following naturally upon sin, two distinct trains of
penal consequence ; on the one hand the whole system of
external punishment ; on the other the whole history and
process of inner anguish of soul. And we ended by asking
for the acceptance of these two principles ; — first that the
whole content of the former is capable of being transferred,
by dutiful acceptance, so as to become the mere material
of the latter ; that is, all incurred pain may be transfused
into penitence ; and secondly that except only just so far
as it is in this way transfused, and ministers to, or re-
appears as, penitence, penal pain is of no moral value to
the punished personality at all. Righteousness may
indeed be vindicated in the mere fact that I am severely
punished. But except just so far as my punishment
becomes, in me, the expression and voluntary sacrifice of
my penitence, it is not within me^ but without, that
righteousness is vindicated and becomes triumphant.
On the other hand just so far as my punishment does
really become my penitence, so far does righteousness win
in my punishment a fuller triumph ; for so far is it true
I
II.] PENITENCE 31
that,— within my very self, as well as without, — punishment,
translated into penitence, is in the highest sense, the victory
of righteousness.
We are familiar with many, very varying, degrees of
penitence ; many of them indeed most real, but none wholly
perfect. It is of considerable importance moreover for the
truth of our conceptions about penitence that we should
bear clearly in mind this fact, which as fact, is surely
indisputable : the fact that we know every degree of
penitence except that one which alone would realize the
true meaning of the word. It is of course from experience
that we are to judge. But much as experience teaches us
about penitence, it is important to remember that all the
penitence realized within our experience, is of necessity
imperfect penitence. If then we desire to know not what
imperfect penitence is by reason of its imperfectness : but
what penitence, apart from its imperfectness, really would
mean : we must be explicitly prepared not indeed to con-
tradict but at least to transcend experience, and contem-
plate something which we have never seen.
Bearing in mind this truth, — which will become perhaps
increasingly prominent, — we return to the thought that the
penitent, just so far as his penitence is sincere, if he is,
undeniably, himself the same man who sinned, yet, in a
sense subordinate, but hardly less important, is really — 'is
even essentially — different.
Consider our instinct, — an instinct with only too much
of reasonable basis — of the indelibleness of the effect of sin.
When a man has sinned, and knows that he has sinned ; when
the eyes of his spirit are opened, even in part yet really, to
see sin as it is ; the fatal misery is that the sin which he so
sees has become a very integral part of himself. From an
external plague, a suffering, a load, a debt, he might be
delivered. How can he be delivered from that which he
himself is?
32 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
A man is deeply in debt. Find him means to pay the
debt off, — or pay it for him ; and he will be free. A man is
grievously ill. Treat the illness aright, find the proper
means of cure ; and he will be perfectly well. There is, we
observe, no contradiction here, for in fact, in spite of the
form of our common phrase, it never was the real " he "
who was ill. Ill or well, it was, so far, the same unaltered
"he." The sickness, or the recovery, were as such, ex-
ternal to the real self. He was externally affected by
the sickness : he was externally affected by the recovery.
But in sickness or in health it was the same " he."
But it is not so when in perverse will, he has accepted
and identified himself with sin. Sin in him is more than a
load to be borne, more than a debt to be discharged, more
than a slavery to be annulled, more than a sickness to be
healed : nor will any one of these metaphors, or the
scenery which belongs to these metaphors, symbolize
adequately the whole truth of his case. For in all these
metaphors, suggestive though they be as far as they go,
the essential self remains untouched. So far as these
metaphors go, the man loaded or freed from load, — the
man in hopeless debt or with the debt paid, — the man
enslaved or redeemed from slavery, — the man in sickness
or recovered from sickness, — is the same man. On either
side of each proposition the quality of the subject is un-
changed. But sin enters within. Sin affects and perverts
the central subject, the essential self Delivery therefore
from accomplished sin must mean not only a change of
the circumstances or settings or conditions of the central
subject ; but such essential alteration in the subject him-
self, that he himself shall both be what he is not, and shall
not be what he really is.
It is necessary for our purpose to try and realize in
thought what a real deliverance from sin would mean.
The true consciousness of the awakened sinner is
iL] PENITENCE 33
indeed naturally overwhelming. He has sinned. He is
sinful. The sin is so in him that he cannot but continue
to sin. His past, his present, his future, all are caught and
ensnared. How can he, who truly is sinful, become before
God, truly sinless ? A real deliverance, to be possible at
all, must embrace at once and transform past, present, and
future. The least of these seems an impossibility. But
indeed to leave out any one of the three is in fact to
vitiate all.
But on further thought we may perhaps perceive that
the three are not so distinct as they had seemed to be.
Thus the future is not really separable from the present.
Except as an abstraction, ideally regarded, the future in
practice means the continuance of the present, — the present
carried on from moment to moment. Power to live
sinlessly in and for the future means not something
distinct or severed from the present, but a present power
continuing continuously onwards, — a perpetual and un-
broken present. The present, then, really contains the
future. The future is an aspect of the present. Real
possibility, or impossibility, of present holiness — so it be
not ended or altered, — carries with it the future too.
Again there is a sense, much more real than we some-
times had thought, in which the past also is really an
aspect of the present. For the past, as mere past, would
not concern me now. But it concerns me as it affects what
I now am, as it remains in me still, an abiding, alas ! and
inalienable present. This may perhaps find illustration in
the bodily life. If so many years ago I caught a cold, and
iSo recovered from it that it left no trace, no effect at all on
|my bodily record, that cold, as mere history, is no part of
jwhat I am. But in so far as it, however imperceptibly,
:ontributed to my physical sensitiveness or left any other
:ontinuity of result, just so far the past fact remains in-
;rained as an element in my present bodily self. So the
34 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
act and the wish long ago, in so far as it made its con-
tribution, however small, to my character, remains. Only
if it made none, it is gone. Now it is characteristic of real
moral evil, as of real moral good, that it cannot but affect
the character of the self ; and our point at present is to
urge that it is precisely in this way that the past sin so really
touches me still. Because it is part of the character of the
very self, and the self remains, therefore the past sin
remains, for me and in me, still. It concerns me not as
merely historical past, but as abiding in me, as present,
still. It is this abiding presentness of the past in me,
which is to me the real meaning — and terror — of the past.
A past which was past merely, a past which had nothing in
me as present at all, could have nothing in me as past.
So the sin of the past is an abiding present ; and this
we are conscious that it is in two distinguishable ways. It is
in us both as present guilt and as present power. Closely
allied as these are, we do not think of them as simply
identical. The most complete removal of past sin as
present guilt — which is what is often meant by the phrase
forgiveness of sins — would not of itself remove, might
perhaps hardly even touch, the hopelessness of its yoke as
present power. Tell the passionate man that he is forgiven
every outburst of which he ever has been guilty : forgiven
freely, absolutely, from this moment : remove all shadow
or suspicion of guilt ; yet will he not thereby have acquired
a perfect mastery of temper ; when the provocation comes,
he — the same he — will break into fever again. On the
other hand, the completest removal of the tyranny of the
past as present power, the completest imaginable capacity,
for present and for future, of temperance or holiness, does
not seem to go far towards undoing the passionate deed
that is done, Le. towards cancelling the past as present
guilt. The guilt of that which has been guiltily done
seems to be abidingly contained in the fact of my self-
11.3 PENITENCE 35
identity with the past. It is part of that continuity which
personality means. How is it possible to be rid of this —
this necessary self-identity with the past, which seems to
be still present in me as guilt, as inveterately as I am I ?
It has been, then, constantly felt that a real deliverance
from sin must necessarily have each of these two aspects.
It must mean a real removal of the conscience of guilty
which is the inherent presence of past sin in the soul.
And it must mean such undoing of the power of sin, such
effectual conquest of evil tendency and evil taste, as to
make present and future holiness possible. It is one thing
to be forgiven, to this moment, every touch of what has
been wrong ; it seems like quite another to have the
possibility — nay to have even the hope, — of living from
henceforth the divine life of holiness.
If, of these two, any real cancelling of the past is the
harder logically to conceive ; there are moods in which,
sweeping past logical difficulties into something of in-
stinctive moral light, the penitent conscience can believe,
without a qualm, that a reality of most true forgiveness, a
cancelling of the uttermost past, is not possible only, but
(as it were) under certain contingencies almost natural;
while it shrinks back, daunted and despairing, from any
real faith, or hope, of abiding holiness.
The problem how the really unholy can be made to
become really holy, — the actually sinful to be in the
verity of Divine truth, actually righteous; is not yet
solved, until both these difficulties are dealt with, and
,both are satisfied.
f Of course the two are not really so distinct as they
seem. The more deeply either is examined, the more is
it found to be impossible, nay ultimately even unthinkable,
in distinction from the other. But still it is with the one
aspect rather than the other that our thought is immedi-
ately concerned. Of what nature is the possibility of a
36 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
real redemption from the past? How can I, if I have
lied, be not a liar ? How can I, if I have murdered, be
not a murderer ? How can I, if I have sinned, be not a
sinner ?
We endeavoured in speaking of punishment, to insist,
as emphatically as possible, that penalty, regarded as
inflicted suffering, had no tendency whatever to cancel,
or attenuate, guilt. But penalty is capable of translation
into penitence. And behold, there is no degree of re-
morseful penitence, from the lowest to the highest, which
has not in it some dim element of this transforming
possibility.
The very moment we turn from the thought of inflicted
penalty — be it what it may, — to the penal suffering of the
remorseful conscience, we feel instinctively that there is a
mighty change. It is not that remorse, in itself, is any-
thing but misery. Remorse that begins and ends with
being remorse, is a fruitless endurance, not a moral quality
or progress. Remorse is not necessarily penitence. But
however clearly we may see, in their fuller developments,
the contrast between what is meant by remorse and by
penitence, no eye can trace, in fact, the imperceptible
degrees by which remorse, without conscious alteration of
content, with hardly the faintest breath of some new
meaning upon it, may become itself the material, and
beginning, of penitence. Remorse is a thing which seems
to us to begin very naturally. And since — whether
explicably or not — remorse does in our experience deepen
towards penitence, as simply, as silently, as if penitence
were a possibility of the natural life, we may for the present
moment, without asking whence or how this possibility has
come into human nature, regard remorse as the germ of
penitence, and penitence as that completeness which gives
its true character and meaning to remorse. And if so, we
cannot but recognize that remorse, in a low degree
II.] PENITENCE 37
even at first, and more and more as it is disciplined and
ripened towards penitence, — incomplete and unsatisfying
though it may be; yet has, in marked contrast with
vengeful infliction of punishment, this innate, progressive,
and most characteristic tendency, — to bring change in to
the essential character of the sinner's very self.
If I have murdered a man, how can I not be a
murderer ? Within a world made up of before and after
— within, that is, the conditions of our own experience —
it is indeed not possible that the past deed which is done
should be ever undone. So far as the word '* murderer "
has a strictly historical meaning — " one who did murder " ;
so far, in a world of before and after like ours, it can
never, being once true, cease to be true. But, in so far as
the word "murderer" has any present meaning or
implication, in so far as it makes any assertion at all about
the present character or being ; we can see, even within
the conditions of our own experience, that there is that in
penitence — (in punishment therefore too so far as punish-
ment is transfigured into and reappears as penitence) —
there is that in penitence which, just in proportion as the
enitence approaches nearer and nearer towards its own
perfection, has a tendency, to say the least, towards making
I the present assertion more and more unmeaning.
One has lied, or one has stolen. Is he indeed, for ever,
liar or thief? look at him — as his penitence deepens with
|more and more of insight and of beauty. Is he untrue?
Why his whole soul loathes untruth, loathes it everywhere
and always — loathes it most of all in himself, and therefore
loathes himself as liar. Visibly he is learning to loathe it,
— with no shallow sentiment, but even as eternal truth and
righteousness loathe it. He is transferred as it were to the
side of eternal truth and righteousness. Call him liar:
taunt him as liar : it may be that he does not resent or
refuse. It is part of the loathing of the sin in himself that
38 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
he does not refuse for himself either pain or shame. It
may be that penitence is so far incomplete which would
shrink back from any shame of suffering. But beware!
his meekness under taunt, his acceptance of suffering, is
now itself the expression of the man's growing self-identity
of spirit with righteousness. Beware lest that which is
righteousness in him be in you not only the most dastardly
form of spiritual cruelty, but also the most awful outrage
against truth : — while you dare to blaspheme, as the spirit
of a liar, what you ought to be able to recognize, in awe, as
the very light of the sovereignty of the spirit of truth !
Yes, just in proportion as, in his self-surrender, he accepts
shame as the penalty of lying, — he is in fact further and
further from having anything in him of a liar. He is more
and more personally identical with the righteousness and
truth to which every form of untruth is intolerable. Call
him false? Why he is the very antithesis to falsehood
The past act has no place, as falsehood, in the present self.
As falsehood at least the past is literally and absolutely
dead. So far as it lives, it lives only as the very opposite,
— as consummated victory over falsehood.
We are trying to think, at this moment, not of an
imperfect, but of a perfect penitence. A man has been
in the depths, under the slavery of passion, or of drink.
Imagine, if only for hypothesis' sake, not so much of
penitence as you think you may probably hope for, but
a penitence for once quite perfect. Think then of the
clearness of his insight into the terribleness of that
degradation which has become the very condition of
his life, Think of the pain of the struggle against sin,
and the anguish of shame because to abstain is so fierce
a struggle and pain. He is impotent, even to anguish:
and it is anguish of spirit to be impotent. Every step,
every consciousness is a pain. Think of the pain of the
disciplinary processes (which, even though pain, are his
II.] rENITENCE 39
hope, his strength, his joy!), the pain of the sorrow, the
depth of the shame, the resoluteness of the self-accusing,
self-condemning, self-identifying with the holiness outraged,
the self-surrender to suffering and penalty, the more than
willing acceptance, and development in the self of the
processes of scourging and of dying. Though every step
be shame and pain, he flinches not nor falters, for moment
by moment, more and more, his whole soul loathes the sin
and cleaves to the chastisement; he will bear the whole
misery of the discipline of penitence, that, at all cost of
agony, even within the dominion and power of sin, he may
yet be absolutely one with the Spirit of Holiness, in un-
reserved condemnation and detestation of sin.
The transformation of the thorough penitent is
marvellous indeed — even to thought. The personality
which had revolted from righteousness, and identified
itself with the will of sin, is now re-identified with righteous-
ness in its condemnation of sin, — in its condemnation,
therefore, of himself Though others condone, he adjudges
himself to shame. Self-disgraced, self-condemned, self-
sentenced, he offers himself to voluntary punishment.
He had outraged righteousness. But now, the true self
is wholly ranged and identified, not with the revolting
will, but with the righteousness, outraged, pleading, and
condemning ; — at the conscious cost of all shame, all
suffering, even death, to the self, because it is the self
that has sinned.
It will be felt, of course, that all this is ideal ? There
is no penitence that reaches this ? Yes, it is ideal. Such
penitence our experience does not know. And yet after
all we are only pointing to something, the process and
the tendency of which we do know well. We may not
think that, within our present experience, that tendency
can ever reach its climax. But however incomplete it
may remain within experience, the tendency at least
40 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
is unmistakably there. The past guilt can, and does,
even in the case of such penitence as our experience
has seen and known, have manifestly less and less of
present reality in the man.
All penitence, no doubt, that we ever have known is
imperfect. But to what does this innate, and progressive,
tendency of even imperfect penitence bear witness ? Does
it not testify to the ideal, if unattained, possibility of a
penitence so unreserved, so perfect, so Divine, as — not
to constitute indeed a breach in personal self-identity,
but to make a contrast of such vital moment between the
past and present truth of the self, that the self would
really be no longer identified with that with which it
really was identified ; that the dead past would, as present,
really not be, or be only as the living antithesis to what
it was ?
It is to ideal penitence that our thought points. But
it is ideal penitence that we desire to think of: for we
desire to know what penitence really is, — not penitence as
it is imperfect, but penitence as it is penitence: that is,
to discern what penitence would be, if only it did ever
reach the proper culmination of that which we do
already know in process.
Need we ask whether, in the case of such a consum-
mated penitence, it could still be right to inflict punish-
ment on the penitent? We might well ask what sort
of punishment could be inflicted? For, in one sense of
that word, the penal discipline is even now, fully complete.
And, in the other sense, it would now be a sacrilege to
talk of penal vengeance.
Is it not true that such a penitence as we have tried
to imagine would be itself, from end to end, truly suffering,
truly penal? Is it not the case that the inmost secret
of the meaning of that penal discipline would be found
to be — not a remorseless infliction of external vengeance,
I
II.] PENITENCE 41
but the glory shining outwards from within, the glory
— within the sphere and painfulness of evil — the glory
of an inherently triumphant righteousness? And is it
not therefore true that, in the presence of such a penitence
in the spirit of one who had sinned, there would be in
fact a change so profound, so essential, in the very nature
of the self, as would be, in the sphere of divinely ideal
truth, incompatible with vengeance, — because, through it,
the past sin was already no part of the present at all ;
the present had, however wonderfully, come to be itself
the supreme antithesis of the past ?
I have wished to be able to touch a point of view from
which, under circumstances not unimaginable, that sentence
upon the past, as part of the self, which we might call the
sentence of absolving love, would be no less also the
sentence of absolute righteousness and divine truth : and
I seem to myself to discern it not by imagining conditions
wholly unrelated with experience, but by imagining rather
a completed development of tendencies which, even within
experience, I do recognize amongst the wonders of the
penitent life.
In the light of these thoughts it is not too much to
say that penitence, if only it were quite perfect, would
mean something more like, at least, than we could, apart
from experience of penitence, even conceive intellectually
to be possible or thinkable, to a real undoing of the past ;
— a real killing out and eliminating of the past from the
present " me." Penitence is really restorative. Its tendency
is towards what might truly be called "redeeming" or
" atoning." It would really mean in me, if only it could
be consummated quite perfectly, a real re-identification
with the Law and the Life of righteousness.
Unfortunately, a penitence such as this will be felt
to be, after all, more ideal than actual ; an imagination
not a possibility. It is a reasonable imagination because
I
%3 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
it is in accordance with — not against — what experience
bears witness to ; but it is none the less not a practical
possibility. Nay — the more clearly I discern what would
be the supreme reality of penitence, the more does my very
insight compel me to recognize the inherent impossibility
of its consummation.
That penitence — that transformation of moral character
—should be possible at ally is a marvel, requiring to be
accounted for. But a penitence so ideal, a change of
character so absolute, as we have imagined, a severance
from the past so complete, that the past would leave no
scar, and have no place, of guilt or of power, in the
present personality at all ; if it is on the one hand an
element, and a necessary element, in spiritual aspiration
and belief, is, on the other hand, definitely beyond the
limit of this world's completed experience. No one, in
this life, having sinned, is ever altogether as if he had not.
And why is it inherently impossible? Just because
the sin is already within the conscience: and the
presence of sin in the conscience, if on one side it
constitutes the need, and may incite to the desire, of
penitence, on the other is itself a bar to the possibility
of repenting. The sinfulness, being of the self, has blunted
the selfs capacity for entire hatred of sin, and has blunted
it once for all. I can be frightened at my sin ; I can
cry out passionately against it. But not the tyranny only,
or the terror, or the loathing, but also the love of it and
the power of it are within me. The reality of sin in the
self blunts the self's power of utter antithesis against sin.
Just because it now is part of what I am, I cannot, even
though I would, wholly detest it. It is I who chose and
enjoyed the thing that was evil : and I, as long as I live,
retain not the memory only but the capacity, the personal
affinity, for the evil taste still ; as the penitent drunkard or
gambler is conscious in himself, as long as he lives, of the
II.] PENITENCE 43
latent possibility within himself — not of drinking only or
of gambling, but alas ! of passionately enjoying the evil
thing. And this is true in a measure of all sin. The more
I have been habituated to sinning, the feebler is my
capacity of contrition. But even once to have sinned
is to have lost once for all its ideal perfectness. It is sin,
as sin, which blunts the edge, and dims the power, of
penitence. ..^
But if the perfect identification of being with righteous-
ness which perfect consummation of penitence would
necessarily mean, is ipso facto impossible to one who has
sinned, just because the sin is really his own : what is this
but to say — hardly even in other words — that the personal
identity with righteousness in condemnation and detesta-
tion of sin, which penitence in ideal perfection would mean
and be, — is possible only to One who is personally Himself
without sin ? The consummation of penitential holiness, —
itself, by inherent character, the one conceivable atonement
for sin, — would be possible only to the absolutely sinless.
We are not concerned, here and now, with the other
side of the question — How it is possible for the absolutely
sinless, to have, or to take, such personal relation to sin
that His inherent holiness could really be, and really suffer
as being, penitential holiness. We are discussing at present
no further problems beyond the one single question — what
it is, on scrutiny, that penitence, as penitence, requires and
is. And the more we try to run back to the root of the
matter, the more we shall find our thought tied up to this
irresistible — if paradoxical — truth : that a true penitence is
as much the inherent impossibility, as it is the inherent y'
necessity, of every man that has sinned.
Need we go on to ask, under pressure of our own logic,
why it does not follow forthwith — as, first, that adequate
penitence is impossible, fundamentally, for every one : so,
secondly, that the more each man has sinned, the less he
44 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
need dream of penitence ; for that penitence, hopeless from
the first, is more and more progressively impossible, just in
precise proportion as it is more necessary ?
The fact is, we have said already too much — or too
little. It is easy, perhaps, to prove our impossibility of
penitence. There is no marvel in that. Those who find
spiritual analogies in natural things are nowhere apt to be
baffled so much as here. Penitence seems like a reversal of
all analogies. It is a standing miracle in human life. But
be the marvel what it may of its origin or possibility, it is at
least undeniable among the experiences of the spiritual
life. The proof of its impossibility, however logically
simple, would find its disproof in every personal conscious-
ness. It would not only darken the brightness of our sky.
It would stultify almost everything that we have ever
known to be true. It would cross out not only future
hope; but all the deepest realities of experience. The
logical proof would really prove too much. It would
really cut us off— not only from the ideal consummation,
but from any reality, of penitence at all !
Considering, indeed, of what quality penitence is, it is
perhaps the greatest miracle of experience that any reality
of penitence should be possible at all. And yet, possible
or impossible, there it is — the most familiar, as well as the
most profound, and transcendent, of spiritual experiences
Are not all the annals of Christian consciousness full, from
end to end, of penitence? And this penitence, this
marvellous possibility, which so transcends, yet interprets,
we might almost say constitutes. Christian experience ; this
penitence which is almost another word for spiritual con-
sciousness, do we not recognize it at once as more than
humanly profound and tranquillizing ? as beautiful almost
beyond all experience of beauty ? as powerful, even to the
shattering of the most terrible of powers ?
Inversion of natural history, — moral recovery, — re-
II.] PENITENCE 45
identifying of the sinner's spirit with holiness ; so that
he can at all really hate what really was the old self, and
cling, through voluntary pain, to a real contradiction of
the self: the touching beauty, which as beauty is un-
surpassed, the tremendous spiritual and spiritually
uplifting force, of the penitence of countless souls —
men and women, boys and girls, — since the Kingdom
of Christ began : what is it ? or whence is it ? — this im-
possibility in them, which is nevertheless a fact? This
humiliation, which is so exquisite a grace ? This weakness
confessed, which is so paradoxically sovereign in power ?
This upon earth, which is so incommensurate with earth ?
This at least we may say about it : that it is no natural
possibility, — it is not of themselves. There was that within
themselves which witnessed for it, which needed it, which
could correspond with it : but it was not, and could not
have been originated, within themselves. Necessary as it
was for themselves, it was yet, from the side of themselves,
an unqualified impossibility.
And yet again, though not of themselves, it is by far the
deepest truth of themselves. If not of^ it is in^ thenj : and
when in them, it is the very reality of what they are, — the
central core and essence of their own effective personality.
Though it cries aloud in them that it is not of them ;
though it utterly transcends and transfigures them ; yet is it
more, after all, the very central truth of themselves than
all else that they have themselves ever done or been.
In saying this, we are in part anticipating thoughts which
lie beyond the range of our present subjects.
But it is well to say at once that it is precisely the
impossible which has been, and is, and is to be, the real.
What is precisely impossible in respect of ourselves, is
exactly real in the Church — the breath of whose life is the
Spirit of Jesus Christ.
Men do not always understand the depth of what
46 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
penitence means, because their conceptions of penitence
are based so often upon its imperfectness or its failure. So
they have been content to feel that they felt sorry ; content
if their sorrow had carried them to some little touch
of shame or suffering. They have hardly perhaps even
aimed at an attitude towards sin — towards themselves
as wilfully characterized by sin, — which would be nothing
less than that inexorable condemnation which must be the
attitude towards sin of the eternal Righteousness. Perhaps
the least glimpse of the real meaning of penitence is at
once confounding and inspiring. The true penitent con-
demns and loathes sin, even in himself, not with a foolish
shallow, half-insincere regret, but as God loathes and
condemns it.
After all, then, this penitence in the hearts of the
penitent, of which we cannot but say things so para-
doxical, — what is it, or from whence? It is the real
echo, — the real presence — in their spirit, of Spirit ;
Spirit, not their own, as if of themselves ; yet their very
own, for more and more that Spirit dominates them and
constitutes them what they are. It is, in them, the Spirit
of human contrition, of human atonement ; the Spirit of
Holiness triumphing over sin, and breaking it, within the
kingdom of sin ; the Spirit at once of Calvary and of
Pentecost ; the Spirit, if not of the Cross yet of the
Crucified, who conquered and lived through dying.
It is only thus, only from hence, that the least reality of
penitence is possible at all. But this we may add in con-
clusion, — that the reality of the penitence which is so
familiar in Christian experience (if it may not be said to
constitute Christian experience) is itself a guarantee of the
possibility — nay more, of the certain realization, — of per-
fectly consummated penitence. For, after all, this
penitence which is so familiar in Christian experience, may
truly perhaps be called, — wonder for wonder — an even
11.] PENITENCE 47
greater miracle, than, in comparison with it, the most ideal
perfection of penitence would be.
Is it not the Spirit of the Crucified which is the reality
of the penitence of the really penitent ? Only there remains
to the end this one immovable distinction. What was, in
Him, the triumph of His own inherent and unchanging
righteousness, is in them the consummation of a gradual
process of change from sin to abhorrence and contradiction
of sin. They are changed. But the fact of changedness
remains. Unaided, of themselves, they did not conquer,
and could not have conquered, sin. Nor do they so grow
into oneness of Spirit with Him as to cease to be them-
selves, who had sinned and are redeemed from sin.
That past, which would have made their own penitence an
impossibility, though no longer a living present, as
character or as power, within themselves, is yet present
with them just so far as this, — that they are still, though
sinless in the Spirit of the Sinless, yet not simply sinless,
but brought to sinlessness out of sin ; not simply pure but
purified ; not simply blessed but beatified ; not simply
holy but redeemed. The song of eternal praise is in their
hearts, as of those who are eternally " the Redeemed," —
towards one who is none the less eternally their Redeemer,
because — no longer without but within themselves, — He is
their own capacity of responsive holiness ; " for Thou wast
slain, and didst purchase unto God with Thy blood men of
every tribe and tongue and people and nation ; " — " worthy
is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power, and
riches, and might, and glory, and blessing ; " — " Unto Him
that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, be the
blessing, and the honour, and the glory, and the dominion,
for ever and ever."
I
CHAPTER III
FORGIVENESS
There can be no question at all as to the exceeding
prominence of the part, in the Christian religion, which
belongs to forgiveness. For ourselves, as we look to God-
ward, it is the hope, and the faith, without which all else
would be to us as nothing. The simplest form of the
universal faith is incomplete without this, — " I believe in
the forgiveness of sins." The primary type of the
universal prayer lays exceptional emphasis upon this, —
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that
trespass against us." In this form of prayer we have
already passed from the thought of forgiveness as being,
to Godward, our essential hope, to the thought of for-
giveness as being, to manward, our indispensable duty.
It is, characteristically, both. It is a duty towards men
which, almost more than any other duty, stamps those who
realize and fulfil it best, with the distinctive seal of the
Spirit of the Christ. And it is a hope which may be said
— intelligibly, at least, if not with theological exactness —
to sum up all the aspiration and desire of Christians. " I
acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins " is, in
its way, a description of the Christian calling as a whole.
"Thy sins be forgiven thee," spoken unerringly by the
voice of Divine truth and love, comes very near to the
consummation of all human yearning. In either aspect,
as primary moral duty, or as primary spiritual hope, it
CHAP. III.] FORGIVENESS 49
stands plainly in the forefront of all that our Christianity
means to us. In our creeds, in our prayers, in our teaching
of others, in our hopes or fears for ourselves, few ideas, if
any, are, or can be, more prominent than such as are repre-
sented to men's thought by that familiar and fundamental
phrase, the "forgiveness of sins." Without it Christian
morality would be destroyed. Without it Christian faith
would be annulled. Directly or indirectly, by conscious
effort or by conscious default, it is everywhere, upon our
lips, in our thoughts, in our lives. And yet; is it so
absolutely clear — I do not say whether forgiveness is to us,
after all, an assured or familiar experience, but whether we
even know what we mean by forgiveness ?
What is forgiveness ? Are we perfectly sure that, upon
analysis, we shall be found to be attaching to that most
familiar word, any defensible or adequate — or indeed any
consistent or intelligible — meaning at all ?
We begin with some obvious experiments, bearing not
so immediately upon the grounds for the doctrine, as upon
the meaning of the word. A child comes before parent or
master for punishment, and the master lets him go free.
The slave insults, or tries to strike, his lord ; and the lord
refrains from either penalty or reproach. In cases like
these, if we speak (as we well may) of forgiveness, there is
no doubt what we most immediately mean. We mean that
a certain penalty is not inflicted. Is this, then, what for-
giveness means ? A remission of penalty ? a forbearing to
punish ? This is, we may believe, quite genuinely, the first
and simplest form in which forgiveness (whatever it may
I at last be found to mean) begins to make itself intelligible.
It would be a great mistake to brush aside with contempt
the idea of forgiveness as remission of penalty. It really
IS in this form that it first comes home to the consciousness
bf the child. It may fairly be presumed that it was in this
form that it first came home to the child-like consciousness
D
50 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
of the race. It may even be doubted, perhaps, whether
those who have not first felt something of it in this form
are Hkely to get much further towards the understanding
of it at all.
We shall notice indeed that forgiveness cannot be ap-
prehended even in this form, until certain earlier conceptions
have been obtained. I cannot really feel myself excused
from punishment, until I first feel that I have deserved to
be punished ; until (that is) I have some idea both of wrong
as wrong, and of the distress of punishment, and of that
righteousness which is expressed in punishment of wrong.
But we need hardly now go further back than the concep-
tion of forgiveness as remission of punishment.
Important, however, as it is to recognize this conception
as a necessary stage, and true in its degree, in the process
of gradually learning what forgiveness means ; it will never
do to rest here. The theology which allows itself to be
entangled in a theory of forgiveness of which the leading
character is remission of penalty, will by and by (as not a
few attempts to explain the doctrine of the atonement
have shown) be landed in insoluble perplexities. Indeed
we may perhaps broadly say that forgiveness cannot really
mean as much as this without meaning more. The mind
cannot really grasp this explanation without becoming, more
or less explicitly, conscious that what it really means by the
word has already transcended the limits of this explana-
tion. If, at a certain stage, the explanation was true ; yet
it dimly implied, even then, a good deal beyond itself.
And what was once, in its own way, really true, becomes
by degrees, to a maturer consciousness, so inadequate, that
if pressed now as an adequate statement of truth, it carries
with it all the effect — ^not merely of incompleteness but of
untruth.
The explanation does not say enough. Whatever
place remission of penalty may have in forgiveness, we
m.] FORGIVENESS 51
all feel that reality of forgiveness contains a great deal
beyond this. " I will not punish you, — but I can never
forgive," may be an immoral, but is not, on the face of
it, a self-contradictory, position. I at least can hate the
man whom I would not hurt. Again the explanation
says too much. There may be such a thing as infliction
of penalty which does not contradict — which may be
even said to express — forgiveness. But in any case, the
simple idea of not punishing is too negative and external
to touch the real core of the matter.
But there is another reason, more directly to our
purpose, why forgiveness cannot be defined as remission
of penalty. Such a definition would blur all distinction
of right and wrong. Remission of penalty, as such,
requires an explanation and a justification : and according
to the explanation which justifies it, the character of not
punishing varies infinitely. Now if I speak of forgiveness
as a property of God, or a duty for man, I am speaking
of something essentially virtuous and good : not of some-
thing which may be either good or the extreme antithesis
of goodness. I cannot admit either that forgiveness is
an immoral action, or that an immoral action can be
forgiveness. Remission of penalty must have a justifica-
tion. If it has no justification, it is simply immoral. I
cannot, for the forgiveness of the creed, or of the Lord's
prayer, accept a definition which leaves the question still
open, whether forgiveness is not the exact contradiction
of righteousness. If this man is guilty of a heartless
betrayal, and another of a dastardly murder, and a third
it may be of an outrage more dastardly than murder;
and I, having absolute power, use that power only to
remit the punishments wholesale, without other purpose
or ground except remission regarded as an end in itself:
I am so far from illustrating the righteous forgiveness
of God, that I do but commit a fresh outrage against
52 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
righteousness, in itself as cowardly as it is immoral.
Thought is only misled by a use of the word which includes
at once its truth and its caricature. The so-called forgive-
ness which is itself an infamy, — which, in condoning sin,
gives the lie to righteousness, — has nothing in common,
except mere delusiveness of outward appearance, with
the truth of forgiveness. It may look like it in the
negative fact of not-punishing, or in the outward gesture
and appearance of embracing ; but its whole reality of
meaning is different. There may be travesties, or imita-
tions, more or less resembling forgiveness. But there is
only one true meaning of the word : and that is the for-
giveness not of ignorance or of levity, but of righteousness
and truth. The only real forgiveness is the forgiveness
of God, — reproduced in man just so far as man, in God's
Spirit, righteously forgives ; but caricatured by man, so
far as man, otherwise than righteously, does the things
which travesty and dishonour forgiveness, sparing penalty
and foregoing displeasure — when righteousness does not.
" Neither doth he abhor anything that is evil " is a terrible
condemnation of the man who is ready to forgive every-
thing alike. Forgiveness does not equally mean the truth
and the travesty. Its definition cannot be found in terms
merely of remission of pain or of anger, irrespective of
the verdict of righteousness. When, and so far as, it is
remission at all, it is remission because remission is
righteous. It is the Divine reality — in God or in man.
We are hampered no doubt by words. But just as
with the word "love," while we cannot altogether help
verbally using it for that yearning of person towards
person which hideously travesties the true spirit of love,
we yet educate ourselves towards true insight of soul
by protesting that this is the libel not the truth, nor part
of the truth, of what love really means ; so also with the
word forgiveness. If we cannot wholly avoid the use
iiLi FORGIVENESS 53
of the word of those who "forgive" unrighteously, yet
must we maintain that clear insight of spirit into truth
can only be won by refusing to let such caricature of
forgiveness colour our central conception of what real
forgiveness is.
But if, on such grounds, we pass beyond the thought
of forgiveness as not-punishing, — does it mend matters
to try and increase (as it were) the content of the word,
and say that it means a complete ignoring of guilt; a
sort of make-believe that those who are guilty are not
guilty? Such a view will have, no doubt, its relation to
truth. To treat those who have done wrong as they
would have been treated if they had not done wrong,
is often a real element in the restorative character of
forgiveness. But it will not do as an account of what
forgiveness means. On the one side, it too does not
yet say enough. On the other, it too depends for its
moral justifiableness, on something as yet unexpressed.
Forgiveness that is at all completely realized is something
much deeper in character, — something altogether unlike,
a mere treating as if. To treat a culprit as if he were
better than he is, however important it may be experi-
mentally, is in any case a means to an end. And its
provisional character is enough to show that it is at best
incomplete as an account of what forgiveness means.
Moreover, even as a provisional experiment it needs to
be justified. To treat a culprit as if he were innocent
may sometimes be an intolerable wrong. To treat a
culprit as if he were innocent, may sometimes be as an
inspiration of the wisdom — the surpassing wisdom —
of love like the love of God. What makes the difference
between the one case and the other ? Is it not plain that
the righteousness of such treatment has relation to some-
thing in the personality of the culprit himself. It may
not depend on the magnitude of his past fault ; but it
54 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
certainly depends upon something in his personal character
now ; something in him (whether we say of present fact
or of future possibility) which makes it what it is. Such
treatment in him has an eye to his restoration to
righteousness, and whatever restoration to righteousness
in him would mean. It is relative to that in him which
may be described as his possibility, or the reasonable
hope of his possibility, of a real restoration. Such a hope
may be remote. But however remote it may be, its
reality is an absolutely essential ingredient in the mean-
ing of treating him as guiltless, if such treatment is to
deserve, for an instant, the name of forgiveness. Apart
from this it would be not forgiveness but sin.
This becomes, I think, plainer still, if we carry our
thoughts of the contents of forgiveness one step further ;
and say that in its fulness it would mean not only that we
treated the culprit as if he were innocent in our outward
behaviour, but that we really thought and felt towards him
with all that undimmed fulness of reverent love which
would have belonged to him as righteous and loving. For
such a conception of forgiveness, while it does, for the first
time, get rid of the sense of inadequacy which attached to
all that was suggested before; does also bring out into
sharp relief that moral confusedness which must inhere in
every attempted definition of forgiveness — must inhere in
it even in proportion to its adequacy — as long as we
attempt to explain forgiveness abstractly or externally ; to
explain it, that is, by the action or the sentiment of the
forgiver, otherwise than in direct relation to that, in the
personality of the forgiven, which gives to the act of the
forgiver all its character and meaning. Forgiveness is not
d transaction which can be taken by itself and stated as it
were in terms of arithmetic. It is an attitude of a person
to a person. It can only be understood in terms of person-
ality. I cannot forgive a river or a tree. I cannot forgive
III.] FORGIVENESS 55
an animal except just so far as I do (whether rightly or
wrongly) recognise in it the attributes of a rational soul ;
if I forgive a man, it is in relation to the meaning of
that man's personality — its complex present, its immense
possible future — that all which I do in the act of forgiving
finds at once its justification and its explanation.
But the more we deepen the content of the word forgive-
ness ; the more we realize that forgiveness, however other-
wise guarded or conditioned, is going to contain, on any
terms at all, such elements as personal reverence or love ;
the more does the question begin to press upon us, whether
we can, or dare, at all largely forgive. If a man treats me
and mine with outrageous wickedness : it is possible per-
haps to imagine that I may be right in not trying to bring
punishment upon him, but on what possible warrant can I
look on him with reverence or love ? If I pronounce such
actions and character good, nay if I do not unfalteringly
condemn them as with the eternal sentence of God against
evil: I do but, in wanton self-identification with his sin,
make myself a renegade to righteousness.
The more we think over it, the more we realize that
when we talk of human forgiveness as a duty, or Divine
forgiveness as our faith and hope ; the forgiveness which
we mean is so intimately bound up with, so essentially de-
pendent upon, those grounds within the personality of the
forgiven which justify it ; that we cannot, apart from them,
even apprehend aright what the nature of the thing itself
is. Forgiveness is, in part, a remitting of punishment. It
is in part a treating, nay even a recognising, of the person
forgiven as good : and yet it is no one of these things
simpliciter^ by itself. It is no one of them apart from that
justifying cause, within the personality of the forgiven, which
makes this treatment, and recognition, not unrighteous but
righteous. God does not, in fact, remit penalty : He does
not in fact justify, or pronounce righteous, except in relation
56 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap
to something, on the part of the forgiven, which both vindi-
cates the righteousness of His act, and explains the meaning
of it. God's forgiveness is never simply unconditional.
And as God's is not, so we recognise after all that man's is
not to be. In one direction it is true that it is to be infinite
" I say not unto thee until seven times but until seventy
times seven." ^ Yet even this must be read in the light of
that proviso which our Lord's words no less explicitly
contain ; " If thy brother sin, rebuke him ; and if he repent,
forgive him. And if he sin against thee seven times in the
day, and seven times turn again to thee saying I repent ;
thou shalt forgive him." ^ Forgiveness, then, if it is to be
the truth and not the imitation of forgiveness (for even the
imitation of forgiveness has its place in the complexities of
human life) but if it is to be not the imitation but the truth ;
if it is to be that real forgiveness which is the spontaneous
action of righteousness, and not that indifference to sin
which is itself a new sin ; is strictly and absolutely correla-
tive to what may be called the " forgiveableness " of the
person forgiven.
Now whatever forgiveableness in him may turn out to
mean : there are one or two conclusions which will follow
at once from the proposition that forgiveness is correlative
to forgiveableness. Thus : true forgiveness is never capri-
cious : it is never arbitrary : we may even say it is never
properly optional. True forgiveness is an act — or rather
an attitude — not more of love than it is of righteousness
and of truth. Truth and righteousness are not in contra-
diction against love. They are love. God who is Love, is
Righteousness and Truth. God who is Righteousness and
Truth, is Love. Truth, Righteousness, Love, cannot be
capricious or arbitrary.
There is no arbitrary variation in the forgiveness of God
Whether He forgives a man or not, depends wholly and
only upon whether the man is or is not forgiveable. He
* Mat. xviii. 22. '^ Luke xvii. 4.
III.] FORGIVENESS 57
who can be forgiven by Love and Truth, is forgiven by Love
and Truth — instantly, absolutely, without failure or doubt.
And as, in God, forgiveness, upon the necessary conditions,
so acts as if it were self-acting ; so would it also in me, in
proportion to my perfectness of knowledge and character ;
for Righteousness, Truth and Love, are not capricious.
I indeed may fall short of them, retaining my anger after
they have forgiven : or I may run too fast for them, forgiving
(as I call it) while they still are displeased ; but they are
sure and exact and unfailing and immutable ; for they are
Righteousness and Love and Truth. Again, I may often
be puzzled as to how far I ought, or ought not, to forgive.
But this is only because I do not know. I am not able, in
my ignorance, to discern whether such an one is rightly
forgiveable, or no. But if my knowledge were adequate,
there would be no residuum of mere option. Either
he is forgiveable, or he is not. So far as he is not I ought
not to forgive. But so far as he is, I ought. There is no
stage really in which, at my option, he both may, and yet
may not, be forgiven. If I may forgive, I must. A man
does me terrible wrong. Suppose for one moment, that he
is absolutely perfect in penitence. Yet I will not forgive.
Then the sin, which was on his side, has gone over to mine.
So far as I was identified with righteousness and truth, I
should — not perhaps but inevitably — have forgiven. My
non-forgiveness is my deflection from righteousness and
truth. Or, on the other hand, one for whom I am respon-
sible, defies all right, and exults in his defiance. And I,
refusing to punish, receive him with open arms as righteous
and good. Then, in still more directness of sense, the sin,
without ceasing to be on his side, has come over to mine.
I have but identified myself with his wickedness. In pro-
portion as he is identified with wickedness, truth and
righteousness pronounce him wicked ; and my acceptance
of the wicked as righteous is my deflection from righteous-
ness and truth. If, then, there is no true forgiveness but
S8 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
the forgiveness of righteousness and truth ; and if this for-
giveness is sure, invariable, even (as it were) self-acting, —
in God, and in man too, just so far as man is identified
with righteousness and truth ; we are thrown back more
than ever, in desiring to understand what forgiveness
means, upon that condition in the personality of the
forgiven, upon which the righteousness of his forgiveness
depends.
But when we venture to give to the word forgiveness
any meaning of this character at all, we are met, no doubt,
by one or two very real difficulties of thought. Thus the
question suggests itself, if forgiveness (with whatever
provisoes) is made to be simply correlative to forgiveable-
ness ; and if to say that a man is forgiveable means not
merely that he may be, but therefore ipso facto that he
ought to be, nay must be, forgiven : if forgiveness, that is,
is a sort of automatic and necessary consequence of a
certain condition of the culprit's personality ; are you not
exactly taking out of forgiveness all that it ever had
distinctively meant ? Are you not precisely and completely
explaining it away? When you say you forgive, you
are merely recognizing the growth towards righteousness
of those who are already becoming righteous. You may
call it forgiving only those who deserve to be forgiven.
Is it really more than this, that you acknowledge the
goodness of the good ; or, at all events, the imperfect
goodness of the incompletely good? You merely do
not contmue to condemn those who no longer ought
to be condemned? So far as they are still wicked, you
refuse to forgive them. So far as they are becoming
righteous, they do not need any act of yours to forgive
them. In other words, there is no place left for forgive-
ness. Eitner, in accordance with truth, you still condemn.
Or else, in accordance with truth, you acquit and accept.
Where does forgiveness come in? Justice this may be.
III.] FORGIVENESS 59
But has not forgiveness, as forgiveness, dropped out
altogether? Either there is nothing that can be called
forgiveness at all ; or, if there is, it is a forgiveness which
can be said to have been, by deserving, " earned " : and
is not forgiveness that is earned exactly not forgiveness ?
We must be content to make, for the present,
suggestions towards the answer to this question, in two
somewhat different ways. This first: that words like
"earning" or "deserving" are, in any case, unfair words.
They are unfair because they imply that the condition
of the personality which can be said, in any sense, to
deserve forgiveness, is a condition which is originated
by, and for which the credit is primarily due to, the
person in whom it is found. But if that condition of the
personality of the culprit, which is capable of responding
to forgiveness, and to which forgiveness is correlative ;
if the germinal possibilities of penitence in him, should be
found, after all, to be due, in their first origins, to the
loving righteousness, — not his nor of himself, — which is
working for him to produce in him that forgiveableness
which it will forthwith meet with the embrace of forgive-
ness : then it may be that this not unnatural attempt to
show that a forgiveness which is perfectly righteous involves
a contradiction in terms, will be found to break down after
all. We do not, in our view of forgiveness, undervalue
the freedom and completeness of the action of God's love,
or overvalue the power of man's initiative, in the mystery
of atoning redemption. That at least is a charge to which
we have no occasion to plead guilty. Had we laid down
that human capacity of penitence, even in its faintest and
most germinal beginnings, began from man's self, or be-
longed to his natural powers, such a charge might con-
ceivably lie. But any such suggestion is incompatible
with the whole scope of our argument. Meanwhile, what-
ever we may have further to suggest in relation to the
6o ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
possibilities of penitence, we can hardly be wrong in
insisting on the mutual relation between penitence and
pardon : penitence, so far as it is penitence, never, by
any possibility, failing of pardon ; pardon being essentially
that Divine acceptance, — nay anticipation, in acceptance,
of the first divinely enabled identification of the
personality with any movement towards penitence, in
the light and warmth whereof alone the plant of penitence
can grow or bear fruit.
And secondly, leaving for the moment the abstract
difficulty, we must ask whether, after all, it does not,
for whatever it is worth, attach on any shewing, to any
explanation of forgiveness which we can by any possibility
accept: to any forgiveness, that is, which is not self-
condemned as arbitrary and unrighteous, but is, or can
possibly be, the act of God, who is unchanging righteous-
ness and truth. If there are times when it seems that
forgiveness would lose all its meaning if it could be called
the necessary act of righteousness as righteousness ; it
is certain, on the other hand, that we cannot really save
the idea of forgiveness, by making it either not the act
of righteousness, or the act of righteousness not as it is
righteous, but as it is something else, not ultimately
identical with righteousness.
Yet even this instinct against which we are arguing
represents a truth. That truth is exhibited to us, with
a terrible emphasis, in the parable of the unforgiving
servant. The most obvious teaching of that parable is
that the fullest forgiveness of God towards man, in the
conditions of the present life, is provisional, and may
be revoked and reversed. This is one characteristic of
forgiveness, as we have known it, upon which it is well
to lay stress. As there is, upon earth, no consummated
penitence, so neither is there any forgiveness consummated.
The forgiveness which we receive in the Church upon
III.] FORGIVENESS 6i
earth, — in baptism, in absolution, and so forth, — takes for
granted, and is dependent on, certain conditions. It is
the recognition, by anticipation, of something which is
to be, something towards which it is itself a mighty
quickening of possibilities ; but something which is not,
or at least is not perfectly, yet. Present forgiveness is
Inchoate, is educational: it is the recognition indeed of
something in the present, — but a something whose real
significancie lies in the undeveloped possibilities of the
future ; a something which is foreseen, and is to be realized,
but which, in the actual personality, is not realized as yet.
Earthly forgiveness — real in the present, but real as
inchoate and provisional — only reaches its final and perfect
consummation then, when the forgiven penitent — largely
through the softening and enabling grace of progressively
realized forgiveness — has become at last personally and
completely righteous. It is not consummated perfectly
till the culprit is righteous : and love does but pour itself
out to welcome and to crown what is already the verdict
of righteousness and truth.
Meanwhile the living power of God's forgiveness in
the present life grows more and more towards that con-
summation. But, — if the consummation be never reached ;
if the growth towards it be broken, and the conditions
necessary for it rebelled against, and the personal progress
turned into a progress in and towards unrighteousness :
then that which had been forgiveness, inchoate, provisional,
educational, — is forfeited and is reversed. It is not that it
was unreal from the first. It was forgiveness, received
and, in a measure, realized as such. But this is just the
point of the catastrophe. The very realization of the
provisional forgiveness, in proportion as it was realized,
turns into the material of the condemnation. "Thou
wicked servant, I forgave thee," that is the point of guilt
—the forfeited forgiveness is the fatal wickedness — " and
I
6a ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors
till he should pay all that was due. So shall also my
heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive not every
one his brother from your hearts."^
The forgiveness, if its consummation be rebelled
against, becomes, in itself, condemnation. On the other
hand, if and when its consummation is perfectly reached
— "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into
the joy of thy lord " — the forgiveness may be said to be
wholly merged in the glad welcome of an undimmed love.
It is, then, of forgiveness not yet consummated, but
inchoate and provisional : perhaps we should rather say
it is of Love in its provisional and anticipatory stage, —
recognising possibilities not yet realized, and by this
anticipatory recognition marvellously quickening them ;
it is of Divine Love at this stage, and under these con-
ditions, that we do characteristically use the word " forgive-
ness." There is no difference at all between Divine
forgiveness and Divine love ; save in the atmosphere of
conditions around and through which it is for the present
working. Forgiveness is love, in its relation to a person-
ality which, having sinned, is learning, and to learn, what
the sin-consciousness of penitence means.
In this sense the instinct which would shrink from re-
garding forgiveness as a necessity of righteousness may, in
part, be justified. Love is a necessity of righteousness ;
and forgiveness only is an aspect of love. But love wears
the form, and carries the name, of forgiveness — in its antici-
patory and provisional relation to the penitent. We do
call love forgiveness just when, and just because, the peni-
tent, whose very life it is, yet makes and can make no claim
to deserving it. In this sense it may still perhaps even be
true that forgiveness is correlative to non-deserving. But
love, under the conditions, could not not have forgiven.
» Mat. xviii. 32-35.
I
III.] FORGIVENESS 63
The love forgives simply because it is love. And that for-
giving love is the recognition, and becomes the possibility,
of a personal righteousness in the penitent which still only
is possible in him, in proportion as it is quite completely,
and sincerely, disclaimed.
But it is to be remembered that the parable of the un-
forgiving servant, if it teaches on one side that the forgive-
ness of God is provisional, and thereby contributes not a
little to our understanding of the nature of Divine forgive-
ness ; is also, in its outcome, directed to the lesson of the
human duty of forgiving. It emphasizes, with most per-
emptory insistence, the indispensable necessity of learning,
on earth, to forgive. Now it is true that what has hitherto
been said has been far away from all the scenery, and the
problems, of human forgiveness. But it is necessary, not
only that the forgiveness of man by man, as a primary duty
of the Christian life, should be understood, if the life is
really to illustrate it ; but that it should be understood in
its relation to the thought of the forgiveness of man by
God. Human forgiveness is to find its inspiration in man's
experience of the forgiveness of God. God's forgiveness
must find an expression of itself in man's forgiveness of
man.
The first thing which we have to do, in turning from
divine to human forgiveness, is to draw certain distinctions.
The exact lineaments of divine forgiveness could only be
reproduced in human life quite perfectly, where the con-
ditions were analogous. They are never quite perfectly
analogous between man and man. Nevertheless, the
analogy is so immeasurably more complete in some cases
lan in others, that it is well to distinguish, and to con-
sider first the instances in which that analogy most
ipproaches to being perfect. The nearest approach is to
found in the relation between a parent and a very
mng child. Only through the thought of what forgive-
64 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap
ness in the parent means can we quite grasp what it
ought to be as towards the criminal who has brutally
injured us.
Think, then, of the attitude of a parent, patient, loving,
and wise, in dealing with the naughtiness of a little child.
The first thing which is obvious is that the parent loves the
child anyhow. His whole treatment of the child, from the
beginning of the matter to the end, may be described, not
unaptly, as the process of the wise diplomacy of love. The
second point to notice is that, to the view of this love, the
child is never wholly identified with his naughtiness. Love
thinks of the child quite apart from his evil-doing, and has
for its aim throughout the effective distinction between the
child's evil, and the child. Thirdly, the very love which
sees most clearly the possibility, and aims most directly
at the realizing, of this distinction ; though waiting and
longing every moment to forgive, yet cannot wear the
aspect of forgiveness while the child is wholly self-identified
with its passion. So long as this self-identification is com-
plete, and the child rebels against every concession to
goodness ; so long the love, just because it is love, cannot
but continue to manifest itself as displeasure. But fourthly,
with the first dim touch or gleam of child-like regret and
sorrow, the love which was waiting, opens its arms as love.
It may still be grave, it may admonish, it may discipline,
or it may simply embrace ; but whatever it does that is
wisely and truly done, is felt as the action not of anger,
but of love. And observe that these different attitudes are
not optional, but necessary. Love dare not, can not — being
love — forgive in the height of the passion. Love dare not,
can not — being love — fail to forgive, from the moment
when forgiveness is possible. He who affects to forgive,
when love does not ; or he who lags behind, when love has
forgiven, transgresses at once against both love and truth.
It is hard no doubt to be always loving and true. It is
I
III.] FORGIVENESS 65
hard to discern, and not misread, the heart of the child.
A child sent away for disobedience, offers shyly to come
back. Is that shyness the wistful shyness of desire ? or is
it the awkward shyness of defiance ? Those who stand in
the parent's place, being foolish, may mistake. But upon
the discernment of its true character, the parental duty de-
pends. Is it wistfulness ? In that wistfulness, dim, child-
like, half-unconscious as it is, may be the true germ of
what, in its perfected blossom, would be the outpouring of
the confession of the penitent. It may be that that mere
wistfulness, if met with the open-armed embrace of forgiv-
ing love, will produce forthwith the faltering word of regret,
or the tears without words, which are, so far, the little self s
true effort of repudiation of sin, and of personal allegiance
to righteousness.
This is, on earth, the nearest analogy by which we can
read the working of Divine love. For the parent who is
loving and wise, is in many respects in the place of God to
the child. Yet even the nearest analogy falls short. For the
most loving and the wisest of parents can never be to his
child what God is to man. Parent and child after all, are
inexorably distinct. The child may bear the likeness of
the parent, in expression, in touch, in tone. By teaching,
by example, by infection of love, the parent may so influence
Jthe child that we may say, not unaptly, that the parent has
laped the character of the child, — that the child has
"caught and reflects the spirit of the parent. But press such
words ; and after all we are speaking in metaphor. In the
last resort it remains that the child is not the parent ; and
the parent is not the child. The spirit of the child, be the
likeness what it may, is distinct at last from the spirit of
the parent. Or, if not hopelessly distinct, they begin to be
one,— not because the child grows really into the spirit of
the parent ; but in so far as both, child and parent alike,
are in their several personalities really growing into that
£
66 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
oneness of the Spirit of God, which is the true Koivwvta of
the saints.
But to return. What, in the case supposed, does the
parent's forgiveness mean? It is worth while to notice
that the very meaning of the word forgiveness in such a
case vitally depends upon the fact that the parent has com-
plete command over the child, and has a proportionate re-
sponsibility for the training of the child's moral character.
The parent's forgiveness is something which only is possible
to one who is absolutely ruler and judge and teacher and
example all in one. It is only upon the basis of all these
things that his forgiveness can be exactly what it is. But,
on this basis, the forgiveness really means a loving re-
cognition and embrace, on the part of authoritative right-
eousness, of the first beginning or desire, within the child,
towards that condemnation of sin in the self, which is
the form through which a personality in which sin is in-
herent, can become at all again identified with righteous-
ness. And such forgiveness is the sunshine in which
character grows. Even in the case of the parent and the
child there is a sense, though a limited one, in which that
earliest movement of desire within the child may be itself a
result of what the parent is ; an effect, or echo, of dimly
felt love, not its own. We do not quite know how far it
may be sometimes literally true, that it was really the good-
ness and love of the parent which, in the child who reflects
^he parent's character and influence (as his features and
tone) constitutes the child's own primal possibility of
yearning or repentant love. And so far the forgiveness of
a parent, may in God's Spirit reflect, with wonderful near-
ness, the meaning of God's forgiveness of sinful man.
But if this, among human analogies, is the nearest to
the Divine original, it is well to make this a standard of
comparison, and interpret others in the light of this.
Granted that if a child comes crying to its mother, the
III.] FORGIVENESS 67
mother has a duty of forgiving: what if wicked men,
without conscience or pity, combine to do all conceivable
violence and wrong to both child and mother? Have
the victims of violence, as such, no duty of forgiveness ?
Undoubtedly they have. And yet it is plain at a
glance that the word forgiveness cannot simply be taken
over, without variation of meaning, from the one case to
the other. I observed just now that the ideal nature of
a parent's forgiveness could only be explained on the
basis of certain assumptions involved in the truth that
he stands in the place of God to his child. But every
one of these assumptions must be set aside, or reversed,
when I explain my forgiveness, as a victim, towards the
man who treats me with outrageous wickedness. I do
not stand to him in the place of God. I have, materially,
no power to control his wickedness. I have no re-
sponsibility for his moral character. I am not his judge.
Nor have I any right — right, that is, ultimately before
God, — to claim as of right, immunity from being persecuted.
What then, if I forgive him, does forgiving him mean ?
In the first instance it means, I conceive, simply this :
that I, being what I know myself before God to be,
disclaim for myself any right not to suffer. It is not,
as yet, that I am recognizing something forgiveable in
my tormentor ; it is not that I am blind for a moment
to the horror of his wickedness ; or that I should not,
if I had the power, severely condemn and chastise it ;
but rather that I turn my face from the thought of it,
declining to enter at all upon a judgment in which I
disclaim all right and all concern. He is not responsible
to me. And therefore I turn from him, as if he were an
irresponsible agent, — a dumb animal, or a rock, or a tree,
which God had allowed to be to me an instrument of
discipline. In the first instance I shut my eyes to him
and turn simply to the thought of God and myself;
68 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
dedicating myself in submission to the will of God.
" As for me, I was like a deaf man, and heard not : and
as one that is dumb, who doth not open his mouth. I
became even as a man that heareth not: and in whose
mouth are no reproofs. For in thee, O Lord, have I put
my trust : Thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my God." ^
" They stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord and saying.
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." ^
This first. But this, no doubt, is only immediate and
preliminary. There will follow then, secondly, on this
the one other thing which is possible, so long as he is
obstinate in his wickedness still. This is the recognition
that he is, after all, not a thing but a man ; and that as
a man, though self-identified with wickedness now, he
is capable of identity with goodness. To insist on dis-
tinguishing, in the thought of him, between what he now
is and what he might become : to go out, in thought, in
desire, in aspiration, in prayer, on his behalf, towards
that restoration, in him, of the true self, for which he
himself never dreams of praying nor hoping ; to recognize
what conceivably might be, even before it has at all begun
to be: this so long as the man does not yet relent or
falter in his wickedness, is all that is possible.
This is all that is possible. But only think how much
this means ! " He kneeled down and cried with a loud
voice. Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when
he had said this, he fell asleep." Already, in these words,
the thought of St Stephen is fixed upon the real human
selves of his persecutors, with all their possibility of things
divine, in utter contrast with that rebellion against light
with which their act, in his death, was then identifying
them : already in prayer he yearns forward towards the
idea of such a contrast consummated and actual ; and
he who does this, does, by anticipation, all. The man
^ Ps. xxxviii. 13-16. * Acts vii. 59.
I
III.] FORGIVENESS 69
who dies then and there under their wickedness, cannot,
save in desire of faith, see the after possibilities. For
the present that desire of faith exhausts what forgiveness
can mean.
And so in respect of those who have wronged us in
other ways, not unto death ; while their wickedness still
is rampant and impenitent, and we are wholly without
power to influence them, our forgiveness takes the form
of the consecrating of our will, the uplifting of our appeal,
to God on their behalf. But how much this implicitly
means becomes plainer as perhaps, in God's providence,
the opportunities grow. The man is arrested, for instance,
and sentenced — to death it may be, or to imprisonment ;
and it chances to be in our power to visit, and to talk to
him ; and it may be by and by to give him a hand towards
fresh possibilities. Or the man is sick, and it is in our
power to wait on him ; and sickness — or sickness and
sympathy — help wonderfully to open his eyes. Or, with-
out prison or sickness, things are changed with him ; and
there are, or may be, touches of compunction, dim, far
away, hard to catch, hard to help, yet suggestive still of
possibilities in him rather smothered than dead. The
forgiveness which was real from the first as prayer both
realizes and manifests itself, as opportunities grow, in
further acts, themselves necessary corollaries of the prayer.
If indeed it should chance, in greater degree or in less,
that the question of the punishment of the criminal
should fall within our power ; our forgiveness might
indeed mean remission of punishment ; but it is no
less possible that it might mean infliction, not remission. '
For that is, in either case, a question of detail, a question
of the more expedient method — regarded as a means to
an end. Our forgiveness is found, neither in punishment
nor remission as such; but in our clear view and un-
swerving aim, of thought and heart, towards the end.
70 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
And the end is the effectual realization at last of such
absolute antithesis between the sinner and his sin, as only
is perfectly realized when he, the real he, is no longer
a sinner but righteous.
It seems, then, that, even for the purpose of studying
the meaning and character of forgiveness between man
and man, we are apt to be misled if we begin with the
case of a victim suffering under triumphant wickedness.
But if we begin with the relation of parent and child,
because it is likest to the case of God with man, and
study it in the light of God's forgiveness of man ; and
so, from it, pass on to the question of forgiveness between
equals, we shall reach a truer conception of what, even
in the most ordinary cases among brethren, true forgive-
ness does, or ought ideally to, mean.
It may be that our imagination can picture scenes —
death-scenes, perhaps in the hospital or on the scaffold, when
the forgiveness of one who once was cruelly persecuted in
his holiness, which could then take only the form of silent
prayer for his persecutor, has passed on, without change in
itself, through changing conditions of outward opportunity,
until it is visibly like the forgiveness of a tenderly loving
parent; until, that is, it is the persecutor who is lying —
very helpless at once and very sorrowful ; while he who
was the victim, having now on his side all material force,
and reflecting in himself, as example and teacher and
judge, the very light of the holiness of God — reflects
God also in this^ that his love, like the love of God which
is in it, yearns with fatherly tenderness as towards an
erring child, striving by love to awake an outcry of re-
sponsive desire, which it can — which it will — embrace as
the real earnest of a personal self-identification with love.
All this is really implicit in the fact, itself as fact not
at all unfamiliar, that forgiveness must always retain its
underlying character as a provisional thing, unless and
I
III.] FORGIVENESS 71
until it is consummated in the holiness of the penitent,
and in the perfect embrace, by love because it is love,
of the holy penitent because of the holiness that is in him.
Certainly we do not forget the extreme imperfectness of
human achievement in this, as in all directions of spiritual
life. But none the less it is true that, when penitence once
has begun, in any soul of man, however much it may seem
to fall short of its meaning, nothing less than this is what
it ideally means. It is a beginning, whose entire consum-
mation, should it ever be consummated, would mean, in
the perfect penitent, nothing less than a real and living
righteousness. If it stops short of real separation from
sin ; if it stops short of true allegiance to righteousness ;
(and we are under no sort of delusion as to the universal
experience of failure ; ) but if it stops short of these things,
in stopping short of them it stops short of itself; for these
things are the consummation of what penitence means.
And forgiveness, when it reaches its consummation, is
love's embrace of such a penitence as this.
I cannot, then, understand less than this in the word
forgiveness. And meanwhile I, or any man, — if through
the life and death and life again, the accomplished work
of the atonement of Jesus Christ, and our communion of
spirit with it and with Him, we too look up in hope to be
forgiven : what is the truth of the meaning, in us, of that
hope ? Is it a hope that we, — the content of that word " we "
remaining as it now is, untransformed, — shall nevertheless
be excused from punishment? or shall be called by the
name, or treated, apart from truth, as if we were righteous :
whilst all the time we are but what we knov/ ourselves, in
ourselves, to be ?
Certainly this is not the true character of the Christian
hope. If it were, the hope of forgiveness would carry with
it no aspiration moral or spiritual. Forgiveness is no mere
transaction outside the self, a mere arithmetical balance,
72 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
which leaves the self unchanged. Even the earliest touch,
on the conscious moral life, of the most provisional for-
giveness, must be a bracing touch, enhancing moral power,
or (at the least) adding flame to moral desire. If it does
neither, it is plainly foredoomed, as an experiment of love
which already has failed. But if it does, or so far as it
does ; already the content and character of the I who am
forgiven is to that extent changed. And the full for-
giveness to which in faith I aspire is a forgiveness on the
part — not of weak indulgence but of righteousness and
truth, a forgiveness on the part of the infinite God. It is
the righteous love, which seeing in me at last the very
righteousness of Christ, and seeing me only as one with the
Spirit of righteousness which is the Spirit of Christ, em-
braces in me the righteousness which really is there ; the
righteousness which, though not of me, is now the very
truth of what I, in Him, am. This is the consummation of
the triumph of Love.
Dare any one aspire to less than this ? or mean less than
this by his hope to be forgiven ? The hope of forgiveness
merely, which is not, of inherent necessity, the hope of
a heart set upon personal righteousness, — is a pagan rather
than a Christian hope. If I can have no heart for, and
no belief in, the possibility, even within myself, of the
righteousness of God ; I know not with what consistency of
meaning I can ask — of God — to be forgiven. It is not so
much for lack of possibility as for lack of desire, that men
are tempted to put such a hope as this on one side.
Nothing is really too high, in the Person of Christ, for those
who have the heart to desire it, — and Him.
Meanwhile, if our thought reverts to those who, to
human eyes, have failed, and sunk : poor, lonely, drifting
souls, with stunted capacities now, and shattered hopes,
drawing in towards the shadow of dishonoured graves:
the meaning of every hope that our love can frame for
I
in.] FORGIVENESS 73
their so late and faltering penitence, — for (if it be so now)
their dying tears ; is that even these, scanty, late, and
feeble though they seem, may yet be, in them, a real
beginning of capacity, seen in God's sight to be a be-
ginning, and real, — of what, in its full development will
become nothing less than a personal self-identification, in
love, with the love, which is also the holiness, of God.
For him, too, — for the lowest in human seeming, as for the
highest, our real hope of forgiveness consummated is a
hope of righteousness : a hope of God's love altogether
loving at last — what, through the marvellous working of
God's love, has become at last altogether lovable.
CHAPTER IV
THE PERSON OF THE MEDIATOR
The Christian doctrine of the Atonement has been
variously expounded. The Christian doctrine of the
Atonement, however expounded, has been vehemently
impugned. And indeed there is one objection, often
made against it, which is vital. Expound the action, or
nature, of the Mediator how you will, it is said that any
idea of a Mediator is impossible. Not so much anything
in the detail of His work, but the very core of the idea
presents itself to some minds as being, fundamentally, an
immorality and an untruth.
The problem, it will be said (legitimately enough) is
this. Here is man. Here is one, that is, who is immoral
and unholy in fact. By what conceivable action or process
can the de facto unholy become actually holy ? And if
the Christian answer begins to speak of a Redeemer, how
is it conceivable (the mind asks) that any Redeemer's
work, or endurance, or goodness, be it what it may, seeing
that it is outside the personalities of men, should touch
the point of pressing necessity, which is an essential
alteration of what men are ? What is wanted is not
that there should be a wonderful exhibition somewhere
of obedience, or that somebody should be holy : not even
that the amount or the value of holiness in the world
should balance, and perhaps outweigh, the huge volume
of unholiness. What is wanted is that these particular
personalities should be holy, which are in fact the reverse.
74
CHAP. IV.] THE PERSON OF THE MEDIATOR 75
How can the particular thing which is required be touched
by the introduction of " another " ? Here, if anywhere in
the world, there can be no question of a fictitious trans-
action, or an unreal imagining ; here, if anywhere, what-
ever is not vitally and personally real is both mockery
and despair.
Now it may be that this is a case in which logic, by
its very abstraction from experience, over-reaches itself.
At all events, as a sort of preliminary reply, let us begin
with a case which comes from the side of experience,
rather than of logic. Consider, then, the case of a man
in whose character we may happen to be interested very
closely, and whose character is unmistakably bad. The
daily hope and prayer in respect of him is that he may
not be that which he is, and may become what he is not.
But what is to be done? One thing is plain from the
first. He must not be simply left alone. To leave him
wholly to himself is to abandon hope. Instinctively you
rather ask, who is there about him ? has he a mother ? a
sister ? a high-principled companion ? a really good friend ?
If he has ; there^ you say at once, is the point of hope.
Everything will probably turn upon that friend. And
then comes the second thought ; yes, but if parent, sister,
friend, is to be his salvation, to be the living lever whereby
he is himself really to become the very thing he is not,
it will be no light task, no light pain, for the saving
friend. What heaviness of heart there must first be,
what anxious thought and care, what hoping against
hope, what sense of effort disappointed, and love (as it
seems) thrown away, what unwearying prayer to God,
what patient bearing with folly, perverseness, and sin!
If he who is the cause of all the trouble is himself with-
out anguish, and without contrition, and will endure no
discipline, and cannot entreat in prayer : how much
of all the burden of all these things must the friend
76 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
bear first, in order that, and until, the man himself, who
has seen and gradually felt these things in his friend,
may be able, and willing, to bear them a little for
himself. If the friend will not do this ; if no one will
enter into the grief and sin, sharing it as if it were his
own ; you have comparatively little hope. It is not a
friend who will lecture, so much as a friend who will
bear: not a friend who is ready to separate himself
from, but a friend who is willing himself to enter into,
the shadow of the cloud of misery and sin ; who has
become already, in that willingness, a hope and an
earnest of the penitent character, even of the man
who does not, as yet, himself, repent, or amend, or
(hardly even) desire.
But this, of course, carries us but a little way. It
stops very far short of the meaning of Atonement. Yet
it may serve perhaps to make logic a little more cautious.
The intervention of " another " is by no means so obviously
irrelevant as it appeared to be. Whatever else it is, the
case just supposed is at all events a most familiar experi-
ence in life. And it so far illustrates the real moral
and spiritual effectiveness which may be the outcome of
the voluntary suffering of another, as to make it impossible
to reject beforehand any theory of moral recovery, merely
because it can be said to hinge upon the idea of another's
suffering.
But it will be felt that, even if it be not fundamentally
impossible, the idea of an atoning mediator is, and must
be, incompatible with any profound reality of justice. If
A be the judge or king, and B the culprit, under what
conceivable circumstances, or upon what conceivable
principle of justice, can A fail to punish B, or allow C
to intervene at all?
It will perhaps be observed that our sense of the
incompatibleness of any such intervention with justice
rv.] THE PERSON OF THE MEDIATOR 77
becomes rigid and absolute, the moment we begin to
use the terms, or conjure up the associations, of a system
of judicial administration. The fact is that tribunals of
human justice mislead our thought on this subject almost
as much as they inform it. Human justice is necessarily
both clumsy and rigid. The judge must administer
general rules. General rules involve the sacrifice of
the particular, to the average, interest. Continually
the judge must do, for the sake of law, that is, for the
sake of the general community, what is not really the
wisest, or the justest, for the merely individual case. It
is almost impossible to imagine the judicial circumstances,
on earth, under which either judge or king would be
perfectly free to decide, in reference to the requirements
of moral goodness only, what would really be the wisest
and the best for the ultimate welfare of a single wrong-
doer. Moreover, even if the surrounding circumstances
did not make this impossible, no human insight of wisdom
would be adequate for it. Human justice that attempted
to be divinely just, would break to pieces altogether.
If indeed such freedom could be imagined, and wisdom
withal that was adequate to wield it ; we should recognise
by and by that the extreme rigidity of the practical
assumption that every man is, absolutely and equally, dis-
tinct from every one but himself, would begin to be at
least a little less rigid. We should not indeed be in the
habit of seeing guilty people let off, and others suffering
in their stead: far from it: but we should perhaps be
aware, of the possibility, in two different directions, of
certain exceedingly dim and distant approaches towards
what would look like this.
On the one side, we should recognize at least that there
might be cases, in which, if no one could exactly be a
substitute for the guilty, yet at least some could more
nearly approach to being so than others. It is something to
78 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
recognize that the impossibility is not, in all cases, absolute
and equal : that there are at least degrees of impossibility.
Degrees of impossibility imply, at least ideally, degrees of
possibility also. A stranger, hired for money to undergo a
loss of limb or liberty, would always be an insult to true
equity. But one who was very closely identified with the
wrong-doer in condition, or blood, or affection ; a tribesman
dedicating himself for a tribal wrong ; the willing repre-
sentative of a conquered nation, or army ; the father, on
behalf of his own child ; the husband, for the sake of his
wife ; is it impossible to conceive circumstances under
which a willing acceptance of penalty on the part of some
one of these, would as truly be the deepest hope of the
transformation of the guilty, as it would be the crown of
his own " nobleness ? Imagine, ideally, these three con-
ditions : first that he who so intervened to bear did so
at his own most earnest desire, of love ; secondly that he
was so near to the guilty accused that he might claim
a wholly exceptional right to represent him, — near as
(under conceivable circumstances) husband might be to
wife, or parent to child, or son to father ; and thirdly that
this sacrifice of vicarious endurance was indeed the truest
and the deepest way to produce the contrition and sancti-
fication of the guilty ; and what follows ? We need not
go so far as to say that any judge or lord on earth could
accept the sacrifice. But we may possibly recognize that
the impossibility which remains, depends not so much on
any essential lack of ideal righteousness in that which
might ideally be the consummation of righteousness in
them all ; but rather in the many human limitations which
would make any imaginable instance upon earth a mere
resemblance or approximation to the ideal conditions, not
a full attainment of them. It may be said, perhaps, that
of the last two conditions asked for, neither could ever
be quite absolutely realized. Between man and man, on
IV.] THE PERSON OF THE MEDIATOR 79
earth, they probably could not. But what we may recog-
nize, even between man and man, is some faint approxi-
mation towards — even if never, or even nearly, a realiza-
tion of — the conditions under which vicarious penalty
would be not intelligible only, but the supremest mani-
festation of righteousness as well as of love.
There is another side also to the thought. If, in
proportion to the just conceivable possibility of the
legitimate identification of some other with the culprit
we can conceive moral character in vicarious penalty;
on the other hand, in proportion to the identification
between the lord who judges and the person who has
been wronged, we can understand the righteousness of
a judging lord who should forego any kind of compensation
or penalty; that is, in effect, should bear all the burden
of the harm himself. If it is the king's own son who
has been maltreated and robbed ; and if the king, in a
mood of divine insight, truly sees that his free acceptance
of this injury in the person of his son, will be the turning-
point of the conversion to goodness of the robber, and
it may be of a whole district of brigandage ; the very
closeness of the identification between himself and his
son makes possible an equity which, had the son been
a stranger, would have been unrighteous.
But, after all, such suggestions as these are most
precarious. It is difficult to omit them ; for they represent
some real truth. Yet they are by themselves so little
convincing that, as matter of mere policy, it might have
been more persuasive to leave them unsaid. Though
men are not so absolutely distinct from one another as
modern thought and life assume them to be ; though
the father is in the child, and the child is a real repre-
sentative of the father; though as there are family
likenesses and national characters, so there are family
and national responsibilities and consubstantialities ; yet,
So ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
after all, no one man quite can be another ; if, in a flash,
for a moment, we seemed to see them becoming almost
as one, yet we fall back ; the essential distinction remains ;
no one is another; the injustice of vicarious penalty is
not done away.
And in any case the language of human jurisprudence
is confusing. The rough imperfectness, which is the best
possibility of human judgment, cannot really light up
the mystery of the perfectness of the judgement of God.
We shall be carried somewhat further by another sort of
instance, which at least is free from all the misleading
rigidity of legal conceptions. Let A, then, be not the
judge, but the father, — loving, wise, and true ; and B the
child, who has gone very far wrong ; and C — the mother.
And let her be thought of, not as in any respect either
weak or cowardly, but as a wise and brave, as well as
tender-hearted, woman. There is here no question of a
legal obligation on the father to impose formal punishment ;
but the problem is the real transformation of the character
of the child. Do we not recognize at once that the pro-
foundest hope for the child's real change lies in the reality
with which the parents enter into his grief and shame;
so enter into it, on his behalf, as to win it to be in him
where in fact it was not, until it was first in them, and
in him only from them? Do we not recognize, in
particular, the place, in his discipline and his purifying,
which may belong to the voluntary distress and endur-
ance of the mother? This is no question, it is to be
observed, of a penalty which the father insists on inflicting
upon somebody, and which the mother intervenes to bear.
Nothing whatever is inflicted by the father on the mother.
Indeed, nothing is, speaking strictly, inflicted on any one
by any one. The penalty which the mother bears is the
penalty of contrition : it is rather an effort of discipline
than a price of satisfaction ; it corresponds in idea not to
IV.] THE PERSON OF THE MEDIATOR 8i
punishment so much, regarded externally as a squaring
of accounts, as to the moral discipline which, through
self-abasement, self-condemnation, and self-surrender to
penalty, wins its painful way to victorious goodness and
peace. And she bears it — not as an inflicted sentence
but as the spontaneous instinct and outflow of her own
intensity of love. And finally, so far is it from being
imposed by the relentlessness of an unforgiving father,
that whatever she bears in this way, he too bears in her
and with her; for in mind, in this matter, and in will,
they are one. Whatever he may seem to exact, she
exacts as completely as he. Whatever she is willing to
endure, his sympathy too, and his will, and his yearning
desire, are with her to the full in enduring.
It is probable that this analogy carries us much further
towards truth than any that can be borrowed from forensic
justice. Nevertheless this too is an imperfect analogy. It
carries us further, but it fails at the pinch. It is suggestive
of much : but it certainly is not a parallel to atonement.
For even here, after all, much as the parents* goodness
may influence the child, yet they are distinct. The father
is not the mother ; and the mother is not the child.
Now it is precisely here, in the light, that is to say,
at once of the suggestiveness of these analogies, and also
of the hopeless inadequacy which we find to be inherent
in them, that we are confronted by those great affirmations
of fundamental doctrine, which lie at the basis of the
"Atonement" of Christian revelation. It is at the very
root of the Christian doctrine that He, who made atone-
ment between God and man. Himself, in the fullest sense,
was God and was Man. If He were man only, however
perfectly, and not God : the whole idea of any reality
of effectual mediation or atonement — without which
Christianity, beautiful though it might be in idea, would
not be Christianity — falls in a moment absolutely to the
F
82 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
ground. If He were not God, the statement that He was
a good man could be only an inexact and relative truth.
Absolutely, on close analysis, it would not, and could not
possibly, be true. Moreover if He were not God, the fact
that He was good (in whatever sense it may be imagined
to be true) would be a fact of no more moment to me,
than the fact that Samson was strong, or Solomon wise,
or S. Paul intrepid, or S. John beloved. They were, but
I am not; and that is the difference between them and
me ; and that is all. The more, indeed, they were these
things, the greater the difference. And the more trans-
cendently good He was, the more hopelessly unapproach-
able would He be to me, — if He were only another man,
and not God.
From the point of view, however, of the Christian faith,
this is the one absolutely cardinal and primary truth ; that,
in the words of the Athanasian Creed, "Our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, is God and man ; God of the
substance of the Father, begotten before the world ; and
man, of the substance of His Mother, born in the world ;
perfect God and perfect Man." These are the familiar
words, the authority of which is not likely to be challenged.
But perhaps it may not be wrong to suggest that that
which is understood and meant, even in the assertion of
these familiar words, is apt to be ambiguous, and may
very often be inadequate. My meaning may be very
unsatisfactory when I say that the Father is God, and
that Jesus Christ also is God ; or that I am man, and that
Jesus Christ also is man. Such language sounds far too
much as if we were thinking first of A and of B, and then
C was subsequently introduced, who was like B in being
also human, and like A in being also Divine. The word
"also" and the word "like" are both of them instantly
liable to misinterpretation. They seem to introduce the
generic conception; as though the word "God" couid
IV.] THE PERSON OF THE MEDIATOR S^
represent a genus or class, and there were more members
of the genus than one. The truth is of course not so.
To the thoughtful Christian the word God is an absolute
and singular, — it cannot possibly be a generic — word.
By a sort of economy or condescension of phrase, when
we speak towards those who are without, we may use it
generically "as there be lords many and gods many,"
or as when under the general heading "Theism" we
include true and false conceptions of God alike. But
whatever be the just ground for thus in speech classifying
together the true and the imperfect and the false, to
ourselves at least, when face to face with real truth,
God is, and can be, but One. " Hear O Israel, the
Lord our God, the Lord, is One"^ is a word not only
not abrogated, but expressly re-enacted, in the Chris-
tian faith. The Alpha and Omega, the beginning, and
end, and sum, and meaning of Being is but One. We
who believe in a Personal God do not mean a limited
God. We do not mean one more a bigger specimen of
existence, amongst existences. Rather we mean that
the reality of existence itself is Personal. We mean that
all the different abstracts, pushed back far enough, are
personal, and the One same Personal : that Power, that
Law, that Life, that Thought, that Love, are ultimately,
in their very reality, identified in one supreme, and that
necessarily a Personal, existence. Now such Supreme
Being cannot be multiplied : it is incapable of a plural :
it cannot be a generic term. There cannot be more than
one all inclusive, more than one ultimate, more than one
God. Nor has Christian thought at any point, for any
moment, dared, or endured, the least approach to such
a thought or phrase as " Two Gods." If the Father is
God, and the Son God, they are both the same God,
wholly, unreservedly. God is a particular, an unique,
^ Mark xii. 29. R.V.
84 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
not a general term. Each is not only God, but is the
very same "singularis unicus et totus Deus." They are
not both generically God, as though " God " could be an
attribute or a predicate ; but both identically God, the God,
the One, all inclusive, indivisible, God.^
Considerations like these, fundamental though they may
be, are by no means unnecessary ; for there is, among
Christians, not a little popular thought, which, meaning
to be orthodox, is, in fact, more or less, Tri-theistic ; and
which, just because it so far tends towards plurality of
God, goes some way to provoke, and account for, the
correlative popular tendency, and tenderness, towards
Unitarianism. Just so far as Christian thought tends,
in fact, towards making God a generic predicate ; the
* " And sith they all are but one God in number, one indivisible essence
or substance, their distinction cannot possibly admit separation. For how
should that subsist solitarily by itself which hath no substance but individually
the very same whereby others subsist with it ; seeing that the multiplication
of substances in particular is necessarily required to make those things subsist
apart which have the same general nature, and the Persons of that Trinity are
not three particular substances to whom one general nature is common, but
three that subsist by one substance which itself is particular^ yet they all three
have it, and their several ways of having it are that which maketh their
personal distinction?" Hooker, E.P.V, Ivi. 2. p. 246.
* * The schoolmen are known to have insisted with great earnestness on
the numerical unity of the Divine Being ; each of the three Divine Persons
being one and the same God, unicus, singularis, et totus Deus. [But see
Aquinas, Summa, p. I. Qu. xxxi. art. 2. Vol. xx. p. 153.] In this, however,
they did but follow the recorded doctrine of the Western theologians of the
5th century, as I suppose will be allowed by critics generally. So forcible is
St Austin upon the strict unity of God, that he even thinks it necessary to
caution his readers lest they should suppose that he could allow them to speak
of One Person as well as of Three in the Divine Nature, afe Trin. vii. 11.
Again, in the (so-called) Athanasian Creed, the same elementary truth is
emphatically insisted on. The neuter unum of former divines is changed
into the masculine, in enunciating the mystery. " Non tres seterni, sed unus
setemus." I suppose this means that Each Divine Person is to be received as
the one God as entirely and absolutely as He would be held to be, if we had
never heard of the other Two, and that He is not in any respect less than the
one and only God, because They are each the same one God also ; or in other
words, that as each human individual being has one personality, the Divine
Being has three."
Newman's Arians, appendix, note iv. p. 447. 3rd edn.
IV.] THE PERSON OF THE MEDIATOR 85
necessary protest on behalf of the unity of God (necessary
perhaps from the scientific and philosophical not less
than from the theological side) will naturally begin to
assert itself as a correction, rather than as a corroboration,
of orthodox theology. If the thought that wishes to be
orthodox had less tendency to become Tri-theistic, the
thought that claims to be free would be less Unitarian.
For centuries upon centuries, it is to be remembered,
the essential unity of God had been, as it were, burnt
and branded in upon the consciousness of Israel. It had
to be completely established first, as a basal element of
thought, indispensable, unalterable, before there really
could begin the disclosure to man of the reality of
eternal relations within the one indivisible Being of
God. And when the disclosure came, it came not as
modifying, — far less as denying, — but as further inter-
preting and illumining that unity which it absolutely
presupposed.
Probably, however, there will be many minds which,
if they put into words their instinctive feeling in respect
of such thoughts as these, would express themselves
somewhat in this way: they would say, we are afraid
of saying too much : we are afraid, in such an assertion
of unity, of explaining away the threefold distinction of
Personality : we are afraid of reducing it to a threefold-
ness merely of phrase, or merely of aspect : in a word,
we are afraid of Sabellianism. It might possibly be
enough to reply that if two truths, which intellect im-
perfectly correlates, are nevertheless to be really held
together, they are best held not by a refusal to affirm
either positively, for fear of interfering with the other,
but by a fearless assertion, in its turn, of each. But
indeed these two truths are not simply held together,
without any attempt at correlation. They do not come
to us exactly, as it were, on the same level. The one
S6 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
comes to us as more fundamental and primary than the
other. The second is an element in, or method of, the
first. And our direct answer is that we cannot possibly
incur any Sabellian peril, whilst we firmly understand and
maintain (what is fatal to Sabellianism) that that which
IS revealed within Divine Unity is not only a distinction
of aspects or of names, but a real reciprocity of mutual
relation. One "aspect" cannot contemplate, or be loved
by another. If we recognize that revelation discloses,
within the one being of God, both subject and object at
once, a mutuality of eternal contemplation, a mutuality
of eternal love, no language that we can use about unity
can be really Sabellian ; for any thought of mutual
relationship between aspects of one, which differ only
as aspects, would be wholly impossible. We may dis-
miss then any fear of affirming the unity too much, and
repeat that it must needs be inadequate thought, which
would think of the Son as only being, generically, like
to the Father, in being also, yet distinctly, God. What
the Father is, that is the Son, not similarly but identi-
cally, for He and the Father are One.
From this we turn to the human side. " Perfect God
and perfect Man." Now if the generic sense, as applied
to God, is impossible : as applied to man it is at least
inadequate and untrue. If He might have been, yet He
certainly was not, a man only, amongst men. His relation
to the human race is not that He was another specimen,
differing, by being another, from everyone except Him-
self. His relation to the race was not a differentiating
but a consummating relation. He was not generically,
but inclusively, man.
The fact, indeed, even of our own distinctness one
from another, is not (as has been already urged) so bald
or so ultimate as we sometimes make it. The father is
reproduced in the son : we know not how deep may be
IV.] THE PERSON OF THE MEDIATOR 87
the community between brother and brother. If " we "
defeated the Armada or Napoleon, — we who had no
more hand in it than the French or Spanish infants
yet unborn : if the felon's dishonour brands the whole
family name : if Israel fled and died because Achan
sinned ; or (more awfully still) if " Israel " put to death
the Son of Man : then connections like these are no
merely artificial make-believe, no idle form of fashion in
phrase. Even the wider phrase "solidarity of humanity,"
is one which, as it has probably more meaning now than
ever it could have had in the world before, so perhaps
every day, and from every side at once, (the practical side,
and the scientific, as well as the philosophical and the
religious) is growing in directness and depth of signifi-
cance. Whatever we do, we do not for ourselves alone.
The attempt to make an isolated life is an impossible
attempt. It is not as an individual that I can be
measured or judged. What I am is what I am in
relation to an environment. As child in the family, as
school-fellow, as comrade, as citizen, as householder, to
those around, rich or poor, good or evil, bright or sad, —
I am determined more and more, by my relations. From
the very lowest form of boon-companionship, or partner-
ship in crime, to the life of perpetual service to man, and
to God in man, this dependence and relativity of the
individual life is in one way or other perpetually being
realized.
But once more, as between man and man, these things
are a parable, an aspiration, a glimpse : they still always
fall short. It is precisely here that the relation of Jesus
Christ to humanity is unique. What others do but faintly
suggest is realized in him. Other cases, if they illustrate it
at all, must illustrate it at least as emphatically by what
they are not, as by anything that they are. To think of
Him merely in the light of the ordinary possibilities of
88 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
others, to think of the significance, or power, of His
humanity as limited to His sole individual self-hood, is in-
compatible with the very existence and meaning of the
Church. He alone was not generically but inclusively
man.
The only relation which can at all directly compare with
it, is that of Adam ; who, in a real — though a primarily
external, and therefore inadequate — sense, was Humanity ;
so that every succeeding instance of humanity is human by
direct derivation from him, as very part and parcel of what
he was. The reality and directness of our relation with
Adam we feel only too cogently. It is useless to argue
about it ; it is there. It is part of what we begin with.
It belongs to that consciousness of the self which is anterior
to any analysis or argument. Every pulsation of the
blood in our veins, every limitation, or temptation, or dis-
order, or decay, which, through the avenue of the body has
come home to ourselves, and registered itself as part of our
own private history and consciousness, is witness only too
incontrovertible to the necessity and the absoluteness of
our relationship with Adam. The nature, in and through
which we live, is the nature which we have received by
transmission from him. It is in us what it was in him first.
We cannot separate ourselves from him. No indignation,
no bewailing, no strenuousness of effort or resolve will avail
to alter the underlying fact that our humanity is his
humanity. From him it was derived to us ; and in us it
retains all those natural qualities and tendencies, in which
and through which our personality grows to self-conscious-
ness and self-expression ; but which themselves, long before
any personality of ours, for good or for evil took their
stamp, as being what they were, in him.
This is the only instance, actual or possible, with which
the relation of Jesus Christ to humanity has been in scrip-
ture, or can be, compared. But even in this one case the
IV.] THE PERSON OF THE MEDIATOR 89
comparison is not completely adequate. It is valid as an
illustration, but remains on a different, and dissimilar, level.
The one is a fleshly relation, the other a spiritual. The
one works automatically, materially, mechanically. The
other is realized in a different sphere, and depends upon
other than material conditions. The one is a natural
property of bodily life, and follows, as it were blindly, from
the fact that Adam was the original parent. The other is
a Spiritual property, so sovereign, so transcendent, that it
could only be a property of a Humanity which was not
merely the Humanity of a finite creature, but the Humanity
of the infinite God.
Not that there is any absolute antithesis between spirit
and body. Neither is body without spirit, nor spirit without
body. What Adam is to the flesh, and, through the flesh,
indirectly to the spirit also ; that is Christ to the spirit, and,
through the spirit, indirectly also to the flesh, of all those
who, as they are partakers, in flesh, of Adam, are made
capable of becoming partakers, in Spirit, of Christ. We
talk, indeed, ourselves, in a limited sense, of one man
speaking or acting in the spirit of another ; and so far as it
roes the phrase is not untrue ; yet it goes but a very little
ray. That complete indwelling and possessing of even
>ne other, which the yearnings of man towards man im-
jrfectly approach, is only possible, in any fulness of the
rords, to that Spirit of Man which is the Spirit of God : to
le Spirit of God, become, through Incarnation, the Spirit
of Man. No mere man indwells, in Spirit, in, or as, the
Spirit of another. Whatever near approach there may be
seen to be towards this, is really mediated through the
Spirit of Christ. If I grow at last towards unity of spirit
with my friend : it is not really that I am in him, or he in
me ; but rather that the grace of indwelling Spirit which
indwelt in him, and made him, in his own way, what he
was, is not denied even to me. Experience of man with
9b ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.-
man, here as elsewhere, gives but a faint analogy of the
meaning of the Divine. But, here as elsewhere, it would
be a fatal mistake to interpret the meaning of the Divine
only in terms of man's experience with man. After all,
we do not fully attain to the meaning of a.nything here.
We do but point towards, we do not realize, even that
which we first and most claim to possess — self-conscious
personality : we do not realize the conditions without which
we ourselves should be unthinkable : what wonder if we
can but point dimly towards, and cannot realize, the reci-
procity of true intercommunion of spirits ? But what our
limited being points towards, is real in God. If Christ's
Humanity were not the Humanity of Deity, it could not
stand in the wide, inclusive, consummating relation, in
which it stands in fact, to the humanity of all other men.
But as it is, the very essence of the Christian religion is the
indwelling of the Spirit of Christ. " The first man Adam
became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving
Spirit." 1 "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is
none of His." 2
No attempt will be made, in the present context at
least, to enlarge further upon the methods or meanings
of this mutual inherence, this spiritual indwelling, whereby
humankind is summed anew, and included, in Christ.^
Nor need we at this moment attempt to enter into a
discussion as to the meaning of the prerogative of free
will, or that awful possibility which is inherent in it,
whereby we may revolt, and reject, and put ourselves
outside the life of Christ. Be that possibility what it may,
it is not that that can interpret — for it is utter revolt and
contradiction against — the meaning of the atoning work
of Christ. The meaning of that work must be found, not
in the mystery of the possibility of its being contradicted,
^ I Cor. XV. 45. ^ Romans viii. 9.
* These subjects are further discussed in chapters viii. and ix.
1
IV.] THE PERSON OF THE MEDIATOR 91
but in the beauty of its unmarred effectiveness. And
apart from man's power to revolt from it, which we do
not now discuss, it certainly means inclusion within the
Body of the Spirit of Christ.
If there be those to whom such language sounds in the
least degree either figurative or overstrained, it may, at
the present stage, be sufficient to remind them of these
three things. First, that its truth, as literal and vital,
is absolutely assumed in all that St Paul has to say about
the first, and the second, Adam. Secondly that not in
one place only, but from end to end, language expressive
of this truth is so reiterated and insisted on in the New
Testament, that it may fairly be called the characteristic
truth of the apostolic Church. If there is one corollary
from the Deity of Christ, which, more than another, we
may defy any man to eradicate from New Testament
theology, without shivering the whole into fragments,
it is the truth of the recapitulation and inclusion of the
Church, which is, ideally at least, as wide as humanity,
in Christ. And thirdly, that this truth is the obvious
basis of the entire sacramental system and doctrine, that
is, of the divinely distinctive worship, which is the divine
expression of the faith and life, of the Church of Christ.
What is Baptism, in its truest realization, but our in-
corporation, as members, into the Body of Christ ? What
is Holy Communion, but a feeding and living upon the
Body and Blood of Christ? The beginning of life in
Christ's Church is the free gift of membership in Christ.
The crown of the most ideal and unfaltering life of
communion is the consummation of personal union with
Christ. The whole sacramental system symbolizes, ex-
pounds, represents, yes and conveys — not mechanically
ior magically, but intelligently, morally and spiritually,
"this far more than merely human reality of inclusion
rith and in Christ.
I
92 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap. iv.
No doubt all this may be said to be merely preliminary.
Nothing has yet been offered in the way of explanation
of the nature, or meaning, of the atoning action of our
Lord. But perhaps it is not in vain to try and take
account even of the more external and pedantic barriers
by which the, often unconscious, perverseness of the
natural intellect tries to shut out our moral and spiritual
consciousness from that assimilation of the basal truth
of atonement, which is, in fact, its deepest necessity.
And if perplexities of arithmetical character are to be
met in terms of arithmetic ; at least, when pressed by
the charge of moral injustice in the fact of the vicarious
intervention of any mediating third term between God
and man, we may point out that there is a necessary, and
a very grave, misconception in the terms of the charge :
for He can be no intervening "third," who is Himself
— not similarly, not generically, but wholly, individually,
identically — the " first," and wholly, individually, identically
the "second" also; who is Himself, on the one side
absolutely, on the other (if we will but have it so), at
least with a Divine potentiality, "singularis, unicus, et
totus" — et Deus et Homo.
CHAPTER V
THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST
We now pass from the thought of the Person of Jesus
Christ as, like Adam, and more even than Adam, the repre-
sentative and inclusive summary of all mankind : and con-
sider rather, in respect of Himself, what His self-expression
in humanity meant ; and what is manifested in it as to
the true relation of the human self to God.
It has no doubt been often felt as a difficulty to con-
ceive quite adequately of the reality of His being, as
human, without going in thought too far, and conceiving
of Him at once as two distinct Persons, a human person as
well as a Divine. And so Christian thought has learned to
shrink from speaking, or thinking, of Him as " a human
personality," and has sometimes even made a sort of prin-
ciple of speaking of the impersonal character of the
humanity of Christ. But if there is error at hand in the
one direction, there is certainly also error in the other. If
there is a sense in which the assertion of a human person-
ality runs easily into Nestorianism ; at least those who first
asserted a human personality meant something, which the
simple denial of the phrase may unduly disparage. To
deny the human personality, however in some contexts
necessary, is not without its own risks. There is, and
there can be, no such thing as impersonal humanity. The
phrase involves a contradiction in terms. Human nature
which IS not personal, is not human nature. Human
nature can only be the nature of a person : not exactly, of
94 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
necessity, of a human person : but of a person who being
in himself at least human — perhaps more than human — is
so far as his assumption of humanity goes, — adequately
self-expressed in terms, and through conditions, of humanity.
Of necessity, He is a Person : and He, the Person, is
human. The root and origin of His Personality may not
be human. But in so far as He is a Person now humanly
incarnate, the word human has become a true attribute,
truly predicable of His Personality. Of necessity He is a
Person, and a Person who now expresses His very self,
through human conditions and capacities, as man. The
human acts, and human character, are the acts and the
character, the expression and the revelation, of Himself
Christ is, in fact, a Divine Person : but a Divine Person
not merely wearing manhood as a robe, or playing upon it
as an instrument ; but really expressing Himself m terms
of Humanity : and thereby making Humanity — to the ut-
most extent to which the conditions of mortal disability
under which He took it were capable — a real and true re-
flection and utterance of Deity. There was in Him no
impersonal Humanity (which is impossible) ; tut a human
nature and character which were personal because they
were now the method and condition of His own Personality :
Himself become Human, and thinking, speaking, acting,
and suffering, as man. ,.
"""^ It would indeed never be true to say of Him, during
the time of His humiliation, that He was nothing more
than the Human expression of Himself For He was,
all through, the Infinite and Eternal, God the Word,
" upholding all things by the word of His power " ^ —
"God only begotten, which is in the bosom of the
Father." 2 But however impossible it might be that
the infinite God should wholly be, in all aspects and
attributes of Deity, expressed in Humanity: yet at least
*Hebr. i. 3. ^John i. 18. K,V. margin.
I
v.] THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST 95
the Incarnate, as Incarnate, — God, in flesh, as man, —
was never Himself otherwise than as He could be, and
was, expressed through attributes and capacities of man-
hood. The Incarnate did not oscillate between being
God and being man. He was indeed always God ; and
yet never otherwise God than as expressed within the
possibilities of human consciousness and character. It
was not indeed obscure to His consciousness that He,
the Incarnate, was all the while something more than
He was as Incarnate. "Before Abraham was, I am."^
" I and the Father are one." ^ " And now, O Father,
glorify Thou Me with the glory which I had with Thee
before the world was." ^ These are not the words of I ^
One to whom His own essential being, or the origin, or , ^ *^
the goal, of Incarnation are, in any sense, obscured. But (I ^
this continued self-consciousness, in Himself, of inherent >^f '
Deity ; this steady view, before and after, in the way of ^'\
what we should call memory towards the past, and )sr
anticipation towards the future ; is not incompatible with , ^
the principle that, in respect of the experience of Incarna-
tion itself, its tasks and its sufferings, its works and its
self-restraints, its mind and its character, He was God
always and only in the way in which the human con-
Iitions which He had chosen were capable of being an
xpression of God. We do not gain, but greatly lose,
I respect of the true impressiveness of the Incarnate
fe, if we imagine Him, at fitful intervals, as jumping
away (so to speak) from the disabilities of the chosen
condition of His self-expression, in order to make a
display, — outside the limits of the Humanity in which
He purported to be speaking and acting, — of non-human
Deity. We greatly obscure the significance of His works
of power unless we regard them as the works which
properly belonged to the perfect human self-expression
^ John ix. 53. '^Johu x. 32. ^ John xvii. 5.
96 ' ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
of God : and not as works of God intruding, so to speak,
across human conditions, — of God quite apart from all
realities of human propriety, or human power. Whatever
He said with human lips, whatever He did, acting amongst
men in the place and figure of man, (though, no doubt,
said and done by One who had not lost, in Himself, self-
consciousness of Deity,) was nevertheless always said or
done — not by Deity, as it were, acting barely as Deity,
but by Deity conditioned by Humanity ; by Human
capacity, and Human character, according as these had
become, and therefore were shown to be capable of
becoming, the real expression and method and living
utterance, of Deity.
It is really of considerable importance to rid our
imaginations of a certain dualism (in its way somewhat
parallel to the Nestorian dualism, though issuing from
a very different side, and with a very different history
and motive) according to which the Person of Christ
is currently conceived as being in such sense both God
and man, that He is, in point of fact, two. There is
Deity there, and there is also Humanity. He can speak,
think, and act, sometimes under the conditions of one
nature, sometimes under the conditions of the other. As
God He does this ; and as man He does that, and another
thing partly as God, and partly as man. This distinction
has been very prevalent indeed in the language of
Christians. Assuredly no kind of irreverence was in-
tended, nor any reality of dualism. Yet the language,
on cross-examination, will be found to be largely dualistic.
^he phrase " God and man " is of course perfectly true.
But it is easy to lay undue emphasis on the " and." And
when this is done, — as it is done every day, — the truth
is better expressed by varying the phrase. " He is not
two, but one, Christ." He is, then, not so much God and
man, as God in, and through, and as, man. He is one
I
I
v.] THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST 97
indivisible, personality throughout. In His human life
on earth, as Incarnate, He is not sometimes, but con-
sistently, always, in every act and every detail. Human.
The Incarnate never leaves His Incarnation. God, as
man, is always, in all things, God as man. He no more
ceases, at any point, to be God under methods and
conditions essentially human ; than, under these essentially
human methods and conditions. He at any point ceases
to be God. Whatever the reverence of their motive may
be, men do harm to consistency and to truth, by keeping
open, as it were, a sort of non-human sphere, or aspect,
of the Incarnation. This opening we should unreservedly
desire to close. There are not two existences either of,
or within, the Incarnate, side by side with one another.
If it is all Divine, it is all human too. We are to study
the Divine, in and through the human. By looking for
the Divine side by side with the human, instead of dis-
cerning the Divine within the human, we miss the signi-
ficance of them both.
We are not, then, to be in the least degree afraid of
the fullest realization of the humanness of Christ; for
the human experience, in its directest reality as human
experience, is first itself the revelation of the character of
God : and secondly, in revealing God, it is a revelation also
of what human character and capacity, even under con-
ditions of extremest disability, really are and mean. We
quite miss the revelation of Humanity in Jesus Christ, if
we insist on denying that its highest manifestations are
predicable of Humanity at all. And even the revelation
of Deity in Him we degrade and depreciate, if we insist
on finding it only, or even as much, in certain (as it
seems to us) abnormal effects; and not rather in the
even daily tenour of a character, which just because it
was quite perfect as human, — perfect in reference to the
everyday difficulties of perfectness, — was therefore not
G
98 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
so much by virtue of material miracles (which might
possibly be otherwise accounted for) as in the achieve-
ment of moral perfectness, (which could have but one
interpretation only) an unmistakable manifestation, in
the central essence and meaning of human nature, of the
character and power of God.
.^We look, then, at the picture of the Incarnate Christ, —
not at some elements in it, but at the whole as a whole ;
and feel that in the whole of it there is manifested to us
— as, on the one hand, the inner character of God, so, on
the other hand, the true inner character, or, in other words,
the true Godward relation, of man. The more unreservedly
we are able to think of Him, the Incarnate, as, in His In-
carnation, really human, in feeling and act, in consciousness
and character ;. (even though that very human character
and consciousness are all the while — and He, in them, is
not unconscious that they are — the direct image and
utterance of God ;) the more possible will it be to us to
enter, with real sympathy and intelligence, into the teach-
ing of His Humanity, and to see in it alike what humanity
needed, and what humanity achieved, for perfect accept-
ance with God.
For our present purpose we may conveniently distin-
guish two primary needs, and achievements, in the work of
the Mediator. There is on the one hand, the sanctification
of the present : on the other, the cancelling of the past.
There is the rendering to Godward (which is also, in
another aspect, the exhibition before men) of the offering
of a living Holiness, in human conditions and character :
and there is the awful sacrifice, in humanity, of a perfect
contrition. For practical purposes we may speak of these
respectively, as — the one the offering of Obedience, and
the other the offering of Atonement : or again as the one
the offering of the life, and the other the offering of the
death. These last are not, of course, accurate distinctions.
v.] THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST 99
For obedience is not really separable from atonement.
Obedience is atoning ; and the atonement itself can be ex-
hibited as one great consummation of obedience. Again
the life and the death are not really in contrast. Whatever
is true of either, is in some degree true of the other. The
death is the true and proper climax of the life. Only in
death is the climax of obedience reached ; while the life is
a sacrifice from end to end.
Nevertheless the distinction is true in the main, and is
convenient. The life, as apart from the death, is character-
ized more immediately by the homage of perfect obedience
than by the agony of extreme penitence. The death,
viewed apart from the life, is characterized even more by
the anguish which was requisite to perfect contrition, than
by the normal homage to the character of God which con-
sists in being holy. And of these two, if the sacrifice of
atonement, the effectual cancelling of accomplished sin, is
the more directly our subject in these pages as a whole ;
yet it will be indispensable, before turning exclusively to
^ that, to think first a little of the other side.
Primarily, then, for the present, our thought is of the life
of consummate obedience, as a perfect manifestation, and
offering, of holiness : holiness in terms of human condition
and character ; yet a perfectly adequate holiness ; a re-
sponse worthy of the holiness of God. How, in this aspect,
shall we chiefly characterize the picture of the life as a
I whole? The essential point of the truth, the truth which
sums up all other and more partial truths, would seem to
be this. It is a life of unreserved, unremitting, absolute,
and clearly conscious, dependence. / 'The centre of His life
is never in Himself. He is always, explicitly, the mani-
festation, the reflection, the obedient son and servant, of
another. ^.. There is no purpose of self ; no element of self-
will ; no possibility, even for a moment, of the imagination
of separateness ; no such thing, we may even say, as a
100 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
consciousness alone and apart. He is the representative
agent of another, the Son of the Father, the Image of God.
This is the entire description of His life and consciousness.
" I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent Me . . .
ye know neither Me nor My Father ; if ye knew Me, ye
would know My Father also." ^ " He that hath seen Me
hath seen the Father." ^ "I am come in My Father's
name, and ye receive Me not ; if another shall come in his
own name, him ye will receive." * " Many good works have
I shewed you from the Father ; for which of those works
do ye stone Me?"* And it is in this context that we
should probably do the fullest justice to the exact signifi-
cance of those great words " I and the Father are one " ^ —
words, it is to be remembered, which are spoken actually
by the Incarnate, the Christ, the Son of Man, in time, and
in place, and through human brains and lips, — not simply,
across infinities, by the Eternal Logos.
This relation then of absolute dependence upon Another
— the Father, that is, God ; is the essential reality, never at
any point relaxed or impaired. He can be indeed assailed
by suggestions from without — the liability to this insult He
has deliberately taken upon Himself— suggestions of the
world, and of the flesh, and of the devil : but such sugges-
tions, though they may torture and insult by presenting
themselves with human intelligibleness, present themselves
only to be absolutely repelled — repelled, as of course, for
the sake, repelled in the fulness of the strength, of His
unreserved union of dependence upon His God.
There are two directions, both thoroughly intelligible to
us, in which this essential dependence upon God expresses
itself: and the two are in mutual correspondence with each
other. The one is active and outward. The other is in-
ward and contemplative. The one is the shaping of the
» John viii. i6, 19. ^ John xiv. 9. » John v. 43.
* John X. 32. " John x. 30.
v.] THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIS^ J ^;:; ;.s9a;
life. The other is the feeding of the mind. The one is
obedience, made manifest in all that is, or is not, either said
or done ; the other is communion of spirit, maintained in
the way of secret meditation and prayer.
Nothing really is more characteristic of the life than its
continual prayerfulness. A general attitude or atmosphere
of relation towards God does not for a moment take the
place, or dispense with the need, of explicit prayer. The
explicit prayer is direct, habitual, and of long continuance.
It is not by mere passivity, but by active uplifting, by
deliberate and strenuous effort, that the spirit within is kept
serene and strong. " Jesus also having been baptized, and
praying, the Heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost de-
scended in a bodily form as a dove upon Him." ^ " Great
multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed of their
infirmities. But He withdrew Himself in the deserts and
prayed." ^ " And it came to pass in these days that He
went out into the mountain to pray ; and He continued all
night in prayer to God."^ "And after He had sent the
multitudes away. He went up into the mountain apart to
pray ; and when even was come, He was there alone." *
" And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings.
He took with Him Peter and John and James, and went
up into the mountain to pray. And as He was praying,
the fashion of His countenance was altered," etc.^ " And it
came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, that
when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, * Lord
teach us to pray,' " etc.* " And He spake a parable unto
them to the end that they ought always to pray and not to
faint." ^ " And every day He was teaching in the temple ;
and every night He went out, and lodged in the mount
that is called the mount of Olives, and all the people came
^ Luke iii. 21. 2 Lu^e v. 16.
» ^v 8iavvKT€p€V(ov €V TjJ TTpoo-evxy Tov diov. Lukc vi. 12.
* Matt. xiv. 23. ' Luke ix. 28, 29. • Luke xi. i.
"^ Luke xviii. i.
io2"^At0I:fEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
early in the morning to Him in the temple, to hear Him." ^
" And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly ; and
His sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling
down upon the ground." ^ There is a correspondence
between the quiet majesty of the day, and the earnest com-
muning of the night. Whether it be in the way of the
tranquil wisdom of His doctrine, penetrating at once and
uplifting and confounding ; or whether it be in the exercise
of the prerogative of power which belongs to the unex-
plored truth of human nature whose relation is perfected
with God ; — whether it be for teaching or for what we call
miracle ; — what He is amongst men is the counterpart of
what He is towards God : He is Sovereign in majesty over
man and over nature, by day, because His nights are spent
in the communing of prayer with His God.
Correlative to this is the perfect obedience on the side
of the active life. It cannot be too much insisted on that
the life of Christ is so characteristically obedience, that in
it, and in it alone, Js the complete revelation of what
obedience means. ^'It is clear also, upon reflection, that the
obedience which is so characteristic of His life is rendered
always to God, His true Father, not to any man. There is
obedience, of a kind, — submission, that is to say, and
conformity, within strictly defined limits — to some human
beings under some conditions, — the conformity of love to a
loving mother and to her husband ; the conformity of
silent endurance to the madness of Jewish priests or of
Roman soldiers. But this, even at its highest, is something
not merely less complete, but different in kind from the
obedience, at every moment, to His God. " He went down
with them, and came to Nazareth ; and He was subject
unto them " ^ does not mean that He was wholly dependent
on them for the inspiration of His every emotion and
thought. It means that He conformed to their wishes
* Luke xxi. 37, 38. '^ Luke xxii. 44. • Luke ii. 51.
I
v.] THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST 103
in outward things, in which it was right that He should § / j
conform to their wishes. They had, up to a certain ^^^ ^ ^
point, a claim : and the claim was frankly and fully ^> C*^^^^
recognised. But that the claim had absolute limitations, f ^J^'^^
He had just shown them, with emphasis, amongst the
doctors in the Temple at Jerusalem. So different indeed is
this relation towards them from the real meaning of
obedience, as the meaning of obedience is revealed in His
Godward life, that the difference would be conveniently
expressed if we drew a contrast between being not dis-
obedient, and being obedient. He was, to them, not
disobedient. He traversed no wish of theirs to which
He could conform, consistently with the Divine principle
of His life. On the contrary, it was part of the Divine
principle of His life that He should, as far as possible, so
conform. But His dependence on God itself constituted
the very essence of His life and consciousness. > It was
no negative abstinence from disobeying. It was the
one positive principle which included all He did, and
all He thought. There was nothing in Him which
was not constituted what it was, by His unceasing
continuity and completeness of dependence. He did
nothing, said nothing, willed nothing, apart from God :
nothing which was in such sense His, that it was not,
ipsofactOy as fully God's in Him. His own phrases about
Himself are full of this disclosure. "Jesus answered
him. My Father worketh even until now, and I work." ^ , . .
"Jesus therefore answered and said unto them. Verily,
verily I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of Himself,
but what He seeth the Father doing ; for what things
soever He doeth, these the Son also doeth in like
manner. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him
all things that Himself doeth." ^ ..." I can of Myself do
nothing; as I hear, I judge: and My judgment is righteous;
* John V. 17. " John v. 19, 20.
I04 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of Him that
sent Me." 3 • • • " The works which the Father hath given Me
to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness of Me
that the Father hath sent Me." 2 . . . « As the living Father
sent Me, and I live because of the Father; so he that
eateth Me, he also shall live because of Me." ^ . . . " They
said therefore unto Him, Where is Thy Father? Jesus
answered. Ye know neither Me nor My Father ; if ye knew
Me, ye would know My Father also." * . . . " Jesus there-
fore said. When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then
shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of
Myself, but as the Father hath taught Me, I speak these
things. And He that sent Me is with Me ; He hath not
left Me alone ; for I do always the things that are pleasing
to Him." ^ ..." I speak the things which I have seen with
My Father ; and ye also do the things which ye heard from
your father." * " We must work the works of Him that sent
Me, while it is day : the night cometh, when no man
can work." ^ ..." If I do not the works of My Father,
believe Me not. But if I do them, though ye believe not
Me, believe the works ; that ye may know and understand
that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father." ^ , . ,
"Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the
Father in Me ? The words that I say unto you, I speak
not from Myself ; but the Father abiding in Me doeth His
works." ^
Phrases like these reiterate for us, with great emphasis,
the central truth, that the focus or centre of His being
as man, was not in Himself as man, but in His Father,
that is, God. Considering indeed who the self is who
speaks, there is something most remarkable, and strangely
suggestive, in the reiterated emphasis with which He
ijohnv. 30. ajohnv. 36. » j^hn vi. 57.
* John viii. 19. 'John viii. 28, 29. "John viii. 38.
' Jdin ix. 4. •John x. 37, 38. 'John xiv. 10.
I
v.] THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST 105
repeats the negative, disclaiming either initiative, or capacity,
as belonging to Himself. " I can of Myself do nothing."
" The Son can do nothing of Himself." " The words that
I speak unto you I speak not of Myself." There is
no evading the directness of the phrases. "Not of
Myself" is not only a form of assertion which is capable of
being applied to the Son of God incarnate ; but it is plain
that we shall miss a truth which is specially emphasized for
us, if we do not allow the very fullest weight to the negative
which it asserts.
It becomes, then, a matter of importance to insist that,
in expressing Himself in reality of manhood, and the
feelings, emotions, and conditions of manhood. He deliber-
ately put on — not indeed the personal capacity of sinning,
but at least (if we may use the expression) the hypothetical
capacity of sinning, the nature through which sin could
naturally approach and suggest itself: and therefore, that
the statement just made, that the centre of His being as
man was not in Himself but in God, is not so much a
tautological truism, as a most important truth. There
was, so far, in His human nature, the natural machinery
for, or capability of, rebelling, that the reiterated negative,
" not My own," " not Myself," does deny something. To
say that He was dependent upon God does not say simply
and merely, though it does say by implication, that He
was dependent upon Himself. To be clothed with human
flesh, and to be accessible to human emotions, though
it does not mean the actual setting up of a human self in
antithesis to His divine self; does at least mean a
providing with the natural capacities for separation and
rebellion ; it does mean that the pressure towards rebellion
could be felt, and that there could be stem repression and
effort in obedience, so that the consummation of obedience
could be, and was, learned, through inward, as well as
outward, suffering. If there was not an actualized, there
K'.
io6 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
was (so to speak) an imaginary and hypothetical possibility
of a distinct self, willing otherwise than in accordance with
God's will ; a possibility which is not really possible, for it
would have meant literally chaos, the very self-contradiction
of the Being of God ; but which, nevertheless, dimly images
itself at some supreme moments, to the imagination, and
gives at least some meaning to the refusal of separateness.
There would be no meaning in the assertion made of God
as God, that He " spoke not from Himself" or that " He
did nothing of Himself" The solemnity of such assertions,
as made of the Incarnate, depends upon this ; that He had
taken to Himself the external capacity, and as it were
machinery, for selfishness. *' There was a hypothetical or
conceivable selfishness, — the possible imagination of a
rebellious self, — not actual indeed, nor actually possible
without chaos: yet something to be, by moral strain,
controlled and denied ; something which made self-denial
in the Incarnate, not an empty phrase, but a stupendous
act or energy of victorious moral goodness. Of Himself
He uses the phrase self, in this manner, in order to deny
it. He uses it, not of His Eternal Being, as God, but of
that human possibility which, if it could have been realized,
would have been rebellion. And it is this strange, dim,
vision or idea of a possibility — which nevertheless is not
possible, — ^which gives their deepest dread and mystery
to some of the most mysterious — and most appalling —
^ moments of all : such as " now is My soul troubled ; and
what shall I say? Father save Me from this hour. But
for this cause came I unto this hour. Father glorify Thy
name."^ And above all, the awful cry of Gethsemane
' i\ "O my Father, if it be possible let this cup pass away
from me." ^ — ^which yet passes on at once, in the same cry,
into "nevertheless not My will but Thine, be done!"^
" Not as I will, but as Thou " : " not My will, but Thine " :
* John xii. 27. * Matt. xxvi. 39. « Luke xxii. 42.
I
v.] THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST 107
this, it may be, is the nearest approach to the impossible
possibility of separation. ^^But even in this form it is
unspeakably terrible to contemplate. And meanwhile
this whole thought is a commentary, full of the most
mysterious significance, upon His Human obedience.
Some glimpse at least it gives us into the truth that
His unceasing dependence, of moral and spiritual being,
upon His God, is not an idle assertion as of a mere
necessity which could not be otherwise; it is not mere
inert passiveness (as it were) of unmoved self-identity,
but a real energy, and revelation, of active and most
stupendous obedience.
The secret then of His exhibition of obedience, His
revelation of the true rationale of human life, is here:
He was absolutely loyal in dependence; He was
absolutely without any self-reservation, any nursing of
separateness of self: He was the exposition, by willing
reflection, of Another. So it was that He was the
perfect exhibition, (under conditions not only of human
nature in its glory, but of most limited and suffering
mortality) of the Being and character of God.
There is one other consideration which follows from
what has been said. It will be felt that the things said, in
their own character, and with them the passages of S.
John's gospel with which they are chiefly connected,
belong primarily to the exposition of the essential
relation, between God, regarded as Incarnate, between
Jesus Christ, the Human expression of Deity, and the
God on whom it was His human perfectness altogether
to depend. They are not primarily words of revelation
as to the timeless relations between the First and the
Second Persons of the Eternal Trinity. There may
indeed be a very deep connection between the one of
these relations and the other. The tracing of such a
connection would belong chiefly to the explanation of
io8 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap. v.
the causes, so far as they are in any way cognizable by us,
why it was in the Person of the Eternal Logos that God
was Incarnated. But whatever there may be to be said
on such a subject, the passages themselves ought not to
be cited, at least so directly or primarily, as theological
statements about the Persons, as such, of the Eternal
Trinity : as rather about the essential truth of the relation
of the Incarnate, as Incarnate, to the Eternal ; the relation
of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, to His God and Father,
— obedient dependence on whom was the Breath of His
Life.
CHAPTER VI
THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST
The relation of Christ to sin, as the Atoner, is more
mysterious than that of His relation, in obedient life, to
holiness. But nothing can exceed the directness with
which the relation to sin is emphasized in scripture,
or the cardinal place of this relation in the Christian
creed. The relation to sin is absolute, unreserved,
personal — though the sin is not in Himself. "Him who
knew no sin, He made to be sin on our behalf."^
Elsewhere the relation to sin is stated in a different
way, " God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh, and as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh."'
The central point in these two forms of statement is
by no means obviously the same. In either case indeed
the act is the act of God — God the Eternal, the Essential,
the One God. In either case the act is the act of God,
wrought in and through Jesus Christ ; through Him, that
is, who is the perfect expression of God in terms of human
conditions, and consciousness, and character; through
God the Incarnate, God the Son of Man ; through the
Son of Man who, because He is Son of Man, is therefore,
of necessity. Son of God. But this act of God through
Christ, this act of the Incarnate, which is the act of the
Eternal, is described in two varying forms. The one
says that He "was made sin," the other that He, in flesh
and for flesh, " condemned sin."
* 2 Cor. V. 21. ' Rom. viii. 3.
100
no ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
The considerations which are before us in the present
chapter are such, it is to be hoped, as will naturally tend
to bring the two modes of thought, from apparent contrast,
more and more towards real coincidence.
He condemned sin — that is, there is an aspect of the
Atonement according to which it can be summed up as
a pronouncing, by Jesus Christ, of the judgement and
sentence of eternal Righteousness against all human sin.
It is He who is the judging and condemning Righteous-
ness. He was made sin — that is, He the eternal
Righteousness, in judging sin, judged it not in another,
but judged it rather, as a penitent judges it, within
Himself; He surrendered Himself for the judgement
that He pronounced; He took, in His own Person,
the whole responsibility and burthen of its penance ;
He stood, that is, in the place, not of a judge simply,
nor of a mere victim, but of a voluntary penitent —
wholly one with the righteousness of God in the sacrifice
of Himself.
Remember what it is that the idea of Atonement
requires. The idea of effectual atonement for sin requires
at once a perfect penitence and a power of perfect holiness.
Man has sinned. Man is unrighteous. If I am un-
righteous, what could make me absolutely righteous
again? If indeed my repentance, in reference to the
past, could be quite perfect, such penitence would mean
that my personality was once more absolutely one with
Righteousness in condemning sin even in, and at the
cost of, myself. Such personal re-identity with Righteous-
ness, if it were possible, would be a real contradiction of
my past. It would be atonement, and I should, in it, be
once more actually righteous.
If such relation to the past were possible, it would
by the same possibility be possible also that my life,
now and henceforth, should be, in outward activity and
I
VI.] THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST iii
in inward spirit, perfect, — the flawless homage of a Divine
obedience. In relation to the past, the present, and the
future, I should have become quite perfectly and con-
tinuously and Divinely righteous.
For atoning and living Righteousness there are
necessary a condemnation which would perfectly obliterate
from the spirit the presence of past sin ; and the present
and unceasing homage of perfect righteousness. But if
these two things are necessary, it is just these two things
which are, in universal human experience, alike ideal and
alike impossible.
Both these things were attained, in literal perfection
of full fact, in the life and in its climax, which is the
death, of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ.
It is worth while to say with some emphasis that we,
in the present chapter, have nothing, properly, to do with
the relation of Him, or of these things in Him, to us ; with
the, question how, what He was, or what He did, really
alters or really characterizes, in any one of us, our own
personality. That is a large part indeed of any intelligible
statement of the doctrine of Atonement. But, quite apart
from us, it is our object for the present to recall and con-
sider what these things were in Himself,
Now nothing is more familiar than the thought of
Jesus Christ on earth as being, within the conditions of
mortality, the perfect reflection of the will, the perfect
expression of the character, of the Eternal God. For
He was the Eternal God, expressing Himself in, and
as, human character, within those penal disabilities of
humanity, of which death is at once the symbol and the
climax.
In two ways we think of Him as a revelation, within
humanity, of God. First, in the mutual relations of human
life, we think of Him as revealing the moral character,
the goodness and love, of God. " Have I been so long
112 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
time with you, and yet dost thou not know me, Philip?
He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." ^ And
secondly, in the relation of man to God — the absolute
dependence of unbroken communion between the limited
and mortal and the Eternal — He reveals the true secret,
and the possible glory, of mortal humanity. It is of Him,
the disabled, the limited, the mortal, that S. John can say,
" We beheld His glory, glory as of the only-begotten from
the Father: "2 "We have seen, and bear witness, and
declare unto you the life, the eternal life which was with
the Father, and was manifested unto us." * This Godward
relation of man, wholly dependent, and reflecting flaw-
lessly that whereupon he depends, expresses itself within
mortal conditions, inwardly and outwardly : in outward
action it is manifested as obedience that never wavers ;
in inward consciousness it realizes itself as the un-
interrupted communion of meditation and prayer.
Besides, then, the moral revelation of God as Love,
which is in every contact of Christ with other men, the
Divine Righteousness is visibly reflected in His perfect
obedience, and consciously realized in the effort of His
perfect prayer. The prayerfulness of spirit is not a thing
wholly separate from the active obedience ; it is but
another aspect of that same reality, the mirrored reflection
of the Divine glory, in the Godward relations of human
character.
It is no part of the present purpose to try to draw
this thought out, or illustrate in detail its manifestations
in the human life. Consider rather how, even in this
aspect, the death is the necessary climax of the life. We
are as yet thinking of the life of Christ not as atonement
but as obedience ; not as in reference to the past, or
the undoing of accomplished sin, but as in reference
to the present, as being the homage of a living holiness,
* John xiv. 9. * John i. 14. » I John i. a.
VI.] THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST 113
the mirroring of Divine character in mortal obedience, —
human will as the adequate response to, and expression
of, infinite Righteousness. Even in this aspect, that
the conscious identity of will with God (expressed on
one side in unceasing prayer, on another in unceasing
obedience) might stand triumphant over the utmost
straining of all counter-influences which could possibly
be brought to bear against it, it was necessary that the
drama of Bethlehem and Nazareth should find its
culmination on Calvary. For what did He who was
God express Himself in and as man, under the dis-
abilities of humanity suffering and mortal, but that this
homage of obedient righteousness, this will-identity of
man with God, might shine out through, and in, precisely
the conditions of mortal suffering? He would serve
God as man. He would perfect obedience in fallen human
nature ; and therefore He must be liable to feel, that
He might triumph through and over, the uttermost
solicitation to which His human consciousness could
make His Person accessible, towards the possibility of
deflection, if but for a moment, of His suffering will from
God. ^'^^^ Lo, I am come to do Thy will, O God " — " a body
didst Thou prepare for me."^ The body was the avenue of
access of suffering, and, through suffering, of temptation.
Whatever may be true of angels or devils, the body is
the avenue of consciousness to men. The body, then,
was to be, in Him, at once the scene, and the instrument,
of that absolutely victorious crushing of temptation which
is the offering to the Father of a mortal will perfectly
Identical with the absolute righteousness of God. .-
But it could not be but that the body itself would
be wrung to death in the process. In a sense indeed
this is true — and it is a truth not of terror so much as
of hope — about every single child of man who shall die.
* Hebrews x. 5-7.
H
114 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY ' [chap.
We do not yet know the possibilities of humbling or of
purifying discipline which may lie hid within the experi-
ence of dying. But this is another thought, which we do
but glance at in passing. For the climax of temptation,
for the climax of solicitation addressed through the body
to the will, it was necessary that the body should be
pressed to the point of its own destruction? to the point,
that is, at which the stress of temptation should literally
have exhausted its whole possibility.
We do well in this connection to remember that sin
is deadening to sensitiveness, both of body and spirit ;
that to consciousness of guilt there is a sense of actual
righteousness in suffering ; and that increasing infirmities
make death itself (as it were) more and more natural.
Remember, in the light of familiar experience such
as this, that in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, — as the
whole harmony of bodily life was unique in its perfectness,
so the sensitiveness to pain, and the humiliation of weak-
ness, were unique : and as the right to life, and the
dignity of life, were unparalleled, so the outrage — the
utter contradiction — involved in dying was immeasurable.
Again, remember, that the death of Jesus Christ was
wholly unlike the death of any martyr, — not only in the
fact (vast as that is!) that the martyr is always only
strong with and in Jesus Christ ; but also in proportion
as the power of Jesus over His torments and His
tormentors was unique. It is true that every martyr's
suffering is, in a sense, self-chosen. Every martyr's prison
is necessarily locked, as men have sometimes said with
a strange blindness of scorn, "upon the inside"; that
is, every martyr properly so-called could have avoided
his suffering by an act of will, — and only by a certain
strain of will he has come to be where he is. But thi^
after all, is only true of him within limits, — and it is
becoming every moment less true, as his sufferings
VI.] THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST 115
intensify. Once, at a certain point in the past, it was
true; but every pang carries him further from the
possibility of not suffering ; he cannot foil the power of pain
in mid-course, neither can he repair any damage that is
done. But here, — in Jesus Christ, — all the power of all His
murderers is His own, and in His own hand. Very slowly
He is passing through the anguish which kills by inches.
Voluntarily, from moment to moment, He is choosing
the pain ; voluntarily He is being crushed under the
deadly pressure of the effort of evil against Him. Only
try to imagine the unimaginable pressure of this last
concentrated temptation upon His human will. For
none apart from Himself can put one pang upon Him.
One moment's unwillingness to suffer — and He can
wholly be free! Every separate item in the anguish
is allowed by Himself. One moment's reluctance on
His part, one moment's impulse to draw back, even one
moment's hesitation of will, might instantly have ended
it all. But that moment never came. He who but now
healed the severed ear with a touch, He who might
wield when He would (He said it last night of Himself)
the might of twelve legions of angels, is not shorn now
of His power. " Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now
come down from the cross, that we may see and believe " ^
— so they shouted in their mockery — " He saved others ;
Himself He cannot save."^ It was not the power that
was lacking, but the will. "Therefore doth My Father
love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take
it again. No man taketh it away from Me; but I lay
it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and
I have power to take it again." *
The power was not lacking if there had been — if there
could have been — the will to exert the power ! But the
power, if used — the power with the will to use it — would
^ Mark xv. 32. * Matt, xxvii. 42. ' John x. 17, 18.
ii6 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
have proved the very opposite to what they supposed. It
was the power, with the will to hold it unused, which
proved Him to be what He was. And the fact of the
power, with the pressure of every element of His human
consciousness to use it, are the measure of the majesty of
the restraining will, the perfecting of obedience in man to
God. Do we not recognize thus how the tearing of the
body inch by inch to its own destruction is necessary for
the climax, not only of what we distinguish as bodily
suffering, but of that supreme strain on the flawless identity
of the will,^ in suffering human nature, with God, which is
the guileless offering of a perfect obedience ?
But in all this there is no direct thought of the death of
Christ, as reparation or atonement, in reference to consum-
mated sin. I know indeed that no aspect of that death
can really be viewed completely in isolation. Much of
what has been said already only finds its full meaning in
the light of aspects which have been kept out of sight.
But we know that when a man has fatally sinned it is not
enough, even if it were possible, that he should be now, and
from now, however good and obedient. There must be
something in the direction of undoing of the past, without
which indeed the present obedience would not be in its true
sense really possible, but which certainly cannot be ex-
pressed only in terms of present obedience.
Now we, so far, have been trying to express the neces-
sity and the meaning of Calvary, as it were, in terms of
present obedience. And for this very reason what has
hitherto been said must be felt to be only a part — to many
minds or moods the lesser part only — of the meaning of
the Cross. Assuredly the death of Jesus Christ had
another relation. It was not obedience only, but atone-
ment ; not only perfect, in the present, as homage ; but
sovereign, in relation to accomplished sin, as undoing.
* Hebrews x. lo.
VI.] THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST 117
He had taken upon Him, as the living expression of
Himself, a nature which was weighed down — not merely
by present incapacities, but by present incapacities as part
of the judicial necessary result of accepted and inherent
sinfulness. Human nature was not only disabled but
guilty ; and the disabilities were themselves a consequence,
and aspect, of the guilt. In respect of this guilt of sin,
consummated and inhering, human nature could only be
purified by all that is involved in the impossible demand of
a perfect penitence. Except it had also the character of
perfect penitence atoning for the past, even the splendid
perfectness of His present will-offering of obedience would
be less than what was required for the re-identifying of
human character with God.
Remember what perfect penitence would involve. It
would involve nothing less than a perfect re-identification
of the character and the will — in a word, of the whole
personality — with righteousness : an identification with
righteousness immediately in the form of inexorable con-
demnation of every shadow of unrighteousness even in, and
at the cost of, the self Now the absolute perfectness of
such a personal self-identifying with righteousness is made
once for all impossible by any act of personal identity with
sin. The least real affinity of the self with sin impairs the
possibility of that perfect self-identity with righteousness
which is necessary for the consummation of perfect peni-
tence. Penitence, in the perfectness of its full meaning, is
not even conceivably possible, except it be to the person-
ally sinless.
Is penitence possible in the personally sinless? I
should perhaps be entitled to emphasize in reply each of
these two thoughts : the first, that if the perfection of aton-
ing penitence cannot be achieved by the personally sinless,
it will become on reflection more and more manifest that it
cannot be either achieved or even conceived at all ; and the
ii8 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
second, that it is just this — the voluntary sin-bearing of the
sinless, the self-identity with righteousness in condemnation
of sin of One whose self-identity, though sinless, could take
the form of surrender of the self in the very attitude of the
ideal penitent, which is, if anything is, vital to the whole
history and being of the Gospel, or the Church, of Jesus
Christ. But I do not wish to urge anything at this
moment from the side of dogmatic authority.
Is reality of penitence for personal sin really possible in
what is not the self-identical personality that sinned ? We
might answer perhaps by saying that, in greater degree or
in less, it is a fact of everyday experience. The law of
vicarious suffering or vicarious energy, as a principle run-
ning everywhere throughout human life, is not suspended
when we pass within the region of consciousness of sin.
Others do in fact suffer and sorrow on their reprobate's
behalf, not only with their reprobate, but more deeply and
keenly than he does or can for himself. Not only the pain
is in their lives, but the shame is in their hearts — in pro-
portion, it may be, to his shamelessness and their love.
Nay, more, this reality of shame in them, the product of the
nearness of their love, is your strongest element of hope
for him. If there are those, near and dear, who with un-
dimmed purity of heart and undiscouraged love will not
weary of entering into the burden of his shame — thank
God ! you feel that, in the atmosphere of that vicarious
penitence wrapping him round, and stealing, almost as it
were imperceptibly, as the breath of love, into his life and
soul, you would almost dare to pledge the certainty of his
coming salvation. In that intense reality of a penitence
which is vicarious lies the heart of your hope for him of a
personal penitence. Do we give full weight to the truths
which lie in this direction ?
We have done well, no doubt, to learn both to under-
stand and to emphasize the distinctive value of each several
I
VI.] THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST 119
personality, regarded as apart by itself. Individual re-
sponsibility, individual value, individual meaning and
destiny — it is vital that we should learn this lesson to the
full. But even this, vital though it be, is a truth which can
be pressed beyond the proportion of truth. Is it not true
that we have in many ways overdone our lesson, and
exaggerated, in common thought and theory, the mutual
exclusiveness of human personality ? Are we not all, after
all, much more of one piece than we are willing to
recognize ? We cannot either do or suffer, cannot lose or
win, cannot, however secretly, either sin or repent, to our-
selves alone. Whatever is really personal to, or a part of,
ourselves tends to become, in greater degree or in less, by
processes gradual but sure, personal to and a part of many
selves besides.
If we take our stand on the truth that no man can
be, or can stand for, another, we may at least recognize
that even this truth, even in this form, is not equally
true in all cases. It is capable, at least, of degrees.
Even the naked thought of the substitution of one
person for another is not, under all conditions, equally
unimaginable. "One Englishman for another" is more
reasonable as a principle of equity among the South
Sea islanders than in the police-courts of London. It
IS not very profitable to try to construct illustrations, not
one of which can possibly be adequate ; but yet — a brother
for a brother, a wife for a husband, a father for a child —
there may be more potency of meaning behind such
phrases than our off-hand logic or our mechanical
systems can allow. True, we never reach the climax
quite. But if each remains separate still, we can at least
see real degrees of approach towards something more
than a superficial or imaginary unity. If those who
sometimes, in stature and tone and eye, seem most
really to reproduce one another's image, have added to
I20 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
this outward (itself more than an outward) resemblance,
a real affinity of mental capacity and conviction, the
same intellectual affinities, the same tone and temper as
well of character as of thought; and further than this,
are joined together in one spirit of mutually devoted
affection, each finding his joy in the life, and more than
ready to share all the trial and death, of the other, you
do not indeed transcend their inexorable distinctness ;
but you do see glimpses at least of a truth more ultimate
about them than the distinctness — a truth of which their
distinctness is no longer so much the contradiction as the
necessary condition ; so that the very distinctness needs and
claims to be, if not annulled, yet merged at last in a reality
of unity more ultimate and more essential than itself.
If we do not, most of us, go far in fact towards this
transcending unity, this may only too possibly be because,
intrenched in the circle of our own self-regard, we are
only too well content not to go out into the vital ex-
periences of another — far less of those who need us
throughout the world : we shrink from the self-expenditure
of sympathy, and prefer the sundered to the corporate
life, hiding away ourselves, for ourselves, within ourselves.
But we can hardly blind ourselves to the fact that the
Christian Spirit, as such, is always making towards such
a transcending of the barriers of sundered personalities
— such a living of each not only for but in others ; and
that those who have possessed it most eminently are
those whose spirit has had the most eminent power of
reproducing itself in the spirits of others. This rather
is the crown — than the breaking down — of personality.
Never perhaps is the good man so completely, so royally,
himself as when the inherent force of what he is, is be-
coming the vital principle of what others are also with
him. Need I plead that sympathy is a Christian ideal
in a sense far higher than that which we are mostly
VI.] THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST 121
content to allow to the word? Or that, if there is one
region more than another from which that sympathy
cannot be excluded, because it is there most vitally at
home, it is the region of the suffering and shame which
are the outcome of consciousness of sin.
But it will perhaps be felt that, real and potent though
sympathy in penitence may be, at least the penitence of
the sympathetic friend cannot be as penitence so real or
personal as that of the culprit himself. On the contrary,
even this, so far as it is true at all, is true only by reason
of the extreme limitations of our power or will to
sympathize. It is true in proportion to our incapacity
of unselfishness. But wherever the power of unselfishness
begins to approximate at all towards its ideal there we
shall be able to find, even within experience, that the
penitence of the good man, on behalf of his reprobate,
not only anticipates and leads the way and shapes the
possibility towards the penitence of the reprobate himself,
but also that it is far keener, far deeper, far more real
as penitence than anything of which as yet the reprobate
is personally capable. It is the presence of sin within
the personality which blunts the edge of detestation of
sin. I long to hate, and I do hate in a measure, the
sin which tyrannizes over my free will. But just because
it is my own, because it still has place and power within
my own consciousness of sin, therefore I cannot hate it
with the full single-hearted intensity of hatred with which
another might hate it whose self was untainted by it;
with which I should hate it if all its disabling power were
wholly melted, and I were personally one again with the
righteousness of God.
Is the penitence of the sinful self the deepest reality
of penitence ? I will ask you to think of a father, or a
mother — pure, holy, tender, loving-hearted — whose own
beloved only child, son or daughter, is branded with the
122 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
deep reality of irretrievable disgrace. I will ask you first
to compare the grief of such a mother over the shame of
a stranger, and over the shame of her own, her best-
beloved. Even towards the stranger there might be
the deepest concern, the tenderest, truest, most winning
and restorative sympathy. But the shame, which is her
own child's, is her own. For herself^ the light is gone out
of her life. Her heart is not merely, as in the other case,
tenderly concerned. Her heart is broken.
And then, secondly, compare this grief of the mother
with the grief of the child, whose own the shame is.
Her own the shame is, because the sin is her own — it
is part of her very self. But this very fact that the
sinful will IS her own, while it may fill her penitence
with wildness and alarm, blunts its edge, and dims its
truth. The wild alarm, whose climax would be despair,
the conscious haunting presence of the sin, is a paralyzing,
not an intensifying, of the power of penitence. The
penitence of the child may be fiercer and wilder ; but
it is, in comparison, shallow, mixed, impotent, unreal.
But the mother's anguish is not less anguish, but more,
because it is without that confusing presence of the sin.
If it is less despairing, it is more profound. Even now
the sorrow of the child is checked, steadied, solemnized,
uplifted, by the felt sanctity of the mother's sorrow — a
sorrow at once more heartbroken and more calm of heart :
a sorrow more sorrowful truly, yet, even in sorrow, more
identified, somewhere far back even now, with a trust
which cannot die. Yes, it is the mother's heart which
is broken for sin ; broken even, it may be, unto death.
The child's heart is less likely to break. The true
realization of shame, the true steady insight into sin,
is dulled, not sharpened, by the indwelling of sin. The
heart of the child is not able to break — at least yet.
Only long afterwards, if at all, when penitence has at
VI.] THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST 123
last done its slow, penetrating, tranquillizing work, will
sin, as sin, be felt and seen as it is. Meanwhile the
penitent anguish of the mother who is holy is, even in
proportion to her reality of holiness, more undimmed,
keener of edge, deeper in truth, — in the shame of the
child with whom, in nature and in love, she is wholly
self-identified — than it is, than it can be, in the child of
whose mind and will the sin itself is still part.
It is sometimes hastily assumed that the possibility
of anything, in such a mother, which can really be called
penitence, depends upon the fact that the mother is
herself at least partly responsible for the sin. How much
more might she have done, which she has not done, to
guard her child against it ? At the least, is it not through
her, in measure, that the child is partaker of the nature
in which Adam sinned, and all mankind is sinful ?
Such thoughts, if brought forward to set the illustration
aside, strangely misconceive the truth. It is quite true,
in fact, that there may be a sense in the mother of a
responsibility which is partly her own. Indeed no human
mother can wholly be without this. But this, so far from
constituting, in her, the possibility of a genuine penitence,
is the one thing which really spoils the perfectness of it
In proportion as the fault of the mother is graver, her
capacity of true penitence vanishes. If the child's sin
is mainly the mother's fault, to look for any deep realities
of penitence to the mother would be a contradiction and
absurdity. She must needs be callous more or less ; she
may even be exultant. It would be quite impossible
that her heart should break. The conditions, in fact,
which we find in the holy mother are precisely the
opposite of what they would be if her power of peni-
tence corresponded with her share in the sin. Her
power of penitence, that is penitence indeed, depends
not upon the extent to which the guilt is her own,
124 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
but rather upon the extent to which it is not It
depends upon two things ; and will be found to vary in
depth, in precise proportion as these two things are real
in her. The first is the extent of her own self-identifica-
tion — not with guilt but with holiness. This does not,
of course, reach absolute identity with holiness. But the
nearer her approach to perfect holiness, the greater, not
the less, will be the depth of her capacity of anguish of
heart. And the other is the completeness of her capacity
of identifying her very self with the being of her child.
The smallest touch of selfishness blunts the edge of
this. Its perfectness would be the very triumph of love.
Here again, it is true in fact that no earthly mother has
reached the absolute perfectness of love, any more than
the absolute perfectness of holiness. But in each case the
tendency and the character are clear. It is in proportion
as she approximates towards perfectness of love on the one
side, as towards perfectness of holiness on the other, that
the capacity deepens in her, more and more, of penitence
absolutely heartbroken for sins which are not — and because
they are not — her own. So far as the holiness alone is
concerned, we might find other cases as illustrative as that
of a mother. But perhaps there is no other relation, in
human experience, which enables us equally to realize how
far unselfishness can go towards the self-identifying of one
person with another in the unity of nature and of love.
Of nature and of love! The unity is primarily in
nature. Its foundation is a physical reality. But notice
how much more this may mean in one case than
another: how much more, for example, it does me«n of
a true mother to her child than of an English traveller
to a fugitive African. Bone of her bone, and flesh of her
flesh, her child was to her as a very expression of herself.
In her child she lived. In her child's growth and good-
ness she expanded. In her child's fall she fell. If unity
VI.] THE ATONING DEATH OF CHKIST 125
of nature is predicable not only of these, but also of such
as seem furthest away from each other, the highest and the
lowest in humanity, do not let us therefore be deceived
into levelling down the proper idea of the phrase (even,
so to say, upon its physical side) to the least which it is
capable of meaning. Rather, the most which it is capable
of meaning in familiar experience is as a hint to suggest
how very much more, than our experience, lies within the
true ideal possibilities of the phrase.
But whatever be its unexplored possibilities, no doubt
one aspect of the unity of nature is an equality of status,
a sharing of common conditions both of faculty and of
disability. The one shares the nature of the other. That
is, the modes of consciousness, the avenues of pain and
ease, sorrow and joy, are broadly in the one what they are
in the other. And if under stress of temptation the one
has fallen, the other does not view the meaning of the
temptation, or the fall, as a spectator merely from without.
The same sense of temptation can, through avenues of the
same nature, have intelligible access to the consciousness
of the other. What has happened is not merely appre-
hended from without. It can, with whatever shock of
horror, be felt from within. The power of entering into
the consciousness of the sinful requires — not indeed a will
that has actually sinned, but at least a conscious presence,
in the nature, of the instruments, as it were, and capacities
for sinning — an avenue for the appeal of sin to the con-
sciousness — if only the will could conceivably be to sin !
The underlying conditions for sin-consciousness are there ;
and with them a certain capacity of being degraded in the
degradation of those in whom the same nature is a mode
of sin. But it must be enough to have indicated thus what
possibilities do really underlie the meaning even of what
often seems to us to mean so little as the union of a
common human nature.
126 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
Meanwhile, whatever is true fundamentally or potentially
in nature springs into its full and vivid realization in the
rich self-expenditure of conscious love. It is here that we
recognize most of all what the depth may be of a mother's
identification with her child : we recognize that in the
power of love it is what it is ; and recognize also thereby
that if the love were but greater and more perfect still, the
unity also could mean what now it can not. If its obvious
limit is the limitation of love, what would the capacities be
of union, with the living experience of another, of one
whose love was absolutely without limit ? If the sorrowing
mother serves best to illustrate what human union may
mean, in nature and in love, she illustrates it by what she
is, rather as whetting the imagination than as sating it : she
illustrates it by what she is, only as a sort of preliminary to
suggesting it by what she fails to be. We look at infinite
things in the light of most finite experience. Our human
illustrations do approximate: they are strikingly real.
Yet they are more striking still in the silent witness which
they ever bear to that beyond themselves, whose reality
they postulate, of whose nature they are eloquent, by
whose breath they are ; but which transcends them still.
So we pass on, at times perhaps hardly even knowing
how far our words are more immediately spoken of that
human mother, or of Him whose Spirit finds an echo in her
love. But remember, in either case (for the one includes
the other), in reference to what it is that we have dwelt on
the thought of this possibility, between human beings, of
unity — in nature and in love. It is in reference to con-
summated sin. It is that we may see the better what is
involved if a person, whose own the sin is not, is thus
really, in nature and in love, united with the experience of
sin. What is that experience of sin in one of whose person
the actual sin is not part ?
There are some two or three thoughts which are vital
VI.] THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST 127
to the conception of it. Let us put first this capacity of
self-identity with the sinful, which we see — not con-
summated, indeed, but much more than suggested, in the
case of the holy mother. Remember that it is true of her
just in proportion as she makes real these possibilities of
nature and of love. So far as she at all falls short, or
shrinks back, from what her direct union of nature might
mean, or so far as there is a limit, somewhere, to the self-
expending effort of her love, so far, behold ! after all she is
not personally touched — or not touched to the quick : she
can look on — and let her culprit go : her heart need not
break — for the shame is not in it !
But if on one side her shame, unto death, can only be
the result of a rare completeness of unity of nature realized
in love, on the other hand it depends also upon a com-
pleteness, no less rare, of realization of sin. And again, if
the absolute perfectness of sympathetic self-identity with
others, in the full truth of the words, is possible only when
the union of nature is unlimited, because the love is
literally infinite ; it is at least as plain that a full realiza-
tion of the character and consequence of sin is possible
only in the light of a full realization of the character of
holiness — the undimmed vision of the Being of God.
That mother of whom we spoke, if she is herself evil-
minded, escapes scot-free from the burden of penitence for
her child. But the holier she is in her own spirit, the
keener is her sense of the intolerable anguish of un-
holiness : the holier she is, the more deeply, the more
personally, is she stricken. The sinner confused with sin,
which dims and paralyzes every personal power, cannot
see or feel sin as it is. He cannot fully know what its
nature is ; he cannot really understand the consequences
which it contains : these things are to him in great part
words without meaning: and even so far as he does
understand and is trying to hate, his very hatred for his
I
128 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
sin is qualified by a liking which is still within himself.
It is only Another, wholly self-identified with him in all
that can be meant by natural union, quickened and
realized in the fire of an infinite love ; and yet, without
impulse of sin, gazing full on the undimmed vision of the
holiness of God ; who can be stricken on his behalf with the
full sense of the infinite horror of sin.
To know God as He is, to measure with full insight all
the Beauty of Holiness, to be conscious of its infinite good-
ness and power; this is, in One self-expressed within a
nature to which the capacities and disabilities of unholiness
belong — to One self-brought within the instruments of sin,
the galling insult of temptation, the conditions of mortal
consciousness and mortal anguish ; this is to realize with a
personal consciousness which stands wholly unique and
alone, without a parallel, without a comparison, the whole
depth that is in sin. To the spirit of such an one sin
as it is — all its origin and history, its horrible development,
its inherent hideousness, its appalling consummation, the
agony of its despair, its alienation from goodness and from
God, its banishment from light, or beauty, or hope, its
inherent spiritual death : all these things which sin
contains, and without the knowledge of which sin is not
known, are absolutely open and clear — in the light of
the infinite contrast of the realized glory of God.
If these things cannot but be known to God the
Omniscient; yet God, as self-expressed in human con-
sciousness, God Incarnate in Jesus Christ, deliberately
took to Himself, in the nature which had sinned, the
consciousness of these things from the point of view of sin.
It was then, in Him, no mere vision — however appalling,
or however true ; no mere spectacular insight into truth.
He had deliberately made Himself one with man, one
in nature, one in love: one with an absoluteness of
unity, such as the union of the perfectest mother with her
VI.] THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST 129
child does, after all, but dimly and distantly shadow :
one with man. Himself man, Himself Humanity : — that
the consciousness of man herein, that consciousness of sin
which sin made impossible to man, but without which man
could not consummate his atoning penitence for sin : that
the full consciousness of sin, in the full light of holiness,
might be His own personal consciousness ; and the
condemnation of sin — no longer only from without, but
from within — through the power of self-identity with
holiness in the act of self-surrender as penitent, might be
consummated in Himself.
Is not consummation of penitence, that penitence whose
consummation sin makes impossible, the real, though
impossible, atonement for sin? And are not these just
the things which would consummate penitence, — first,
a real personal self-identity with the consciousness of sin,
in its unmeasured fulness, as seen by God ; secondly, a
real personal self-identity with the absolute righteousness
of God ; and thirdly, by inevitable consequence, a
manifestation of the power of inherent self-identity with
righteousness in the form of voluntary acceptance of
all that belongs to the consciousness of sin, — a realiza-
tion, not of holiness merely, but of penitential holiness ?
For this is penitence; perfect re-establishment of the
absolute personal identity with righteousness, in the form
of unreserved embrace of whatever is necessary to
consummate the perfect condemnation of sin — within the
self-consciousness and at the cost of the self
He, then, on the Cross, offered, as man to God, not
only the sacrifice of utter obedience, under conditions
(themselves the consequence of human transgression)
which made the effort of such perfect will-obedience
more tremendous than we can conceive ; but also the
sacrifice of supreme penitence, that is, of perfect will-
identity with God in condemnation of sin. Himself being
I
I30 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
so self-identified with sinners, that this could take the
form of the offering of Himself for sin. He voluntarily
stood in the place of the utterly contrite — accepting
insult, shame, anguish, death — death possible only by
His own assent, yet outwardly inflicted as penal ; nay,
more, in His own inner consciousness, accepting the ideal
consciousness of the contrite — which is the one form of the
penitent's righteousness : desolate, yet still, in whatever
He was, voluntary; and in that very voluntariness of
desolation, sovereign. He did, in fact and in full, that
which would in the sinner constitute perfect atonement,
but which has for ever become impossible to the sinner,
just in proportion as it is true that he has sinned.
The perfect sacrifice of penitence in the sinless Christ
is the true atoning sacrifice for sin. Only He, who knew
in Himself the measure of the holiness of God could
realize also, in the human nature which He had made
His own, the full depth of the alienation of sin from
God, the real character of the penal averting of God's
face. Only He, who sounded the depth of human con-
sciousness in regard to sin, could, in the power of His
own inherent righteousness, condemn and crush sin in the
flesh. The suffering involved in this is not, in Him,
punishment, or the terror of punishment; but it is the
full realizing, in the personal consciousness, of the truth
of sin, and the disciplinary pain of the conquest of sin ; it is
that full self-identification of human nature, within range
of sin's challenge and sin's scourge, with holiness as the
Divine condemnation of sin, which was at once the
necessity — and the impossibility — of human penitence.
The nearest — and yet how distant ! — an approach to it in
our experience we recognize not in the wild sin-terrified cry
of the guilty, but rather in those whose profound self-identifi-
cation with the guilty overshadows them with a darkness
and a shame, vital indeed to their being, yet at heart tranquil,
vi.l THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST 131
because it is not confused with the blurring consciousness
of a personal sin. That mother whom we imagined — if the
sin is indeed in her child — she would not, for all the world,
choose rather to have the sin without the horror of the shame
of sin. It is the shame, as shame, which is also the hope.
The anguish itself is the pledge, is the living movement, of
spiritual life. Her own broken heart — it is the very ex-
pression of God in her. It is God in her, even if, and even
whilst, it is also the bowing of her head, in anguish of
spirit, unto death. In its measure it has caught some echo
of the awful paradox of that mysterious, that two-sided,
that incompatible cry — so spiritually desolate, yet so
tranquil in spirit — "My God, My God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me ? " ^
If, from our point of view, the point of view of the
imperfectly penitent, penitence must include meek accept-
ance of punishment, remember that punishment, so far as
it ministers to righteousness, is only itself an element
in penitence. What would have been punishment till it
became penitence^ is, in the perfectly contrite, only as
penitence. It is true that penitence is a condition of
suffering. The suffering of penitence may quite fairly be
termed penal suffering. But whatever suffering is involved
in penitence is part of the true penitent's freewill offering of
heartwhole condemnation of sin. To the penitent, in
proportion as he is perfected, there is no punishment
outside his penitence.
And so, in the great mysterious sacrifice of Calvary,
there is (save indeed in the action, outward merely and
symbolic, of Roman soldiers or of Jewish priests) no
question really at all of retribution, inflicted, as by an-
other, from without. There is no external equating of sin
with pain. That dying on Calvary — so unthinkable in
its injustice, if inflicted as retributive penalty — so Divine,
* See Note at the end of the Chapter, p. 134.
132 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
beyond all imagination of beauty or power, as the
crushing, in flesh, of sin ; it is, indeed, from within that
we must look to see what it meant, and was. It was
the property, the power, of inherent righteousness, self-
identified for consummation of penitence, with sinful man.
There is no element here — either on the one hand, of
the infliction, or, on the other hand, of the endurance,
of vengeance. This death of pain, physical and spiritual
— it is the spontaneous action of inherent righteousness,
the glory and triumph of inherent righteousness under
conditions under which righteousness itself could only
be triumphant as righteousness thus !
He did not — of course He did not — endure the ven-
geance of God. We do not deny this only because, in
every instinct of our being, we feel that it would be —
as indeed it would — too shocking and too blasphemous
even for thought ; but because we are able positively
to recognize that, whilst it would, by implication, deny
both the Divine character of the Eternal Father,
and the Divine Being of the Incarnate Son, it
would also, not by implication only but directly,
contradict the entire conception of the atonement The
vengeance of God is not anyhow conceivable as a method
— on the contrary it is the direct negation — of atonement.
The vengeance of God is the final consummation of sin
unrepented, unatoned, unforgiven, unforgiveable. The
Cross is not the symbol of unforgiveness ! No, but
with undimmed insight into sin, such insight as no spirit
of man could bear. He offered Himself to consummate
that reality of penitence by which alone real conscious-
ness of sin (the universal property of humanity) could
be righteously transformed and dissolved into — could grow
into and become and be found to be, after all, more
essentially, more abidingly, — a real identity with the
absolute righteousness of God.
VI.] THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST ' 133
He did not — of course He did not — endure the damna-
tion of sin. But in the bitter humiliation of a self-
adopted consciousness of what sin — and therefore of
what the damnation of sin — really is, He bowed His
head to that which, as far as mortal experience can
go, is so far, at least, the counterpart on earth of damnation
that it is the extreme possibility of contradiction and
destruction of self. He to whom, as the Life of life, all
dying, all weakness, were an outrage to us inconceivable,
bowed Himself to Death — Death in its outward form
inflicted with all the contumely as of penal vengeance —
Death inwardly accepted as the necessary climax of
an experience of spiritual desolation, which, but to the
inherently holy, would have been not only material but
spiritual death. In mortal agony of body, in strain in-
conceivable, through the body, on the mind and the will,
in isolation of spirit (man's true consciousness towards
sin) — He died.
The consummation of penitence carried with It the
straining, to their breaking, of the vital faculties, the
dissolution of the mortal instrument. But that dissolution
was the consummation of penitence ; and the consumma-
tion of penitence is the consummation of righteousness by
inherent power finally victorious through and over the
utmost possibilities of sin.
Sin, when in its final struggle it had slain by inches
that through which alone it could ever draw near to
Kim, in slaying what was mortal of Him had slain
wholly itself. Where penitence has been consummated
quite perfectly, that very consciousness, which was heavi-
ness of spirit for sin, has become the consciousness of
sin crushed, and dead. Sin slain, sin dead: this is in
the sacrifice of penitence ; this is in the death of the
Cross. " Behold ! the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sin of the world ! "
134 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
NOTE TO PAGE 131.
On the Cry upon the Cross.
I have received some very friendly censure for making this
reference to the cry on the Cross, in so far as the reference implies a
certain interpretation of that cry, which is thought to conflict with its
deeper significance.
The suggestion, if I rightly understand it, is that the cry both in its
own actual words, and still more when interpreted in context either
with the 22nd psalm as a whole, or with the expostulatory tone which
is characteristic (in a certain aspect) of the Old Testament prophets
who prefigured the Messiah, is mainly a pleading to God against
failure, and the sense of wrong in failure. That is to say that it is the
cry as of a self-sacrificing righteousness which has not succeeded
in that which was the very animating purpose of its sacrifice ; that it
is the cry of a protest, such as is familiar in Jeremiah, against
unmerited failure, — the sense not of suffering only, but (as it were)
of the demonstrated uselessness of suffering. In this view it would
be emblematically represented not simply by the blended penitence,
and withal tranquillity, of the mother dying of a broken heart ; but
rather by her additional consciousness (if so it were) in dying, that
even this last surrender of herself had been in vain : for that the child,
unmoved and un-won, had but fled contumaciously into further evil,
so that the mother's very death seemed manifestly to have been for
nothing.
It is further suggested that it may perhaps be conceived to be an
inherent necessity of human consciousness of extreme self-sacrifice,
before it can reach its own perfectness of consummation, that the
vision of the mind should be clouded from seeing or feeling its own in-
alienable victory. It is true, no doubt, that, in the moral sphere at
least, such sacrifice must, in its own essential nature, be triumphant.
Yet it is conceivable that it may belong to the very climax of the trial
in which such righteousness finally consummates its triumph, that the
sense of victory should be obscured to the consciousness ; that the
sense of failure, and expostulation against failure, the sense of sacrifice
thrown away, and suffering uselessly borne, may be a necessary
ingredient in the bitterness of the cup of sacrifice.
And if it be objected that this, however conceivable as the very
climax of trial in sinful and ignorant man, is not conceivable in the
human consciousness which was the very expression of the Person of
God : it may perhaps be answered that it is conceivable that it was
I
VI.] THE ATONING DEATH OF CHRIST 135
just for this that He divested Himself of the very qualities which were
most His own; taking upon Him, by deliberate condescension, that
very limitedness of imagination and knowledge which would con-
stitute the supreme bitterness of His suffering in sacrifice: that, in
a word. He most showed in this the sovereignty of His own character
as God — by the extent to which He became, as it were, other than
God, by the limitation even of His own clear insight and conscious-
ness of self, for the purpose of making the cup of sacrifice full.
On all this I desire to make no other comment than that I do not feel
called upon, because of it, to alter what is written in the text. It may
all be true. I certainly am not disputing it. In some measure at
least an interpretation which distinguishes infinity from finiteness, and
insists upon the limitation of mortal faculties, must needs be in the
direction of truth. But at the most it seems to me only to add a
further thought to those which I had suggested before. It may make
them incomplete, but it does not make them untrue ; and if they are
true, it is certainly not incompatible with them. It is obvious more-
over to add that there are not any words, in the history of the world,
whose meaning it would be so little reasonable to attempt, or expect,
to exhaust, by any single strain of interpretation whatever.
CHAPTER VII
OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE
Among the earliest, and among the most beautiful, of
the pictures of the Risen Lord in the Gospel history is
that in which He pleads with the warm-hearted but
over-confident disciple, who had so misconceived, at the
crisis. His purpose and character, and who had been —
all good intentions notwithstanding — so easily beguiled
into denying Him.
The question with which the Risen Christ challenges
St Peter, — and many a faint-hearted follower from the
days of St Peter onwards, — is a question which turns
wholly upon the reality of personal affection for Himself.
" Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me ? "
And in truth there is illumination, as well as pathos,
in the question. There is something in it which goes
far beyond the touching associations, or the transitory
accidents, of a merely personal piece of reminiscence. It
has a world-wide reference. It touches an eternal principle.
As the question which pierced to the depth of the
contrite conscience of St Peter ; as the question which set
before him, in a moment, the challenge of the truly Christian
life ; as the test of his restoration to dutifulness and to
apostleship ; we feel that its words contain, or are capable,
at the least, of representing, the inner secret of the life of
the Church.
But there are times when we wander far enough from
the simplicity of a relation to the Person and Cross of
136
CHAP. VII.] OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE 137
Christ, which can be simply expressed as the dependence
of a personal love. And even if the personal love were
clearer and more devoted than it is, there are times when
we should be perplexed to determine upon what exactly the
personal love was based ; or in what way the work of Christ
— even if we dared be certain that we loved Him — made
essential difference in ourselves. This then is the
question which we approach in the present chapter. In
what way does the atoning victory of Christ become an
effective reality in ourselves ? No Christian doubts that
the Atonement is central, and vital, to the Christian creed.
In the life, and in the death, of Jesus Christ, is the real
heart's hope of every child of man. Yet we are perplexed
oftentimes by conflicting theories, developed as interpreta-
tions of the Atonement ; so perplexed, in some cases even
so wronged, nay outraged, by the things that are said to
us, that we stand some of us in doubt, not only whether
we can possibly make it intelligible to our consciences,
but even whether, after all, we ought to tolerate or receive
it at all.
One primary difficulty to our thought is the conviction,
naturally immovable, that, whatever happened on Calvary,
did not happen to us. With what justice, with what
reality, we inevitably ask, can we claim its attributes, or
character, for our own ? If in any sense it is true that
Calvary, with all that Calvary involved, — Calvary, and the
consummation of the sacrifice of the Crucified, — is the central
fact in the history of the world : what, after all, putting
make-believe aside, is the real relation of Calvary to me ?
Whether we go to more ancient, or to more modern,
forms of current explanation, — whether the paying of a
ransom, or the cancelling of a debt, or the substitution of a
victim, is our leading metaphor, — there is one thing which
seems, at first sight, to belong alike to all views which start
from the great historical event, and find their explanation
138 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
within that: namely that, characterize it how they may,
they seem to make atonement a transaction, historical,
final, consummated long ago : — a transaction (I do not
ask at this moment between whom ; but at all events) far
anterior to, and wholly outside of, the reality of ourselves.
And so, partly in protest against every possible form of
conception of what is felt to be so artificial, as a transaction^
dramatically completed, and essentially outside ourselves:
and partly in obedience to the correlative instinct that the
only conceivably effective atonement must be somehow,
where the seat of the necessity lies, within the personality
that has sinned ; human consciences rise in revolt against
the entire doctrine of an accomplished atonement. It may
be that neither of these two instinctive principles is based
altogether on truth. Yet there is enough of popular truth
in both of them, to make the protest which is based upon
them a reality, needing to be taken into rational and
serious account. And th^ positive meaning of the protest
is itself truer than the statement of the principles on which
it is based. It is true, even if the truth is too often urged
without balance, that any atonement which is to be
ultimately effectual for me, must find its ultimate reality
within what I am. It is true that an atonement which is,
to the absolute end, external only : which finds no echo, no
place, as moral characterization, within the individual
personality ; can be to him, at last, no more than a
possibility of atonement which now has failed, and is past.
It is through consciousness of the truth which is true on
this side, that we in this generation have become familiar
with two contrasted sets of theories of atonement, — set
over against one another under titles whose theological
history is (to say the least) singularly unfortunate, as
respectively " objective " and " subjective " theories.
These words have been made to be badges of con-
tradictory views. On the one side it is pleaded that if
VII.] OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE 139
the need lies in the sin which is, personally, the sinner's
very own, nothing can touch the real point of the need,
which is not, like the sin, within the sinner. And so,
when the question is asked as to the real and permanent
import of Calvary, the emphasis is apt to be laid upon
the moral effect, the touching example, the eternal appeal
which the picture of Calvary must for ever make upon
the thoughts, and hearts, and lives of men. It is a
marvellous incident — or marvellous suggestion — of history.
Whether it be exactly incident, or suggestion, is not, it
is sometimes insinuated, from this point of view, the
question of most moment. For it is not as a transaction
that it is either appealed to, or conceived. It is rather
the idea than the fact: rather the inspiration which
comes from it than its own achievement: rather the
outflowing force of moral motive, than the external
completeness of a consummated work, which constitutes
both its reality and its power.
But if we adopt this language, and say that the truth
of the atonement must be chiefly moral: and that its
true reality is to be looked for subjectively within the
conscience, rather than objectively on Calvary and the
Mount of the Ascension ; and if we would so correct, or
explain away, the point of view of the historic Church ;
(a position to which, in all ages, one vein of mystical
thought has tended to approximate ;) we are met, on the
other hand, by arguments, trenchant and confounding,
which would shew, both from human experience the
imperative need, and from Scripture the most reiterated
and solemn assertion, of a redemption wrought effectually,
once for all, through the Blood of Jesus Christ There
are few modern writings on the atonement so widely
read or so influential as that of Dr Dale. It will be
remembered how the leading motive of his volume, and
perhaps it may also be said his chief power, lie in this, —
I40 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
in his accumulated proof that, without tearing the New
Testament to pieces, you cannot separate from it its
cardinal belief in the effective reality of a historical and
objective atonement. It will be remembered also that
the same faith, often in its most crudely objective form,
itself constitutes the living religious force of a vast pro-
portion of the conviction and practice that are, at least
amongst Protestant communities, most vitally and
effectively Christian.
But in truth the very antithesis itself is, on examination,
artificial and unreal. For here, as elsewhere, the words
subjective and objective are only relatively, not really,
opposed. So far is either of them from really denying,
that each in fact implies and presupposes the other ; nor
can either of the two, in complete isolation from the other,
be itself ultimately real.
The word objective is used, by those who make a
point of using it, to mark their insistence that the sacrifice
of Christ was in itself real and adequate, "a full perfect
and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the
sins of the whole world ; " and that it is so, whether
I, or another, apprehend it as such or no. Of course it
is so. What they so far contend for is altogether
necessary and true. It is not upon the power of
apprehension in one man, or in another, that the right-
eousness of God in Christ depends for being righteous,
or for crushing sin. It was anyhow Divine righteousness,
which, in and as man, broke down the power of sin.
But if it is to be — as in purpose and in capacity it
assuredly is — my righteousness, crushing sin for and in me ;
it is clear that it is not so, irrespectively of all that I can
still either do, or be. It is of necessity that I should be
in a certain relation with it : and upon my relation to it
its relation to me will ultimately depend. In some form
every one recognizes that this is true. In itself, and to
VII.] OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE 141
others whose life it has become, it is what it is, irrespec-
tively of me. But to me, if I have no relation to it, it is
as though it were not. An objective fact that is not
apprehended in any sense subjectively, is to those who
have no subjective relation to it, as if it were non-existent
A fact objectively existing, in itself, without relation to
any apprehending mind, is an impossibility to thought.
Light may have indeed other qualities or effects ; but it
is not light save to a capacity of seeing. What is the light
of noonday to a man born blind ? To others, who know
what sight is, it is real : but as far as he is concerned it
does not, as light, exist. It is identical with its con-
tradictory. To say that white, as white, is precisely
identical with black, is to deny its existence as white
altogether. The sunlight, apprehended by no creature,
would yet be real to the apprehension and will of the
Creative mind ; but outside the apprehension of God
or man, outside all relation to mind, it could have neither
meaning nor reality at all. It is in its aspect as spiritually
realized that it is, in fact, real. Thus those who plead
for an objective atonement are right ; — but would not be
right, if its objective reality could be irrespective of
realization subjectively.
What those, then, really demand on the other hand
who plead for an atonement which would not be atone-
ment after all, if its ultimate meaning were not a moral
or subjective reality, is itself no less vitally necessary
and true. But perhaps the word "subjective" is not
used in this context so much as a term selected for defence
by those who defend it: but rather as a term imputed
for reproach by those who repudiate it. And as such the
Lterm is mixed up with associations which obscure and
belie its meaning. Men use the word to stigmatise what
is unreal as unreal. Men speak of the appearance of
a nightmare or a ghost as subjective, meaning that it is
I
142 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
the mere creature of illusory imagination, which mistakes
non-existence for reality. Now so long as the word is
in familiar use to denote the hallucinations of a brain
diseased, misconceiving untruth as truth: so long will
it serve in theological discussion, whether upon the
Atonement or the Eucharist, largely to caricature thought
which it is incapable of representing truly. We need
to get rid of the unworthy and false associations of the
word. Subjective does not mean imaginary, or un-
authorized. It does not suggest something unrelated
to eternal truth ; real only to the individual — in pro-
portion as he, with no reason beyond himself, imagines
it to be real. Subjective truth rather is that which is
true in and to the apprehending capacity of the individual,
because the individual has learnt aright to apprehend
and see a truth, whose reality is not dependent on
himself. What is real in and to my mind is therefore
subjective to me. It is subjectively that the objective
is realized. For its reality to me, for its reality to any-
one, the objective waits for, and depends on, its correlative
subjective. What is not subjectively real to any mind
at all cannot be real objectively — ^just as light could not
be light if no faculties of seeing existed : nor could
matter be Kocr/ios save to mind. The two, then, are really
inseparable, as convex and concave. Objective, that is
wholly without subjective realization, is the same as
non-existent. Subjective, that is not objective also, is
hallucination.
So with the Cross and its atoning sacrifice. The sub-
jective or moral theory that finds all its meaning within
us men and our individual consciences, and makes but
little of the act external, objective, historical, consummated
adequately and once for all : — this, in trying to realize for
itself the meaning of atonement, is really cutting off (as it
were) the blossom which should become fruit, from the root
VII.] OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE 143
by which it lives. On the other hand the simply objective
theory which forgets the place of the Cross within Christian
life, which says, " Go your way : be content : the atonement
was once a transaction, with such and such meaning
between God and Christ : but you have nothing in it,
except to believe that it is a fact, finished and done : " —
this goes far to deprive the root of that fruit-bearing
capacity which is its own inherent and proper meaning.
The ultimate realization is indeed to be within us —
the very transfiguration of ourselves. The sacrifice of
Christ, as merely external to us, does indeed include all
possibility, but as yet it only is as possibility; it is
potential, it is preliminary, — and it is provisional. The
sacrifice is to be, in its final consummation, the real
transformation of us all. But it is to be so in us because
it was first the historical sacrifice, consecrated on Calvary,
unique, all-sufficing ; real between God and man in the
Person of Jesus Christ, — and to each of us, as individuals,
seen and believed in external objective history. It is,
so far as each one of us is concerned, objective first,
that it may become subjective. It was real to God-
ward in Christ, that it might become the reality, in
Christ, of men. It is real in others that it may be real
in us. It is first a historical, that it may come to be a
personal, fact. Calvary, and the Ascension, precede any
thought or apprehension of ours. But Calvary, and the
Ascension, are none the less to become an integral part
of the experience and reality of our personal conscious-
ness. If Calvary and the Ascension were anything less
than the most real of historical realities, there would be
in fact no possibility of their translation into our personal
characters. But if even Calvary and the Ascension were
past history merely, they would not after all have saved,
or have touched, us.
An atonement, then, moral or spiritual, ought never to
144 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
have been suggested as an alternative to the historical
sacrifice of the Creed, or as a correction of it ; for it is
itself an element necessary and integral, in the meaning
of the historical sacrifice. Nor ought any question to have
been raised between an objective and a subjective atone-
ment: nor ought either to have been maintained in the
way of antagonism against the other. The real question
should have been not whether the Christian atonement
is a fact, wrought without us, or a moral and spiritual
alteration within : but rather, seeing that it must be both,
and that either of these two is to mean the other, we should
ask. How does it happen, by what power and by what
means, that what is primarily an external fact consum-
mated in history, can and does become the essential
reality in the characterization of the personalities of men ?
How can the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, consecrated on
Calvary for eternal presentation, become in me — not a
personal reality only, but the main constitutive reality
of my own individual personal being?
If we have been content to be long in working back
to this question, it is the result of a belief that upon this
question — upon its answer no doubt in the fullest sense, but
even upon the framing of the question aright, — depends in
large measure the insight of our generation into that supreme
reality of the atonement, which just because it is deeper
at once and simpler and wider than human experience,
has been seen by different generations of Christians so
differently, and yet has been vital, and has been true, to
them all.
This then is the form of our question — how can, in
this matter, the objective be the subjective? The deed
enacted, once for all, without, be the quality of the con-
sciousness, within, of ten thousand times ten thousand
of the children of men? The question is not whether
it is so, but How?
VII.] OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE 145
Now, no attempt will be made to reach the full
answer to this question in the present chapter. For the
present we must be content with an answer which is
preparatory rather than adequate : suggestive, perhaps,
of more than it attempts to explore: and possibly even,
as it stands, superficially at least and verbally, (though
not really, to those who discern what lies beneath simple
experiences,) capable of being made use of to confuse, as
well as to establish, the faith of the Church.
Speaking practically then, rather than abstractly, we
may say that the first preliminary to the real translation of
all that is signified by Calvary into a constitutive fact
of my own inner being is that, looking externally upon it
as a fact of history, I should apprehend it, believe it, con-
template it, and love it.
It is worth while to observe that I cannot begin, unless,
to me at least, the history is truth. Even upon the
extreme hypothesis that the sort of unqualified moral
allegiance, of which we are speaking now, would be
possible towards what was, in fact, a beautiful allegory:
it would certainly not be possible save to one who mistook
the allegory for fact. I do not analyze now the paradox
f the position which could suggest that the highest
ucation of human character ever dreamed of might be
ased upon a lie, or a phantasy ; but I note that the thought
f possible untruth must be absolutely shut out from the
onsciousness which is to be really educated by it. From
the beginning, the reality of Calvary as objective history is
a postulate, without which nothing really can follow at all.
The first point, then, is to apprehend and believe it as
K'ue. This is faith in the lower and barer sense of the
^ord: — to recognize that the fact indeed is so; and to
ave some insight into the meaning of the fact. All our
jaching, as teaching, historical or doctrinal, goes to make
this foundation sure.
I
146 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
But secondly, it is something far beyond this primary
apprehension or belief, when we say that our moral
advancement further depends upon our contemplation of
what we believe. Those do not grow into the likeness of
the Cross who merely believe in their hearts, however
sincerely, that the Cross was, in fact, once borne for
them by their Lord. We speak now of a concentration
of faculties by intellectual and moral effort. We speak
of study, careful and minute, — a tracing of meanings and
purposes, of connections and corollaries, — an insight into
the relations and significance of details, — a vivid recalling,
as into present life, through the powers of imagination
taught carefully and disciplined, of all the wonder of
those unique scenes, and all the mystery of that central
Personality, in whose uniqueness only they have their
meaning, or were, or are, what they are ! In a word we
speak of that sort of framework of intimacy of knowledge,
which is the direct correlative of love.
Our third point, then, is love. The most diligent study
would be nugatory : nay the most genuine intimacy would
tend rather to severance and contrast than moral union :
unless the intimacy were but an aspect of love. " Lovest
thou Me?" Real, personal love, uplifted and uplifting,
love for the Crucified because of the Cross, love even for
the Cross because of the Crucified : this is perhaps the most
obvious, and the most indispensable, of practical conditions
for the real translation of the scene without into the
material of the character within. I do not stay to analyze
the possibility in us, of such love. We know of what sort
it is as a practical duty, and we know something of its
transforming power, long before we can realize whence, or
how, it is possible. But this phrase " to love," after all, is
a phrase which has been used for so many purposes, that it
is shorn, for us, of a large part of its proper power. Quite
apart from positively degraded uses, we use it for the
VII.] OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE 147
feeblest kinds of affection, not touching the real truth of
love. Partly it is for this reason that we have reserved
another special form of phrase for cases in which we can
recognize the real informing and constraining force of love.
If you say of a man not only that he loves, but that he
is in love withy either a person or a cause, you intend to
emphasize, by that phrase, a distinction between on the
one hand an emotion quiescent if not passive, — one of the
many shifting judgments of approval to which in turn
man's mind and feeling give assent; and on the other
hand a passion, dominant and sweeping, which carries all
else before it with torrent force, filling all the mind and
shaping all the actions, giving new zest, new power,
possibly even new capacity and new character to the
whole life of the spirit which has felt at last what is to
be " in love."
" Lovest thou Me ? " It is difficult for our imagination
to emphasize too strongly what the meaning would be of
" being in love with " Christ, crucified and risen ; or to
how much it would be the practical key in the way of the
translation of the spirit of Calvary into the animating spirit
of individual Christian life. What engrossing of faculties,
what absorption of desire, what depth of thought, what
wistfulness of kindness, what strength of will, what
inspiration of power, — to endeavour or to endure, — would
forthwith follow, with spontaneous, silent, irresistible
sequence, if once we were " in love " !
So all-inclusive indeed is the meaning of love, that it is
needless to distinguish from love, as though it were a
separable point, the effort of personal imitation and
approach. Consciously or unconsciously, love is imitative.
What I am really in love with I must in part be
endeavouring to grow like : and shall be growing like,
if the love is really on fire, even more than I consciously
endeavour. What I am really in love with characterizes
148 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
me. It is that which I, so far, am becoming. In love
then, at least, though perhaps not separably from love,
there is much imitation, conscious and unconscious, of
the Spirit which revealed itself to the world on Calvary.
There may be no inherent beauty in asceticism. There
may be no form of asceticism which is not, sometimes,
the product of mean and selfish impulses ; which does
not, sometimes, draw justly upon itself the condemnation,
and even contempt, of healthy consciences. But alas!
for us if we cannot also, in this context, see how
directly the ascetic spirit may be the irresistible out-
come of pure love. The daily unselfishness — more and
more smiling and spontaneous — the quiet stringency
and gladness of detailed self-discipline; do we not see
how this, as the unconscious, or the conscious, imitation
of the Cross, by one who is in love with the Crucified,
may be just the natural homage, the relief which will not
be denied, of a devoted love, welling up and bubbling
over in act? Be it what it may as cold self-conscious
rule, at least as the expression and relief of over-flowing
love, asceticism, even the exactest, is not only blameless
but beautiful. It is also, in very large measure, a
practical token of the thing we are looking for : a secret
of the process of the real translation of Calvary, con-
templated and lovedy into the inmost characterizing reality
of the spirit of the loving worshipper.
But in dwelling so long on contemplation and love
as if within these lay the secret of the answer to the
question asked just now, we lay ourselves open, no doubt,
to more questions than one. Thus it may be asked
whether, on this interpretation, the only real value of
Calvary and the Ascension, as historically objective realities,
is to supply a basis for my emotions to work upon?
They constitute, no doubt, a marvellous revelation ; an
over-mastering appeal ; a perfect example ; a supreme
»
VII.] OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE 149
object and motive for love. Is this all? Is this, and
this only, their part in my redemption? And, if so, are
they really indispensable at all ? Would not the appeal
and motive be the same, if I really believed in them as
appeal and motive, even if they never actually happened ?
It might be strange, perhaps, that the deepest of all
effects should follow upon a mistaken estimate of fact.
But, strange or not strange, would not the same effects
after all really follow in fact from an erroneous belief in
Calvary and the Ascension, as from a true one, if only
the erroneous belief were sufficiently protected from every
suspicion of doubt? And if so again, then is not the
whole thing a reappearance, in very thin disguise, of what
we always understood by a subjective theory of the atone-
ment, — rather than, what it seemed to promise to be,
any real reconciliation or synthesis of subjective with
objective ?
There is one form of question — with branching con-
sequences. And here is another. If contemplation,
imitation, love, are adequate as the keynotes of ex-
planation, it may well be asked — is such a contempla-
tion or such a love as is required, itself within the
possibilities of the human character? Are my conditions
such, that this process of emotional transformation, can
be by me maintained, or even begun? And the answer
must certainly be that, consistently with the conditions of
human experience, on the basis of human initiative or
human accomplishment, — no^ it is not a possibility! To
offer to me, being what I know myself to be, the sacrifice
of Christ as an incitement, or an example, is not useless
only — but worse than useless. It is, you urge, the most
beautiful of ideals. But — the loftier the ideal, the more
absolutely is it, to me, unapproachable. It is, you urge,
the most moving, the most constraining, object of affec-
tion. I can see that it is so— or that it ought to be.
ISO ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
But even while I assent with part of my mind, there is
that in me by which I feel and know that / cannot
altogether be in love with an object of love so inaccessible
to me, — ^just because it is more supremely lovable than
I can conceive or desire. No ; on its side — even / can see
that everything is indeed complete: but — on my side — it
is the " I " which is incapable. To appeal to me for
what is impossible to me, is only to convict and to crush.
I need something first which will not merely make appeal
to, or draw out, the best that is in me ; but which will
change and transform the very meaning and possibility
of that fatal word " I."
The word " I " is the point at which all such theory
breaks down. Surely discussions of atonement, — of its
relation to me or mine to it — have often been in vain,
because they have tried to explain it apart from any
examination of the meaning of the fatal word " I," — as
though the word " I " were a word of obvious meaning,
and as though from first to last, throughout the process
the word retained its one obvious meaning unchanged.
Its meaning is far from remaining either simple, or un-
qualified. On the contrary, the whole clue to my
apprehension of Atonement lies, it may be, in the chang-
ing content and significance of that one keyword " I."
This is the answer to the second question. And from
the second we go back to the first. And here again
we have to answer No ! It is not all, nor anything
approaching to all, the part borne in my redemption by
Calvary and the Ascension that they should offer to me
a model, or a motive, or an object of love. But what
is far more, and is an integral part in any understanding
or explanation of the Atonement, — the life of Christ,
consecrated upon the Cross, consummated in the Ascension,
itself constitutes the very basis of the possibility, nay
more, of the vital and present and experienced reality
VII.] OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE 151
of that change in the meaning of the " I " and its capacities,
without which any motive or model or ideal object for
affection, would serve only to condemn and destroy.
We, then, have not reached — we have hardly as yet
even touched upon — the heart of the matter. The heart
of the matter would lie in the exposition, and realization,
of Pentecost. The atonement as a transaction without
ourselves — expound it how you will — is not yet consum-
mated for us. In terms simply of a transaction without
ourselves, the mystery of the atonement cannot be ex-
pounded. This is why so many expositions of the atone-
ment are, to us, justly inconclusive, or worse. They
have tried to explain the method, or justice, of its relation
to us. And they stop short at a point at which its rela-
tion to us is not yet properly real. What Jesus in
Himself suffered, or did, on Calvary, you may perhaps
explain in terms of Calvary. The meaning of His
Ascension into Heaven, you may in some part at least
explain without looking onwards to its further effects.
But/'the relation of what He did to us, its working, its
reality for and in us, you can only explain at all in terms of
Pentecost. An exposition of atonement which leaves out
Pentecost, leaves the atonement unintelligible — in relation
to us. For what is the real consummation of the atone-
ment to be ? It is to be — the very Spirit of the Crucified
become our spirit — ourselves translated into the Spirit
of the Crucified. The Spirit of the Crucified, the Spirit
of Him who died and is alive, may be, and please God
shall be, the very constituting reality of ourselves."' Here
as always when we come to the deeper truths of Christian
exposition, all is found to turn, not on explaining away,
but on making vital and real, that membership, unity,
identification with Christ, which is so familiar a feature
of Scriptural language. He who could say with the most
unaffected sincerity, " I determined not to know anything
152 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified," ^ said
also "far be it from me to glory save in the cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world hath been
crucified unto me, and I unto the world," ^ and " I have
been crucified with Christ ; yet I live ; and yet no longer
I but Christ liveth in me." ^ I am appealing only to our
own language, familiar indeed as language at every turn,
which yet we find it too often almost impossible to assimi-
late or to conceive. "Grant us therefore, gracious Lord,
so to eat the flesh of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to
drink His Blood, that our sinful bodies may be made
clean by His Body, and our souls washed through His
most precious Blood, and that we may evermore dwell in
Him, and He in us."
Now we have made no attempt at all hitherto to enter
upon the exposition of Pentecost, the crucial doctrine —
professed so often, and so often without a meaning! —
of the Holy Spirit, as constituting the Church. But at
least the things which we have tried to say may serve
to illustrate the cardinal principle, that Calvary is the
condition, precedent and enabling, to Pentecost The
objective reality is completed first, that it may be indeed
subjectively realized. Christ is crucified first and risen
before our eyes ; that Christ crucified and risen may be the
secret love and power of our hearts. Calvary without
Pentecost, would not be an atonement to us. But
Pentecost could not be without Calvary. Calvary is the
possibility of Pentecost: and Pentecost is the realization,
in human spirits, of Calvary.
The Spirit of the crucified Christ could not become our
spirit, nor we live on, and by. Him, till Christ was
crucified, and ascended, and enthroned. The Spirit
of human penitence could not be ours, till penitence
had been realized in humanity. The Spirit of human
* I Cor. iL 2. 2 Gal. vi. 14. » Gal. ii. 20.
VII.] OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE 153
righteousness could not be ours, till humanity, in the
consummation of penitence, had become perfectly one with
the righteousness of God.
Human penitence, human atonement, human righteous-
ness, — all are first before our eyes, as external objects, that
they may be the secret of our hearts, that they may be the
very truth of ourselves. But the transforming power, the
power of real reflection and effective allegiance, is not to be
found in ourselves. Or, at least, the question has to be
seriously raised, — What do we mean by ourselves ? What
is the true account of human personality? And the
answer to this question can only be given in the light,
if not in the language, of Pentecostal doctrine, the doctrine
of the Holy Ghost. It is Pentecost, it is the gift pro-
gressively transforming, it is the indwelling of the Spirit of
Holiness, the Spirit of the Crucified, which is the trans-
figuring of human personality : a transfiguring in which at
last, for the first time, self has become fully self, and
the meaning of human personality is consummated and
realizedy^
CHAPTER VIII
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN RELATION TO THE BEING OF GOD
We need then some study of the doctrine of the Holy
Spirit, in order that we may understand the meaning of
human personality. But before we apply this doctrine to
the elucidation of human personality, it is necessary first to
make some attempt to measure what we mean by the
doctrine itself. What are we eally able to understand
about the Holy Spirit, in reference, first, to the Personal
Being of God ?
The first condition for understanding (in any sense of
the word) the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity, is to
begin by giving the utmost possible emphasis to the truth,
which is as essential to the theologian as to the philosopher,
— of the unity of God. God cannot be multiplied. " God "
is a word which defies the possibility of a plural. To dally
for a moment with any doubt or qualification of the
absoluteness of the truth of the unity of God, is to empty
the word itself of its essential significance. " The Lord
our God, the Lord is One :* is a principle which necessarily,
underlies every thought and every phrase of the Atha-
nasian creed. If the Son is God, He is absolutely, and
identically God — singularis^ unicuSy et totus Deus^- And the
same is true also of the Holy Ghost. The Three Persons
are neither Three Gods, nor Three parts of God. Rather
they are God Threefoldly, God Tri-personally. Of course
no human phrases are positively adequate. But nega-
^ See above, page 84.
IM
CHAP, riii.l THE HOLY SPIRIT 155
tively at least we must get rid, so far as we may, of
positive misconceptions. It is God, not "a" God, nor
a "part of" God, — it is God who eternally is, who thinks
who wills, who designs, who creates, who ordains : it is God
who eternally is, who loves, who condescends, who
"deviseth means," who takes hold of man, who reveals,
who redeems : it is God who eternally is, who attracts, who
informs, who inspires, who animates, — it is God who,
in Himself, and God who, even in His creatures, physical
or spiritual, makes from all sides Divine response to
Himself. The personal distinction in Godhead is a distinc-
tion within, and of, unity : not a distinction which qualifies
unity, or usurps the place of it, or destroys it.
Historically, the unity of the Godhead, was impressed
on the consciousness of Israel, as the religious representa-
tive of man, for some two thousand years, before the stage
in religious evolution was reached, at which any further
revelation was possible of what was meant or contained
within the unity. And as the further conception of God
Incarnate, — God revealed within, and as, the moral and
spiritual perfectness of man, — dawned by degrees, slowly,
imperiously, compellingly, upon the consciousness of men
of special moral and spiritual capacity of insight ; it was
most assuredly not as the revelation of another God, or of
another than God, but as the express image and actual
revelation of God Himself, the One, the All-in-all, the
Eternal, that the disciples learned to believe in, and to
worship, Jesus Christ our Lord.
And certainly in what He said Himself about the
" other Paraclete," the " Spirit of Truth," Jesus Christ is
not for a moment unteaching the fundamental verity that
God is One. The teaching when it comes takes hardly
the form of a new revelation at all. It is not ushered
in with the dignity or the surprise of a new and amazing
declaration as to the essential Being of Deity. Rather
156 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
it comes in a quiet, practical way, as explaining the
meaning of His own bodily absence ; and how that
absence could be, after all, a nearer and truer presence
of Himself, and therefore of God, than could possibly
be represented or expressed by bodily nearness in a
material order of things. It is of course, in its own truth,
a new revelation. It is the beginning of a new epoch —
mysterious indeed, from the standpoint of everything that
had been either attained or conceived before — in the
revelation of the meaning of life, and specially the relation
of created Life to God. It is the opening of new vistas
of conception, such as we can only realize in part, about
the essential Being of God Himself.
But such a revelation, however in fact august or far-
reaching, is in form made almost incidentally, as a
necessary sequel, an element implied, and necessary to
be discerned, for a full grasp of the conception of what
Incarnation itself properly meant. The one thing which
it emphatically is not^ is any correction or unsaying of
the age-long truth of the essential unity of God.
It is the more necessary to begin by insisting on this
fundamental principle, because, though there are few who
would have the temerity to deny it in words, it has not
really an adequate place in general or popular Christian
thought. It can hardly be doubted that, among those
who wish to make a point of being orthodox, there is
a great deal of practical Di- or Tri- theism. The word
Person, as applied to the distinctions within the Divine
unity, — though it is by far the best word, and, for us,
the only word possible: and though, contrary to what
is sometimes supposed, we may venture to think that it
represents (or rather that it is capable of) a considerable
advance even upon the suggestive Greek word 'YTroo-Tocrts :
has nevertheless its drawbacks. We are profoundly
accustomed to human persons, and perhaps to take for
i
vm.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 157
granted, moreover, a somewhat shallow philosophical
conception as to where the essence of human personality
lies. We are accustomed too much to conceive of
personality primarily as distinctness. A and B and C
are separate personalities : that is to say A is not B,
and B is not C. When we are asked what we mean
by " personalities," we are too apt to reply by underlining
the word "separate." The fact that A is distinct, as
a separate centre of being ; the fact that A is not any
other than A ; this lies very near the heart of what we
popularly conceive personality to mean.
Now I believe that this is not the ultimate truth even
of human personality : but it is not human personality
that I am discussing now. It is in any case certainly
not a key to the truth or meaning of the Threefoldness
of Personality in God. And so long as we carry it with
us into Theology from our (supposed) human experience,
we are carrying with us an idea which is sure to work
some confusion. Supposing for a moment that this "/>
«^/" lies at the heart of the distinction of one human
person from another ; in any case " is not " is not the
heart of the distinction of the Three Persons of Deity.
I am borrowing a phrase which has become happily
familiar to very many, if I say that whereas "mutual
exclusiveness " may seem indispensable for the under-
standing of the distinction of human persons : for the
understanding of the distinction of Divine Persons it
is no less indispensable that we should grasp, — or at
least should see that it would be necessary to grasp, —
the opposite conception of " mutual inclusiveness." " I
am not you " — " I, in respect of being I, am quite in-
dependent of you" — these are statements, which even
if they be not ultimate truth, at all events run very far
back, on earth. But, in God, no Person is, or can be,
at all without the other. The Father is inseparable from
158 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
the Son, and the Son from the Father : and the Spirit,
inseparable from either, is the bond of the Union of
Both.
The word Person is the true word in itself. But the
word Person, seen in the light of certain human assump-
tions, leads human minds, if not to what is really a
practical Tritheism, at all events to an undue and
dangerous separation between the Persons, and the opera-
tions — I had almost said the characters — of thp Eternal
Father, and the Eternal Word, and the Eternal Spirit,
which are One God. Historically perhaps this separation
has assumed its most terrible proportions in some
monstrous theories of the atonement, according to which,
at least in their popular form, the Persons of Deity have
been not only distinguished, but separated, — not only
separated but very sharply contrasted ; — and that, not in
operation only but in moral attributes, — in the will of
Goodness and Love. But even among those who would
utterly repudiate such awful travesties of theological truth
as these, are there not many who practically regard the
Divine Persons as if they were separate — in being and in
operation ; shrinking with a sort of orthodox horror from
seeming to introduce any One into the sphere which belongs
— not to Him, but to Another Person? The Father is
regarded as apart from the Son : and the Son as apart
from the Father ; and the Spirit as to be clearly sundered
from Both. And then each must have a separate sphere of
operation assigned to Him ; and His sphere must be kept
apart from the spheres of the Others ; and scruples and
perplexities begin to arise as to the relation of the sphere
or work respectively — say of the ascended Son to that of
the Spirit ; as if God were divided, and in parts. And
perhaps the question presents itself to scrupulous minds,
whether really they do, — or can, — believe the Holy Spirit
to be Personal, without ipso facto making Him distinct
VIII. THE HOLY SPIRIT 159
from God, — the God who " is Spirit," and whose Spirit He
is!
Again, as a result that partly follows from undue
separation, there are those who practically omit from their
lives the third part of the Creed altogether. They believe
in God : and in the life and death of Jesus Christ. But
though of course they repeat the Creed as a whole, belief in
the Spirit finds no place in their lives : they have really no
adequately intelligent conception to attach to the words.
Or if, without such adequate conception, they nevertheless
make much of the use of the words, then the words them-
selves, becoming unduly familiarized, are, through familiarity,
debased : they speak lightly of the Spirit, or the gifts of
the Spirit, not knowing at what a cost they misuse the
name, and lower in themselves the power of the thought,
of the presence of the Eternal God.
But if perils like these are easily incurred through the
common associations of the human word person : it may
be asked, perhaps, whether, when these are removed, the
word Person really carries, for us, any positive illumination
of thought about the Being of God ? Above all it may be
asked, whether the word Person itself, however inevitable
in Latin or English, does not represent a retrogression of
thought, in comparison with the Greek of the early
Councils ? T/Dcis wrotrTao-cis, Mta ovcrta, or even T/3cts VTTOo-Tao-cts,
Mia vTToo-Tao-is — there is something in the very bravery of the
paradox which is fascinating. Three Subsistences, of One
Substance: Three Existences of One Essence: or even
Three Subsistences of One Subsistence ; Three Existences
of One Existence ; this seems at first sight to be nearer in
expression to that mystery for which we strive to find an
utterance ; and not even to suggest the perilous complete-
ness of separation which begins to creep in at once with
the phrase — "Tres Personae Unius Substantias." Yet
however valuable these expressions may be to us^ as
i6o ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
correcting our misapprehensions of the word Person ; they
are really inadequate substitutes for that word. This is
none the less true to modern thought, even if it be supposed
that historically, in the first instance, as new words, the
words II/ooo-cDTra or Personae may have carried with them
some intellectual loss. There is something essentially
lacking in the word'YTroo-Tao-ts. And just for this very reason ;
that, with all its subtle suggestiveness, it is still, so largely,
an impersonal word. It is abstract rather than actual, a
conception rather than a living whole. When St Augustine
says, in often quoted words "Tamen cum quaeritur
Quid tres? magna prorsus inopia humanum laborat
eloquium. Dictum est tamen Tres Personae non ut illud
diceretur, sed ne taceretur;"^ unspeakably valuable
though the caution is, and has always been felt to be, yet
he really has said too much. There was after all some-
thing positive which was needed ; and something which,
with whatever lack of full completeness, only the word
" Person " really supplied ; or had, at least, the capacity of
supplying. The word Person has a fulness and totality of
meaning of its own, and certainly nothing short of the in-
clusive completeness of personal being can be predicated, at
any moment, of God — whether Father, Son, or Holy Ghost.
If, negatively, we can be rid of the associations privative
and exclusive which are supposed to be inherent in the
word : we shall recognize, on the positive side, that the
word expresses a truth which we must assert, and can
assert with intelligence.
Our intelligence is, on the one side, positive and real,
and on the other side, explicitly limited. And both
consequences follow from the nature of our own knowledge
of personality. It is urged that it is hard for us to under-
stand a Trinity of Personality. Naturally it is so. The
1 De TrinitatCt V., cap. ix. lo, p. 838; cp. also VII. iv. 9, p. 860; VIII. L
p. 865, etc.
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT i6i
basis of our understanding of personality is experience.
We can understand no personality at all, divine or human,
in Trinity or in Unity, except so far as we have first
realized something, in personal experience, of what it
means. If we were not persons, with an experience
of personality antecedent to either reflection in thought or
expression in words, we could not either explain the
meaning of the word, or receive explanation from others.
Persons, analyzing their own consciousness of personality,
to others who begin by sharing (as matter of experience)
in the same consciousness, can give some account,
intelligible to both, of the meaning of the experience
which is anyhow common to both, before it is analyzed or
understood at all. But as it is only upon the basis of
this experience that any understanding is possible at
all : so is it impossible that any understanding should
really travel outside of what is contained, implicitly at
least if not explicitly, within the experience.
Now in a sense we are travelling beyond our
experience whenever we assert an Absolute or Supreme
Personality at all, — whenever, therefore, we assert the
Personality of God. We are passing outside our explicit
experience ; we are asserting something which transcends
what we have realized. But we are not passing outside
what is necessarily implied within our own experience.
Our own consciousness of personality, when cross-
examined, bears witness, as on the one hand to its
own inherent character and demand : so, on the other, to
its own universal and necessary incompleteness. That
which our experience universally requires, for any possible
account of itself, is nowhere, in our experience, realized.
Our personality, though real as far as it goes, is a partial,
tentative, and incomplete personality : and as such only
explicable at all upon the hypothesis of a meaning of
the word Personality, without which indeed even our
L
1 62 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
present experience would have neither sense nor signifi-
cance, but which could only find its realization in
God.
Up to this point we may fairly be said to "under-
stand" Divine Personality. We can understand the
idea of the completeness of those attributes of which we
are conscious of the possession, and conscious of the
incompleteness. And we can understand the proposition
that that idea of their completeness is an absolute
intellectual necessity to give rational meaning to our
incomplete experience. A will partially free is only
intelligible at all upon the assumption that, ideally
at least, there is such a thing as freedom of will that
is no longer partial. A character more or less advanced
in loving is a phrase positively chaotic except in the light
of an ideal conception of perfect love.
But if so much of the idea of Divine Personality is
implicitly contained in our own personal consciousness : is
there anything in the Christian revelation of Divine
Personality, and particularly Divine Threefoldness in
Personality, which is not so implicitly contained? Cer-
tainly I have no wish to answer such a question, at this
point, in any dogmatic manner. I do not assume that we
know all that is implicitly contained within ourselves.
More may well be implied in our consciousness than
as yet the greatest among us have explored. On the
other hand I do not assume that any human analysis
however perfect must ultimately of necessity cover all the
ground. To put it in the most guarded and moderate
way, I see no reason for assuming that what is implicit in
human personality must exhaust the meaning of personality
in God. And my point at the present moment is that if,
or just so far as, there is in the revelation of the Triune
Personality of God any element whatever which is not. on
analysis, within the necessary implications of human
▼III.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 163
personality ; just so far it necessarily follows, from the
very terms on which alone we can understand any
personality, human or divine, at all, that those elements
cannot be, in any proper sense of the words, intellectually
intelligible to us. There is a certain note of reverent
agnosticism which it is well to strike with some emphasis
here. It is wonderful indeed to what an extent the
finite can express and reflect the infinite. But it is
not natural, after all, to suppose that the infinite will
be adequately measured by the finite. I would speak with
reserve, seeing how much of capacity of the infinite
is in the nature which has become, once for all, the
expression of God. Yet I may safely protest against the
assumption, made too lightly (even if unconsciously) on
the other hand, that our faculties are adequate for an
intellectual grasp on the whole of the revelation: or
that scriptural truths about the Threefold Personality can
only be saved from being rejected as irrational, by being
brought into direct, and measurable, relation with the
realized consciousness of man. I am certain that whatever
is completely outside human consciousness in this matter,
is also of necessity outside human intelligibleness. This
is a thought to be urged not so much in the way of
apology — as an excuse to hide or palliate failure. Rather it
is a principle of most positive and illuminating importance.
It is a principle to be pressed forward, with emphasis, into
the utmost prominence, as indispensable for intelligence.
And in the light of it, we certainly shall not be likely to
set out with any antecedent expectation of being able to
explain or to apprehend that supreme all-inclusive
consciousness, which, being One, is mutually Three ;
and being mutually Three, is One.
But if we cannot realize as from within, the conscious-
ness of God : and can see quite clearly beforehand that
we so obviously and necessarily cannot realize it, that it
1 64 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
would ipso facto not be Divine consciousness if we could :
there are nevertheless some propositions about it, which we
can see, as from without, to be necessary truths. One
such is of crucial importance for our present purpose.
We can see that Personality of Supreme, or Absolute,
or Eternal Being, cannot be without self-contained
mutuality of relations. Wisdom in unique solitariness of
existence, would have neither meaning nor content as
wisdom. Will, existing absolutely alone, would not be
will. Even yet more obviously. Love existing as a sole
and single unit, could not possibly be Love.^ If God is
Personal at all : and if Will and Wisdom and Love are
elements in the conception of Personality : it follows, from
analysis of the necessary meaning and implications, even
of the inchoate personality of which we ourselves are
conscious in ourselves, that Divine Personality cannot
mean a merely sole and unrelated unit. There must be in
Itself both subject and object ; and moreover a mutual
relation of subject and object : that is to say a mutually
personal relation. There must be mutuality of con-
templation, mutuality of Love. What, as subject, finds
its object within itself: must itself also, as object, be
contemplated and loved, by that object, within itself,
which becomes subject in contemplating and loving.
Less than this does not constitute a real mutuality : and
real mutuality is the one thing which I can see to be
an intellectual necessity in my thought of Divine
Personality, — so necessary that Divine Personality cannot
even be thought without it. But the mutuality would
not be real, unless the subject which becomes object, and
^ A somewhat striking saying has been quoted from the Valentinians, in the
midst of a context which is not valuable at all : see Hippolyt. Ref. omn. Hser.,
Lib. vi. 29. 'Ettci Se ^v yovijuos, eSo^ev a^T<J) ttotc rb KdWiarrov koI
TeXeiararov, o ctxev ei/ avr^, yevvrjcraL Kal Trpoayayciv. ^cXcpr^fjios
yap ovK ^v. 'AyaTnj yap, <{>'qa-lv, ^v oAoSj rj Si dyaTrrj ovk &rTiv
dydirrjf edv firj y rh dyaTriofievov,
I
I
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 165
the object which becomes subject, were, on each side, alike
and equally Personal.
I am not sure that this is not the one thing in respect
of Divine Personality of which we can with most unfailing
certainty be said to have a real intellectual grasp. We
see not merely that an inherent mutuality is authoritatively
implied or revealed. We can see that it is intellectually
impossible that it should be otherwise. We can see that
eternal Personality, without mutual relation in itself, could
not be eternal Personality after all.
This position is of great importance to us in more
directions than one. In the first place it is the final and
absolute answer to all those who might have been inclined
to suppose that our primary insistence on the Unity of
Deity was too sweeping in tone ; and therefore unorthodox
in the direction of Sabellianism. But the tendency of
Sabellian thought is something widely different. This
would conceive of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as diverse
manifestations or aspects of one single God. He reveals
Himself now as Father, now as Son, and now as Spirit.
All three manifestations are true. But He who so diversely
manifests Himself, is still one indistinguishable He. Now
this may have some character of truth about it, up to
a certain point, which it is wholly beyond our power to
define. But there is one crucial defect about it, a defect
which, for us, condemns the language as impossible. For
it degrades the Persons of Deity into aspects. Now there
can be no mutual relation between aspects. The heat
and the light of flame cannot severally contemplate, and
be in love with, one another. Whereas real mutuality, —
mutuality which involves on both sides personal capacities,
— is the one thing which we most unflinchingly assert
But while we insist, in the most uncompromising way,
upon the essential unity of God, it is well to remember
tliat the solitariness of the unit is not the only, or the
i66 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
highest form, under which we are capable of conceiving
unity. The unity of all-comprehensive inclusiveness is
a higher mode of unity than the unity of singular dis-
tinctiveness. And the form or mode under which the
highest unity is in fact revealed to our imagination is that
living unity, which absolutely requires some kind of dis-
tinctness as a conditio sine qua non for its own possibility,
— the unity of infinite love. The unity is not the unity
of number, but the unity of the Spirit. And it is as " the
bond of peace, which is love " that the unity of the Spirit
is characterized.^
But again, when we try to think of the supreme unity
of the Spirit, as love, it is necessary to repeat the caution
against allowing our imagination to interpret the words
too exclusively in the light of present human experience.
It is probable that to many of us the unity of love sounds
far less real as unity than the unit of number, and that
it may seem little less than a quibble of words to rank
it, seriously, as unity, higher. Why so? Because our
present experience is mainly of love between persons,
whose absolute distinctness from one another we assume
(and exaggerate in assuming) as the basis of love. Such
distinctness, amounting to severance, we read into our
conceptions of love, and so transfer it, with our conceptions
of love, to any sphere, or relation, of which love is pre-
dicable. But this assumption of severance is precisely
the assumption against which we feel ourselves free most
emphatically to protest. This is once more to make the
negation " is not " cardinal to the very idea of personality ;
while tne extent and range of the " fs not " are tacitly
pressed tar beyond any point at which they can be
asserted legitimately. If it is to be logically allowed
that any kind of distinctness, in any sense, involves the
correlative possibility of the use of some kind of negation \
1 Eph. iv. 3 with Col. iii. 14.
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 167
yet for us it is probably almost, if not quite, impossible
to assert such a negative without over-asserting it.
Thus to say that the Father is not the Son, and that
the Son is not the Spirit, whatever element there may be
in it of truth — and of course there is truth in it, —
is yet to say, to our apprehensions, too much. For each
is God, the One God ; and all are inseparable.
You may say, no doubt, that the Father was not
Incarnate. But the Son who was Incarnate, was the
complete expression, in humanity, of the Father. He
was the actual, and adequate, revelation of the Father, —
the brightness of His glory, the express image of His
Person. In flesh He could say of Himself, remonstrating
with the blindness of His disciples, " Have I been so long
time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip ?
He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," ^ and "I
and the Father are one." ^ It is difficult to see how words
could go further in the assertion of veritable oneness ;
which yet is other than mere (and so to say) mechanical
identity, not because such identity would be a more perfect
form of oneness ; but because such identity, by destroying
the possibility of mutual relation, would destroy the very
basis of that highest oneness which is oneness in the Spirit
of Love. It would substitute verbal tautology for a living
unity. The unity, such as it was, would become a truism :
but, as truism, it would be no longer worth asserting ; it
would be unity, indeed, but without either meaning or
life.
Again you may say that the Son did not descend at
Pentecost. But the indwelling of the Spirit is the one
possibility, — is the vital reality, — of the Son's indwelling.
To have the Spirit is to have the Son. No one can have
the Spirit, and not thereby have the Father and the Son :
neither is there any other conceivable possibility of having
' John xiv. 9. ' John x. 30.
i68 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
the Father and the Son, save in, and as, personally in-
dwelling Spirit. "If a man love Me, he will keep My
word : and My Father will love him, and We will come
unto him, and make our abode with him."^ How?
And so, further ; " He that abideth in the teaching, the
same hath both the Father and the Son." ^ Again how ?
This is the answer ; " Hereby know we that we abide in
Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His
SpiriC^ "Hereby we know that He abideth in us, by
the Spirit which He gave us" * It is thus that the state-
ment that His withdrawal from them was for their advan-
tage is fully explained and justified. " Nevertheless I tell
you the truth ; It is expedient for you that I go away :
for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you ;
but if I go, I will send Him unto you." ^ It is thus that
the promise of His own return to them is abundantly
verified. "A little while and ye behold Me no more:
and again a little while and ye shall see Me.^ ... ye there-
fore now have sorrow : but I will see you again and your
heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from
you." ^ "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you
another Comforter, that He may be with you for ever,
even the Spirit of Truth : whom the world cannot receive ;
for it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him : ye know
Him ; for He abideth with you, and shall be in you.
I will not leave you desolate: I come unto you. Yet
a little while, and the world beholdeth Me no more ; but
ye behold Me: because I live, ye shall live also. In
that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in
Me, and I in you." ^
Observe, it is not for an instant that the disciples are
to have the presence of the Spirit instead of having the
^ John xiv. 23. * 2 John 9. ^ i John iv. 13.
* I John iii. 24. * John xvi. 7. " John xvi. 16, 19.
' John xvi. 22. • John xiv. i6-ao.
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 169
presence of the Son. But to have the Spirit is to have the
Son, Again it is not for an instant that this is a sort of
indirect or secondary mode of having the presence of the
Son ; as we, in our bodily existence in space and time,
are forced into current phrases which make "presence
in the spirit " a sort of apology or substitute (and some-
times a very lame one) for " reality " of presence : quite
the contrary : this is the only mode of presence which
could be quite absolutely direct, and primary, and real.
Any presence of the Son other than this ; any presence
of the Son other than as Spirit, within, and as, ourselves,
characterizing and constituting the very reality of what
we ourselves are ; would be, by comparison, remote, in-
effective, unreal: nay, it would be, after all, a form of
absence, a substitute for the presence which alone can be
called true or real.
There are not, then, three separate spheres of spiritual
operation upon us, which the good theologian is to be
careful to demarcate exactly, and not confound : the
sphere of the operation of the Father, and the sphere
of the operation of the Son, and the sphere of the opera-
tion of the Holy Ghost.^ The operation is the operation of
One God, Father at once and Son: and both, in and
through Spirit.
All these are truths which our minds very quickly
outrun and obscure, finding that they have already under-
stood far too much, whenever they make the apparently
* ** Whatsoever God doth work, the hands of all three Persons are jointly
and equally in it according to the order of that connexion, whereby they each
depend upon other. And therefore albeit in that respect the Father be first,
the Son next, the Spirit last, and consequently nearest unto every eflFect which
groweth from all three, nevertheless, they all being of one essence, are like-
wise all of one efficacy. Dare any man unless he be ignorant altogether how
inseparable the Persons of the Trinity are, persuade himself that every one of
them may have their sole and several possessions, or that we being not
partakers of all, can have fellowship with any one? Hooker, V. Ivi. 5,
p. 248.
I70 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
obvious assertion (which in some sense, that is hard for us
to limit adequately, no doubt represents Divine truth)
that the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the
Holy Ghost. Indeed, even while we admit that there is a
place, and a cogent necessity, for the negative assertion, we
may perhaps legitimately doubt whether even the contra-
dictory affirmative, (not as a substitute for, but as supplement-
ing, the negative,) might not also, in its own way, express
to thoughtful minds as much, or almost as much, of the
incomprehensible completeness of the Being of God.
But to go back a little. There is another line of
thought along which we are greatly helped by a firm
grasp of the intellectual position that Personality which is
supreme, all-inclusive, and eternal, must contain mutuality
of relation within itself For in the light of this thought
we can see, in a way which is practically useful, the limit
of the suggestiveness of even the most suggestive analogies
in human consciousness, which have been used to illustrate
the Divine Threefoldness in unity. Such analogies are, up
to a certain point, of very real value. They have often
served to make minds really see that there is more
complexity in existence than their primd facie logic had
been prepared to tolerate, or admit to be possible.
They have often given real glimpses of profound meaning
to statements which had once been thought really
meaningless. When St Augustine, expounding the
Apostles' Creed, explains that the spring, and the river,
and the glass of water drawn from the river, are alike one
and the same, " water," ^ — though the glassful is not
the river, and the river is not the spring : or that the root,
and the trunk, and the branches, are all one "wood," —
though the branches are not the trunk, nor the trunk the
root : he is really, so far, helping minds to mental insight
beyond and behind a difficulty, originated in the mind,
^ Dejidi et symbolo^ i^jy pp. 73, 74.
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 171
which, if the mind were not helped, would have made belief
impossible. - But though they help the mind beyond
its first confidently dogmatic incredulity, such analogies
really carry the mind but a little way towards under-
standing the Trinity ; and clearly break to pieces if pressed
too far.
And so with the more serious analogies of his formal
treatise De Trinitaie. There is the "Trinity" in man of
(i) his own rational capacity, (2) his reflexive contemplation
of his reason and himself reasoning, (3) the love which he
feels for himself and the reason that is in him. There is
the "Trinity" of memory, and reason, and will. Or, in
outward acts of sight, there is (i) the visible object, (2)
the impression thereof upon the eye, and (3) the conscious
attention, which is the unifying of the other two. Or
there is, in imaginative memory (i) the recalled impression
of things seen or heard, (2) the consideration of them,
(3) the recalling and considering will.^
Again, from other sides we are familiar with the old
analogy of the family — man made at last complete
as father, and mother, and child. Again, man at once
is body, soul, and spirit. Again man is emotion, and
reason, and will. Again man is rational and moral and
spiritual, and in these three, is one. The very multiplicity
of these analogies, while it does not show that they have
had no use, is at least a caution against assigning any very
high value to any of them. Each in its way is a sugges-
tion, and possibly for the moment a really illuminating one.
^ " As the sense of human personality grew deeper, particularly, as we have
seen, under Christian influence, its triune character was generally recognized.
Augustine marks an epoch in the subject, and is its best exponent. *I exist,*
he says, * and I am conscious that I exist, and I love the existence and the
consciousness; and all this independently of any external influence.' And again,
• I exist, I am conscious, I will. I exist as conscious and willing, I am con-
scious of existing and willing, I will to exist and to be conscious ; and these
three functions, though distinct, are inseparable and form one life, one mind,
one essence.'" Illingworth, B. L. III., p. 71.
172 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
But neither any one of them, nor (still less) all together, go
far towards enabling uni-personal man to enter into the
consciousness of Tri-Personality.
Moreover there is always a considerable danger about
a line of thought which depends upon emphasizing
distinction of qualities. If I distinguish a Trinity of
Righteousness, Wisdom, and Love, I am not only
substituting abstract for personal terms; but I make it
exceedingly difficult to predicate Righteousness of Wisdom,
or Wisdom of Righteousness, or either of these of Love, or
Love of either of these. I may find indeed a new
dialectical reason for the inseparableness of the Persons of
the Trinity, and say, as many have said with Athanasius,
that the Son must be coseval with the Father, because the
Eternal Father can never have been sundered from His own
Eternal Wisdom ; but to say this involves the perilous
consequence that the Eternal Father, if, or in so far as.
He can in thought be distinguished from the Eternal Son,
or the Eternal Spirit, must vi terminorum be distinguished
also from Wisdom, and from Love. I have then not only
substituted a term which does not suggest personality ;
but I have destroyed the possibility of a personal inter-
pretation of my term. The three terms cannot rightly be
distinguished as being severally Righteousness, Wisdom,
and Love ; when Righteousness, Wisdom, and Love must
of necessity be predicated of every one of the three terms
severally. Perhaps no one can read the orations against
the Arians without feeling the difficulty under which
Athanasius laboured, in having to deal with thoughts of
this character without the illuminating assistance of the
word Personality.^
The suggestions then which have been quoted do not
carry us more than a little way. In comparison with the
vagueness of suggestions like these, we are touching firm
^ Su Note A, at the end of the chapto:.
viii.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 173
ground intellectually, when we assert the necessity of
mutuality of relation in the Being of God ; and certainly
there is not one of these illustrations which adequately
realizes what we mean by mutuality.
Then there is another illustration, which is put forward
on somewhat different ground, as necessary to thought.
"We shall see," writes Mr Illingworth, "that human
personality is essentially triune, not because its chief
functions are three — thought, desire, and will — for they
might perhaps conceivably be more, but because it consists
of a subject, an object, and their relation. A person is, as
we have seen, a subject who can become an object to
himself, and the relation of these two terms is necessarily
a third term." ^ But even of this statement, however true
it may be as far as it goes, I think we shall feel that it
has carried us but a very little way towards realizing the
conception of a threefoldness of personality, in which
subject is also object, and object is also subject, and the
logical relation between them is itself both. And yet, even
at the very moment that our imagination necessarily stops
short of it, we can see intellectually that (whether it be in
Twofoldness or Threefoldness, or more) it is precisely this
relation of personal mutuality, and nothing less than this,
which our own intellectual necessity requires.
The difficulty no doubt, with all analogies is their
limitedness ; and all these fail alike in that they all give
us aspects or relations which, however intelligible as aspects
or relations, are not personal ; and are not mutually subject
and object to one another.
There is however one other analogy or illustration, on
which I should like to dwell a little further. It does not
transcend this inevitable limitation. It is not therefore
adequate. It will not perform the impossible requirement
of making Tri-Personality intelligible, as from within, to
^ Bampton Lectures, III. p. 69.
174 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
uni-personal consciousness. And yet there are directions
in which it appears to me to throw somewhat more light
upon this mystery of thought, than the analogies which
have been more familiarly used. This is the threefoldness
which is involved whenever I describe or distinguish what
a man is in the following relations. First, then, there is
the man as he really is in himself, invisible, indeed,
and inaccessible, — and yet, directly, the fountain, origin,
and cause of everything that can be called in any
sense himself. Secondly, there is himself as projected
into conditions of visibleness, — the overt expression or
utterance of himself. This, under the conditions of our
actual experience, will mean for the most part his
expression or image as body, — the touch of his hand,
the tone of his voice, the shining of his eye, the utterance
of his words: all, in a word, that makes up, to us, that
outward expression of himself, which we call himself, and
which he himself ordinarily recognizes as the very mirror
and image and reality of himself. And thirdly, there is
the reply of what we call external nature to him — his opera-
tion or effect. There is the painting, or the Cathedral,
which expresses the very spirit of artist or architect, —
the palpable realization of his secret vision within. There
is the deathless poem of the poet : the regenerated people
— which is the work of the noble politician's life of
sacrifice : there is the sublime insight of the inspired
theologian which has become the daily light of the life of
tens of thousands : there is the devoted love in the hearts of
others which has sprung up in them as inevitable response,
kindled by the devotion of his love to them. In a word,
there is the echo or image of himself, responsive to
himself, which comes back to him, as from without: the
response of outside objects to himself: or rather his own
response which he has wrought out to himself, in, and out
of, that which had been, or had seemed to be, beyond, and
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 175
apart from, himself. There is that effect, or extension, of
himself, by which what had been distinguishable from him-
self, comes to be wholly informed by, and alive with, and
therefore a real expression or method of, himself. It is he
himself, by virtue of what he is within himself, — but by
virtue of it as exerted, expressed, or uttered, — who has
really had the power of so informing and wielding that
which seemed outside himself, that it too has become a
response to his utterance, — the response which he himself
has wrought, — and, so far as its capacity extends, an image
therefore also of what he himself is.
The music of the musician : the poetry of the poet :
the work which the devoted pastor has wrought: there
are times at least in which we feel that in these we come
nearer to the man's very self than is, in any other way,
even conceivable. At the least, no conception of himself,
could be anything approaching to adequate or complete,
of which such things did not form — not a part only but
a very overshadowing and vital element. And meanwhile
in the larger thought of himself which includes these
things, and dwells with special emphasis on the thought
of his operation, not as external effect which as such has
ceased to be himself, but as his self-wrought work of
response to himself, in which himself is the more perfected
and magnified ; there do seem to be at least suggestive
glimpses such as give real help to the mind, if not towards
grasping Tri-Personal consciousness, at least towards an
intelligent conception of the Divine reality of the Holy
Ghost.
It will be felt, however, with some justice, that apart
from other criticisms to which this analogy (like others)
may be liable : it is impossible that any analogy can be
really adequate which would find a perfect mirror of the
Trinity in any form of strictly uni-personal consciousness
or work. No analysis of what is contained within a
176 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
solitary consciousness, however suggestive, can possibly
be adequate. This is why the "family" analogy, rough
and external as it is in itself, has yet a valuable place
among analogies. For in fact no man's personality is
complete in himself, or in anything that is solely regarded
as an operation of himself It is in the reflexive corre-
spondence of other personalities that any man approaches
his own completeness. The more truly he is echoed and
reproduced in others, the more nearly does he approach
to the complete possibility of himself. Perhaps for this
very reason an analogy which introduces his operation
and effect, especially when conceived in the form of the
regeneration of others, is more hopeful than any analogy
which avowedly consists in analysis of his solitary con-
sciousness. But no analogy drawn from an imperfect
personality can truly mirror the Trinity of God. And
every personality is imperfect, which is not yet con-
summated (in a way we can but dimly foreshadow) in
mutual relation ; that is, as perfectly echoed and com-
plemented in the personality of others.
I do not know, meanwhile, whether the attempt to
make use of such suggestiveness as the word response
may contain, will have been felt just now by any one
to be open to objection, on the ground that it does not
obviously lead us to the doctrine of the Personality
of the Holy Ghost. It does in fact lead us further in
this direction, a good deal, than many words which are
in familiar and helpful use. But it seems worth while
to enter some protest against allowing such a considera-
tion as this to come in for the present, at all. The doctrine
of the Personality of the Holy Ghost, however dutifully
accepted, is in no case a doctrine that is easy to be
intellectually understood. It is almost certainly a mistake
to let a doctrine of this kind, which is certainly true, but
which we can, at the best, but imperfectly apprehend,
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 177
come in to deter us from dwelling upon those aspects of
the nature and work of the Spirit, which are also true, and
which our intelligence can more definitely follow. Thus
the Holy Spirit is not less " a gift," because a gift is not
itself a personal term. We undoubtedly do well to make
the most of the lower aspects of the truth, if only that
we may go on from them to the higher. The truth that
He is Personal, is certainly not to warn us off from such
conceptions about Him as are to us most naturally
intelligible. If we are ever to reach a higher under-
standing, we shall do well to give full scope and play
to the lower first. Whatever would for us be true of
the Spirit, — as gift, as inspiration, as empowerment, —
if the Spirit were rightly spoken of always and only in
the neuter gender as avrb, is certainly no less true, even
if at many points it may be felt to be inadequate, when
we advance further on towards realizing, as well as avowing,
that He is indeed Avtos.
It may be worth while to emphasize this insistence by
dwelling for a few moments upon a parallel instance of
its importance. When minds are at work, not upon the
(mystery of Tri-Personality, but upon the primary Theistic
ith of the Personal Being of God : there are stages at
^hich an antithesis will present itself to the imagination
)etween the comparative limitedness of the personal
:onception, and the grand immensity of the impersonal.
>uch a sense of contrast is perfectly natural to minds
rhich approach the question of Theism from the region
)f abstract philosophical thought ; and still more to those
[which approach it from the region of physical science.
Either Existence, First cause, ultimate Unity, etc., on the
>ne hand, or on the other Law, Energy, Harmony, perhaps
5ven such pervading principles as ether, or electricity,
seem indefinitely vaster than anything which experience
of the word personality suggests. The fact is that we
M
178 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
have no direct experience of personality except as ex-
pressed by man — with and through a material stature
and strength which we feel to be comparatively con-
temptible. And at a certain stage of imagination, it is
almost impossible to get rid of the instinct of measuring
personality by men's bodily stature, conceiving of it as
if it necessarily existed in about six-foot lengths of
matter. No wonder that the lightning should seem
to be, as a conception, indefinitely larger than such a
conception of personality as this.
Now it need hardly be said that at the stage at which
such abstract words as Energy or Law seem immeasurably
to transcend the Hmitedness of the personal conception, it
would be most unwise to try to press any man's mind into
nevertheless accepting such a misconception as would be
involved, to him, in the unexplained proposition that God
is Personal. It is precisely because the proposition has
presented itself thus to their minds, that many men have
felt that their intellectual self-respect absolutely required
the rejection of the proposition. We do not rise to the true
idea of God by clinging tight, at any and every stage,
to a personal form of statement into which we can put
no intelligible meaning.
On the contrary, it is often definitely helpful,
even amongst people who have no doubt of the
doctrine, and are, in intention and life, quite definitely
religious, to drop for a time the personal, and sub-
stitute for it the abstract, form of phrase. We may
do it a little even with such scientific abstractions as
Force or Law. Much more do we help ourselves by
doing it with the religious abstractions Omnipotence,
Wisdom, Righteousness, Perfectness, Love. "Love is
my shepherd : " "I believe in the Almightiness of Good-
ness : " "I am sure of the pardon of Righteousness : " "I
commit myself to perfect Wisdom : " "I will try to feel
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 179
trust in the lovingness of Love itself:" the habit of
dwelling upon such thoughts as these, substituting in
each case an abstract term for the personal name of God,
would on the one hand utterly make impossible some
of the commonplaces of devout, but unintelligent, religion.
No one would continue to say " There is One above " —
as though in certain somewhat higher regions of space,
amongst the tens of thousands, or millions, of existences,
there was to be found " one " who did this, or willed that,
or had to be, in one way or another, attended or submitted
to. No one would ever say " It is our duty to submit "
— as though to a tyrant will which it was morally, as well
as materially, prudent not to challenge. "Submit" to
perfect Wisdom ! " Be resigned " to perfect Love ! No
one would set himself, on imperfect and unworthy con-
ceptions of prayer, to try and bend the will of God to his
own : as though God needed information, or guidance, or
urging, that He might know what was wise, or might
become what was kind ! On the other hand such a habit
would itself be a stage towards the mental realization that
these abstractions themselves, so far from really transcend-
ing personality, or being wider than it in range or in-
clusiveness, were but several elements within the ultimate
meaning of personality itself. It is through accustoming
itself to them, and to thought in terms of them, that the
mind would gradually realize, with a more and more
complete and instinctive fulness, that every one of these
— Law, Power, Cause, ultimate Being, Reason, Wisdom,
Holiness, Love, — and others like these — of necessity is,
in its ultimate climax of meaning. Personal : and moreover
that as they all are severally Personal, so are they
ultimately all the same one, identical. Personal : and that
this is what we mean by the Personal God : not a limited
alternative to unlimited abstracts: but the transcendent
and inclusive completeness of them alL
i8o ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
Now just as in this case we prepare ourselves for a
very much higher appreciation of Personality, by dropping
for a time the personal language, and speaking not of
He and Him, but of qualities or properties, which at least
are not, as such, obviously personal : so in respect of the
doctrine of the Holy Spirit, it is at least more than
possible that we may ultimately gain, not lose, in richness,
by keeping the doctrine that He is Personal for a while,
as doctrine, in the background ; not using it to crush or
disallow our more rudimentary apprehensions of the work
of the Spirit, whether regarded as gift or as response ; but
rather reserving it to be, in ways which we may, or
may not, fully understand, their ultimate climax and
crown.
No one then should ever refuse, or treat with suspicion,
any meaning which he may seem to himself to attach
to the " Spirit of God," on the ground that such meaning
may appear to ignore His several Personality, and realize
Him less as Person than as quality. Incomplete it is
bound to be. But doubtless it is, so far as it goes, a
perfectly true and significant line of thought. Let us
give all the meaning that we possibly can to the presence
of the Spirit of God as " It." Let us lose no item of the
significance which we are capable of attaching to the
thought of God's Spirit as gift, as influence, as quality,
as echo, as effect. Let us freely pursue any such line
of thought as is suggested by saying that to imagine
God without the Holy Spirit is to imagine Him, per
impossibile, as so contained within Himself as wholly
to be without operation or effect. By and by, it may be,
we shall rise beyond these things ; — but we shall rise by
and through these things, and not through evacuating
or disallowing them, — to understand, with greater fulness,
or with less, that the influence or quality, the operation
or effect, the echo or response, is itself also Personal
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT i8i
Personal as the Personal Presence of God, — in God
Himself, for His Spirit is Himself, and He " is Spirit " :
Personal moreover, as the Personal Presence of God —
in all creatures made by Himself responsive to Himself,
as in the order or beauty of inanimate nature : Personal
moreover, as the Personal Presence of God, more wonder-
fully still, in all created spirits, made capable by Himself
of personal response to Himself; Personal in their possi-
bility of spontaneous homage, their answer to God of
Divine contemplation and love ; Personal as the inmost
constitutive reality of their God-echoing personalities.
When we present to ourselves, in any such manner
as this, the thought of God the Holy Spirit : at all events
when we think of Him at all thus in relation to man :
it is clear that we are thinking of what is, in fact, a result
of the Incarnation. It is thus indeed, as sequel and con-
summation of the accomplished completeness of the In-
carnation, that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit begins
to be unveiled to man's thought at all : as sequel, because
the manifestation of the Holy Ghost must follow, and
could not precede, the Incarnate Life of God : as con-
summation, because the significance and work of Incarna-
tion and of atonement would be after all, without the
Presence of the Holy Ghost, (that is, the Presence of God
as Spirit within man's central self,) incomplete. And
if it is in, and through, and for the necessary completeness
of, the Incarnation (as it is), that the doctrine of the Holy
Ghost first begins (and begins at first incidentally in
manner enough) to be presented to human consciousness
at all : the reflection that this is so may perhaps encourage
us to consider, somewhat more fully, to what an extent
it is true that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity altogether
is revealed in connection with, and (if we may venture
to say so) in terms of, the Incarnation. If it is thus
that the doctrine of God the Holy Ghost first presents
i82 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
itself as a sequel to, or element in, the full meaning of
the mystery of Incarnation, still more, of course, is it in
and through Incarnation that the Person of God, the
Word, is revealed to man. It is of course a mere
truism to say this. And yet we may hardly have re-
cognized to what an extent this mere truism may justify
the further suggestion, that the terminology under which
the great Revelation of the Trinity is made, in its final
and most authoritative form, is terminology which, as
terminology, is conditioned by the fact of the Incarnation.
" Baptizing them into the Name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" In context with our
present thought, can we refrain from recognizing that it is
through, and out of, rather than irrespectively of, the condi-
tions and significance of Incarnation, that the Second Person
of the adorable Trinity is revealed specifically under the
title " Son " : and the Third Person specifically under the
title " Ghost " or " Spirit " ? It is hardly necessary, I hope,
in saying this, to guard beforehand against being supposed
to suggest that it is only in the Incarnation, or as result
from it, that God the Son, or God the Holy Ghost, have
reality of Personal distinguishableness from God the
Father. Not so. The Three Persons of Godhead are
co-eternal. Nevertheless, whatever profoundly true relation
to the eternal distinctions between the Persons of Godhead
may have been represented — first by the historical facts
of Incarnation, and secondly by the terms which are
correlative to those facts : what is suggested is that the
terms in which the truths are expressed (as distinguished
from the ultimate reality of the truths which lie behind
those terms) are terms which rise more immediately out
of the temporal facts of the Incarnation, than out of the
Eternal relations of Divine Being. The words "Father"
and "Son" are, of course, mutually correlative words.
Moreover it is plain that these words, as used in human
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 183
language, present themselves to human understanding, as a
metaphor borrowed from human experience.
It is worth while to justify, for a moment, the use of the
word metaphor, because the word has been abused and is
justly suspected: and the use and abuse need to be
carefully and accurately distinguished. If, for example,
our Lord's words in the third or sixth of St John, are
explained as " metaphor " ; this often means that they
are explained away, as having a certain resemblance or
analogy to truth, instead of being really true themselves.
This of course is wholly illegitimate. The mistake arises
as a result of a tacit (but false) assumption that a
metaphorical truth is ipso facto " less true " than what we
call a literal one. The fact is that almost every word
of deep spiritual import is a metaphor : that is to say, is
expressed in terms of a likeness drawn immediately
from material things. It is so with " sin " ; it is so with
" grace " ; it is so with " justification." " Blessed are they
that do hunger and thirst after righteousness" is a
metaphor or analogy from material starvation. But it is
a disastrous, though deeply ingrained error, to assume that
the material experiences are absolutely, and the spiritual
only relatively, and less really, true : or that the meaning
of the words in a material context is the true gauge
and measure of their meaning when spiritually applied.
This instinct is nearly the precise reverse of truth.
The material experience is as a sort of parable or
hint which serves to suggest a term for describing the
spiritual. But the term, as borrowed for spiritual use,
means something not less, but far more, than ever it
meant in the material sphere: the spiritual significance
outruns the material, not only in width of content,
but in profoundness of truth. Spiritual hunger may
be rarer than material among men who are still largely
animal : but spiritual hunger, where realized, is more
1 84 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
overwhelming, more intense, more real, as hungery than
physical decay for lack of food. And it would be
obviously fatuous to measure the awful significance of
such metaphorical words as sin, or judgment, or grace,
or spirit, by the meaning which the words once bore in
material experience ; though the words were borrowed
from material experience, and their material meaning
served as the first suggestion by which some expression
was given to the spiritual idea.
It is plain, then, that in the legitimate sense of the
word, the correlative terms " Father " and " Son *' are words
of metaphor ; that is to say, that the words, in human use,
have their primary significance in the region of human
experience: and that all other uses are based upon,
and borrowed from, however completely they may trans-
cend, this. And the same of course is obviously true
of the word Uvevfia, Spirit, or Breath. It follows from
this that however illuminating, on some sides, may be the
revelation which the words contain : it is true also that
men's minds have always to be on their guard against
being misled by the words. They are clearly capable of
being interpreted amiss. And it is notorious that,
as a matter of fact, men's minds have found very con-
siderable difficulty in guarding adequately against
some misconceptions, which have been chiefly suggested
by the words. It was an old problem to find illustrative
instances which would show how an effect might be
neither later, nor lesser, than its cause. But however
complete may have been the success of theological
teachers in this direction, it can hardly be doubted that the
problem was caused by the extreme difficulty, to human
thought, of using the terms "Father" and "Son" at
all, without projecting too materially, across the concep-
tion of the Eternal Being of God, the shadow of the
.associations of these human words ; without (that is to
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 185
say) carrying both the distinction which the words imply
between the two, and the inferiority and posteriority of the
one to the other, much further than they ought to be
carried.
Now I cannot but suggest that this difficulty, which has
been felt in all ages of the Church, is materially lightened,
if we are willing to recognize that the terms themselves, as
applied to the Persons of the Godhead, have their primary
reference rather to the manifestation of God in the Incar-
nation and its outflowing consequences, than to the Eternal
relations regarded in themselves. I say their primary
reference ; because it would seem impossible for a Christian
to doubt that there must be that in the Eternal relations
of the First and the Second Persons of the Trinity, with
which the words "Father" and "Son" have a real and
legitimate correspondence; even if it be true that these
words, being primarily occasioned by the conditions
which the fact of Incarnation established, might seem by
themselves to overstate to our imaginations that Eternal
relation with which they nevertheless profoundly corre-
spond. For the most part it is difficult to test such a
suggestion as this by the language of the New Testament ;
because the mighty fact of the Incarnation so absolutely
dominates the entire revelation of the New Testament,
and characterizes and shapes all its thought and language ;
that it is comparatively rarely that we can, in the New
Testament, stand aside (so to speak) in thought or even
in phrase, from that one dominating conception. But it is
certainly very significant, that in the one passage which,
more clearly than any other, goes back behind the fact of
the Incarnation, or the consciousness of the Incarnate, to
speak of the eternal relations, as such, within the eternal
existence of Deity, — that is to say, the first fourteen verses
of the Gospel of St John, — the word " Son " (and with
it the correlative word " Father ") does drop out altogether,
1 86 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
and another word takes its place. It will be recognized
at once that the title Aoyos, or Word, while it is full indeed
of its own mysterious significance, is wholly without the
strong suggestions — of sharp distinction and emphatic
subordination — which it is so hard to separate from the
words Father and Son, so long as they are thought of
as descriptive primarily of the Eternal, rather than of
the Incarnate, relations.
But what is it that is practically meant, in the many
familiar contexts of the New Testament which will occur
to our minds, by emphasizing this prominence of the idea
of Incarnation, as that to which the words primarily refer,
and in which they find their directest and most unqualified
fulness of significance ? It is that the Fatherhood of God
is, in the most unqualified directness and inclusiveness of
that word, towards man ; and that Sonship, as predicated
of God, is predicated most absolutely and unreservedly of
God qud Incarnate, If then we should venture to paraphrase
the great Name of God — the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost, — describing the Threefoldness thus ; viz. God,
the Eternal, the Infinite, in His Infinity, as Himself; God,
as self-expressed within the nature and faculties of man,
body, soul, and spirit, — the consummation, and interpre-
tation, and revelation, of what true Manhood means and
is, in its very truth, that is, in its true relation to God ;
God, as Spirit of Beauty and Holiness — the Beauty and
Holiness which are Himself — present in things created
animate and inanimate, and constituting in them their
Divine response to God ; constituting above all in created
personalities, the full reality of their personal response:
we should be expressing, not indeed the whole truth of
the Being of God, which no words of ours can express,
but at least a conception which is absolutely true as far
as it goes ; and moreover the sort of conception which is
probably most intelligible to us, — and intelligible exactly
viiL] THE HOLY SPIRIT 187
along the lines suggested by the Three Names selected,
in human language, to constitute an intelligible revelation
to human thought.^
The important thing to observe, for our present practical
purpose, is that to speak, in one phrase, of God in His
eternal self-existence, and of God Incarnate as man —
a revelation to man at once of God's nature and of man's
relation to God — is by no means altogether the same
thing as to speak of the First Person in the eternal relation
of Divine Being, and of the Second Person in the eternal
relation of Divine Being : and moreover that the correlative
phrases Father and Son, whatever analogy they may
have with the eternal distinctions of Deity, do not corre-
spond with, or give expression to, these eternal distinctions,
quite so directly, or closely, or unreservedly, as to the
relations between God the Eternal and God the Incarnate,
between God as God, and God as Man.
And if this is true, or even partly true, of the terms in
which the Divine Name is revealed to the Church, to be
its formula, on earth, of Baptismal admission and
distinctively Christian blessing : still more is this thought
true, and emphasized as true, when the phrase used is not
so much " from God the Father, and from God the Son,"
as rather " from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus
Christ." Here it is unmistakably the Human designation, —
with whatever august associations of awe and worship — upon
which the emphasis is laid. And as a matter of fact, it is
this form, which, with comparatively few exceptions, is the
characteristic formula of the New Testament. This
emphasis upon the Incarnation is sufficiently marked,
when the formula is threefold, as in the familiar words of
benediction — "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be
1 See Note B, at the end of the Chapter.
1 88 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
with you all." ^ It is really more marked still, in the still
more familiar repetition of a twofold formula, — " Yet to us
there is One God the Father, of whom are all things, and
we unto Him ; and One Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom
are all things, and we through Him."^ «Xo offer up
spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." ^
" To the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our
Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power, before
all time and now, and for ever more. Amen."* It is
the new relation, in the Person of Jesus Christ, at once
of God to Man, and of Man to God (not the Eternal
relation between God and the Aoyos), which is before the
thought throughout the Epistle to the Ephesians — " Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath
blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly
places in Christ." ^ . . . " having foreordained us unto adoption
as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself," ® . . . " according
to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him ... to
sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens,
and the things upon the earth." ^ . . . " God being rich in
mercy . . . quickened us together with Christ, . . . made us
to sit with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus . . .
for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for
good works, which God afore prepared. . . . Now in Christ
Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood
of Christ" ^ . . . " according to the eternal purpose which
He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." ^ . . . "to know the
love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be
filled unto all the fulness of God." ^^ . . . « unto Him be the
glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus unto all genera-
tions for ever and ever." ^^ " There is One Body and One
Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your
1 2 Cor. xiii. 14. ^ i Cor. viii. 6. ^ j pg^^ ^ ^_
* Jude 25. 5 Eph. i. 3. « Eph. i. 5.
' Eph. i. 9-10. 8 Eph^ ji^ 4^ ^^ 5^ jQ^ 12, » Eph. iii. 11.
1" Eph. iii. 19. " Eph. iii. 21.
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 189
calling ; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and
Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." ^
" Even as God also in Christ forgave you." ^ " Hath any
inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God." ^ " Giving
thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ to God, even the Father"* . . . " as servants
of Christ doing the will of God from the heart." *
In context with all these phrases there can be little
doubt as to the exact significance of the salutations with
which this epistle both opens and closes ; " Grace to you
and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus
Christ." ^ " Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith,
from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace
be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in
uncorruptness." ^ St Paul's thought is not upon the
Eternal relations of Deity, as such. His thought is upon
the master-fact of the Incarnation of God. It would not
be nearly so correct to paraphrase his words as a blessing
"from the First and from the Second Persons of the
Eternal Trinity " as rather " from God the Eternal and
from the Incarnate, both God and Man ; in whom the
Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of Man, were ideally
consummated, and perfectly revealed." It is the expression
of Deity in Humanity, it is the inconceivable glorification
of Humanity, as a true and worthy expression of Deity,
it is, in a word, the Incarnation, which absolutely dominates
all these thoughts and all these phrases from one end of
the epistle to the other. And the " Spirit " is the direct
outcome of the Incarnation, the Spiritual relation which
the Incarnation has made possible, the realization and
presence of the Incarnate within the selves of men.
" Christ in whom, having believed, ye were sealed with the
1 Eph. iv. 4-6.
2 Eph. iv. 32.
' Eph. V. S.
* Eph. V. 20.
» Eph. vi 6.
' Eph. vi. 23-24.
8 Eph. i. 2.
igo ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
Holy Spirit of promise which is an earnest of our inheri-
tance " ; — ^ ..." that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the
Father of glory may give unto you a spirit {8(^r] vfuv irv€vfia)
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him." ^ . . .
" for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit
unto the Father " ^ ..." in whom ye also are builded together
for a habitation of God in [the] Spirit " * (cv Trvcv/xart). , . .
"that ye may be strengthened with power through His
Spirit in the inward man, that Christ may dwell in your
hearts through faith," ^ "giving diligence to keep the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is One
Body and One Spirit."^ " Grieve not the Holy Spirit of
God in whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption." ^
" Be filled with the Spirit." » " The sword of the Spirit
which is the word of God."^ . . . "with all prayer and
supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit." ^°
And if this sort of insistence be true in respect of the
Epistle to the Ephesians, it will be true also in respect of
the same forms of Christian salutation wherever they occur.
But the connection of thought is itself established so inveter-
ately and clearly, that we catch the echo of it, with more or
less directness of expression, in the opening verses of
almost every single epistle of the New Testament. " Grace
to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ." These words occur, with hardly a variation, at the
opening of the Epistles to the Romans, i and 2 Corinthians,
Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 2 Thessalonians, Titus
and Philemon. With the addition of mercy, " Grace mercj^
and peace," the same formula holds for i and 2 Timothy.
I Thessalonians varies only by a change of order " unto
the Church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ : grace to you and peace." Of all
1 Eph. i. 13, 14. 2 Eph. i. 17. 3 Eph. ii. 18.
* Eph. ii. 22. ^ Eph. iii. i6, 17. " Eph. iv. 3, 4.
' Eph. iv. 30. " Eph. V. 18. » Eph. vi. 17.
" Eph. vi. 18.
I
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 191
St Paul's epistles only that to the Colossians contains (in
the revised text) as formula of salutation " Grace to you
and peace from God our Father." But even there the
very next verse proceeds "We give thanks to God the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,
having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus " ; and through-
out the epistle the doctrine is unmistakably the same as
that of the Ephesians. The Epistle to the Hebrews
contains no salutation : but the opening verses are a
splendid statement of the doctrine of the revelation of
the eternal God " at the end of the days '* in the person
of " a Son " (margin of R. V.) who is at once the perfect
image of the glory of the Eternal, and also the atoning
Man. St James writes as "the servant of God and of
the Lord Jesus Christ." St Peter as an "apostle of
Jesus Christ . . . according to the foreknowledge of God
the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ " ; and again
as " a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that
have obtained a like precious faith with us in the
righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ: grace
to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God
and of Jesus our Lord." St John writes his general
epistle because "our fellowship is with the Father and
with His Son Jesus Christ " ; and sends greeting to the
"elect lady," "grace, mercy, peace, shall be with us,
from God the Father, and from Jesus Christ the Son of
the Father." St Jude " a servant of Jesus Christ " writes
" to them that are called, beloved in God the Father, and
kept for Jesus Christ : mercy unto you, and peace and
love be multiplied."
What is the meaning of the perpetual recurrence of
these titles ? Why is everything, from end to end of the
Church life in the New Testament, and in the mouth of
every single writer, consistently in the Name of " God our
192 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ"? Why is it always
these two? why is it that in only one single instance,
that of I Peter, is there any explicit mention of the Spirit
in immediate juxtaposition with these two ? Is it a
maimed Trinitarian formula ? The fact is that the thought
which dominates the minds of the apostolic writers is not
so much the thought of the Eternal Threefoldness of the
Being of God : they are not thinking directly of the
doctrine of the Trinity as such : they are not thinking of
the Being of Godhead as such : but they are thinking
of the transcendent fact of the Incarnation of Deity in
flesh. The whole horizon of their thought is immediately
occupied by the thought of God, in His Eternity, and God,
in His Incarnation. They are not speaking of Two Persons
of the Trinity, with the omission of the Third. They are
not speaking of Persons of the Trinity, as such, at all.
The second term of their thought is not God the Eternal
Aoyos, but God incarnated as man : the flawless expression,
in Human nature^ of God. Now however much it may be
said that the Eternal Word, and the Incarnate Christ, are
personally One : it is quite clear that the two terms are
not simply interchangeable. The Word was not Incarnate
from Eternity. And though every attribute of the Eternal
Word is predicable of the Incarnate personally; it is of
course not true that every such attribute is predicable of
Him as Incarnate. If the Infinite expresses Himself in
conditions of finiteness ; that finiteness does not itself bear
the predicates of infinitude. It is, then, expressly of the
infinite, as finitely expressed ; it is of the Incarnate, as
incarnate ; it is of the Human revelation of God ; it is of
the transformation of the meaning of Humanity which
results from the revelation of its capacity of expressing
God, and is guaranteed to it in the fact, independent of
age, of the actual consummation of that expression ; it
is of the Divine victory in Humanity, — the Divine con-
viii.J THE HOLY SPIRIT 193
secration of Humanity for ever; it is of this, and not
directly at all of the eternal relations within Divine
Being, that their imagination is wholly full, when they
write all their writings, and think all their thoughts, in the
Name of " God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ."
Moreover there is another direction, in which we may
venture to say that the term the Divine Logos, and the
term Jesus Christ our Lord, are not, as terms, simply
identical. The Logos indeed "became flesh." But
having become flesh. He was man : — man to eternity,
in the highest perfection — which is also the revelation and
true measure — of what manhood ideally means : man, for
a brief term of years, under all the extremest disabilities of
material and mortal life. The central characteristic of His
manhood, as revealed in mortal life, was the absoluteness of
His relation of dependence upon God. Now it is not at
<all necessary to say, either on the one hand, that the
[Person of God Incarnate was wholly distinct from the
Person of the Eternal Father and the Eternal Spirit —
[seeing that they are inseparably One: or, on the other
Ihand, that the Son of Man, in His revelation of man's true
[relation of absolute dependence upon God, was dependent
[upon the First Person of the Blessed Trinity only, in a sort of
imaginary separableness, and not also upon the Word and
the Spirit.^ It is no objection to this, and is proof
of no confusion of thought, if it involves the explicit
statement that He was, on earth, dependent upon Himself.
For the statement that His dutiful dependence, in mortality,
was dependence on Himself, is a statement which is any-
^ My attention has been drawn to the following sentence, which might
often, I believe, have an important application amongst ourselves :
" Cur sequalis et una Trinitas ? Responsio. Quia et sempiterna est in ipsa
Trinitate deltas. Rogo, non animadvertis omnes psene hsereses in hoc titulo
unitam deitatem Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti blasphemare, dum hsec quae
superius uniter in Trinitate sunt dicta ad unam Personam Patris illi tantum-
modo conferant?" Vigilii Tapsensis dc TritiitatCy Lib. i. 201, p. 239,
Migne.
N
194 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
how undeniably true, with whatever intellectual mystery
it may be thought to involve, from the moment at which it
is said that He was, as man, dependent upon " God."
There is one thought more, which the subject of
the present chapter requires. We had occasion to ask
just now, Why is it that the formula which is so character-
istic of Christian thought in the apostolic age, seems to be
made up of Two terms rather than Three? Is it an
imperfect formula which omits the doctrine of the Holy
Spirit? On one side the question has been already
answered. It is not an imperfect formula as to the Being
of God, for it is not a formula as to the Being of God
at all. But does it even, in fact, omit the doctrine of the
Holy Spirit? On the contrary, it implies it. "Grace
and peace, from the Eternal God, and particularly from
His Revelation and victorious work as Man, in flesh, —
to you ! " This grace, this peace, no longer only in the
Person of Jesus Christ ; — but through the Person of Jesus
Christ, to yoUy and in you: What is this but Christ in you ?
And how Christ in you, — save in, and as. Spirit ? Christ in
you, or the Spirit of Christ in you ; these are not
different realities ; but the one is the method of the other.
It is in the Person of Christ that the Eternal God is
revealed in manhood, to man. It is in the Person of
His Spirit that the Incarnate Christ is Personally present
within the spirit of each several man. The Holy Ghost is
mainly revealed to us as the Spirit of the Incarnate, If it
once be conceded that the revelation of the Holy Ghost is
a revelation of the new Testament, not of the Old : it will
be obvious that that revelation in the New Testament
is made, not as an independent or separate vista into
truth, but as a sort of necessary sequel or climax to
the meaning of Incarnation, at the moment when Incarna-
tion proper, that is, the life lived by God the Son in flesh,
upon earth, was immediately drawing to its close. The
I
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 195
meaning of Incarnation was not exhausted ; — there is
a sense in which it may be said to have hardly yet begun ; —
when Jesus Christ passed away from this visible scene of
mortal life. That real significance of Incarnation, hardly
then as yet begun, is to be recognized not more directly in
the contemplation of the Presence of the Son of Man
in Heaven — with all that that contemplation carries in its
train ; — than in the recognition of the Presence and working
here on earth, of the Spirit of the Incarnation and of the
Incarnate.
The Spirit of the Incarnate is the Spirit ot God. But
it is not so much the Spirit of God, regarded in His
eternal existence, or relation, in the Being of Deity:
it is the Spirit of God in Humanity, the Spirit of God
become the Spirit of man in the Person of the Incarnate, —
become thenceforward the true interpretation and secret
of what true manhood really is,^ — it is this which is
the distinctive revelation of the New Testament, the
distinctive significance and life of the Church of Christ.
This is the truth, immense in its significance for practical
Christianity, which the so-called doctrine of the " Double
Procession " directly protects ; and which the denial
of that doctrine tends directly to impair. It may be
that the removal of the " Filioque " from the Nicene creed,
would not necessarily imply a denial of the doctrine : but
there can at least be little doubt, historically speaking,
that the "Filioque" has served, to the doctrine, as a
bulwark of great importance.
It becomes, then, of considerable importance, to take full
note of the passages in which the Spirit of God, become
* This is what Dr Milligan means when he says, in somewhat obscure and
questionable phrases, that ** the Spirit bestowed upon us by the glorified Lord is
not the Third Person of the Trinity in the soleness of the Personality possessed
by Him before the foundations of the world were laid," or again, " not the
Third Person of the Trinity in His absolute and metaphysical existence ^ but that
Person as He is mediated by the Son, who is human as well as divine." The
Ascension of our Lord, pp. 172 and 189. {The italics are mine,)
196 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chaf.
the Spirit of the Christ, is spoken of directly as the Spirit
of Christ. It is of course not necessary that this should be
the only form of phrase. The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit
of God. To speak of Him as the Spirit of God does not
exclude in any way the interpretation that He is mediated
by Christ : that He is the Spirit of God become the Spirit
of man in the Person of Christ. But to speak of Him as
the Spirit of Christ does interpret the phrases which speak
of Him simply as the Spirit of God. As a prelude to such
passages (which are well known) it may be desirable to
call attention to the very remarkable words which serve
as the climax and close of the great High Priestly prayer
of the 17th of St John. "I" that is, the Incarnate,
"made known unto them Thy name, and will make it
known ; that the love wherewith Thou lovedst Me may be
in them, and I in them." What is this love wherewith the
Father loved His own Son? How can the very love of
the Father to the Son, be itself the animating love of the
Son's disciples? And how is it that that indwelling
presence of the very love of the Father towards the Son
seems to be spoken of as so closely identified with, — per-
haps we should say as itself actually being — the indwelling
presence of the Person of the Incarnate ? Nothing but
extreme familiarity could blind us to the wonder, and
exceeding awfulness, of words like these. I do not now
go back again over the language of the 14th, 15th, and
1 6th chapters : but at least it is well to remember that all
these chapters are the prelude which leads up to the 17th ;
and that the close of the 17th is the close of them all.
Take with these His action on the night after the Resur-
rection, when the work of the Incarnation, in its first part
on earth, is complete ; and when He is therefore, by an act
of significant symbolism, handing on or passing over to
them, for continuance as their Spirit, the Spirit which had
been His own. He breathed on them, and saith unto them,
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 197
"Receive ye [the] Holy Ghost" — {XafSere irvevfia aytov).
This is not the action of one who, by prayer, would invoke
upon them, a Spirit which is not of, or from, Himself: it is
the symbolism rather of one who would transfer to them
the very Spirit which animates — which may be said to de
— Himself.
It is, then, in precise agreement with this that the later
phrases of the New Testament speak. The Spirit of God
is now the Spirit of Christ. The Presence of the Spirit is
Christ The Presence of the Christ is Spirit. "They
assayed to go into Bithynia; and the Spirit of Jesus suffered
them not." ^ " Now the Lord is the Spirit : and where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with
unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord,
are transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
even as from the Lord the Spirit" (margin, "even diS from
the Spirit which is the Lord^^ KaOaTrep airo KvpCov irvevfiaTOs).^
" Because ye are sons God sent forth the Spirit of His Son
into our hearts, crying Abba Father." ^ " For I know that
this shall turn to my salvation, through your supplication
and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christy^ And St
Peter looking back in retrospect upon the older prophecies,
sees now how this had been a truth, in some sense, even of
them, " who prophesied of the grace that should come unto
you ; searching what time or what manner of time the
Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto." ^
There is one passage in St Paul's epistles which has
been hitherto omitted ; but which is really more significant
than all these — as well from the general context in which
it occurs, as from the things actually said. This is the
8th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. It is to be
borne in mind that the 8th chapter is the conclusion and
climax of the magnificent doctrinal argument of this great
1 Acts xvl 7. 2 2 Cor. iii. 17, 18. ' Gal. iv. 6.
* Phil. i. 19. ' I Pet. i. 10, II.
198 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
epistle ; that its truths therefore are themselves the culmin-
ation of St Paul's conception of the doctrine of Atonement
in the Person of Christ. What then is that atoning power
in us, which is, for us, the consummation of the Atonement ?
It is spoken of in the first verse as "being in Christ
Jesus." In the second verse it is described more fully as
" the law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ." In the sixth
verse it is " the mind of the Spirit." In the ninth verse
it is the indwelling of " the Spirit of God." This and the
two following verses make it absolutely clear that certain
significant variations of phrase are not only, in fact, varia-
tions without a difference of meaning, but that their identity
is so obvious to the writer and to his readers, that it does
not even need to be explicitly stated, but may be taken as
of course. The varying phrases are " The Spirit of God " —
" the Spirit of Christ"—" Christ "— " The Spirit of Him that
raised up Jesus from the dead " — " He that raised up Christ
Jesus from the dead . . . through His Spirit that dwelleth
in you." ^
Could anything make clearer the absolute identity of the
presence of Christ with the presence of the Spirit of Christ ?
or the identity of the presence of the Spirit of Christ with
the presence of the Spirit of God who raised up Christ ?
The passage goes on to speak further of this presence of
the Spirit of Christ, which is the Spirit of God, in three
references; (i) it is the realization of Sonship — "whereby
we cry Abba Father " ; — it is partnership in the Sonship and
* Compare Dr Sanday's article, in the Dictionary of the Bible, on the
word **God," p. 215a.
The passage Rom. viii. 9- 11 runs consecutively thus; "But ye are not in
the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.
But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ
is in you, the body is dead because of sin ; but the Spirit is life because of
righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead
dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken
also your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you."
Compare also the transition (which is not a transition) in Eph. iii — from
♦* His Spirit " to " Christ " ; and agam from *' knowing the love of Christ " to.
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 199
inheritance of Christ;^ (2) it is an effectual succour to
infirmity, which is in part spoken of as intercession
for us, while it is even more completely entreaty
within us, of the full measure of which only He is
cognizant who " searcheth the hearts " and " knoweth the
mind of the Spirit " ; ^ and (3) it is an inseparable union
of our very selves with the " love of Christ," or, more fully,
" the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." " The
phrases of the passage will receive some further comment
from the last seven verses of i Cor. ii., where (i) the
Spirit is the Spirit of God, and is God ; for the Spirit of
God is to God as the spirit of a man to himself:* (2) this
Spirit of God is the capacity, in men who are capable of
It, of insight into all realities of spiritual truth : ^ (3) this
spiritual condition of Christians is to "have the mind of
Christ." 6
It remains only to corroborate these conceptions of
Pauline theology by glancing through the general epistle
of St John. The very object with which this epistle is
written is that its readers may quite fully realize what is
realized with such wonderful vividness by St John himself,
— that the meaning of life in Christ's Church is personal
fellowship with the Incarnate Christ, and therefore, no
less, with the Eternal God. "Yea and our fellowship is
being ** filled with all the fulness of God." " For this cause I bow my knees
unto the Father, from whom every fatherhood (R.V. margin) in heaven and on
earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory,
that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man ;
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith ; to the end that ye, being
rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what
is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ
which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.
Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or
think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be the glory in the
Church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen."
Eph. iii. 14-21.
^ Rom. viii. 14-17. * Rom. viii. 26-27. ' Rom. viii. 35-39.
* I Cor. ii. 10- 1 1. ^ I Cor. ii. I2'I5. * i Cor, ii. 16.
200 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ."^ The
method of union with the Eternal, is union with the
Incarnate. "We have beheld and bear witness that the
Father hath' sent the Son to be the Saviour of the
world "2 — "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath
not the Father; he that confesseth the Son hath the
Father also." ^ "If that which ye heard from the be-
ginning abide in you, ye also shall abide in the Son, and
in the Father."* "He that hath the Son hath the life;
he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life."^
" We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given
us an understanding, that we know Him that is true,
and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus
Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life."^ It is,
then, in primary reference (in this sense) to the Incarnate,
that St John speaks of the ideal Christian life as knowing
Him (" hereby know we that we know Him, if we keep
His commandments " ^), being or abiding in Him (" hereby
know we that we are in Him ; he that saith he abideth in
Him ought himself also to walk even as He walked." ^ . . .
" And now, my little children, abide in Him " ^) : and insists
upon the power of the indwelling One — "greater is He
that is in you than he that is in the world," ^^ and upon
the absolute antithesis between that indwelling and sin,
" Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not ; whosoever
sinneth hath not seen Him, neither knoweth Him " ^^ . . .
" whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because His
seed abideth in him ; and he cannot sin, because he is
begotten of God." ^^ Everything, then, turns upon the full
recognition, in faith of mind and of heart, of the trans-
cendent fact of Incarnation. " Who is he that overcometh
the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of
1 1 John L 3. 2 I John iv. 14. " i John ii. 23.
* I John ii. 24. " I John v. 12. ® i John v. 20.
'' I John il 3. 8 I John ii. 5-6. ® i John ii. 28.
" I John iv. 4. " I John iii. 6. ^^ i John ill. 9.
vrii.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 201
God?"^ To have such a belief is to have the internal
witness to truth, — and its end is eternal life. "He that
believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him"^ . . ,
" these things have I written unto you that ye may know
that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the
Name of the Son of God." ^
This life is the actual presence of the Son (as above,
"He that hath the Son hath the life"). This presence
is spoken of as " an anointing " : " The anointing which
ye received of Him abideth in you. . . . His anointing
teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is no
lie."* And the sure evidence of its reality is the animat-
ing influence of its Spirit. " Hereby we know that He
abideth in us, by the Spirit which He gave us."^ And
this Spirit is known to be the true Spirit, — as on the one
side by its recognition and embrace of the Incarnation
as the master-fact, — " Hereby know ye the Spirit of God ;
every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh is of God : and every spirit which confesseth not
Jesus is not of God : " ^ so, on the other, by its manifest
identity with the God who Himself " is love." " He that
loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." ^ . . . " if we
love one another, God abideth in us, and His love is
perfected in us : hereby know we that we abide in Him,
and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit." ^
This Spirit, — the certainty, nay the presence, of the In-
carnation within us, is both truth, then, and love. "It is
the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the
truth." ^ " He that saith I know Him and keepeth not
His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him :
but whoso keepeth His word, in him verily hath the love
of God been perfected." ^® The manifestation of life withia
^ I John V. 5. 2 I John v. 10. ' i John v. 13.
* I John ii. 27. ' I John iii. 24. ' i John iv. 2, 3
' I John iv. 8. ^ I John iv. 12, 13. • i John v. 7.
*® I John iL 4, 5.
202 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [char
is love. " We know that we have passed out of death
into life, because we love the brethren." ^ Reality of
personal communion with the Eternal God, a result ipso
facto necessarily following from reality of personal com-
munion with Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son : and this, a
communion in, and as. Spirit : a communion whereof at
once the manifest evidence, and also the inner and essential
reality, consist of identity of Spirit — the presence being
the Spirit, and the Spirit manifesting the presence;— a
reality, then, of personal communion with the Spirit of
the Incarnation, — the Spirit of Love, which is the Spirit
of God revealed in Christ : this is the essential Creed of
St John, the declaring of what, to his consciousness,
Christian faith and life mean.
The inquiry of the present chapter has been wholly
undertaken as an attempt towards understanding, so far
as it is possible for us to understand, the doctrine of God
the Holy Ghost, as part of the total revelation of the
Being of God. The things which have seemed to emerge
from the inquiry may perhaps be summed up, in con-
clusion, in the statement of the following general positions.
I. The revelation of the Holy Trinity is a revelation
wholly within, and based upon, the essential and indis-
soluble unity of God. At the same time the eternal
distinctions within the Unity of Divine Being involve such
essential relation of mutuality, as cannot be adequately
expressed by any word of less import than the word
Personality or Person. Human analogies are important,
and do serve, but serve only within narrow limits, towards
the intellectual vindication and illustration of this doctrine.
The analogy which will probably be most suggestive to
many minds is that of {a) what a man is invisibly in
himself, {h) his outward material projection or expression
as body, and {c) the response which that which he is,
* I John iii. 14.
viii.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 203
through its bodily utterance or operation, compels the
things which are, or seem to be, outside him, to render
back, as true echo or extension of himself. This response,
even while we recognize it only as response, is not properly
so much a fresh addition to himself, as a mirror of that
which was really in himself before it found its expression
from without as response. But however much we can,
even intellectually, see that the doctrine is both true, and
necessary to thought, yet nothing can make Tri-Personal
mutuality fully or properly intelligible to uni-personal
consciousness.
II. Whatever other, or further, revelation might con-
ceivably have been made of Them, as within the eternal
relations of Divine existence, both the Person of God the
Eternal Son, and the Person of God the Eternal Spirit,
were, in fact, originally, and are principally, revealed to
us in proportion as their revelation was necessary for the
unfolding of the work of Divine Atonement in human life ;
and are revealed moreover under titles which (whatever
relation they may have to the more inaccessible mysteries
of Divine Being) are at least most immediately suggestive
of the actual character and operation of " God as Man "
and of "God within Man" in the great complex fact (a
fact at once historical and timeless) of Incarnation and
Atonement.
III. The Holy Ghost in particular is, to us, immediately,
the Spirit of the Incarnate Christ, made, through the In-
carnation, the Spirit of Man. Because He is the Spirit of
the Incarnate, He is also, of necessity, no less, the Spirit
of God. Because He was the Spirit of God, He could not
but be the Spirit of the Incarnate. But, to us. He is the
Spirit of God through, and as, being first, for us, the Spirit
of the Christ. He is the Spirit of God ; but of God, in
particular, as sin-conquering in, and as, man. He could
not be indeed the indwelling Spirit of victorious Humanity
204 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
till Humanity had conquered. He could not be the
indwelling Spirit of Human Holiness, till Humanity was
veritably holy. But from the moment when Humanity
triumphed in Holiness perfectly Divine, the Spirit of God
was become, in the Person of Christ, the Spirit of Human
Holiness victorious over sin. The Spirit of the Christ,
then, is the Spirit, or Personal Character, or very Love, or
real Spiritual Presence, of God, — expressed in creation,
realized personally in man. And this Presence, in those
who are capable of realising it personally, is the Presence
of the Son and of the Father.
To these three positions it may be convenient to add,
in this place, a fourth, which has been indeed suggested in
the things already said, but which remains to be still some-
what more completely made good.
IV. The Spirit of the Incarnate in us is not only our
personal association, but our personal union, with the In-
carnate Christ. To clothe the phrase for a moment in
other language. He is the subjective realization within,
and as, ourselves, of the Christ who was first manifested
objectively and externally, for our contemplation and love,
in Galilee and on the Cross. He is more and more, as the
Christian consummation is approached, the Spirit within
ourselves of Righteousness and Truth, of Life and of Love.
He is more, indeed, than within us. He is the ultimate
consummation of ourselves. He is the response, from us,
of goodness and love, to the goodness and love of God.
He is, with quite unreserved truth, when all is consum-
mated, our own personal response. He is so none the less
because He is also (and was, at first, in the way of dis-
tinction and contrast,) the response which out of, and
within, and as, ourselves. He Himself — not we — very
gradually wrought. His presence in us is His response
in us, become ultimately ourselves : He is Christ Himself
in us, become the Spirit which constitutes us what we
1
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT
205
are : and therefore, though in us, — though ultimately our-
selves, — a response really worthy of God, really adequate
to God ; a mirror, an echo, nay even a living presentment
and realization, of what Christ Himself is — who is the
Eternal God
3o6 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
NOTE A {see page 172.)
Si Augustine on distinguishing the Persons of the Trinity in Terms
of separate Qualities.
It is only with a caution of this kind that we should use such a
sentence as Hooker's. [E.P. V. Ivi. 5, p. 248.] "The Father as
Goodness, the Son as Wisdom, the Holy Ghost as Power do all
concur in every particular outwardly issuing from that one only
glorious Deity which they all are. For that which moveth God to
work is Goodness, and that which ordereth His work is Wisdom, and
that which perfecteth His work is Power."
At the beginning of the sixth book of the De Trinitate^ St Augustine
discusses the difficulty involved in such phrases. He quotes the
argument which had been used against the Arians — " If the Son of
God is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and God was never
without wisdom and power, it follows that the Son is co-eternal with
the Father ; for the apostle says * Christ the power of God and the
wisdom of God,' and since no one in his senses could say that God
ever did not possess wisdom and power, therefore there was never a
time when the Son was not." And he points out at once that this
reasoning involves the admission that God the Father is not Wisdom
in Himself, but is only wise by virtue of always having His begotten
Wisdom. Can you then say that the Son is " Wisdom of Wisdom," as
you say that He is " Light of Light," if God the Father is not actually
Wisdom, but is only the " Father of Wisdom " ? The question is argued,
as a question of great difficulty, at considerable length, in the early
part of the seventh book. The result may be represented by the
following sentences, which explicitly recognize the Father as Wisdom,
the Son as Wisdom, and the Holy Ghost as Wisdom ; not as three
Wisdoms, nor three instances of Wisdom ; but as each severally the
same, single and absolute. Wisdom. Such a conclusion would certainly
require a restatement of the Athanasian argument.
" Quod si et Pater qui genuit sapientiam, ex ea fit sapiens, neque
hoc est illi esse quod sapere, qualitas ejus est Filius, non proles ejus,
et non ibi erit jam summa simplicitas. Sed absit ut ita sit : quia
vere ibi est summe simplex essentia: hoc ergo est ibi esse quod
sapere. Quod si hoc est ibi esse quod sapere, non per illam
sapientiam quam genuit sapiens est Pater; alioquin non ipse illam
sed ilia eum genuit. Quid enim aliud dicimus, cum dicimus hoc
illi est esse quod sapere, nisi eo est quo sapiens est? Quapropter
quae causa illi est ut sapiens sit, ipsa illi causa est ut sit; proinde
si sapientia quam genuit, causa illi est ut sapiens sit, etiam ut
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 207
sit ipsa illi causa est. Quod fieri non potest. . . . Ergo et Pater
ipse sapientia est ; et ita dicitur Filius sapientia Patris, quomodo
dicitur lumen Patris ; id est, ut quemadmodum lumen de lumine, et
utrumque unum lumen, sic intelligatur sapientia de sapientia, et
utrumque una sapientia : ergo et una essentia ; quia hoc est ibi esse
quod sapere. Quod enim est sapientiae sapere, et potentiae posse, et
aeternitati aeternam esse, justitiae justam esse, magnitudini magnam
esse, hoc est essentiae ipsum esse. Et quia in ilia simplicitate non est
aliud sapere quam esse, eadem ibi sapientia est quae essentia." . . .
" Et ideo Christus virtus et sapientia Dei, quia de Patre virtute et
sapientia etiam ipse virtus et sapientia est, sicut lumen de Patre
lumine, et fons vitae apud Deum Patrem utique fontem vitae." . . .
" Lumen ergo Pater, lumen Filius, lumen Spiritus Sanctus ; simul
autem non tria lumina, sed unum lumen. Et ideo sapientia Pater,
sapientia Filius, sapientia Spiritus Sanctus ; et simul non tres sapientiae,
sed una sapientia ; et quia hoc est ibi esse quod sapere, una essentia
Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus. Nee aliud est ibi esse quam
Deum esse : unus ergo Deus Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus."
A little later, after apologizing for the necessary inadequacy of the
terms by which human language expresses this distinction in identity,
(whether vTroo-rao-ets and ovaia, or personas and essentia or substantia),
terms adopted " loquendi causa de ineffabilibus, ut fari aliquo modo
possemus quod effari nullo modo possumus," he finds some consola-
tion in reflecting, "Verius enim cogitatur Deus quam dicitur, et
verius est quam cogitatur."
2o8 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
NOTE B {see ftage 187.)
On the question how far the title ^^ Son" is directly used of the Logos
as pre-Incarnatej with special reference to Hippolytus against
Noetus, and to Marcellus of Ancyra.
I am grateful for the suggestion that what is said in the text may
be thought to resemble the argument of Marcellus of Ancyra, as
exhibited by Eusebius ; inasmuch as he claims " Son " as a title only
of the Incarnate, and appeals to the Logos of St John as the one dis-
tinctively pre- Incarnate title.
The suggestion gives a natural opportunity for making clearer the
meaning of what is said in the text, by emphasizing the contrast
between it and the argument of Marcellus.
But I am referred also to the refutation of Noetus by Hippolytus.
And before coming to Marcellus, it will be useful to consider the
bearing of the passages in which Hippolytus refers to the subject.
Noetus, over-emphasizing, or rather wrongly emphasizing, the funda-
mental unity of God, makes God uni-personal. He is therefore
explicitly Patripassian. €<^7; rbv X/oto-rov avrbv cfvat tov IlaTe^a,
KoX a.VT6v TOV IIaT€/oa yeyevvrjcrdai kol ireirovOkvai koX oLTroTedvrjKevaL.
. . . €t ovv X/otcTTOi/ ofioXoyo) Geov, avros apa ia-rlv 6 ILar-qp' ct
yap (al. €iye) Icrrtv o Oeos, hraOev 8c X^ptcrTos, avrbs civ Geos, apa
oSv €7ra^€V Uarrjp^ ILarrjp yap avros ■^v. . . . dvaicr^wrajs Aeyovres,
avros eo-Tt XptcTTOs 6 TLaT^p, avros Yios, avrhs eyevvrjdr), avTh<s
€7ra6ev, avrhs kavrov -qyeupev. Hippol. c. Hasr. Noeti, ch. i, 2, and 3.
Hippolytus is equally clear, on his own side, about the unity of God,
— but not at the expense of the Incarnation. Tis yap ovk kpu eva
Gcbv c'vat ; dA,X' ov ttjv OLKovofiiav dvaiprqcreL, ch. 3. Noetus would
press such texts as " Surely God is in thee" and " O God of Israel, the
Saviour" (o-v yap 6 Geos tov 'l<rpar)X acuTTJ/o), Isaiah xlv. 14, 15, to
mean the identity of the Incarnate with the Father. Against this
Hippolytus, amongst other arguments, quotes John iii. 13, "No
man hath ascended into Heaven, but He that descended out of
Heaven, even the Son of Man, which is in Heaven," as an asser-
tion by the Incarnate of His own pre-existence. But the pre-
existence of whom ? Not of the flesh, Hippolytus answers, for that
was assumed, at the Incarnation, of the virgin and the Spirit, to
make the perfect offering of the Son of God ; and till then there was
no " flesh " in Heaven. It was the pre-existence, then, of the Aoyo?
aa-apKos, the Logos not yet made flesh. It was the Logos who
became Incarnate. He was flesh, was Spirit, was power ; and He
bore the gracious name of Son of Man by anticipation, because He
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 209
was to be man, — Sta rh fxeXXov, Kairoi fi-qTro) wv avOpoxTros — as in
the vision of Daniel vii. 13. It was right then to say that He, as
pre-existent in Heaven, was called from the beginning by this name,
the Logos of God. Ibid., ch. iv. p. 57.
In ch. XV. he anticipates that objection will be made to his using the
word " Son " of the " Logos " ; that is, apparently, to his using a
personal title of the pre-existent, making Him, as " Son," a distinct
personality. The title used by St John is Logos ; and it seems to be
argued (on the side of Noetus) that this title Logos is of the nature of
a metaphor. It is, then, this metaphorical or impersonal interpreta-
tion of Logos that Hippolytus is concerned to deny. It is, he seems
to argue, a personal name, as in the vision of Him that "sat on a
white horse " in Rev. xix. 1 1, " and His eyes are a flame of fire, and
upon His head are many diadems ; and He hath a name written which
no one knoweth but He Himself. And He is arrayed in a garment
sprinkled with blood ; and His name is called the Word of God."
The garment sprinkled with blood is His flesh which He offered in the
passion. Thus the Person is He of whom St Paul speaks in Rom.
viii. 3. " God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,
and as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Who was
this " Son " but the " Word," whom He called " Son " because He was
to be born — ov Ylov irpoa-rjyopeve Sta to fxeXXeiv avrov yevka-Qai ?
It was in love towards man that He bore this title, and was called
the " Son." For the Logos, as Logos, not being yet Incarnate, was
not in the full sense "Son," though He was, in the full sense, the
"Logos only begotten" ; nor had His flesh any subsistence in itself,
I apart from the Logos, because the flesh subsisted only in the Logos.
It was thus, then, that He was manifested, in completeness, as the One
Bon of God. Ovre yap acrapKOS /cat Kad' iavrhv 6 Ady«s rcXeios ^v
Sfios, KtttTOt reXetos Aoyos wi/ fJLOVoyevrjs, ovd' r] crdp^ Kad^ eavrrjv
ptx<* '^ov Aoyov VTrocTTrjvaL -^Svvaro, Sta to kv Koyo. t^v crvcrTaa-tv
t)(e.iv' ovTcos ovv efs Ytbs reA-etos Oeov €<f)av€p(jodr)' ch. xv. p. y^'
Verbally, then, Hippolytus appears to assert that the word " Son,"
in the fullest sense, belongs only to the Incarnate, as born in the
world : and though he says that the word was used before by anticipa-
tion, he does not apparently recognize any sense in which the word
could be used rightly, except by anticipation, of the pre- Incarnate
Logos. That he should take this position is the more remarkable,
because he is, at the very moment, engaged in vindicating his own
right to use the word "Son," in some way, of the Logos before
Incarnation ; and because he claims without reserve to call the Logos
"only begotten," which would certainly seem to give some proper
content of meaning to the word " Son."
But whatever may have been, in the case of Hippolytus, the motive
or the significance of language like this, it is quite clear, if not what
O
2IO ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
Marcellus meant, yet at all events what he was understood by others
to mean, by insisting on calling the pre- Incarnate exclusively Logos,
and denying the title " Son."
It would be, indeed, beside the present purpose to raise any subtler
question as to the meaning of Marcellus himself. If there is ground
for doubting whether he has been truly interpreted, this is not the
place to examine it. It is only with Marcellus as represented to us,
that we are here concerned.
Marcellus, then, we are told, like Noetus, so emphasized the unity
of God as to make Him uni-personal. It is precisely because he
explains Logos impersonally, that he does not mind allowing the pre-
existence of the Logos of God. He understands Logos in God
exactly as he understands logos in man, that is, as in no way distinct
from the man himself. It is the man, — in a certain aspect or activity.
So then " God," before the creation, was solitary, iiriirm tov Kocrfxov
yeyovoTos ovSev 'irepov rjv irXr^v Geov fiovov. The Logos was His utter-
ance, inseparable, as such, from His personality. This can be readily
understood from a little consideration of ourselves. OvSe yap tov
TOV avOpoiTTOV Xoyov 8vvdfi€L Kol VTroa-rdcret yjiopidai tlvX hvvarov.
"Ev yap ecTTt koX ravrov t^ dvOpo^Trii) 6 X6yo<s, Kal ovSevl )(<j)pL^oix€Vos
krepii) rj jMovy ry ttJs Trpd^eias evepyeti^. Euseb,, de Eccl. Theol., I. xvii.,
p. 860.
This, as Eusebius urges, isflatSabellianism. Sabellius and Marcellus
equally, he says, make the Father and the Logos identical ; the only
difference being that Sabellius had not the audacity to measure Logos
in God by logos in man, nor the folly to describe as " Son of God " a
Logos who had no substantive existence, — ovS' ovtojs "^XcOlos rjv a>s
TOV p.ri v(f)€(TTO}Ta Aoyov vlhv Qcov dvaKaXeiv. According to this view
the phrase " let us make man in our image, after our likeness," is only
like the word of a man who should talk to, or encourage, himself.
But all this Marcellus does in the name of unity ; as though unity
were not equally real to us (Catholic Christians) who affirm the
eternal generation of the Son, and that He was "Son" and not
" Logos" only, from all eternity—ws ovxt Kal rificov rovro Xeyovrtav, rhv
Ylhv TOV Oeov dX,r}6a)<s elvai Yibv 7ra/3a8€6e[t]y/xevwv, Trap' avTOv
T€ [xefxaOrjKOToyv €va yvinpi^eiv Geov, avTOv re eiVat Qehv ofxov /cat
HaTcpa Ylov TOV fiovoyevovs, kavTOv SrjXaSrj ovtos dXrjdois Ytov
irph TravTWV altavQv e^ avrov yey evrjfxevov, Kal ov fiovov Aoyov KeKXrj-
pivov irph T^s dvaXrjxj/eoy^ Trjs crapKos. lb., p. 861.
It is, then, in the interest of this denial of the Personality of the
Son, that Marcellus insists that only the name Logos is predicable
before the Incarnation, and " Son " only as a result of Incarnation. It
is for this that he makes appeal to the opening verses of St John ;
and denies that the pre-incarnate Logos is ever called Son except
prophetically, by anticipation, ovkovv irph p.lv tov Kar^Xdelv koX 5ta
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT an
Tijs irapOevov rexOrjvat Aoyos ^v jjlovov. . . . irporepov ya/o, ioarrrep
iroWov^de r)V<f> s,tK€V erepov 17V r] Aoyos. ... 6 fjiev yap Aoyos ev
^PXV V^f /A>/5ev €T€pov wv ^ Aoyos* 6 Se r^ Aoy^ evw^cis avdpoyiroSi
ovK wv TrpoTcpov yeyovev avOpoyiroSi ws StSaaKet i^ju-wv 'Iwavviys, Kai 6
Aoyos o-a^^ cyevero. Aiot tovto TotVvv tov Aoyov [xvrjfiovevd^v
<f>aLV€Tai [JLovov. Eire yap 'Irjo-ov, ctrc X/Oio-roi) ovo/xaros fivrjfiovevoi
ri deCa ypac^T^, rbv juera rrjs avSpayirivov ovra (rapKbs rod Qeov Aoyov
ovo/xd^iLV (jiaLveraL. Et Se Tts Kat 7r/)b t^s Neas ^laO-qKTjs tov
^pia-rov [rj tov] Yiov ovofia t^ Aoy^ )uov<^ SetKvvvat Srvaof^at
€7rayyeAAoiTo, evpr^crcL tovto Trpo<jir)TiK(j)s dpTjjxevov. ch. xviii. p. 864.
It is plain, then, from these quotations (i) that Marcellus (if rightly
represented) denied the title Son to the Incarnate quite absolutely, with-
out reserve of any kind ; and (2) that he intended, in this denial, to deny
any personal pre-existence at all. Precisely because he understood it
as impersonal, he desired to make exclusive use of the title Logos.
And it is correspondingly plain that, to the mind of Eusebius, the
assertion that the Aoyos was also from all eternity Yibs, is the
method of insisting, and is valued so earnestly just because it is the
method of insisting, that the Aoyos was, before Incarnation, not
only existent, but also existent as a Person. The real issue between
them is the Personality of the Son ; and therefore the doctrine of the
Trinity of God.
But however remote, for these reasons, the position attributed to
Marcellus may be from what any modern Christian, who intends to
be orthodox, could hold ; it may still not improbably be felt that the
position stated by Eusebius is, if fully accepted, conclusive not only
against the doctrine of Marcellus with whom he was arguing; but
^^ugainst a good deal besides, though it may have but little in common
^Krith Marcellus ; against, for instance, the suggestion made in the text.
I^^vor to him the " Eternal Generation " of the Son, the eternal existence
^^^bf the Son as "Son," is in itself a positive and a fundamental principle.
^^H[s this consistent with the suggestion in the text ? I must answer that
f^"I do not think it is inconsistent, so long as the Eusebian principle is
itself urged with reverent reserve, that is, without an undue crudeness
of emphasis upon those elements in it which we least understand.
Let me raise the question in this form. What is, so far as is re-
vealed to us, the relation between the First, and Second, Persons of
the Blessed Trinity? and how completely is it expressed by the
mutual words " Father " and " Son " ? Now the two most extreme
answers to this question, in the opposite directions, would be, as I con-
ceive, these. On the one side it would be answered, — These words
" Father " and " Son " have no application at all to the eternal relation
within Deity. It is only improperly, by a sort of liberty, or extension
of speech, that they are used of pre- Incarnate existence. Properly
speaking they belong to the Incarnation, and to that quite exclusively
212 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
and alone. The extreme answer on the other side would be, —
The eternal relation within Deity is exactly, and properly, defined by
the words " Father " and " Son." It was in order to reveal the eternal
relations that the words were chosen. It is to the eternal relations
that they are primarily applicable. Of the eternal relations they are
(whether intelligible or not) the authoritative revelation. Any
application to the Incarnation or its effects, though that also may be
true, is at most quite secondary and subordinate as interpretation of
the terms.
The first of these answers might be made in two, widely differing,
forms. It might be made by those who denied the personal pre-
existence of the Son (under whatever title) and the truth of the
Trinitarian doctrine altogether. This is the unhesitating position of
Marcellus, as Eusebius understands him. But it might also be made,
more innocently, by those who, having no doubt of the eternal pre-
existence of the Personal Logos, yet thought that He could be called by
the title " Son " only in reference to His coming Incarnation. This is
the position which is, at one point, to say the least, very nearly adopted
by Hippolytus.
But the suggestion made in the text is wholly distinct from the
first answer, in either of its two forms. Only, whilst explicitly re-
pudiating either form of the first, it does suggest that the other answer
goes too far in the opposite direction, and that there is a considerable
region of intermediate ground between the two. It does suggest that
the reserve which would shrink from adopting outright the phrases of the
answer at the other extreme, would be a reverent and a wise reserve.
It is possible to accept the words " Father" and " Son" as being
sufficiently, for us, in harmony with that truth of the eternal relation
within Deity which we are little capable of understanding, without
supposing that they were revealed, either exclusively, or even primarily,
in reference to those eternal relations with which they so correspond.
It is possible, on this view, to accept and to value as an approxima-
tion to truth, all that theologians have ever said about the eternal
generation of the Son ; and yet not to press it forward with dogmatic
insistence, as though it belonged to a region in which we could either
speak, or think, with confidence. It is reverent, after all, to remind
ourselves of the necessary limitation of our thought ; and to realize
how little way we are capable of going towards putting a positive con-
tent of meaning into such a phrase as " eternal generation," however
valuable, in some contexts, it may be both to use, and to explain, the
phrase.
We are not at all concerned to make a point of denying that the
word " Son " is predicated of the Pre-existent in His eternal relations ;
far less to deny that it is capable of being so predicated : though, as
to the fact, we may be allowed to feel some doubt whether it is, in the
I
VIII.] THE HOLY SPIRIT 213
scripture, so predicated in any unequivocal manner. What we do
suggest amounts rather to this, that, as far as nomenclature is con-
cerned, the words " Father " and " Son " express most primarily and
most unreservedly the relation between the Eternal and the Incarnate,
between God as God and God as man ; and analogously rather than
primarily, in dim suggestion rather than directly, those eternal re-
lations which are hardly capable of any other than an indirect and
analogous expression. If ever, then, they are used expressly of the
eternal relations between the Persons of the Trinity, their application
is, at all events, so far less direct and more mysterious, that they have
to be interpreted, with reservation, guardedly ; because as applied to
that existence, the words, though not inapplicable or untrue, are yet
applicable only through reserves which are not easy to human thought,
but without which they inevitably tend to convey, to human thought,
what is other, and more, than the truth.
To put it in another way, it may be said that what we suggest is that
the title " Son," as direct revelation of unreserved or intelligible truth,
begins, so to speak, from the Incarnate side, though capable — more,
or less — of being transferred therefrom to that eternal relation of
which Incarnation was itself a consequence : rather than that it is
primarily revealed of the eternal relation, — though transferable also
from the Divine to the Human life.
As to the question of fact, it is very difficult to be certain how far the
word "Son " is used directly in Scripture of the pre-Incamate Logos as
, such. I have already suggested in the text what seem to me reasonable
[grounds for doubting whether, in the great Baptismal formula, which
[is supremely authoritative, "into the name of the Father, and of the
I Son, and of the Holy Ghost," the reference is so much .to the pre-
[ existent Logos, as to the Incarnate who had triumphed once for all
man.
So again in such a passage as the opening of the Hebrews, when
we read "God having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the
prophets . . . hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in [His]
Son," it is impossible to doubt, so far, that the word " Son " suggests
primarily the Incarnate, as Incarnate. And when the writer goes on
" whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made
the worlds : who being the effulgence of His glory, and the very image
of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power,'
we shall hardly feel that these assertions alter the primary reference
of the word " Son " as it stood in the verse before. All these things are
true of Him, the Incarnate, though not true of Him primarily as In-
carnate. If then they are all in this passage predicated of the Incarnate
Son, it is difficult to lay down that they are, in this passage, predicated
of Him primarily as Son, any more than they are of Him primarily as
Incarnate.
214 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
The same is true of Col. i. 13, etc. "Who . . . translated us into
the kingdom of the Son of His love ; in whom we have our redemp-
ion, the forgiveness of our sins : who is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of all creation, for in Him were all things created,"
etc. Here the first two clauses so clearly refer to the victory wrought
on earth by the Incarnate, that when the later clauses go on to
predicate of Him eternal Deity, the work of Creation, etc., it seems
impossible to say that these things are, as far as the passage is con-
cerned, predicated of the Son, in any other sense than that in which
they are predicated of the Incarnate. They are predicated indeed of
Him the Incarnate, yet not primarily of His Incarnation ; and there-
fore also of Him the Son, yet (it may be) not of Him most primarily
or directly in respect of the title " Son."
As to any words uttered, of Himself, by the lips of the Incarnate, —
" the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father
doing " — " I and the Father are one " — " the Father loveth the Son, and
hath given all things into His hand" — "Believe Me that I am in the
Father, and the Father in Me," etc. etc. — it is manifest that they cannot
be so taken apart from what He was who uttered them, and when He
uttered them, as to warrant our laying down that they, or any of them,
ought to be interpreted primarily, without any reference to the In-
carnation at all, of His eternal pre-existence.
But though, in one passage after another, it seems impossible to get
rid of this uncertainty of exegesis ; and though (in spite of any misuse
which Marcellus may have tried to make of it) the fact remains that the
only passage in the New Testament which goes wholly and obviously
behind the fact of Incarnation, drops altogether the words " Father "
and " Son " ; I must repeat that it is not meant to be suggested that
the words should in such sense be referred to the Incarnation only, as
though there were, in the Eternal Being of Deity, no truth corre-
sponding with them.
We are not capable of understanding much, in direct terms, about
the eternal relations within the Being of Deity. Only if we were
capable of this, should we really understand with any fulness, that
essential relation borne by the Logos who " in the beginning was with
God, and was God," "in whom were all things created," and "in
whom all things consist," to creation, and in particular to humanity,
which underlies the fact that it was the " Logos " who " became flesh "
for the regeneration of man. And in understanding this it is possible
that we might understand, a little more, what is that eternal relation
between the Logos, who (being God) "was with God," and "God"
with whom the Logos (who was God) was ; that relation which is
shadowed for us to some extent under the metaphor of eternal genera-
tion J and to which the " Filial " relation, which Incarnation made,
VIII.]
TKE HOLY SPIRIT
215
F
to our earthly power of conceiving, absolute and literal, does, in some
dimmer and more mysterious way, eternally correspond.
I have desired to make it plain that the suggestion made in the text
does not really set aside, or deny, anything whatever which has been
asserted, whether by Eusebius or others, as a part of the Catholic
faith. Its point is not denying or setting aside at all. It does not con-
tradict, it is not inconsistent with, anything which has been really held
or taught on these subjects. Its real point is positive not negative :
what it is anxious to assert, not what it might have been supposed to
disallow. And I cannot but believe that that positive meaning is both
true and important : that positive thought which would find — in the
mode of the revelation to men of God " the Son," and God " the Holy
Ghost," and in the terms and titles under which it has pleased God to
designate to us the Father in relation to the Son, and the Son in
relation to the Father, and the Holy Spirit in relation to both — a
reference primary and dominant, though not therefore simply ex-
clusive, to the One all-dominating fact of the Incarnation of God ;
God above^ and with^ and as^ and more and more within^ man.
CHAPTER IX
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN RELATION TO HUMAN
PERSONALITY
There is now another side on which it is important for
us to consider the meaning, to ourselves, of the doctrine
of the Holy Ghost; in its relation, namely, to our own
personal being. What is human personality ? And what
is the relation of the new Presence or Power, revealed
within man at Pentecost, to the realization of man's own
personality, the true consummation of himself?
It has been a natural and deep-rooted instinct, on the
part of thinking man, not only to start all speculation, or
apprehension, from himself, — which is his inevitable and
only mode of access to wider truth : but in such wise to
start from himself, as if he himself were, by himself, a
complete and separate whole, a realization in full of what
he meant, or needed to mean, by the word personality:
and therefore also a measure by which to gauge the
meaning of the word personality, wherever it was to be
predicated of any other than himself Whether he had,
in fact, or how far he had, or had not, achieved the
completeness of what personality meant, was a question
which he hardly paused, or thought it necessary, to raise.
That he at least was, anyhow, himself, was a natural
assumption to make ; and it was naturally made, without
adequate scrutiny, as a basis of all further thought. The
assumption that I am, anyhow, myself, passes almost
m
w^
CHAP. IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 217
indistinguishably, into the assumption that whatever this
" I " may do or suffer, on the right hand or the left, the " I "
itself remains a fixed and permanent quantity, of one
continuous and essential content and significance.
This assumption that human personality was already
fully realized, and therefore remained as an unchanging
entity in the midst of all that was done by it, round it,
or for it, has conspicuously underlain the greater part of
human speculation in respect of the doctrine of the
Atonement. It is suggested by the familiar metaphors
under which different aspects of the Atonement have been
illustrated, from the time of the New Testament itself
Man with a load upon him, or released from his load :
man captive or enslaved, or released from his slavery or
captivity : man sick or recovered from sickness ; is after all
the same man. Through all propositions like these, he, the
central subject, is unchanged. There is indeed, very much
alteration in his conditions and well-being. But parables
such as these, however suggestive in their way, certainly
do not suggest that the essential heart of the great change
to be found, after all, in the altered content of the mean-
g of the man's central self The assumption that the
human " he " was unchanged and undeveloped, because he
had been, as " he," complete from the first, has led specula-
tive thought to try and find the very heart of the meaning of
the great change wrought by atonement, in some direction
external to, and independent of, the personality of the
man redeemed. Hence it is that most Christian theories
explanatory of atonement, — assuming on the one side
that " man " was, through all, the same completed and
unchanging entity, and that the work of atonement on
the other hand, if explained at all, must be explained as
a process complete in itself, before its completed process
was brought into relation with the personalities of men ;
have in them, as explanations, a dangerous flaw. They all
ai8 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
tend to be different forms of what the thought of the
present day would sum up as the " transactional " theory
of the atonement : and (whatever spiritual value they may
have had in their time) it is certainly true that no theories
of atonement which try to explain the whole meaning of
it as a transaction completed, as transaction, outside the
personalities of the redeemed, can state, with any adequacy,
that aspect of the truth to which the consciousness of the
present day is most keenly — and rightly — alive.
It can hardly be denied that a fallacy of this sort is
discernible — not indeed in apostolic or sub-apostolic
references to atonement, which do not attempt to explain
the transcendent fact in logical terms ; but in the great
majority of later attempts to give some philosophical
definition of the method by which the consequences
of atonement were reached. It was so in the curious
suggestions which crop up in patristic expositions, — the
payment to the devil, the outwitting of the devil, the
justification of a Divine ruse, and so forth.
It was so, most eminently, through every line of the
elaborate treatise of Anselm, which, with whatever soften-
ing of earlier repulsiveness of current and vulgar thought,
still reduces everything to a strictly mathematical calculation,
of the equation kind, — a calculation in which the human
personality remains a fixed quantity throughout. And it
is not too much to say that the same kind of fallacy is, in
large measure, reproduced in most of the characteristic
expositions of the rationale of atonement, which have been
suggested from St Anselm's time to our own. Indeed it
could hardly have been otherwise with theories of atonement
which were formulated upon a conception of personality
so inadequate as that which is common to the majority of
writers on the subject. It is upon an inadequate
conception of personality that they are based : and it
is from a conception of personality more adequate to
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 219
the reality of experience, that they will receive their
correction.
It would of course be unfair to imply that such a view
of personality as is here demurred to was any peculiarity
of theologians speculating upon the rationale of atonement.
It was rather a sort of tacit assumption, a general
common-place, with which thought in all directions began ;
and which philosophy had not so much invented, as failed
to correct.
What then is personality ? In what sense can we be
said to be possessed of it ? or what relation has that with
which we start, and which we call personality, to what we
ourselves all the while mean, and cannot but really mean,
by personality? Or where, or how, would the reality of
personality, according to its own inherent necessities of
meaning, find its actual consummation at last? It is
indeed within ourselves that we find our own witness to
what personality means, and if we did not first feel it
there, we could not recognize it anywhere. Nevertheless
if we try to analyze the things which we ourselves, by the
witness which is from ourselves, must mean by personality :
we shall be compelled to own, on consideration, that
though the idea, as idea, of every one of them is forced
upon our consciousness by what we ourselves are, yet not
one of them is actually realized within our consciousness.
It will be worth our while to examine this statement, in
rather more detail, in respect of three conceptions, or pre-
rogatives, of personal being: the three which probably
occur with most directness to the minds of most of us,
when we attempt, by any further analysis, either to vindi-
cate our claim to the possession of real personality, or to
explain what it is that we mean by it : in respect, that
is to say, of our supposed possession — first of free will ;
secondly of reason or wisdom ; and thirdly of the divine
faculty of love.
220 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
What is free will ? How far do we possess it ? or when,
or how, would it reach its true consummation within us ?
We are entirely accustomed to claims, on the one side
(based partly on speculative grounds, and still more on
grounds of practical common sense,) to a complete reality
of free will in man : and on the other side, to an array of
proof, mainly theoretical, but at least of great logical
strength, to show that man has no free will at all. Neither
of these positions is absolutely true. There is always some
truth represented in the other. Each begins to be
positively false, when it tries to exclude the truth which
the other represents ; but in its positive effort, each sees a
real aspect of truth.
We have got within us something which is akin to free
will ; and which we must both call, and treat as, free will.
We have the germ or inchoate capacity of free will ; we
have the clear instinct of having it; we have the inherent
assumption of it as the basis of moral life ; we are our-
selves a witness to the idea of it, and our own imperative
demand for its realization in ourselves. Yet our will is not,
in fact, free. So completely are we ourselves a witness to
the idea of it, that we cannot but out of ourselves construct
the ideal which nevertheless is not there. We cannot but
conceive of free will, and believe in the ideal reality of it,
and posit it as a necessary assumption, in any intelligent
conception of Supreme Being ; because, without it, the
things which visibly are, the fundamental significance of
ourselves, would fall into chaos.
But where did we find the conception of free will?
Have we got free will in ourselves ? Take the most homely
of instances. Why does the slothful man not get up in
the morning ? Why does the intemperate man not give
up his intemperance? Why does the ill-tempered man
not make himself pleasanter, as to others, so to himself? In
each case it is probable enough that the man has resolved
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 221
to do so. He wishes, perhaps with exceeding strength of
desire, to fulfil his resolves. Yet he does not — nay he feels,
with a sadness only too well justified, that he cannot — do so.
Why can he not ? Nothing in the world prevents him — but
himself. Everything, everybody, would heartily welcome
his resolve, and encourage him to keep it. Yet he does not
and cannot act upon it. Why not? Nothing whatever
interferes with him. He could do it in a moment, — nay,
he would do it with infallible certainty, — the very moment
that he really willed to do it. But he cannot will to do it.
He cannot will to do even what he wishes to will. Nothing
in the world constrains him but his own inherent incapacity of
willing. Do we call this free will ?
Take the case of the man who is just indolent and
cowardly, and has shaped himself now into the inveterate
habit, and has woven the inveterate habit into his character,
of indolently not doing. The time comes when every-
thing turns upon his power of intense concentration of
purpose. He greatly desires to be strong ; but he cannot.
The concentration of will, which is the one thing required,
is beyond the capacity of his will. And so with not a few
of the most obvious resolutions, or experiences, which
belong to the spiritual life. He longs, on this side, to do.
He longs, on that side, to abstain from doing. In either
case he is, as the world says, free. Nothing in the world
interferes to overrule him. But what he would not do, he
does. And when he would refrain, he can not. It was all
mirrored for us, long ago, in the 7th chapter to the Romans.
But once more, do we call this — our familiar experience —
free will? St Paul called it rather "the body of this
death."
It is clear that this will is not free. But what is our
idea of free will ? The first instinctive conception of free
will, and one which has shaped too much of the current
language about it, is probably this, that free will means
222 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
an inherent capacity of equal choice between two alterna-
tives, the power to do equally either a or b. Now, great
as the part undoubtedly is which has been played by such
a conception as this, it is easy to see that this is quite
fallacious. Unless a and b happen to be precisely equal
in goodness, and also in wisdom, unless, that is to say,
upon the improbable and unimportant hypothesis of an
alternative which really is absolutely indifferent from every
point of view whatever, no man of any growth in wisdom
or character can equally do a or b.
The more moral he is, and the more wise, the less will
a man be able to do ^ ; perhaps the more immoral he is
and unwise, the less will it be possible for him to do a.
But in either case, his oscillation of purpose, if he oscillates,
depends upon the fact that he is not, as yet, either
absolutely of one kind, or absolutely of another. He is
still, in some part, both. The real consummation of either
moral or immoral character would exclude ambiguity, —
the ambiguity which was offered as the criterion of free
will. But the condition of double-mindedness is really
characteristic of the sinner, rather than of the saint.
It is to be observed moreover that if this conception of
free will were true, then it would follow that of all that
ever lived on this earth as man, absolutely the least free
of will was the Lord Jesus Christ. If this were what
free will meant, then there could be no element of free
will, in the moral region at least, in the Person of Christ
or of God. So plain does it become, on a very little
thought, that this conception of free will is really suggested,
not out of our experience of the reality, but rather out of
our intimacy with the disease, or caricature, of free will.
It is something, known indeed to us, but characteristic of
will in a stage that is very far from free, from which so
untenable a conception has been derived.
This is at least equally plain when a and b are avowedly
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 223
made to represent what is right, and what is wrong.
Equal capacity of doing right or doing wrong, whatever
else it may be is not free will. Full power to sin is not
the key to freedom ! On the contrary, all inherent power
to do wrong is a direct infringement of the reality of
free will. It is indeed too true that our exceedingly
imperfect free will has landed us in sin : and it is not
altogether strange if the connection between what we
currently call freedom, and capacity of sinning, appeared
to be so absolutely direct, that men took capacity of
sinning as itself the differentia of freedom. But the
thought of saints, and above all of Christ and of God,
is enough to show in a moment, that there has been some
fallacy : and that, whatever sort of relation there may
possibly be between freedom and power to sin, to make
the one mean the other must be utterly wrong. In point
of fact, if our imperfect freedom is directly connected
with experience of sin ; that with which the experience
of sin is so closely bound up, is not really (as men have
thought) the prerogative of freedom, but the exceeding
imperfectness of the prerogative as realized in us. A
demi-semi-freedom may lead to consequences — themselves
in such sort of perverse affinity with the nobleness of
personality that they would be impossible to the wholly
impersonal and unfree — which nevertheless are the extreme
antithesis of the consequences' properly belonging to
perfect freedom. Freedom perverted is a more serious
antithesis to the true meaning of freedom, than is that
which has no element of freedom about it at all. An evil
person is more opposite to a good person, than is that
which is capable neither of evil nor good.
If, then, a definition of free will, which is so quickly
exposed by its consequences, may be certainly dismissed
let us try an alternative definition, thus ; Free will is the
power of so doing the things which we do, whatever their
224 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
character, that when we do them they are really our own ;
and our own selves are really expressed in the doing of
them. This is a conception very much nearer to the
truth than the former one. It is at least beginning to
look in the right direction. The essentia of free will
is not at all to be found in the direction of a vacant
uncertainty as to what we may happen to do: but it is
to be found in the depth of the reality with which our
acts when we do them, — our will movements when we
really exercise will, — are personally our very own : at
once the true outcome, and the true building-up, of
ourselves. This does touch the heart of the real difference
between animate and inanimate, between personal and
impersonal, service. The impersonal and inanimate may
indeed, and do, correspond with deliberate and conscious
purpose. But the act of will, the rationale of action, is
not in themselves. These are in a person indeed : for acts
of will, and rationale of action are personal attributes :
but they are not in the inanimate, which blindly obeys,
and is not self-identified with them. But the freedom
of a person is measured by the completeness of his
own self-identification with his own acts and will ; the
completeness with which, howsoever or whencesoever they
may have been presented to him, he has himself identified
himself with them, he has become their direct and
adequate cause, and they are the real effect, and outcome,
of himself
But can we leave the definition in this form, and make
free will consist of this capacity of personal identification
with our actions, whatever the character of these actions of
will may be ? Is it, in anything like its true completeness,
really irrespective of the character of the things done
or willed : or, to put it in another form, irrespective of the
question whether the person, in whom it is, is correspond-
ing with, or is contradicting, the proper conditions and
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 225
nature of his own capacities ? Is the capacity of making
personally my very own the things which belong to
the highest ideal of my nature, and expanding both it and
myself by growing on into them, and through them
becoming more and more divinely myself: is this really
on exactly the same level, as free will, with the perverse
and disastrous possibility of so transgressing and pro-
faning my nature, that I become more and more enslaved
to the things which are the ruin of it, and see all its
highest (which are also its truest) prerogatives and
possibilities ebbing fatally away before my eyes ? The one
alternative is the gradual diminution and enslavement of
the self, and all that the self was made, as a self, to become.
The other is the gradual enlargement of the capacities of
selfhood, the emancipation from disability, the perfecting of
power, till, under conditions as transfiguring as the visible
glory of the holy mountain, the self, in its own transcen-
dent consummation, finds at last what it meant, in God's
truth, to be a self Are these two contrasted alternatives
[to be said to be, after all, on the very same level, regarded
is expositions illustrative of the true significance of
free will ?
If not, we reach an amended definition of free will :
'which will now be described as man's power of becoming a
veritable cause to himself, in making personally his own,
and being wholly self-identified with, such acts of will as
themselves are in perfect accordance with, and are therefore
the true experience and development of, the nature which
is essentially and properly his own.
The very faculty of free will, whatever its perversion
may be, is itself Divine in quality, and man himself was
made in the image of God. Only a true correspondence
with the image of God is man's true nature, or can be the
realization of his faculties in full. The free will, then, with
which God has endowed me is my possibility of making
P
226 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
personally my very own, by a progressive consecration of
will, the things which belong to the highest consummation
of the divinest capacities in me, — my own best and truest
self. In other words my free will means the capacity
in me of a perfect response, of personal will and personal
character, to God. So far as I have attained this, I have
attained the real freedom of the will. So far as I have still
any germ or possibility of this, I have the possibility and
germ of free will. So far as I have lost the possibility
of this, I have lost the possibility of free will. Free will is
not the independence of the creature, but is rather his self-
realization in perfect dependence. Freedom is self-identity
with goodness. Both goodness and freedom are, in their
perfectness, in God. Goodness in a creature is — not
distinction from, but correspondence with, the goodness of
God. Freedom in a creature is correspondence with God's
own self-identity with goodness. If excellence, in an
impersonal creature, is correspondence with God : in
a personal creature it is still correspondence, but in a
personal sense ; that is, it is a conscious echo, or response,
mirroring, in will and character, the very character and will
of God. It does not hinge upon the retention in man
of the power to do wrong, but is consummated, rather,
in the power to do perfectly right; and not only to do
what in fact is perfectly right ; but therein to do perfectly
as his own what is his own perfectness ; to be a true cause
at last, of his own consummation ; and therein to attain
and to realize the divine meaning of manhood, the true
essentia of created personality ; in a word to realize and to
find "himself." It is man's power to do perfectly, and
perfectly as his own, that which is his own perfectness, in
other words, that which reflects God, and is, in truth, God
in him.
Does man possess, or can he have, such a power? It
is only indeed in proportion as he has it, in greater degree
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 227
or in less, that he really has, in greater degree or in less, the
real truth, as opposed to the caricature, of free will ? But
definition apart, has he got it, or can he have it? The
answer is obvious. He has it just exactly in proportion
as he is in Christ, and the Spirit of Christ is in him. He
has it just in proportion — not to his independence but to
his dependence : not to his sundered and lonely separation
by himself, but to his communion with the Manhood
which is perfected in Christ : not in proportion as he tries
to realize his own personality by distinction from all others,
but in proportion as he realizes it by surrender of his
poor naked and several self to union with Another; —
Another, who indeed both is, and must be, first seen, and
loved, and worshipped, and clung to, as Another; but
Another who is, after all, his own crown and perfectness ;
and who has wrought, and is come, not only to be either
near, or even within, — but more and more perfectly to
constitute, and actually to be, in the absolute unity of
loving will, the very spirit and meaning of — himself
This is what free will means. In its perfectness it
IS the self become another. It is Christ in the man. It
Is the man become One Spirit with Christ. It is the love
)f God reproduced in the man, till the man, in God's love,
or God's love in the man, has become a Divine response,
adequate to, because truly mirroring, God. And in all
its lesser degrees, it is the germ or capacity of this con-
summation, — a process, more or less towards this.
And since it is a man's perfect correspondence with
his own highest self, it will be found that the characteristic
condition or method of it, while it remains unconsummated,
is a constant subjection of his lower, to his higher, possi-
bilities. But in all imperfect stages, especially in those who
are only too pitifully conscious how far they have sinned
against their higher nature, a steady subordinating of
the lower to the higher is a process both stringent and
228 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
painful ; it is a constant submission of what seems to be
the very self to a law of perfectness, which, however much
it may be in truth his own perfectness, has at present at
least to be looked for outside himself And thus it is
that obedience as obedience, obedience essentially to God,
obedience in an immediate sense to law, is in fact, what-
ever the paradox may seem to be, a direct note, and
necessary method, of the growth of free will. Cui servire
regnare. The perfect freedom is His service. It is clear
in the Person of Christ, who is the only model of perfect
freedom of will, that perfect freedom of will, and perfect
obedience to God, are not really distinguishable save as
two necessary aspects of one thing.
Perfect obedience, in a man, to God, is also perfect
conformity with his own highest possibilities of wisdom
and character; nor can he perfectly conform to his own
highest self, without conforming thereby to the obedience
of God. It is worth while to put this clearly, because this,
and this only, is the true and direct meaning of obedience.
This meaning has constantly been obscured, not illustrated,
when the word obedience has been carried over, without
any proper thoughtfulness, or consciousness of the necessary
qualifications, directly from obedience to God to obedience
to man. If free will necessarily takes the form of obedi-
ence, this means the obedience of the lower nature to
the higher, which is the same thing as obedience to God.
The very purpose of such an obedience as this, is to
develop and strengthen individual freedom of will. But
if obedience is to answer this purpose, of emancipating
and strengthening the true personal will ; it must have
this purpose unswervingly before its eyes, as the purpose
which gives it its own essential character. Obedience
does not mean subjection of will except to God who is
its own highest perfectness ; and it means subjection to
God, because subjection to God is individual perfectness,
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 229
the consummation of personal freedom in goodness. But
obedience to man always may be, and constantly is, a very
different thing.
Obedience to man in some forms is obedience to God.
For men in some cases are the real embodiment of the
moral standard of wisdom and goodness of others. Such
for instance is the true relation of a wise Christian mother
to a little child. Or again there are conditions of sub-
jection in which my duty to God requires my meek
acceptance of the rule " not only of the good and gentle,
but also of the froward."^ But this relation is not the
proper meaning of obedience. It is tyranny on their
part, and martyrdom on mine. My acceptance of martyr-
dom is indeed true obedience, but the obedience is to God,
not to man. Obedience to men in fact is a mere means
to an end. At best it never is an end in itself. At worst
it becomes a sacrilege and an abhorrence. The true end
of legitimate obedience is the freedom and the strengthen-
ing — not the crushing — of that sacred thing, the strong,
livine, personal will. Any language that men have
jrmitted themselves to use, whether of little children
in the nursery, or of "religious" persons under monastic
)bligations, as though the "breaking of the will" were
IS such, an object to be aimed at, is already on the edge
)f sacrilege. A real effort to break the personal will is
actual sacrilege. Man was not made to be a mere
machine. The man who deliberately goes about to
surrender the dignity of his own selfhood to the mere
sway of another: or the man who endeavours to sway
by his own judgment the selfhood ot another: is really
committing a sort of blasphemy against the majesty of
the character of God. It is not the breaking of the will,
in favour of a sort of mechanical surrender of a self, made
for Deity, to be a mere human machine : it is the breaking
1 I Pet. ii. 18.
230 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
only of the enslaving fetters of idle whim or false habits
upon the will, in the interest of the deepening and the
strengthening of the true self s freest exercise of will, till
it is the very personal re-echoing of the perfectness of
God : which is, and is alone, the legitimate outcome, or
object, of any discipline of (so-called) obedience. But
the minds are not always clear — even of good men ; and
men are not always good. There can be no practical
doubt that, upon this point, both the monastic ideal, and
the nursery ideal, have been, too often, grievously mis-
conceived. Whether cloaking private obstinacy under
the sanction of religious phrases, or through sheer in-
tellectual incapacity to distinguish the true significance
of obedience, men have very often upheld, perhaps too
often even practised, a theory of obedience, which found
its essential excellence in the crushing of the natural
development of personal judgment and of personal will.
The more the will was suppressed, the more the judg-
ment was overruled, — not in obedience to an inner light,
or a voice of command from God, but to the judgment
and the will of other men, — so much the more perfect
was the "obedience" conceived to be. Such a theory is
in truth a terrible, and on analysis even a blasphemous,
caricature.
The commentary upon this theory which is supplied by
the life of Jesus Christ is most notable. He is, on all
showing, the one and only perfect model of obedience.
His life never swerved from absolute dependence upon
God. In obedience to the will of God He submitted Him-
self, without a word, to the insolent outrage and cruelty of
men. But some three or four times in His life we read of
attempts that were made, and made (as we should have
said) at least with kind purpose and in good faith, by
those whom He loved, and who meant and tried to love
Him, — to move Him to allow His judgment and will
I
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY i3t
to be overruled by the judgment and will of others de-
ciding for Him. In every case the answer came back in
words — not of rudeness, as the English version might in
one case suggest, but of penetrating rebuke which admitted
neither of question nor reply, — " Wist ye not that I must
be about My Father's business ? " ^ " Woman, what have I
to do with thee ? " ^ Both these to His own mother. And
again of her, and her claim to intervene — "Who is My
mother ? and who are My brethren ? . . . whosoever doeth
the will of My Father which is in heaven, he is My
brother, and sister, and mother." ^ And as to the instance
that remains, — never lightning flash shot from the sky
with more sudden or more scathing outburst of power
than was in His rebuke to the leader of the Twelve, " Get
thee behind Me, Satan : for thou mindest not the things
rOf God, but the things of men."* His example is not
encouraging to those, who would find the true essence
[of obedience in submission of the personal will and
judgment to the judgment and the will of other men.
It was worth while to lay some stress upon this, not only
for its own intrinsic importance in illustrating the relation of
)bedience to free will ; but also because, when this has been
[strongly said, it becomes possible to emphasize, without fear
)f being misinterpreted, a different lesson from monastic
)bedience. If the theory has too often been held without
due proportion, it does not follow that it has been so
always. Moreover, even in cases where the theory may
have been, as theory, misconceived : yet good men are so
habitually better in their practice, than in their statement,
of their own theories, that it would probably be simple
truth of fact to say that many of the best and highest
approaches towards the reality of freedom of will are to
be found, as in former ages so in this, in the very directions
1 St Luke ii. 49. a gj Jq^ ^^ ^^
» St Mat. xii. 48-sa * St Mark viii. 33.
232 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
which men off-hand would think to be the least natural and
least free ; that is to say within the walls of self-effacing
communities, in the common life of brotherhoods or of
sisterhoods. For terrible as is the perversion to which their
theory, if mis-stated, is liable, (as " corruptio optimi pessimal^)
yet, after all, they are constantly endeavouring to practise
the discipline of not letting their wills be shaped (a shap-
ing which is inchoate slavery) by the ease or whim of the
moment ; they are constantly teaching themselves to will,
and will effectively, exactly the thing which they believe
that they ought to will, simply because they believe that
they ought to will it : and therefore they are acquiring,
through submission to law, — the law which does so far
correspond with the nature of their true highest being, —
an insight into the secret of what freedom of will would
mean. For our will is not free, until we have in ourselves
the power effectually to will what we desire to will ; and
to desire exactly what we ought ; that is, what belongs to
the true perfection of ourselves. To discern what we
ought, and to desire what we discern ; and then to be
able, with unhindered and untrammelled freedom of spirit,
effectively to will what we desire : to be able in a word, to
give full effect, by the sovereign spontaneity of our own
will, to the supremest reality of the possibilities of our-
selves : nothing less than this can be the real freedom of
will. Its sovereignty consists not in lack of correspondence
with that which is without, (for it is in perfect correspon-
dence with that which is without that the self is perfectly
realized,) but in that perfect emancipation from all disabilities
within, all the tyrannies of false habit or indolent whim,
which held the divine image back from really being either
divine or itself.
It is plain, then, if the conception of free will suggested
in this chapter has been, even approximately, true ; that,
whilst our experience necessarily starts with the witness
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 233
to free will, the germ of free will, the capacity, and the
necessary demand, for free will, yet we do not, in fact^
possess that real freedom of will, which we cannot but,
all the while, both imagine and claim. Something we
possess which bears witness of it ; which may be developed
into it ; but which, in its present imperfectness, is in many
points even sharply contrasted with it.
It is plain also that we grow more and more towards it,
in proportion as our dependence upon, and union of Spirit
with, Christ, become more vitally real in us. So that it
appears that free will itself, — the very first thing which we
most fundamentally claimed as showing what we meant
by our own personality, or proving that we were personal
indeed, — can only then, at last, be consummated in us,
when our union is consummated with Christ ; and the
very Spirit of the Incarnate (in penitence alike, or in
holiness, annihilating sin,) is the Spirit, which has become
the constitutive reality, of ourselves.
Another claim which our personality makes, and by
which it vindicates and explains itself to itself, is the claim
to reason or wisdom. We rest upon our capacity of re-
flection, in self-conscious thought, upon the universe and
upon ourselves. " CogitOy ergo sum " is the famous phrase
which sums up a vast region of conscious, or unconscious
argument as to the meaning of human personality.
If for the moment, we speak of this claim as the claim
to rational faculty, we do so in order to ask a little further
what this word rational — or reason — means. Probably we
imagine it first as a continuing process, of question and
answer, and comparison, and inference, and discovery
But question about what ? and what does the answer con-
vey? what is compared with what? and what is inferred
or discovered ? It is worth while to insist from the first
that whatever difficulties of intellectual exercise, or
234 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
gradualness of process, or succession of surprises in dis-
covery, may be in fact contained in our experience of
rational capacity, these do not belong to the essence of
what reason means. All these belong to the fact of
its imperfection, not its essence. They belong to the
fact that it is learning to develop, and is still at a very
early stage of development. They may be compared to
the unexpected puzzles, the comical surprises, and the
delightful discoveries, which belong to infants in the
earliest stage of acquiring the faculty of walking on their
own legs. They are all part of the machinery, and part
moreover of that grating and creaking of the machinery,
which show that it is not really, as yet, in that proper
symmetry of mutual relation, which is the ideal significance
of even the clumsiest piece of actual machinery. We
will decline, then, to mean by " rational faculty " anything
in the least like the capacity of ingenious playing with
logical processes for the sake of dialectical exercise or
victory ; or even (as in some cases it may be) for the
sake of obscuring and avoiding truth. No; we mean
reason, not in its infantine capacity of turning ridiculous
intellectual somersaults ; nor yet in the strugglings and
creakings of its own, as yet, imperfectly adjusted
machinery; but we mean that which is the real aim
and end of all these things, in its most real and serious
sense. We mean the capacity of personal insight into
reality — of all kinds, and most of all into whatever is
highest and most inclusive as reality : we mean personal
capacity of beholding wisdom and truth. Truth of course
is manifold and multiform. There are truths of material
fact: truths of abstract statement: truths of historical
occurrence : truths of moral experience : truths of spiritual
existence: and that truth is deepest and truest, which
most includes and unifies them all. Nothing whatever
will be gained but mystification and error, from starting
«.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 235
with any conception of reason or " rational " which would
make its essential meaning less, or other, than wisdom,
personal discernment, the penetrative insight of the very
self into truth, as true.
Approaching, then, reason qr wisdom in this way,
we may say, first of all, that there is one aspect in which
it will be much easier in the case of this claim, than in the
claim to free will, to see at once that the minds of in-
dividual persons realize truth, not in proportion as they
are independent of, but rather as they perfectly correspond
with and reflect, that larger truth of Mind, which is itself
equally true whether reflected in individual apprehension or
no. Obviously, in this case at least, the personal perfectness
depends not on its diversity from, but on its identity with,
a certain larger whole of which the personal perfectness
is at most but a part. There is a truth, which is anterior
to, and outside of, ourselves. It is in the universe ; it is
in all existence ; it is the intelligibleness of everything ;
it is the principle of motion by which all things move, of
life by which life exists, of order which differentiates the
universe from chaos. It is in ourselves ; and it is by
schooling ourselves to its study and discipline; it is in
proportion as we learn, with more perfect apprehension,
to enter for ourselves into this Mind of truth, of which our
existence, whether material or mental, is already in some
sense a part, that we ourselves become, more and more,
rational and wise. The claim to reach wisdom by some
transcendental method of improving upon, instead of by
simple subordination to, the apprehension of things which
already are, would be felt, on all hands, to be a claim
which must really characterize, not so much the exception-
ally wise, as the hopelessly insane.
But if there is one obvious sense, from the first, in which
it can be said that individual reason or wisdom only
realizes itself, in proportion as it becomes a conscious part
236 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
of a much more inclusive whole, faithfully mirroring,
because it has become so far self-identified with, what was
from the first, and still is, beyond itself: this is but
an aspect of a truth which needs further supplementing, in
other ways.
This is, so far, an abstract statement, which is true of
any finite mind as mind, in relation to anything which can
be called truth at all. But it is important to observe that
truth is of many kinds, and that different kinds of truth
appeal to many different strands in the complex conscious-
ness of man. The truths of infantine experience in
material surroundings : the truths of arithmetic : the truths
of physiology : the truths of metaphysical philosophy or
of moral experience, — do not appeal to a single faculty
in man. It is not so much true to say that they appeal to
different parts of his personality, as that they appeal —
partly to somewhat different combinations, and still more to
somewhat different amounts, or degrees, of that complex
completeness which is himself A moral lesson about
truth or falsehood, if really apprehended by a child, not as
an interesting story only, but as part of that inner store,
which is at once mental knowledge and moral resolve, and
which we know as character ; has in fact required for
its apprehension, and has, in the act of apprehension, really
touched and enlarged, a much wider range of experiences
and capacities, than any lesson of simple arithmetic,
or simple science. All knowledge is not equal as
knowledge. There is a real hierarchy of truths ; and
though every truth has its value, yet a deeper and more
abiding value belongs to those which affect and include
the widest inclusiveness of human faculties. Now, man's
moral consciousness is a wider and more inclusive thing, as
consciousness, than what we often call, by an effort of
logical abstraction (as if we could really eliminate the
mental from the moral, or the moral from the mental), his
IX.]
HUMAN PERSONALITY
«37
" merely " intellectual or rational power. And spiritual
truth is that which gives its ultimate meaning to the
moral, and alone really vivifies and unifies the entire
consciousness of man. It is true that fire burns. It
is true that the angles of a triangle are equal to two
right angles. The law of gravitation, the principle
of the conservation of energy, are statements of
truth. It is true that man is mortal. It is true that
goodness is happiness. It is true that God is love.
It is true that the perfectness of man's capacity is
communion with God. But if these propositions are all
true, it is manifest that the truth of some of them includes
and affects the entire range, and the noblest consummation,
of the capacities of man's personality, in a way in which
the truth of others does not. It is manifest moreover that
just in proportion as these different truths affect, if true,
a wider range of man's being: so they require that
wider range of man's being and experience, for the
possibility of their apprehension as truths. It is a very
small part of man's complex nature by which he fully
understands that two and two make four. But com-
munion with God, if ever he fully understands it at all, he
will certainly not understand with anything less than the
total range of all his capacities, mental, moral, and spiritual.
And, moreover, in his understanding of it, he will recognize
the hierarchical relation of his own faculties ; those that are
deepest and highest of capacity obviously transcending,
and dominating, — even while they include, — those whose
range, as m^re limited, is recognized as being really lower
in level.^
^ In connection with this section of the present chapter, I may perhaps be
allowed to make reference to an essay on the mutual inter-dependence
of ** Reason and ReligioUy' in which I endeavoured, a few years ago, to
discuss, with somewhat more fulness, the true meaning, and the different
manifestations, of reason. I refer to it in the main, simply as a more expanded
statement of my present meaning. But whilst doing so I should like to take
238 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
It is a truth familiar to human experience that, for the ap-
prehension of moral and spiritual truth, moral and spiritual
experience is indispensable. You cannot apprehend
spiritual truths by precisely and solely the same faculties
with which you apprehend scientific facts. The apprehend-
ing mind must itself be moral and spiritual, if it is to have
intelligence in the region of moral and spiritual things.
But it is a familiar fallacy of human language, that just
when man's power of rational intelligence is reaching
its own highest forms and highest powers, to deal with its
own highest subject matter, the terms intelligent and
rational are too often withdrawn, as though they belonged,
by a sort of exclusive right, to those lower regions of
experience, of which they were first used, and in which
they are most widely familiar. This is partly a con-
sequence of the misleading attempt to abstract mental
from moral, and moral from mental, as though they could
be, at any stage, really sundered the one from the other :
and it issues in the preposterous result, that human
reason and wisdom, just when they are developing
into their own highest consummation, that is to say
when they are becoming luminously spiritual, are supposed,
just because they are becoming spiritual, to pass ipso facto
away from what can be called human reason or intelligence
at all. The truths which men are inclined to call
distinctively rational, the truths in apprehending which the
moral nature bears no part, are simply lower in plane than
moral truths : while moral truths, so called, of which the
key and clue, nay the whole ultimate life and meaning, are
the opportunity of saying expressly that in the opening pages of the last paper
which that little volume contains there are a few phrases which I should cer-
tainly wish to modify now. The modification would be rather in pursuance,
than in contradiction, of what was really the essential thought of that paper.
But I should certainly now prefer to avoid, as misleading, any use, in reference
to human personality, of any phrase, such as "a distinct centre of being,"
which might even seem to conceive of it at all otherwise than in its capacity of
relation to, and dependence on, God.
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 239
not spiritual, are like buildings on the sand, which have, in
time of stress, no sure foundation.
In all cases alike, mental, moral, and spiritual, man's
capacity of reason or wisdom is really in fact his power
of perception or insight into truth which is already actually
true ; it is his power of realizing, by conscious reflection,
what are anyhow, with him or without him, the methods or
principles of the Being of God. To see, in the white, worn,
bleeding flesh of a crucified convict, the LORD of Life and
of Death, was no exercise of ordinary, or scientific, reason
in the mind of the penitent thief But it was true insight,
into truth, as true, not the less but the more, for that.
To see God in every common sight : to see Christ above
all in the daily experience of the Christian life ; ^ to see
the majesty of His presence in the person of the poor
and sordid sufferer; to see the glory of His Spirit in
little efforts for good which the world, if it saw them at
all, would resent or despise: this requires indeed condi-
tions and faculties of insight which we sometimes, by per-
verse antithesis, are ready even to contrast with
" rational " ; and yet it is, after all, a true insight into
truth of Divine fact, in the highest conceivable plane of
Divine truth.
It is true, no doubt, that the essential faculties for
such insight as this may be wanting in many minds,
in which many lower branches of rational apprehension
are developed in even exceptional degrees. It is of
course open to the world to deny that any such things are
true at all : to deny alike the Person of Christ and the
Being of God. But it is not open to any one to doubt
the relative importance of these truths, if they be true.
The insight which discerns the Spirit, and can see the
Christ, — if it is a truth at all and not a lie — must needs be,
by the universal confession of all rational minds, higher
^ John xiv. 19, etc,
240 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
as insight into truth as true, higher that is as human
reason or wisdom, than the most accurate apprehension
of any truth, however inclusive, in the merely material
sphere. Our current language, then, is apt both to narrow,
and also to isolate, reason over much. Reason means
much more than we are content to suppose ; and it is,
even from its very lowest beginning, — and is more and
more as it rises in scope and significance, — inseparable
from the rest of man's nature, with which we continue
to contrast it, but with which its highest powers are
increasingly interwoven. Its own highest ranges and
powers, which current language more than half disowns,
are found in fact to be more and more dependent upon,
more and more identified with, that consummation of
the self by its passing beyond itself, that self-realization in
oneness with the Spirit of the Incarnate Christ, in which
we have found already the crown and climax of the
meaning of human free will.
There is one aspect more in reference to which it is
well to add a few words before passing from the present
subject. It has just been said that Intelligence in its
higher ranges, is less and less distinct from the total
man. As in God, Truth, Goodness, Love, Eternity,
Almightiness, though different attributes, are perfected
only in an ultimate unity, which is absolutely every one
of them all — so that Truth is not really Truth, nor
Holiness Holiness, apart from Love : nor can Love be
ultimately Love, that is not Holiness and also Truth, and
also infinite and Almighty Being: so, in measure, it is
with the ideal consummation of man. The more, then,
the human attribute of reason or wisdom approaches, as it
does approach in its higher significance, to affecting and
involving the whole man : the more obvious does the
principle become that it will not lie outside of, but will fall
within that law which is the law of the whole man's
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 241
development, — the law of perfection through sacrifice. As
free will, that it may become free, has by what looks like
a suicidal plunge, to sacrifice the only thing which seemed
at first to constitute its freedom : as the capacity of joy,
that it may become joy indeed, in the true and only real
sense of what joy means, has to forego by strong effort of
self-sacrificing will, not only the things which seemed at
first to be the necessary conditions of joy, but almost (as
it seems) if not quite, in many cases, what looked like the
very capacity of joy itself: as, in each case, that is to say,
there is an apparent, and a lower, form of excellence, the
deliberate sacrifice of which is the condition of the de-
velopment of the higher : so it is with reason or wisdom.
The faculty of reason appears to a man at first as if
it were enthroned alone, in its pride: as if it were by
itself, as he knows it, — that is, as he feels that it is, or is
coming to be, in himself, — the sovereign judge and sole
arbiter of everything, in every sphere, which offers itself
to his consideration as true. He helps himself, indeed,
and teaches himself, by the reason of other men. But
the real judge and arbiter is, after all, in himself. No\9
even such a form of self-assertion as this is not wholly,
iin words, untrue — provided it first be learnt what the
[self is, and what the conditions are of its self-realization.
There is indeed a gauge of wisdom in the transfigured
self. But the self has first to be transfigured. There is
a pride of what seems at first like wisdom to be cut
sharply down, that the root of the true wisdom may
begin to put out its shoots. It is not unlike free will,
or self love, or the instinctive desire for joy, in this.
It has to come down from its pedestal of glory, and to
confess how near is the natural pride of human intellect
to the consummation of folly. It has to recognize, through
a cleansing process, which is none the less really an in-
tellectual discipline, because it palpably belongs to the
Q
242 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
sphere of moral causes and effects, — first how it is that
the wisdom of the wise is outdone, even as wisdom, by
what seemed as the merest foolishness to that which
foolishly thought itself wisdom once: and secondly how
it is that not the isolation of intellect as intellect, but
the absolute surrender of personal allegiance, allegiance
of spirit to the Spirit of the Incarnate, — that Spirit whose
wisdom is not other than holiness, nor His holiness other
than wisdom, — is the condition ultimately essential for
seeing the whole, or the true proportion, of truth. It is
not the poor, weak, unaided intellect of the isolated
individual ; it is not intellect in relation to a universe
of which itself is regarded as centre or crown ; it is
rather the insight of character, the intellect of goodness,
it is the personal intellect as illumined by the Spirit,
which is the reflection of truth.
It is not indeed that the powers of human intellect are
contemptible. The powers of human intellect are trans-
cendent, beyond all capacity of utterance. But the condi-
tion of the development of the transcendent powers of
human intellect is its self-surrender, and through self-
surrender, transformation, from its first nakedness of separate
self-sufiiciency — to the humblest and most dutiful com-
munion with God. By sacrifice of what seemed to it
once to be its very self, its essential independence of
prerogative, it arises purified : the scales dropped off;
the mote and the beam alike gone : the eyes of the Spirit
really opened ; the vision of God unveiled. It had been
trying to read the secret of wisdom through methods and
under limitations which made any real apprehension there-
of impossible. Vainly, to the end of time, will human
wisdom that has passed through no regenerating process,
— spirit-humbling at once, and eye-opening ; vainly, that
is, will philosophy, otherwise than in conscious and open
dependence upon Christian theological truth, attempt to
I
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 243
read the riddle of existence, whether in external pheno-
mena, or in man, or in God.
Beyond all question this is the claim, — as it is the
experience, — of St Paul. Whatever difficulty there may
be in stating accurately, in words, the nature of the change
which natural reason undergoes before it can see the
deeper reality, and right proportion, of truth ; it is clear
that there is a transformation, of a moral and spiritual
order, without which intellect must still remain disordered
and incompetent as intellect. It is expressly of philosophy
apart from Christian truth, apart from a Christian's
knowledge of the personality of God, and the personality
of man — its utter incompleteness and the conditions of
its self-realization, — that he says, "Where is the wise?
where is the scribe ? where is the disputer of this world ?
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its
wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through
the foolishness of the preaching " [the R. V. margin points
out that it is, in the Greek, "the thing preached" rov
KTjpvyfiaToSf] "to save them that believe. . . . Christ cruci-
fied, unto Jews a stumbling - block, and unto Gentiles
foolishness ; but unto them that are called, both Jews and
Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of
God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men ;
and the weakness of God is stronger than men." ^ The
passage should be considered continuously to the end
of the 3rd chapter, e.g. " Even so the things of God none
knoweth, save the Spirit of God. But we received, not
the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God ;
that we might know the things that are freely given to
us by God. Which things also we speak, not in words
which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit
teacheth: ... the natural man receiveth not the things
^ z Cor. i. 20, sgg.
244 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
of the Spirit of God ; for they are fooh'shness unto him ;
and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually
judged. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things . . .
we have the mind of Christ. ... If any man thinketh
that he is wise among you in this world, let him become
a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this
world is foolishness with God . . . Wherefore let no one
glory in men. For all things are yours ; ... all are
yours ; and ye are Christ's ; and Christ is God's." Only
as the property of Christ, — wholly dependent on Christ,
as Christ is dependent on God, — can man, as a " reason-
able" personality, realize the significance, or attain the
consummation, of what "reason" in a personality really
means.
We have spoken hitherto, first of man's claim to the
possession of free will, and then of his claim to the posses-
sion of reason. These differ from each other, not so much
as diverse parts or faculties of man, but rather as different
aspects of his total self, for his total self is, in fact, implied
and included in each. In either case, we found that
though man's original claim was by no means without
foundation, yet the germs which he actually possessed were
something extremely remote from what the full idea,
whether of free will or of reasonable wisdom, would be
found, on analysis, necessarily to involve. In either case
moreover we observed that man approximated towards the
realization of his own inherently necessary idea, whether of
reason or of free will, in proportion as he ceased to be, or
even to seem to be, " merely " himself ; in proportion as he
was made one with the Spirit of the Christ, and, in fact,
attained at last to the full realization of himself in the act
of what had once looked like the inanition of self, — his frank
and full surrender of all faculties to a life of self-identifica-
tion with Another. In either case, finally, we saw indica-
tions that the consummation of one aspect of man's being
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 245
was the breaking down of its distinction from other aspects
However far from each other, in their rudimentary stages,
inchoate freedom of will and inchoate reason may appear to
us to be : the higher they rise in the scale of their own
completeness, the less, it seemed, could either free will be con-
ceived apart from insight of wisdom, or insight of wisdom
apart from its necessary aspect as determination of character.
We had reason more than to suspect that the final con-
summation of either would necessarily be the consummation
of both : or rather that, in final consummation, they are
not, and cannot be, distinguished any longer as two ; they
are but inseparable aspects of one identity.
In respect of the third instinctive claim which man
makes to personality, — his capacity of love, — it will not be
necessary to speak at great length. This is not, for a
moment, because love is of less significance for the purpose
than either reason, or free will. On the contrary it is, if
possible, more significant still. But it is because the
different considerations which were comparatively obscure
in respect of free will and of reason, are so clear in the case
of love, that at some points they almost approach to being
self-evident. Following the analogy of the former cases,
we should be prepared for such propositions as these.
First, that man had, from the beginning of his conscious-
ness, something which witnessed to the idea of love, which,
through whatever perversions, had affinity with it, which
constituted an instinctive claim to it, and was known by its
name. Secondly, that, on examination, this love which he
certainly had, was not only not the real completeness of
that idea of love, of which it bore witness, and which was
knowable through it ; but was even, in many points, in
extreme antithesis against what was, all the time, its own
true ideal. Thirdly, that it was not by mere addition, but
by very considerable subtraction ; not by building on,
246 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
but by cutting away ; by discipline, and refusal, and
sacrifice, of a very great part of what had seemed to be the
necessary conditions, if not the very capacity itself, of love ;
that the natural love, with which man starts, is emancipated
from the slavery of its own imperfectness, and begins to
acquire the capacity of corresponding to what love ideally
means. Fourthly, that the nearer it approaches to its ideal
consummation as love, the less is it capable of being
practically separated, or at last even distinguished, from
such other aspects of man's total being, as his reason, or
his will ; which are, in fact, implied and absorbed within
love. And fifthly, that the process towards this consumma-
tion can be seen to coincide with the gradual realization of
the self, — not by progressive distinction from all that
seemed to be not self, but by progressive self-surrender to
what at first offered itself for acceptance as " other " ; — by
progressive self-identity with that Spirit of the Incarnate,
which being the very Spirit of God in, and as, human
character, is found to be the consummation of the perfect-
ness of the self of every man.
After what has been said it hardly seems necessary to
dwell upon these statements one by one. There is perhaps
no word in human language which has had a wider range
of significance, or, it must be added, a history of pro-
founder degradation, than love. It has ranged from the
depths of hell to the highest height of heaven. It has
described the darkest perversions of which the godlike
nature of man is capable. Yet in its true self it is more
than Godlike : it is God.
Not only are there a thousand different forms of what
can be openly convicted as perverse love of self, devotion
to what is known, at bottom, to be evil, love really of the
world, and the flesh, and the devil. There are also a
thousand, and again a thousand, most intricate and de-
ceptive combinations of the evil and the good, the hideous
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 247
and the beautiful. There is tainted love of country,
ambitious love of office or industry or wisdom, selfish
love of home, and of all the beautiful things that home
might represent : nay, there is self-aggrandising phil-
anthropy, selfish love of unselfishness, self-centred self-
sacrifice;^ until we sometimes fairly reel with the sense
of the hopelessness of ever being free from the web of
insidious perversions with which every apparent approach
to real love is enmeshed. But does any one, in his
moments of serious thought, really mistake all, or any
one, of these, for that reality of Spirit, of which St John
speaks ; " God is love ; and he that abideth in love
abideth in God, and God abideth in him." ..." We know
that we have passed out of death into life, because we
love the brethren." " Hereby know we that we abide in
Him, and He In us, because He hath given us of His
Spirit "?2
On the other hand has any one once seen a face out
of which all mocking unrealities of aggressive, or even
of deceptive, selfishness had faded wholly at last ; a face
which was animated by the very purity of the flame of
the Spirit which at last was love ? Or, at the least, have
we not all seen some moments, some glimpses, of this?
Just so far we know that we too have seen real glimpses
of the face of the love of God.
There is nothing, in fact, in the five statements which
were made just now which is not covered by the glowing
words of St John. Only on one aspect more a few words
may be added. It is a commonplace in the doctrine of
love, — that the root of opposition to love is self. There
is of course an apparent love which is merely ministering
to self. But the conquest of self is the true emancipation
of love. Love versus self, then, and self versus love is
the familiar antithesis : so that self-love is the contradiction
^ I Cor. xiii. 3. * i John iv, 16 ; iii. 14 ; iv. 13.
248 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
of love's reality ; and the total subjugation of the self is
the finding of love. But if the subjugation of the self
is the finding of love, it may be asked which self? for the
total subjugation of the natural self as truly is the finding
of the true self as it is the finding of love. " Whosoever
shall lose his life for My sake shall find it." If the crown-
ing of the natural self is the ruin of love ; yet the crowning
of love is the crowning of the true self. This is but
another witness to the essential truth of the law of
sacrifice. Whether it be free will, or reason, or love, the
imperfect cannot be educated into the perfect by natural
processes. The false cannot of itself grow into the true.
The sour cannot become sweet, through grafting, without
the knife.
The question with which this chapter began, and to
which all its thought is really directed, is this ; what is
the relation of the Spirit of God, become through In-
carnation the Spirit of Man ; what is the relation (in a
single word) of Pentecost, to the meaning of human
personality? And the answer is, that it is only through
Pentecost that the meaning of human personality is ever
actually realized at all. It is only through absolute
oneness with the Spirit of Human perfection that the
perfect meaning of Humanity can ever be touched or
seen. Only the man who is consummated in God has
attained the fulness of what was, all through, from the
very beginning, the inherent craving, and ideal significance,
of personal self-hood in man.
It is the capital mistake of human thought to set out
with the conception of human self-hood, as though it were
already a completed verity, realizing within itself, as
actual realities, the different attributes or necessities,
the witness to which is indeed exhibited in itself. It has
been the capital mistake of expositions of atonement in
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 249
particular, when they would explain how the Cross of
Christ benefited mey to treat the word "I" as a single,
indivisible term, of unchallenged and self-evident meaning,
which did not, because it could not, vary throughout the
whole process of its salvation ; and outside of which,
therefore, the process must be shown to be both complete
and intelligible.
Not so. The " I " is only, in its early experience, a
most tentative, inchoate, and imperfect, realization of
what the word " I " needs to mean. In respect of each
of the three main component aspects or elements of
personality, as we analyze or explain it to ourselves.
Freedom of Will, and Reason or Wisdom, and Love ;
we have some reason for saying that there is no man
who really possesses them, or any one of them, in its
own proper meaning, by himself Something he possesses
which corresponds to each one ; but something which un-
ess purified, and enlarged, and transformed, — through the
method of suffering and sacrifice, — will be found not only
to fall short of, but even ultimately to contradict, its own
inherent significance. We have none of them, save with
this fatal imperfectness, till our true selves are set free
from their damning caricature ; till we become our true
selves, consummated and complete, through the indwelling
completeness of the Spirit of the Incarnate Christ
It will not be denied that this is cardinal to the
teaching of the Gospel of Christ's Church. "Abide in
Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of
itself, except it abide in the vine; so neither can ye
except ye abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the
branches ; he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same
beareth much fruit: for apart from Me ye can do
nothing." ^ " Even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I
in Thee, that they also may be in Us . . . that they may
^ John XV. 4, 5.
2SO ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
be one, even as We are one ; I in them, and Thou in Me,
that they may be perfected into one." ^ " He that is
joined to the Lord is one Spirit." ^ « But if any man hath
not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His." ^ " Try your
own selves, whether ye be in the faith ; prove your own
selves. Or know ye not as to your own selves, that Jesus
Christ is in you ? unless indeed ye be reprobate." * Even
texts like these are but samples of a vast body of teaching
that is vitally characteristic.
It is indeed most familiar to Christian thought, that
the excellent glory of a man is only in personal union
and communion with the Spirit of Jesus Christ. But even
this thought has too often been conceived on the basis
of a tacit assumption, that whatever excellency of beauty
he, the man, might receive through the Spirit : yet he, the
real he, was at least as " he " complete anyhow ; — was,
from the first, essentially and consummately himself.
Though he, in the dutiful exercise of his freedom of will
his rational wisdom, and his love, — every one of which, he
was conceived of as inherently realizing, — might be the
recipient of divinely adorning gifts, or might enter into
new and divine relations, leading him onwards to the
glory of unimaginable beatitude : yet by the very terms of
the thought, if strictly pressed, the divine gifts, as gifts, the
beauty, as adornment, the beatitude, as joy (however
unspeakable), were differentiated from the " he " : were
rather conditions outside of, than the inherent character
which constituted, the central reality of the self. It is
precisely this assumption that we have desired to correct
Our point is that it is only through the indwelling of the
Spirit that the " he " begins to be realized in the true and
proper sense of a " he " at all.
Is it seriously to be thought that a human personality,
^John xvii. 21-3. ^i Cor. vi. 17.
^ Rom. viii. 9. * 2 Cor. xiii. 5.
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 251
in whom all freedom of will, actual or possible, is more
and more progressively enslaved to the most degrading
and destructive of tyrannies ; in whom what once was
called reason or wisdom is more and more progressively
incapable of the highest discernment of truth, the vision of
God and of His Christ, forever ; in whom love, so called,
having long lost all real affinity with the true meaning of
love, which is the essential and inherent presence of God,
comes to be every day with merer and merer nakedness,
the most blasphemous form of self-worship, and by
consequence the very spite of impotent hatred against
whatever is, in any way, godlike or good ; in whom, in a
word, every faculty, which even our instinctive thought
connects with the barest conception of personality, is
manifestly degenerating into ruin at least, if not into
dissolution ; is it seriously to be thought that such an one,
nevertheless, from first to last, fully realizes in himself all
that human personality, as such, can rightly be said to
mean?
On the other hand, where the Spirit of the Incarnate
is indwelling. He is present neither as a distinct or
extraneous gift, nor as an overruling force in which the
self is merged and lost, but as the consummation of the self.
It is no doubt perfectly true to speak of the " Spirit " as
the " gift " of God. But there is a point at which even this
true phrase may rather obscure than illustrate the truth.
For to speak of a gift given to me is so far to distinguish
in thought between me and the gift : and just so far as I
distinguish I begin to go wrong. Even indeed when I
speak of a presence "within me," I do still, to a certain
extent, by the very terms used, make the presence and the
"me" not identical. And so far again I fall short, not
indeed of any present experience, but of the ideal truth
which I am fain to express. For the very meaning, at least
of the ultimate reality of the Spirit in me, is that this
252 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
distinction is no longer real. The gift of the Spirit is a
gift — an objective gift if you will — how different from the
original " I " to whom He is given ! yet this very gift is
only real after all, in so far as He is in me subjectively
realized. So that after all it is perhaps not so much, nor
so distinctively, true to say an objective gift, as a subjective
receiving and response; not so much, or at least not so
ultimately, something that is conferred upon the " I," as
what the " I " becomes in, and through, receiving. He is
not a mere presence in me, overruling, controlling, dis-
placing. What He in me does, I do. What He in me
wills, I will. What He in me loves, I love. Nay, never
is my will so really free : never is my power so worthy of
being called power : never is my rational wisdom so
rational or so wise ; never is my love so really love ; never
moreover is any one of these things so royally my own ;
never am I, as I, so capable, so personal, so real ; never am
I, in a word, as really what the real " I " always tried to
mean ; as when by the true indwelling of the Spirit of God,
I enter into the realization of myself; as when I at last
correspond to, and fulfil, and expand in fulfilling, all the
unexplored possibilities of my personal being, by a
perfect mirroring of the Spirit of Christ ; as when in Him
and by Him I am, at last, a true, willing, personal response
to the very Being of God.
The capacities are indeed unexplored. It is to be re-
membered that even Jesus Christ upon earth, while He
was the perfect expression of Divine Personality in
Humanity, yet was so only under conditions, deliberately
self chosen, of mortal and penitential disability. But the
essential conditions of personality, in its proper consumma-
tion, are neither penitential nor mortal. We must look
beyond even Christ's manifestation on earth, beyond all
penitential and mortal conditions, beyond all possibilities
of realized experience, to discern anything of that trans-
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 253
cendent glory which was, after all, the true underlying
meaning of our dim solitary struggling effort of personality,
and of the freedom, the reason, and the love, which we dimly
recognized as elements necessary to its fulness. " Behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us,
that we should be called children of God : and such we
are. . . . Beloved now are we children of God, and it is
not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that,
if He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him ; for we
shall see Him even as He is." ^ " Now the Lord is the
Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is
liberty. But we all with unveiled face reflecting as a
mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the
same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord
the Spirit." 2 Not that the Spirit, by constituting the
personality of all, will make all alike. He will not over-
rule to uniformity, but develop the several possibilities of
every one. They will differ, as much as and far more than,
the difference, — in equal glory, — of the stars or the flowers.
" There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the
moon, and another glory of the stars ; for one star differeth
from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of
the dead." ^
What then, once more, is our statement of human
personality ? It is no several or separate thing. Its
essentia cannot be found in terms of distinctness. It does
not, ideally or practically, signify a new, independent,
centrality of being. On the contrary, it is altogether de-
pendent and relative. It is not first self-realized in dis-
tinctness, that it may afterwards, for additional perfection
of enjoyment, be brought into relations. In relation
and dependence lies its very essentia. Wherever the least
real germ of it exists, the true meaning of even that
germinal and tentative life, as seen in what it is capable
^ I John iii. 1,2. * 2 Cor. iii. 17, i8. » i Cor. xv. 41, 42.
254 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
of becoming, is this. It is the capacity of thrilling, in
living response, to the movement of the Spirit ; it is the
aspiration, through conscious affinity (in such hope as is the
pledge of its own possibility) after the very beauty of
holiness ; it is the possibility of self-realization, and
effective self-expression, as love ; it is the prerogative of
consciously reflecting, as a living mirror, the very character
of the Being of God. This, and nothing less, is the true
reality of personality, that reality which we claim so easily,
and so very imperfectly attain. It is only by realizing
this that we ever can realize the fulness of what is, in fact,
demanded and implied in the very consciousness of being
a person. Personality is the possibility of mirroring God ;
the faculty of being a living reflection of the very attri-
butes and character of the Most High.
Whilst, then, it may be true that philosophical thought
IS more or less explicitly teaching us that created person-
ality is not, and cannot be, a really distinct or self-sub-
sistent centre of being ; that all existence must be, in its
ultimate reality, not multiplicity but unity ; that the par-
ticular can only reach its own proper self-realization in
the way of relation, as part of the universal and the
absolute : it is plain that at least to Christian theology
the corresponding language is not strange, but inveterately
familiar and congenial. Here at least Christian theology
speaks, with simplicity and confidence, of truths which
have always been clear and certain to herself. To her at
least, if, on the one hand, the several self, as several, is
true — in a sense and with a capacity neither conceived
nor conceivable elsewhere; on the other hand, human
personality, just so far as it claims to be self-centred or
self-contained, is personality, so far, in contradiction
against all that personality ought to mean. To Christian
theology at least, the loneliness of a personality single
and sundered, is a condition that of necessity belongs —
IX.] HUMAN PERSONALITY 255
not to life, but to death. If any one desires a Christian
formula for the central conception of human personality,
it may be gathered from the words of St Paul, " I have
been crucified with Christ ; yet I live ; and yet no longer
I, but Christ liveth in me." ^ I, yet not I. Not I, and
therefore I, the full, real, consummated " I," at last ! Here
is the real inmost principle of life and immortality brought
to light by the gospel of Christ. And the words of St
John are a significant comment ; " We know that the Son
of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that
we know Him that is true, and we are in Him that
s true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true
God, and eternal life." ^ And both phrases are but com-
ments on those supreme words of the Incarnate to the
Eternal, of the Christ to God ; " I in them and Thou in
Me, that they may be perfected into one " . . . " that the
love wherewith Thou lovedst Me may be in them, and I
in them." 3
* Gal. iL 90. • I John v. aa • John xvii. 23-26.
CHAPTER X
THE CHURCH AND SACRAMENTS
If we turn from the side of theory to the familiar
experience of the Christian life, it is sufficiently manifest
that the religious character, so far as it is realized, is a
character which is at every point, and for everything that
it is, not self-sufficing, but dependent on Another. "It
is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that
speaketh in you " ^ is a pregnant saying, representing the
very principle of the inwardness of the individual Christian
life.
This essential religious reality, wherever it is a reality
at all, is recognized all the world over in two most
universal and necessary ways. First in the habit, —
whether more formulated or less, — of meditation and
prayer. The thoughts of a religious man, in their un-
conscious roaming, as well as in the efforts which they
consciously pursue, turn upwards and Godwards. And
such thoughts culminate in prayer ; — the perfectly deliber-
ate uplifting and effort of the self, as self, and all that
it is or may be, in the way of yearning and request
towards God. Such thought, and such prayer, (whether
when measured by the clock they seem to occupy a
longer or a shorter portion of his occupied time,) cannot
be, to the religious man, a merely occasional exception,
intervening in great contrast with the true inward tenor
of his thought and life. On the contrary, it is they which
^ Matt. X. 20.
I
CHAV. X.] THE CHURCH AND SACRAMENTS 257
are the real staple, the underlying background, of all
his consciousness. Outwardly he may be a busy priest,
or a busy statesman, or lawyer, or tradesman, or labourer,
or what you will. But underneath these things, the form
of which is comparatively accidental, (though in each
case, at first sight, it seems to constitute the life,) runs
that steady stream of thoughtfulness and of prayerfulness
to Godward ; which, though it may not determine the
direction of professional duty, yet determines absolutely,
and dominates in the detail of every particular, the
temper and the method in which duty is done. To try
to imagine a religious man without meditation in any
form (it may be almost infinitely informal) and without
any effort of prayer, — is to try to imagine what is little
else than a contradiction in terms.
Correlative with this, the secret of the inward conscious-
ness, is that shaping of the outward conduct, that deliberate
obedience of the moral life, to which we have already
partly referred, because it is so inseparable from prayerful-
ness, that it was difficult to express the meaning ot
prayerfulness without language which at once, in a
measure, had trenched upon the region of the outward
life. Such obedience, whether in the shape of discipline
strongly restraining forbidden impulses, or of duty, in-
sisting upon what is neither natural nor easy, is obviously
a rudimentary form of what in its fulness would be a
life wholly conformed to, and lived by, a standard of
excellence, such as certainly had not been, by nature or
at first, to be found within itself. It is an element in the
necessary process of learning to find, outside the personal
impulses, the true focus and centre of inspiration of the
personal life. It is part of that uphill work of becoming
a law to oneself, in which the " law," (called " law " because
conceived of, and indeed experienced, as standing out-
side and in contrast with the self,) in proportion as it
R
258 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY Lchap.
becomes internal and spontaneous to the self, loses all
its aspect as coercive law, and is felt only as independent
strength of moral self-command. Such effort, at least,
towards obedience, is entirely characteristic of the religious
life, not only in respect of its obviously graver and more
responsible decisions, but in the imperceptible self-restraints
and self-orderings which make up all the detail of every-
day manners, — those morning and evening brightnesses
and courtesies and sincere kindnesses of bearing and of
purpose, of which " gentlemanly " and " ladylike " manners
are a sort of superficial imitation or reflection on the
surface.
Such things, in principle at least, have their place
within the ideal of every life that is religiously ordered.
But in the Christian life there is something else which, —
whilst as a matter of course it includes and inspires these,
using them to a point and with a meaning little dreamed
of elsewhere, — is yet even more characteristic of the
distinctive revelation and living power of the Christ.
This is the whole range of the Church's sacramental
system. The Christian sacraments are, in the outward
sphere, a note or symbol of distinctively Christian life.
And they are so just because their real significance is
not in the outward sphere at all. The Christian sacra-
ments, as mere pieces of formal observance, are nothing,
or are less than nothing. They really are means, in them-
selves of the simplest kind that can be conceived,
by the use of which, in humble and dutiful belief, that
personal union in Spirit with the Personal Christ, towards
which prayerfulness yearns and which obedience makes
effort to practise, is by Christ's act and on the side of
Christ, in response to approaches reverently made in the
way precisely dictated by Himself, more and more pro-
gressively and effectively made real. Personal union
with Christ, the early token and earnest of a consumma-
X.] THE CHURCH AND SACRAMENTS 259
tion more than any words or thought of ours can compass,
this is the one essential significance of sacramental
ordinances.
It is to be particularly observed that in the process
of uniting with Christ, and especially in the covenanted
and supernatural side of it, the more distinctively divine
side of the action, what is dealt with is not the individual
primarily as individual, but the individual as enabled to
participate, and as participating, in what is primarily a
corporate privilege or estate. It is matter of little
moment for the present purpose whether the Church is
spoken of, under spatial figure, as the place or region
of the Spirit ; or whether it is spoken of more directly as
the presence and working of the Spirit, as being expressly
and actually the Spirit Himself. There is a " region of"
the Spirit ; and the form of phrase is too indispensable, for
many purposes, to be set aside ; but the region of the Spirit
consists really not of local spaces but of living persons :
it is within personal spirits, which as such are capable
of Spiritual presence, that the Spirit is characteristically
manifested as what He really is. The Church, then, is,
in fact, the Spirit of Christ, communicated to the
spirits of those who recognize, and believe in. His
Person and work ; it is the disciples of Christ, made
Christian in very deed by participation in the Spirit
of Christ. " I believe in the Holy Ghost," and " I believe
in the Holy Catholic Church," are claims which, if fully
enough understood, are in fact almost theologically conter-
minous, differing chiefly as different relations, or aspects,
of one truth. Such a district or region, such a status or
privilege, (call it which you will,) the spiritual extension,
throughout Humanity, of the Incarnation, — itself a result
which necessarily follows from the Incarnation, — is the
Divine mode for the enlightening and purifying cf in-
dividual personalities; and this is His Church; the Church
260 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
whose whole conception, meaning, and condition, is
essentially and always " Spirit."
But while it is important to insist that the individual is
dealt with in and through the corporate Life, which in the
New Testament is spoken of as the Body of Christ, or as
Christ ; ^ it is the effect of participation in the corporate
life upon the individual, with which we are now immedi-
ately concerned.
The actual relation, then, covenanted and Christian, of
the individual personality with Christ, begins with Baptism.
The primary conception of Baptism is admission or incor-
poration. It is possible to say a great deal in the way of
exposition of Baptism, while it is mainly regarded as
enrolment within the organization of a society. But it is
obvious, to any theological mind, that this by itself, though
true, is a superficial view of Baptism. In any case indeed, if
it is enrolment within a society, the significance of the
enrolment must naturally depend upon the meaning
and scope of the society. And in this case, more than in
any other, the character of the society is everything. In-
corporation into the Church, regarded as a society, is in
fact only the outward mode of expressing incorporation
into the Church, regarded as a spiritual sphere and
capacity of personal being ; incorporation into the Church,
which is the Spirit; and which, being the Spirit, is Christ, —
the personal, spiritual, realization of Christ. It is this into
which Baptism is the divinely commanded, and covenanted,
initiation. Membership of Christ, with all that the word
membership, in the fulness of its proper meaning, is
capable of suggesting : membership of Christ, formally
conferred by an act which is spoken of as representing, in
divine significance, a rebirth ; this has been the central
idea by means of which, even to the minds of children and
1 Cp. e.g. Eph. i. 22, 23 with Eph. iv. 13, and Rom. xii. 5 with i Cor. xii.
12 and John. xv. 5.
r
I
I
X.] THE CHURCH AND SACRAMENTS 261
catechumens, the purpose and character of Baptism have
been, from the beginning, explained.
The word rebirth is more than the accidental metaphor
of a moment. It is rather a solemn challenge to spiritual
intelligence, calling upon it to consider carefully what natural
birth involves to the child that is born ; and warning it not
to expect, on any other basis, to understand what it is meant
to understand in the profoundly simple outward experience
of Baptism. The rebirth is the establishment of a relation-
ship with Christ, which can only be understood in terms of
the material relationship of flesh and blood with the
limitations and disabilities of the nature of Adam. Each
in its way is a first entrance upon possibilities of conscious-
ness which may, and ought to, grow very far from their
earliest forms of realization. As the one is the earliest
initiation into the various possible experiences of this
physical life, with its imperfect mental and quasi- spiritual
corollaries, — all those pathetic witnesses and demands which
it just dimly feels, but cannot possibly satisfy ; so the other
is the earliest initiation into all those developing spiritual
possibilities which, in one word, are " Christ."
Even when Baptism comes to be thought and spoken of
in conscious distinction from what we call Confirmation,
this one great primary phrase " rebirth " is the one that is
most characteristically attached to it, — along with the
thought of symbolic cleansing, or remission, which the
outward use of water immediately typifies. It is indeed
the proper phrase for the earliest initiation into life ; even
though the meaning of the life is not yet realized, — the
fulness therefore of what is ultimately implied in rebirth
is not yet attained, — until that life is consummated in the
vision of the glory of God. This is an ambiguity which
few spiritual phrases can escape. Their meaning is
never quite complete till the final consummation. And
yet, from the first, their meaning, though in a sense
262 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
provisional, conditional, unconsummated, is itself clear and
uminous.
In this case, however, there is a certain additional element
of ambiguity, due to the fact that Baptism, as standing alone,
does not constitute the whole initiation into the privileges
and prerogatives of Christian life. This initiation, as we
see in the New Testament, included also the laying on of
Apostolic hands — the symbol of inclusion within the range
of the mighty Pentecostal blessing ; the consummation of
the right to the de facto exercise of the prerogatives of the
Christian franchise ; the ordination, as it were, to the
activity of the universal priesthood. Without this the
initiation into Pentecostal privilege was not yet complete.
In the early generations of the Church it is probable that
Baptism was not conferred without this ; or at least that
such separation was rather the exception than the rule ; and
consequently that the word Baptism, in its normal use —
apart from attention called to a special separation — implies
and includes the "laying on of hands" as constituting,
along with the "cleansing by water," a single unity of
initiation. Whatever practical advantages may have been
gained in other directions by the later usage, according to
which confirmation is postponed for many years after
baptism, it is plain that a certain degree of theological
ambiguity is introduced whenever the two are regarded
as completely apart from each other. For we then are
called upon to give, and give with full completeness, in
their separation, a rationale of the two ceremonies which in
fact require and imply one another, because they are really
parts of an initiation, which is, in theological idea, one
whole.
This is hardly the place to attempt to enter, with
minuteness, into the proper exposition of Baptism as
contrasted with the Laying on of hands, or of Laying on
of hands as contrasted with Baptism. There must always
tx. THE CHURCH AND SACRAMENTS 263
be, for the reason just given, a certain element about it of
practical, if not logical, inexactness. But meanwhile it
will hardly be denied that just as, when the Baptism by
water begins to be spoken of in patristic writings in con-
trast with unction and the laying on of hands, the word
"regeneration" is the word which (along with cleansing
or remission) is more and more reserved as the character-
istic word for the exposition of it: even though such
Baptism does not really exhaust, by itself, the conceptions
inherent in " regeneration " as fully explained : so both
in early patristic literature, and in scripture itself, the
laying on of hands, when viewed in separation from
Baptism, is characteristically identified with the gift, once
for all, of the Pentecostal Spirit. Whatever margin there
may be of practical inexactness in the sharp denial of the
Pentecostal gift to anything but the Laying on of hands ;
(and indeed the sharp antitheses of logic are seldom at
all points applicable to anything so complex and living as
spiritual experience): it is plain that the true principle
expressed in such denial is deeper and more significant
than the dangers of inexactness ; for the denial is expressed*
with verbal emphasis, in the words of scripture itself. ^
On the other hand, it may be said that — in whatever
sense, or degree, the power of practically exercising
spiritual rights (whether some or all) may remain, for a
time, in abeyance, — the essential right to all rights is, from
the moment of Baptism, already there. Whoever has
been admitted into Christ has been admitted, implicitly
at least, into all the fulness of the powers of the Spirit of
Christ. This may be concretely expressed, on the practical
side, by saying that every baptized person has ipso facto ^ —
not so much the inherent right to dispense with confirma-
tion, as the inherent right to be confirmed. And such in-
1 " For as yet He was fallen upon none of them : only they had been
baptized," Acts viii. 16 ; cp. also viii. 17, 18, and xix. 6.
264 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
herent right carries with it the inherent capacity, when the
" Laying on of hands " is^ in the providence of God, withheld
and impossible, of all which the Laying on of hands, in the
normal course, would have either symbolized or conferred.^
To speak of the inherent right of the baptized to receive
confirmation, is far more in accordance with scripture, as
well as with all Church conception and practice, than to
think that they may dispense with being confirmed.
For the present, however, we are concerned not with the
precise definition of the contrast between the two, when
they are, more or less abnormally (speaking from the
point of view of the main theological idea) established in
permanent separation from each other; so much as with
the significance of both, when regarded together as con-
stituting the total of the initiation into the powers of the
Christian life. As we look at them so, it is more than
ever clear that everything is in terms of Spirit, spiritual.
Admission into Christ carries with it the indwelling
presence of the Spirit of Christ : which presence is itself
an admission into the full de facto exercise of spiritual
rights, a capacity for the use, and for the intelligence, of
spiritual powers. The Spirit is neither a substitute for,
nor an addition to, Christ. The Spirit, in His fulness, is
the fulness of the presence of Christ, which is the presence
of God. The Spirit, in all the rudimentary stages of His
realization, is the rudimentary realization, in the personal
consciousness, of the presence of Christ, which is God.
Given indeed in the beginning, and given once for all : —
so that His gift or presence is rather a reality to be
believed in than a possibility to be achieved ; He is
1 Thus, the De rebaptismate (printed with the works of St Cyprian), a
treatise which exceedingly magnifies Confirmation, yet says, in reference to
the interval between Baptism and the laying on of hands in Acts viii. i6,
"Quod hodiema quoque die non potest dubitari esse usitatum, et evenire
solitum, ut plerique post baptisma sine impositione manus episcopi de seculo
exeant, ct tamen pro perfectis fidelibus habentur.^^ Sec Dr Mason on Th^
relation of Confirmation to Baptism, 123 sqq.
X.] THE CHURCH AND SACRAMENTS 265
nevertheless, step by step, in slow process very gradually
realized, as well in the consciousness of experience as in
the aspiration of thought. But it is essential to Christian
faith to believe that what is thus so gradually realized
(and so very far, within our experience, from its consum-
mation) is not something merely which may possibly
some day come to be, but something which in underlying
— if undeveloped — reality, already, before God, is. In-
corporation into Christ, which (in its full sense) is the
consummation, is (as gift, as right, and as inchoate fact,) the
basis and the beginning of Christian life: and incorpora-
tion into Christ involves that indwelling presence of
Christ's Spirit, of which all spiritual prerogatives and
powers are but natural corollaries.
But if the initiation is once for all ; and all that follows,
up to the very throne of God, is but realization of what
the initiation implicitly contained ; the religious life of a
Christian is also, and perhaps even more conspicuously,
conditioned and supplied by the perpetually recurring
sacrament of the Holy Communion. Baptism and the
Laying on of hands are the conditions necessarily pre-
cedent to admission to the life of communion ; not by an
act of arbitrary Church discipline, imposing conditions of
access where Christ imposed none ; but because the
Church so understands the scriptural and primitive
doctrine of the initiation into Christ by these things, that
she cannot but recognize that, where these are neglected,
the spiritual conditions are not yet fulfilled, which would
authorize her to impart, or enable the would-be recipients
with due reverence and effect to receive, such further
gifts as can only be what they are, within their own
proper atmosphere of Spirit.
The first thing which strikes us, in our present context,
in reference to the subject of the Holy Communion, is
this; that its central thought and aim is (once more)
266 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
reality of personal union with Christ. The material ex-
perience in terms of which this reality is now presented,
is quite different from that in the light of which Baptism
was explained. But the central aim and ideal is the
same. If Baptism corresponds to the birth which origin-
ates, the Holy Communion is the food which sustains
and develops, life. As birth and as nurture, they repre-
sent between them the whole process, from the cradle to
the fullest maturity of living power. And as the birth is
initiation, once for all, into Christ, in effective right and
possibility : so the nurture is meant to be development,
more and more, into a fuller and fuller realization of
voluntary self-identity, of character and spirit, with
Christ.
The Holy Communion teaches this, with signal
emphasis, in terms of food. And the food is expressly
defined as the Flesh and Blood of Christ. Now while
it is clearly beyond our present scope to enter upon any
task so immense as the general exposition of Eucharistic
doctrine, there are some two or three things which it may
concern us to point out in respect of these terms. Our
first point, then, is this : that the flesh and blood plainly
express, and are meant to emphasize. His Humanity.
Flesh and blood stand as the constituent elements, on
the visible and palpable side, of that Humanity in which
He was self-expressed. They stand as its outward and,
so to say, measurable test ; the pledge and guarantee
of its reality. The gift of His flesh and blood is the gift
of His Humanity. To share them is to share Humanity,
as it was in Him. Into this context the comparison
naturally fits between Christ and Adam ; — between the
meaning and consequences of being part and parcel of
the flesh and blood of Adam, and the meaning and
consequences of becoming genuine partakers of the flesh
and blood of Christ. It is the infusion of the sap of a
X.] THE CHURCH AND SACRAMENTS 267
new, because renewed, nature. " For as in Adam all die,
so also in Christ shall all be made alive." ^
The second point is that the flesh and blood express
the humanity, as, to some extent, in general, so particularly
in one most significant reference. It is the Humanity of
Christ especially in its atoning aspect, as the cancelling
of the past, the perfection of penitence, the consummation
of the sacrifice of holiness by which sin was conquered
and destroyed. The gift of His flesh and blood is, then,
the gift of participation in the very instruments and
capacities of the sacrifice, sin-crushing and victorious.
It is the internal reception and realization of that
triumphant goodness, in Human nature, of which Calvary
was the necessary condition and mode ; and it is in terms
which expressly recall and emphasize Calvary. It is part
of the self-identification of the recipient with the Sacrifice,
the growing assimilation of the self, in inwardness of
character and will, with the victorious Spirit of the
Atonement.
If this is, in the most general terms, the nature of the
gifts received, the mode of receiving them is in itself
extremely significant. They are received by eating and
by drinking. They are fed upon: as the food which
is taken up into the body is converted into the strength,
and is the indispensable condition of the life, of the body
into which it is taken. There is something most im-
pressive in the reiterated use of the language of eating,
in reference to spiritual reception and assimilation.
There is nothing in the least accidental about the use
of the language, — as though it were just a floating image
which might serve for the illustration of the moment,
and no more. On the contrary, its use is persistent and
determined. As we dwell upon it, we are compelled to
realize that the relation, in physical experience, between
^ I Cor. XV. 2a.
268 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
food and the life of the body, — a relation the proper
mystery of which is veiled to us by the exceeding
familiarity of the facts, — is not so much an ultimate
truth of fact, as it were for its own sake, as it is an
analogue or parable, suggesting, and meant to suggest,
to the thoughts of men, a relation largely parallel with,
and yet far transcending, itself It is so from end to end
of the Bible. The prohibition, the temptation, and the
fall, are altogether in terms of this. It is as food that
the knowledge of good and evil is assimilated. "And
when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree
was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit
thereof and did eat ; and she gave also unto her husband
with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both
were opened." ..." And now lest he put forth his hand,
and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever :
therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of
Eden." ^ The manna in the wilderness is food of privileged
and distinctive life, bread sent down from heaven to be the
life of the people of God. The Passover lamb is still
more definitely a food of sharply distinctive privilege.
No alien or uncircumcised person might venture to come
near to eat thereof^ On the other hand, to neglect it,
not being disqualified, is to be cut off from the people
of the Lord.^ It is, within a certain area or atmosphere,
imperative : even while, outside that range, it is impossible.
The distinctive mark is partaking of an appointed food.*
Whole volumes of prehistoric and extrahistoric instinct
and usage, of a strictly religious kind, are summed up
and sanctified in Levitical ordinances like these. The
foulness of eating foulness; the strength of eating
strength; the sanctity of eating sacrifice: inveterate
1 Gen. iii. 6, 7, 22, 23. * Exod. xii. 43, 48.
• Num. ix. 13. * Cp, also Prov. ix. 1-5 ; Dan. i. 15,
X.] THE CHURCH AND SACRAMENTS 269
instincts like these, in a thousand forms, lie behind all
the legal distinctions of " clean " and " unclean " food, as
well as such special types as the Passover and the Manna.
The idea of absolute distinctions between foods, — the
materialistic interpretation of such usages as these, — was
only for a time, and has been done away. But the
instinct itself which lay behind the materialistic concep-
tions has not been done away, but has been taken up and
consecrated anew by Christ for Christians for ever. Long
before any special symbolic or ceremonial method was
revealed of obeying a requirement so staggering, the
requirement had been announced in words of sweeping
strength by Jesus Christ; — words which almost literally
broke His society to pieces ; — " Verily, verily I say unto
you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink
His blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth
My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life : and I will
raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed,
and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh
and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him. As
the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the
Father ; so he that eateth Me, he also shall live because of
Me." ^ Christians, to be Christians, must absolutely " live
upon" Christ. This is an essential requirement, which
neither needs, nor admits of, qualification. It is after the
enunciation of this essential principle that a special method
is provided of a symbolic or ceremonial kind : which
thenceforward, no doubt, represents the essential require-
ment, just exactly so far as a practice, in the ceremonial
order of things, is capable of identification with a
requirement itself essentially of the Spirit, spiritual. " Jesus
took bread, and blessed, and brake it ; and He gave to the
disciples, and said, Take eat ; this is My body. And He
took a cup, and gave thanks, and gave to them, saying,
ijohn vi. 53-57.
270 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
Drink ye all of it ; for this is My blood of the covenant,
which is shed for many unto remission of sins." ^
Thenceforward, this bread and this cup represent, and
even — just so far as that is possible for anything in the
external and material order — constitute and are, the
central symbol and the central realization of the Church's
distinctive life. " The cup of blessing, which we bless, is
it not a communion of the blood of Christ ? The bread
which we break, is it not a communion of the body of
Christ ? seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one
body ; for we all partake of the one bread." ^
We notice, then, about all this, first with what
emphatic insistence the essential spiritual reality is
expressed in terms of material imagery or metaphor.
All this tremendous language about eating and drinking,
about flesh and blood, while it emphasizes the reality
of the identification of the human nature of the com-
municants with the human nature of the Christ ; is itself
a clear repudiation of any form of religion, which, in the
name of spirit, and for the sake of a (supposed) higher
standard of spiritualistic aspiration, would ignore the
inseparable relation of body with spirit, or make any
ultimate antithesis between spirit and body. God would
not have taken humanity, if He had not taken body. The
body, though not the whole, nor the inner meaning of
humanity, is yet the symbol and guarantee of the reality
of the humanity which it embodies. It is in the body that
the inward self is expressed. The inner self is that which
characterizes the body, and as body it is met, and
known, and touched. It is expressly on the bodily side,
and in terms of body, — that body which it was His
humiliation to take, that body which was the avenue to
Him of temptation and suffering and dying, and which was,
for that very reason, the instrument of His victory over sin
1 Matt. xxvi. 26-28. ^ I Cor. x. 16, 17.
X.3 THE CHURCH AND SACRAMENTS 271
and death ; that He is ceaselessly giving to each one of
us His Humanity, to be the food and nurture of our life,
to be the effective sanctification and purifying of every
impulse in us both of body and spirit. Our spirit cannot
be sanctified without our body. The spirit that does not
dominate body, making it, in every fibre and motion, the
instrument and expression of spirit, is not effective or
victorious spirit. So emphatic is the language of scripture
on this, the bodily or material, side, that those who adhere
closely to it are perhaps in more danger of an over-
materialistic conception of sacramental life, than of explain-
ing sacramental reality away as an encouragement merely,
in the form of mental imagination or spiritual idea.
And yet the language contains within itself the most
express warning against any interpretation which is
primarily material. " It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the
flesh profiteth nothing : the words that I have spoken
unto you are spirit, and are life." ^ Though the gifts
imparted be in terms of flesh and of blood, yet true
sacramental communion after all is communion, not of
outward action, so much as of inward reality, not of flesh,
so much as of spirit. Or, let us say, it is communion of
flesh in the second instance, of flesh as, on the one hand, a
means, and on the other, a result, of Spirit. Sacramental
communion is vainly material after all, if it is not con-
ceived of mainly as an aspiration and growing on towards
oneness, — not mechanically, so much, of flesh, as inherently
of character and of spirit, with the Crucified. It involves
indeed the idea of true oneness of body, body spiritualized
through Spirit. But this, so far from being the primary
truth, is itself a consequence which outflows, as con-
sequence, from the reflection of Christ in the will and
character, from the identification with Christ of the spiritual
self.
*John ri. 63.
272 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
Indeed, any interpretation which was primarily material,
would really militate against the entire conception of
the Pentecostal Church, which, through whatever details
of experience or method, is itself essentially, everywhere
and always. Spirit. Ecclesia proprie et principaliter Ipse
est Spiritus, There is nothing in the Church whose proper
meaning is not Spirit. Moreover, by taking a certain
part (and fundamental part too) of Church experience
away from the region of Spirit, such an interpretation
would set up a distinction and antithesis, between " Christ "
on the one hand, and on the other " Spirit " : whereas the
Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, and it is in Spirit that
Christ is realized. The Spirit is the method of Christ's
presence. Incarnate God is made real within as Spirit.
If on the one hand we are accustomed to such language
as "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,"^ "As many of
you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ," '
**I do count them but dung that I may gain Christ,"'
*' For to me to live is Christ," * " Christ, who is our life," «
" My little children of whom I am again in travail until
Christ be formed in you " : ^ on the other hand, these
things find — not their antithesis, nor yet a rival influence,
but their echo and their interpretation in such passages
as " Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that
the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ
is in you, the body is dead because of sin ; but the Spirit
is life because of righteousness." ^ " Hereby we know that
He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He gave us."®
*' The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Ghost " ^ are not three
distinct and separable things, but three relations or aspects
» Rom. xiii. 14. ^ 0^1. iii. 27. ^ p^ji^ jij^ 3,
*• Phil. i. 21. «* Col. iii. 4. « Gal. iv. 19.
* Rom. viii. 9-10. ^ I John iii 24. "2 Cor. xiii. 14.
X.] THE CHURCH AND SACRAMENTS 273
of the one Christian blessing, — which is the presence, in
the Spirit, of the Incarnate revelation of the Holiness of
the Eternal God.
The Holy Communion is the perpetually fresh and
fresh imparting, to the congregation, and to every qualified
individual member of the congregation, of the Humanity
of Christ; that is to say of that Humanity, divinely
spiritual, which, perfect in its own inherent holiness, has
through the consummation, unto death, of the sacrifice
of contrition, felt and crushed the whole accumulated
power of sin.
The sphere of the realization of all this is not primarily
material but spiritual. It is of course possible to be over-
materialistic in interpretation of these things. It is not
only those sacramentalists, whose habit of practice and
thought tends to emphasize over-much the fact of observ-
ance as observance, (as though all the invisible blessing
must needs follow, materially, upon material actions duly
performed,) who have failed to appreciate the spiritual
atmosphere, in which, and through which alone, these
things of the Spirit are realized. In theory, indeed, it
may be hoped that this particular form of sacramental
materialism is rare. But the tendencies towards it are
very insidious. And it can hardly be doubted that, in
practice, there is often still a very considerable element
of this lack of spirituality in many even of those who
would, in theory, most sincerely repudiate it, and who
are really endeavouring, not without success, to rise in
their sacramental worship, above it. But indeed there
is something of the same mistake in all those who,
however devout their communions, so conceive of the
communicant life as if (on whatever theological exposition
^^ or theory) it could continue to be a thing of value, or a
^^m thing of joy, in itself — apart from its proper effect of
^K so identifying Christ with the communicant and the
I
274 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
communicant with Christ, that the presence of Christ in
the communicant would be progressively manifest in his
temper and character and life. The communicant life is
not either a privilege or a joy, if it is not a real seeking
after, and finding, Christ Himself: if it is not a develop-
ment of the process of translation which may be equally
described as the "forming of Christ within,"^ or (after
"bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience
of Christ"^) that attainment of fullgrownness which is
"the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ":*
that is to say, in other words, as Christ within the self,
or as the self within Christ. No consciousness of the ex-
ceedingly childlike imperfectness of our own communions
ought to blind us to the true meaning of Communion with
Christ, or persuade us to acquiesce in either interpretation,
or aspiration, which is less than the very truth of God. The
life of communion is a life of progressive identification, —
of the personal consciousness and character, — with the
character, and will, and being, of Christ, who is God.
It is perhaps another instance of the same forgetfulness
that everything in the Pentecostal Church is in Spirit,
spiritual : when theologians insist, as if it were a principle
of theological exposition, that the gifts given in the
Bread and Wine of the Sacrament, must be explained as
the Body and Blood of Christ as they were at the moment
of Calvary. What they were at the moment of Calvary
they have not been again since the Resurrection, and are
not, anyhow or anywhere, now. What is given in the
Eucharist is what is, and not what is not. Calvary indeed
is an inalienable element in what they are. The thought
of Calvary is expressly recalled and emphasized in the
terms in which they are given. But they are themselves
not a material but a spiritual gift. The value of the
material is not its material but its spiritual value. It
1 Gal. iv. 19 » a Cor. x. 5. « Eph. iv. 13.
X.] THE CHURCH AND SACRAMENTS 275
is the Body and Blood not as slain in death; but as,
through the fact of death, victoriously alive. It is the
Humanity triumphant, perfect, consummated in Spirit.
It is no exception to the universal principle, that the
Pentecostal Church is IIvev/Aa; and therefore that every-
thing in the Church is what it is only within the region,
and informing principle, of Spirit. " It is the Spirit that
quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing : the words that
I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life."
Enough has perhaps been said to show, for our present
purpose, that everything which was said in the last chapter
about the consummation of human personality only in and
through personal union with the Spirit of the Incarnate,
is itself sustained, to the utmost extent of its meaning,
by the whole sacramental conception, which is the special
characteristic of the Church of Christ. The sacramental
system not merely agrees with, and corroborates, it : it
is, in slightly varied language and relation, essentially
the very same thing. The fundamental truth that the
consummation of a created personality is his personal accord
with, and true reflection of, the being of the all-inclusive
God, — itself a truth as necessary to philosophical thought
as it is cardinal to theology, — is embodied and consecrated
in the Church in the most solemn and tremendous of
ordinances.
And the bearing of all this upon the exposition of
the doctrine of atonement will be obvious. The atone-
ment is not to be conceived of as an external transaction,
from which God returns, armed, by virtue of it, with a
newly-acquired right or faculty of "not punishing" those
whom He was " obliged " to punish before : the atonement
is a real achievement of perfect sinlessness even in the
perfectly sinful : it is a real transformation of the conditions
and possibilities of Humanity, which, being consummated
276 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap. x.
first in the Person of Jesus Christ, becomes, through Him,
a personal reality in all those whose personality is ulti-
mately determined and constituted by the progressive
realization, in them, of His Spirit, — which is, in its final
consummation, their absolute identity, in Spirit, with
Him.
" Look, Father, look on His anointed face,
And only look on us as found in Him : "
These are words which really touch, as they have, by
very general instinct, been accepted as touching, the
heart of the true theology of the Atonement. We are
not, and never can be, our true very selves, save as we
really come to be " in Him, and He in us." Everything
turns, in the exposition of atonement, upon the reality
of our personal identification with Him : just as every-
thing, in the entire sacramental system of the Church,
symbolizes and signifies, and works together to con-
summate, that same personal self-identity with Him, —
of the Church, and of each several spirit within Her, —
as the one central reality of faith, and aspiration, and
living experience.
CHAPTER XI
RECAPITULATION
The doctrine, then, of atonement through Jesus Christ,
the doctrine of the redemption of sinful man, means a
real change, not a fictitious one, in the man who is
redeemed. It means a change no less portentous, in
himself, than the change from being personally identified
with sin, to being personally identified with the very
Divine perfection of holiness.
All forms of theory which are content to explain the
Atonement as a transaction, however pathetic or august
in itself, which has its proper completeness altogether
outside the personality of the redeemed, are found to be
hopelessly inadequate, as well to the truth of theological
doctrine, as to the truth of human experience and reason.
The inadequacy which is inherent in all such theories
we have endeavoured to measure by tracing back to its
roots, and examining the implications which are contained
in, one of the most familiar, if not authoritative, of such
forms of theory. To describe the atonement as a waiving,
for a consideration, of punishment which, in justice, ought
to have been inflicted, whilst it may serve as a sort of
superficial first introduction of the infantine consciousness
to the mutual relation of such conceptions as sin, punish-
ment, and pardon ; can, as a serious explication of God's
dealing with man, issue only in intolerable untruth. And
if the consideration for which punishment is unjustly
remitted, is capable of being described as the unjust
277
278 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
punishment of some other, who has no connection with
the guilt, no wonder that the transaction, so conceived
or described, profoundly shocks the conscience of godlike
men. If this is all that we have to say about the Christian
doctrine of atonement, much that is deepest and best in
human nature will continue to cry out against it with a
cry which will certainly not be silenced or appeased.
But we passed beyond this first childish conception of
atonement, not so much by treating the conception itself
with contempt, as by finding, on analysis, to how much it
really bore witness beyond its own first imperfect state-
ment of itself We recognized that a vindictive punisher,
who will not be satisfied without punishing somebody, is
no part of the diviner truth of punishment. If in cases
in which punishment has failed of its proper object and
character — cases which we dare not deny or exclude as
impossible, — it is capable of acquiring a character with
some superficial resemblance to this ; at all events in its
proper truth, when it has not morally failed, punishment is
itself a method, or stage, towards penitence. The consum-
mation of its proper work is not to be looked for so much
either in the form of eternal damnation, on the one side, or
of cancelling of penalty on the other ; rather, in proportion
to its true working, it is itself superseded and absorbed.
It becomes an aspect or mode of something which is
beyond, yet is characterized by, itself The proper goal of
penal pain is the consummation of penitence.
And penitence, when we examined it, we found to be an
attitude towards sin, — on the part indeed necessarily of
one whose nature was burdened with the disabilities, and
was accessible to the insulting challenge, of sin ; — which
yet, in its true ideal completeness of meaning, was nothing
less than the attitude of the absolute holiness of God. In
its ideal significance, which alone is the measure of what it
really signifies, we found it to be only a possibility of the
I
\
XI.] RECAPITULATION 279
personally Sinless : even while it also was the only condi-
tion on which the sin of the sinful could be really
dissolved and destroyed. It was the indispensable
necessity of the personally sinful. It was only conceivable
as a property of the personally sinless.
And meanwhile if, whether with logic or without it, we
so far bowed to the universal voice of all Christian experi-
ence as to assume that there is some reality of penitence,
we found that, on the assumption of reality of penitence,
forgiveness ceased to wear its first aspect as either arbitrary,
or purchased, favour ; it became a spontaneous, inherent,
necessary aspect of love : it was love's natural embrace of
that which was, or was capable of being, really lovable;
until, if it were conceivable that penitence should be ever
consummated perfectly, forgiveness would more and more
completely lose all its distinctive aspect as " forgiveness " ;
— it would more and more be merged and lost in the
fulness of the love of God, embracing no longer sinners
though they were sinful, but saints because they were
sanctified, embracing the very living beauty of holiness
in those who were really once more themselves holy and
beautiful.
Then, turning aside to notice that Jesus Christ was no
irrelevant third between God and man ; not another God
besides the God who was Holiness and was sinned against ;
nor another man besides the man who had sinned, and was
bound in sin ; but identical, potentially at least, with man,
that is, with the whole range of humanity, — as He was
absolutely identical with the whole content and meaning
of the word " God " ; we saw that in Him, that is, in
human nature, become the expression of Deity, (yet, still
expressing even Deity humanly^ and remaining, none the
less, human nature,) all the impossible conditions, which we
had seen before to be necessary though impossible, were in
fact satisfied to the full. The impossible burthen of all
28o ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
that the ideal consummation of penitence had been seen to
involve, was here completely realized, in a suffering, in a
holiness, in a penitential consummation of holiness, which
though Divinely perfect, were none the less perfectly
human. How absolutely is the whole world's record
transformed, by the righteousness of One, quite perfectly
righteous, Man !
We saw, revealed in Him, the meaning of a life of
perfectly obedient dependence on God, which is the
realization of human holiness, the crown of the proper
meaning of the life of man. And we saw, revealed in Him,
the meaning of penal death : death which, by its very
inherent contradiction of all that life means or demands,
death which, in its awful surrender both of body and spirit,
is itself the consummation of the sinner's contrition, — the
final struggle with, the final victory over, the last and most
tremendous grapple (because it is indeed the death grapple)
of, sin. When the death is consummated, in that last
terrible surrender inch by inch of all that sin could touch,
or challenge, or hurt, sin itself was crushed, and was
dead.
And all this, we insisted, was no merely past transaction,
affecting, quite irrespectively of ourselves or our attitude
towards it, the principles upon which God deals with us.
No one could imagine this who keeps steadily in mind
the truth that the word God means always Righteousness
and Truth, and the Love which is the Love of Righteous-
ness and Truth. Nothing can ever affect God's relation
towards us, which does not affect the relation towards
us of Righteousness and of Truth. If God loves us, they
love us. If they love us not, neither does God. God
deals with us, loves us, as is true, and as is righteous.
Bethlehem and Nazareth, and the lake-side in Galilee,
and the courts of the Temple in Jerusalem, and Geth-
semane, and Calvary, all these and the awful scenes
I
XL] RECAPITULATION 281
which belong to these names, were indeed objective and
historical realities first, before us, and without us : and
yet the work of atonement through them is not yet
consummated, until we too are ourselves in relation with
it, and it is a living fact for, and in, ourselves.
This translation of the objective into the subjective,
the realizing within our personal being of the things
which were wrought without that they might be realized
within, finds its most natural beginning and expression
whenever the human thought sincerely contemplates, and
the human heart is moved and drawn in sincere love
towards, the work of Calvary, and the Person of Christ.
Contemplation and love do wonderfully transform the
very selves of those in whom they are real. Yet even
contemplation and love, profoundly important though
they are, are terms too superficial and precarious to
express, with any real approach to accuracy, the nature
of the personal relation of Christians to Christ. Or at
all events contemplation and love, as we know or can
conceive them in any other context, are inadequate.
Their basis, their capacity, their very meaning, must be
unique, before we can receive them as adequate expres-
sions for that transcendent relation which is to overshadow
and to transform the very meaning of what we ourselves
are.
And so we passed on to consider, not as a glorious
sequel to the atonement, but rather as an integral part
of its meaning, a necessary condition without which it
would remain unconsummated after all, the doctrine of
the Holy Ghost; that perpetual extension, or Spiritual
realization, of the Incarnation, — of Nazareth and of
Calvary, — which is the breath and life, the meaning and
the being, of the Pentecostal Church. The Church of
Christ is much more than a sentimental emotion, a tribute
of thought or affection, however sincere in itself, towards
282 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
the Person of Christ. It is the indwelling and overruling
presence of the Person of Christ in the Person of the
Spirit, characterizing and constituting the inmost reality
of the personality of man.
Something we ventured to say in the direction of
explaining, or making intelligible to our own imagination
and reason, the great Christian doctrine of the Holy
Spirit, revealed to the Church as the Divine mode of
the continuance and consummation of the life and death
of Jesus Christ, which continuance and consummation
constitutes the Church. Even when we tried to think
of the Holy Spirit in relation to the Being of God, we
ventured (without transcending the modest limits of that
true Christian agnosticism which most earnestly disclaims
the attempt to know fully what it is manifest that we
cannot, as men, fully know) to make, at least, an especial
connection between the thought of the Divine Being,
as emanating Spirit, and that Response to Himself
which any real intelligence of His Being compels (as
it were) His creatures to render back, as reflection or
echo, to Himself; that response of which the poetry of
the poet, the harmony of the musician, the symmetry
of the architect, the peaceful triumphs of the statesman,
the atmosphere of love and gratitude wrought out for
itself by the love of the Christian worker, are a parable
and earnest.
We ventured to suggest that the Spirit Himself is
primarily revealed as the Spirit, or perpetuity of inward
presence, of the Incarnate, who is the revelation of God :
that it was the master-fact of the Incarnation of God
which dominated all the theological language and thought
of the Epistles and the New Testament throughout : that
to think of the Spirit as the Spirit of the Incarnate is
to see that He is the revelation of the true meaning and
character, the destiny and goal, of humanity, just as truly
XL] RECAPITULATION 283
as He is the revelation, within man, of Deity : and that
this real presence of the Incarnate as Spirit, constituting
the inmost personality of man, is the reality in man of
that consummated victory of the penitence, or righteous-
ness, of the " Atonement," which was the culmination and
end of Incarnation.
For the reality of our own relation to the atonement,
which is its consummation in respect of each one of us,
everything unreservedly turns upon the reality of our
identification, in spirit, with the Spirit of Jesus Christ
In proportion to our essential distinctness, and remoteness,
from Him, is our distinctness, and remoteness, from the
consummation of Atonement. But in proportion as the
aspiring language of the Christian Scripture and the
Christian Liturgy is realized ; in proportion as it approaches
towards the truth to say, of ourselves, that " we may ever-
more dwell in Him, and He in us " ; the fulness of that
consummation of obedient and penitential holiness which
constituted in Him a perfect atonement, is, by His Presence
consummated also in ourselves.
We are now hundreds of miles from the thought of
vicarious punishment. Could anything be more grotesquely,
or even blasphemously, irrelevant to our true meaning than
the thought of an obstinate Punisher, who after venting His
vengeance on an innocent substitute, should consent,
because some one had suffered, to treat the wicked, untruly
and unrighteously, as if they were what they are not?
Even if, in a sense, we may consent to speak of vicarious
penitence; yet it is not exactly vicarious. He indeed
consummated penitence in Himself, before the eyes, and
before the hearts, of men who were not penitent them-
selves. But He did so, not in the sense that they were
not to repent, or that His penitence was a substitute for
theirs. He did so, not as a substitute, not even as a
delegated representative, but as that inclusive total of true
284 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
Humanity, of which they were potentially, and were to
learn to become, a part. He consummated penitence, not
that they might be excused from the need of repenting,
but that they might learn, in Him, their own true possi-
bility of penitence.
We were careful to avoid all semblance of the mistake
of supposing that He was set up before men as a model
mainly, or an object lesson; as an example chiefly or
pattern, to be studied, and loved, and followed. Such
phrases are not indeed untrue, — when the things of which
they speak have first become possible. But the union with
Him which is offered, and which is necessary, to men, is
something far beyond the power of human admiration, or
imitation, or even desire. It is not by becoming like Him
that men will approach towards incorporation with Him :
but by result of incorporation with Him, received in faith
as a gift, and in faith adored, and used, that they will
become like Him. It is by the imparted gift, itself far
more than natural, of literal membership in Him ; by the
indwelling presence, the gradually disciplining and domin-
ating influence, of His Spirit — which is His very Self
within, and as, the inmost breath of our most secret being ;
that the power of His atoning life and death, which is the
power of divinely victorious holiness, can grow to be the
very deepest reality of ourselves.
Such identification with Christ of the very inmost
personality of each several man, may sound at first, to
man's confused thought about himself, as if it were the
surrender of the sovereign instincts and capacities which
he fancies that his own self-conscious personality means.
We have endeavoured therefore to show, in some detail,
that the very opposite to this is true. By some analysis
of the meaning of the claim which our self-consciousness
makes to free will, to reason, and to capacity of loving, —
the three most prominent strands in our familiar thought
XI.] RECAPITULATION 285
of personality, — we endeavoured to make clear that, what-
ever be the inherent witness to, or demand for, each of
these three things in every human consciousness, there is
not one of them which, as matter of fact, we properly
possess. We only approximate towards the actual
consummation of what we ourselves cannot but mean by
each one of these three words, in proportion as we really
are translated into Christ, and His Spirit is the ultimate
reality of our own individual being. So far from surrender-
ing the sovereignty of our proper personality by
identification with Him ; it is only in proportion to our
reality of identification with Him, that we ever attain at
all to that true sovereign freedom, and insight, and love,
which are the essential truth of personality, the consumma-
tion of the meaning of ourselves.
And finally we felt that we were at least on ground
altogether incontrovertible in insisting that this identifica-
tion of the several self with Him, this sovereign and
overruling presence of His Spirit within the hearts and
lives of Christians, was at all events the doctrine and the
claim which breathe through every line of the New
Testament It is the Spirit of Christ which constitutes the
Pentecostal Church. The Church means nothing but
this. It is the perpetuity of the Presence, it is the living
Temple, of God Incarnate — no longer in the midst of, but
within, men. And the whole sacramental system, that
unique characteristic of the Church of Christ, wholly means,
and is, this. It is only the materialistic misconceptions and
misuse of sacraments by men, because their moods and
minds, even on spiritual subjects, are so often other than
spiritual, which could ever have given colour, for one
moment, to that most paradoxical of accusations, that the
sacraments are a screen, or substitute, for Christ ; or could
have obscured, to any spiritual eye, the obvious fact that the
sacraments simply and directly both mean, and are, the
286 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap. xi.
Divine methods of the Spirit of Christ, — constituting, as
such, the progressive spiritual reality of those throughout
the world, who are willing to have Christ for their life.
It is Christ then who, in the fullest sense, is our
atonement, and our atonement is real in proportion to the
reality of Christ in us. Our atonement is no merely
past transaction: it is a perpetual presence; a present
possibility, of the life and of the self, the consummation of
which transcends thought and desire. It is a "power
that worketh in us." And the power is the power through
Spirit, in Jesus Christ, of God. " Now unto Him that is
able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or
think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto
Him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus unto
all generations for ever and ever. Amen." ^
^Eph. iii. aO; 21.
CHAPTER XII
OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION
There is one line of thought more in reference to which
it seems to be desirable that something should still be
said. In a sense our exposition is finished. But what
is the relation between our exposition on the one hand,
and, on the other, our familiar experience? If the lines
are even approximately right on which the doctrine of the
Atonement has been explained, then the real meaning of
the life of a Christian man, redeemed in Christ, as a member
of Christ's Body, is something of singular spiritual loftiness.
He is a communicant, not ceremonially only, but vitally,
and even visibly, living on Christ, and growing into the
likeness and Spirit of Christ. Not in himself, but in
Christ, is the focus of his life. He is himself the inspired
reflection of Another. He is a Saint, in whose face, and
in whose life, the very lineaments of Christ are manifestly
seen.
This is the theory, as logical, indeed, and complete,
and fascinating, as it is scriptural and true. But what
relation has this to experience? What is the likeness
between the ideal picture, and that which we know that
we are? Whether we look to the general average of
the so-called Christian life, which does not so much as
attempt to enter at all upon the communicant obedience
or the communicant consciousness : or whether we think
of those who, communicants as they are in the outward
sacrament of the sacrifice of Christ, with fervour indeed
S87
288 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
and regularity but with very halting effort, and unsaintly
consciousness, and utterly unperfected discipline, seem
at first sight only to succeed in misrepresenting that glory
towards which they intend to aspire, but which does not
shine with any visible light in their daily actions or their
daily smiles : we seem at first sight to be looking at an
experience with which our doctrine has no relation at
all. And we ask ourselves perhaps in sadness, or others
insist on challenging us by asking, whether in fact we
have ever seen any one at all, — whether we really believe
in the possibility of seeing any one at all, — who has really
got beyond this most imperfect condition of claiming,
perhaps, and clinging on to, yet not really reflecting or
illuminating, that idea which we say is the meaning of the
cardinal doctrine of the Christian creed. Or if, among a
thousand thousand, there are one or two or three, in whom
it would be generally allowed that there is a light visibly
shining, which, though not of themselves, is yet at once
the very thing which they are, and is a true gleam, in
them, of the light of Christ: what are they, in their
almost imperceptible rarity, to fortify a conception of
human redemption which still has no reality of relation
whatever to far, far, more than ninety-nine out of every
hundred human beings ?
This then is the difficulty. The discrepancy seems to
us to be too great between the Christian theory and the
actual life. Or at the very best it seems to fail by
omitting the vast majority of mankind, even if here or
there it may prove magnificently true. If only, we are
inclined to say, we were all like St Paul or St John,
things might possibly pass into realities of experience,
which are only visionary now ! But as it is, the necessity
of conforming to experience has taught us to re-shape
our conception of Christianity, and of the relation of
Christianity to actual life. The Christianity of experience
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 289
is a thing of soberer, and more commonplace, and more
universal character than this.
It may be worth while to take note of the consciousness
which is implied in such a thought, that the more common-
place standard of popular religion is a standard different
in kind from that of St Paul or St John. It is well to
be clear about this. For good or for evil, whether through
failure in faith, or through growth in practical wisdom, the
Christian standard which is less than Christ, is a standard
which plainly differs from that of the Apostles in the
New Testament. But it is not to such authority that we
desire at this moment to appeal. It is the object of the
present chapter to try and deal somewhat more fully with
the temper of thought, whether expressly articulate or no,
which feels a genuine hesitation, on the practical side,
by reason of the transcendent greatness of the Christian
ideal ; and to show, if possible, that all such temper is in
real truth as misleading as it is widely prevalent and
instinctively natural.
The first, and the directest, answer to the objection, con-
sists in challenging the truth of the facts on which it is
based. We have in fact, in order to state it effectively,
been obliged to borrow the spectacles, as it were, of the
ordinary world : and the spectacles of the ordinary world
are exactly those through which spiritual realities are not
discerned. There are all degrees of insight ; and the full
insight into spiritual truth is indeed rarer than rare. Even
any near approach towards it is exceptional, and is certainly
reached by far other than the world's ordinary standard of
common sense. Elisha's servant was not wanting in any
ordinary sanity when he failed to see any glimpse of the
horses and chariots of fire with which, in fact, the mountain
was full round about Elisha.^ Elijah himself judged, no
doubt, upon visible data quite rationally, when he felt himself
1 2 Kings vi. 17.
T
290 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
alone, among all Israel, in allegiance to Israel's God} It
was not greater worldly wisdom, it was insight of another
order, the transfigured insight of a spirit made one with the
Spirit of God, which was needed to see common things as
the truth of God saw them. The difference was a moral
and spiritual difference between the many who saw in
Jesus crucified, a detected and defeated impostor,
and the one who there bowed his soul in homage,
and in prayer, to the Lord and King^ of the Life
which is beyond death. And this is a principle of the
Church of Christ. " Blessed are the pure in heart ; for
they shall see God." ^ " Yet a little while and the world be-
holdeth Me no more; but ye behold Me: because I live, ye
shall live also." ^
It is not true that the leaven of the Kingdom,
the working of the Spirit of the Christ, is a rare or a
feeble thing, as in our more cynical moments we may be
tempted to say. It is in no idle optimism, nor any blind-
ness to the evil which still plays so large a part, even
amongst those in whom the Christian Spirit is working in
deed and in truth, that we denounce, as simple blindness
to truth, that temper of either triumphant or despondent
scepticism, to which the ideal faith of the Church of Christ
seems manifestly to have failed. If the Spirit of Christ is
working with power, as He manifestly is to those who have
eyes to see, in many a ministerial and ecclesiastical circle,
amongst religious houses, and pastoral helpers of very
various kinds : His presence is certainly not less manifest
in many a form of life which may hardly seem, at first
sight, to be within the immediate circle of His altar. There
are no doubt conspicuous — we should call them excep-
tional — instances, which the very world can see. Almost
any one could quote an example, here or there, of the
^ I Kings xix. 14. ' Luke xxiii. 42.
* Matt. V. 3. * John xiv. 19.
I
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 291
soldier who, unsurpassed in bravery, in enterprise, nay
even, in certain contexts, in unbending and relentless
severity, yet lived, quite obviously, his whole reality of
inner life, in conscious communion with God, and in the
spirit of the tenderest sympathy and service ; or of the
lawyer, whose professional eminence was none the less con-
spicuous, because his whole bearing, his very eye and tone,
bespoke one who was conscious at every moment of being
the absolute servant and minister of the God whose Spirit
was his life ; or of the statesman, who was never quite so
much a statesman, as a Christian, believing in, living upon,
God, and His Christ, — through the Spirit of God, become
(in a real sense) the very animating spirit of himself.
But whilst there are examples more or less conspicuous
which will come into our thoughts on every side, — upon the
farm, in the village shop, in the busy city, in the counting-
house, in the exchange, in the great place of business, among
leaders of society, among organizers of workmen, in the
court, in the castle, in the ball-room, in the barracks, on the
battlefield, in the cabin, on the forecastle, in the seaport
lodgings, in the workhouse, in the cottages of the very
poorest, the village hovel or the garret of the city court : it
is not only these, (though there are these, and many more
such as these, whom some eye at least manifestly
recognizes, and to God's presence in whom some heart
does homage,) of whom it concerns us to think. For there
are countless more besides these, of whom these, just
because they are comparatively conspicuous, are but partly
representative ; in whom the working of the Spirit is still
more inchoate, and impenetrable to any insight that is less
than Divine. Amongst the coarse, the ignorant, and the
degraded, " the publicans and the harlots," the thieves and
the murderers, there may be much more than meets the
eye of any save the rarest and the most Christlike ; dumb
efforts after what is good ; unrealized movements and
292 ATONEMENT AND PERSONAUTY [chap.
actions of pure kindness ; genuine possibilities, whose real
character and value nothing short of the omniscience of
Divine love can appraise.
And altogether outside the range of such dim suggestions
of Christlike possibility as these, are there not other possi-
bilities, more remote, pathetic, and inscrutable still? —
possibilities overlaid, yet asserting themselves sometimes,
even beneath the horror of the drunken carouse, in the
police cell, in the dock, or on the scaffold ; nay, even on
the very threshold, — or across the threshold, — of the house
of wilful shame and sin ? And if even these are not under
all circumstances necessarily excluded from the possibility
of Christ ; what shall we say of the whole vast region that
lies between ? The struggles, the failures, the successes, of
the young ; the obstinacy, the breaking down, the repent-
ance, and the confessions, of the middle-aged — in every rank
of life, in every conceivable surrounding of temptation and
difficulty : these things do not fill our newspapers, nor the
pages of our volumes of history : but the record of these is
the true record of the world. One experience of the real
inner effort, the struggling, earnest, often disappointed yet
chastened aspiration, of the lady in the intricacies of fashion-
able society: of the business man, of whatever kind, amidst
the complications of false ideals of a commercial world,
which if it is in a sense both commercial and Christian, is still
far from being Christianly commercial ; of the officer, civil
or military, the lawyer, the doctor, who has striven, and
striven in vain, to find the fulness, which his spirit always
had needed, in the busy round of his own merely pro-
fessional or social life: of the young man, or young woman,
in service, or in the workshop, subjected to a regime in
which the Christian Spirit found no place, and liable to all
the perils and risks of actual poverty : one experience of
personal insight into, and thorough personal sympathy with,
any one of these, would do much to open our eyes to the
»
I
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 293
reality of the true drama of life, which is the working of
the leaven of the Spirit of the Christ.
What is going on throughout the life, under normal
conditions of health and work, is not unfrequently more
conspicuous still, under what we call the abnormal con-
ditions of sickness, and decay, and death. It is not
generally characteristic of the consciousness of grave
illness to be garrulous. He who feels in himself that
his bodily powers are drawing towards their close is
more often self-contained and silent. There are long
silences, the silences often of enforced reflection, in the
gathering either of age, or of such weakness as carries
tacitly within it the sentence of death. They are silences
which we, who stand by, feel to be characteristic. Often,
for us, they go with the softer tone and the gentler eye
and the more chastened endurance, and the more child-
like simplicity of temper. And we, as we stand by, take
comparatively little notice of all these things, for it seems
to us only natural that they should be so. The truth
is that we have not measured, neither is there any man
living who is capable of measuring, what those silent
moments of pain, and growing weakness, and conscious
ebbing away and dying, are capable of being, — even in
those who have had infinitely little of explicitly religious
knowledge, or sacramental privilege in the Church, —
where the spirit is kindly, the acceptance of discipline
genuine, and the aspiration towards goodness and God
sincere. Such moments may seem to us long protracted,
or they may seem to us very brief, as for instance in a fatal
accident, or on the battlefield. It would be indeed the
idlest self-flattery for any one to dare to imagine before-
hand that he could become, in them, essentially other
than he was before ; the self, in them, is developed, not
revolutionized ; and yet, what their possibilities of develop-
ing discipline may be, we have no power of measuring,
294 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
or even of conceiving. May the blessing of God Himself,
their Saviour, be with all those — whose lives He had
fashioned for Himself, whom He had watched and yearned
after through all their wanderings, and whom His grace
can even now enthral and possess, — in those moments
in which they are drawing very near to the immediate
threshold of His Presence !
To say things like these, while it is absolutely necessary
for anything like the real proportion of truth, is certainly
neither to forget, nor to undervalue, the presence and
power of evil in the world. After all, we have been
speaking not of those who are content to accept the evil,
and embrace it as their good ; but of those who, with
whatever imperfection or discouragement, in the midst
of whatever disability, or ignorance, are struggling, in
their way, because the germ of the movement of the
Spirit is in them, with an effort and a yearning of desire,
such as the eye of omniscience, who is also Love, can see
to be in its true nature upward and Godward.
But if we begin by simply denying the truth of the
facts assumed by the despondent or the cynical, we would
go on to insist, in the next instance, upon the place which
properly belongs, in the work of the Spirit of the Christ
among men, to a conscious and strenuous upholding of
the true ideal, as the necessary ideal, and as the necessary
truth, of the meaning and life of Christians. Something
there is to be said, first as to the power which belongs
to belief in the ideal ; secondly as to the lack, and the
wide acquiescence in the lack, of the ideal ; and thirdly
as to the positive necessity of a resolute allegiance to it.
Few beliefs are more fundamentally untrue, than the
belief often strangely prevalent, that an exalted ideal is
an unpractical thing. It would be far nearer to the truth
to say that there is nothing on earth which can compare,
in practical effectiveness, with a great ideal genuinely
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 295
held. People who make a sort of pride of being practical,
and who therefore insist upon looking at life always from
the external or practical point of view, have little con-
ception to how vast an extent human life, their own
included, is really dominated by imagination. It is not
half so much the outward conditions and accidents in
the midst of which a man's life is lived ; — it is rather
the great dominant assumptions and beliefs, the fixed
convictions and principles, with which he meets and
moulds accidental conditions ; — which really determine
the character of his life. It is so with each individual :
and it is so with the corporate life of societies and nations.
One dominant idea, if it be dominant, will determine the
whole current of national life. It will colour the whole
administration of justice ; it will determine the whole
drift of discussion, of preaching, of politics ; it will bring
victorious armies back to peace, or drive whole peoples
into war ; with a sweep of current more pervading and
more irresistible, than any material ambition or material
wrongs. Material conditions indeed must be idealized,
they must be fused and fired, must have something of
the hidden glow of great imaginative ideas, before they
will stir a people to practical sacrifice. But ideas, once
held, are well-nigh omnipotent. There is no limit to
the sacrifice, in active effort or in patient suffering, which
they will at times impose. Exacting though they be, all
exactions for their sake will be tranquilly, if not eagerly,
endured. This is conspicuously a truth of fact, even when
the ideas which have dominated popular imagination are
themselves untrue, or even directly mischievous. In
different spheres, economical, political, theological, such
phrases or cries as the South Sea Bubble, or the railway
madness, or "blasphemy" or "witchcraft" or "treason"
or " no popery " or " death to the Jews " or " the honour
of the army " are perpetual reminders with what irresistible
296 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
force ideas which are untrue, and in some cases even
fatuous and wicked, can drive peoples madly onward,
against every dictate of judgment, of interest, and of
conscience, into the most disastrous practical results.
Now this, which is true of ideal convictions which are
false and mischievous, is d fortiori more true of ideal
convictions which are absolute truth. There may not
be the same paradoxically glaring illustrations ; there may
be far less of disproportioned passion ; the tide may swing
with more silent and tranquil volume: but it is even
more overwhelming and inexhaustible. There has been
no more irresistible volume of power in human history,
than that profound conviction, basing itself upon conscious
identity with truth, which, in the course of three centuries,
by the might of silent endurance under extreme and
reiterated persecution, broke the obstinacy of imperial
Rome, and compelled her to bow, in outward homage at
least, to the faith of the Crucified Christ. In this particular
instance the broad and corporate truth is, in the most
direct and obvious sense, only shown to be true, because
its truth was illustrated in a great number and variety
of individual cases, taken actually apart, one by one. It
demonstrates, if demonstration were needed, that the
principle is as true of the several as of the corporate
life; seeing that it could not be true, in fact, of the
corporate, if it were not effective in the several.
Now the ideal of which we are thinking at this moment,
is that which we reached as the meaning of the doctrine
of atonement. It is the real recovery, to a real con-
summation of righteousness, of the Church, which is the
Body, of Christ : and of every individual Christian, as a
member of the Church, which is Christ. It is the actual,
living, hope and belief, in each several Christian soul, —
not so much of a " pardon " (whatever that would mean)
while we remain on our level of helplessness and sin :
XII.) OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 297
not of a fictitious righteousness, a sort of imperfectly
relevant make-believe, in consequence of a transaction,
outside ourselves, which, so far as we try to understand
it, only morally confounds us ; not even of a far away
gift of righteousness, a mere dream of the future, having
no direct reference or relevance to any present efforts,
or capacities, or experience : but an actual living hope, and
sure conviction, informing and controlling every present
effort, determining and interpreting every present
experience. It is hope, it is certain knowledge, of a
power, by the grace of Christ, now at work within us,
and within our power to approach and receive more and
more, and to nurse and train and strengthen, and to live
on and by ; the power of the actual presence of the living
Christ, given to us and renewed in us through His Church ;
whose culmination cannot but be our consummated one-
ness of Spirit with Christ, who is the very righteousness
of the Eternal God.
Do we in fact, in our every-day experience, believe
in this for ourselves? and is our every-day experience
itself shaped and characterized by this belief? . The
question is asked at this moment, not so much with
any homiletic purpose, to produce self-conviction, as
with a view to suggest the further thought, what
would every-day experience be like in fact, if it were
in fact dominated by this belief? Our thought at this
moment is the power which properly belongs to the
mere fact of belief in the ideal, as such. There are
tens and hundreds of thousands, to whom the simple
reality of this belief, if they were able to receive it simply
and truly, would absolutely revolutionize present
experience. It would alter their interpretation of life;
it would wholly colour the spirit with which they
approached, to grapple with, the troubles and disabilities
of life; it would give them courage where they were
298 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
faint-hearted, and effective strength where their purpose
had been weak as water : and, through transforming them,
in their use of the conditions, it would by degrees trans-
form also the very character of the conditions themselves,
through which their life was lived.
If our thought should go back for a moment over the
immense variety of anxieties and struggles, in different
circumstances of life, which were hinted at a few pages
back, it could hardly fail to recognize, as it looked from
one to another in their several detail, what an incalculable
force would be possessed, and was intended to be pos-
sessed and wielded, by the ringing clearness of conviction
and faith in such an ideal of Divine truth as this. What
bracing to moral purpose, what capacity and depth of
repentance in respect of actual sin, what power for
dutiful ordering of Christian life as Christian, what
strength to do and to endure, would be found in the
mere conviction, if only the conviction were unhesitating
and effectual, that this is, in truth, the very central core
of the meaning and reality of our life ! The truth is given
to us that we may believe it : and our belief in it is
meant to be a spring in us, for all practical purposes,
of irresistible power. It is impossible to estimate too
highly either the practical force of such a belief, or the
practical loss which must inevitably follow, when lives
which were meant to be animated by such a belief, are
lived as it were in the cold and the dark without it.
It is idle to depreciate the belief, as though it were only
a decorative but unpractical ideal, with or without which
the actual experience of life would necessarily remain
itself one and the same. It is this which would charac-
terize the experience of life : and it is part of the real
Christian faith that the life should be characterized thus.
We cannot dispense with that which is so essential to
all our proper consciousness of power. The work of
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 299
the Spirit of Christ is indeed going on very wonderfully
in the midst of us — more than any eye, save the eye of
God, can discern. But can any one doubt that that work
would be very wonderfully quickened and furthered, that
the Kingdom of God would be at once widened in range
and brought wonderfully nearer to its consummation, by
whatever could make this magnificent conviction, which
is also the simple truth of the Kingdom of God, and
the very meaning of the Christian doctrine of atonement,
to be (as it assuredly ought to be,) the familiar property,
and characteristic, and informing and overruling experi-
ence, of every single Christian consciousness ?
It is here that we come most immediately face to face
with the characteristic failure of a Christianity that is
content to be conventional. If under every variety of
modern experience there are some in whom real life and
struggle is going on; it is also true that under every
variety of modern religionism that spirit of indiffer-
ence can clothe (or conceal) itself, which is the paralysis
of true religion. There is a great flood of civilized life,
more or less comfortable, more or less respectable, which
in its own eyes is religiously adequate, but which is, or at
least is capable of becoming, more antithetical to the true
life of the Spirit, than much of the coarser wilfulness and
ignorance of those who at least have not taught themselves
to explain away a call and a challenge they have never
really understood. There are moments at least, from time
to time, in which certain ringing phrases of the New
Testament seem to us to direct the sternest sentence of
the displeasure of Christ — not against those who are out-
casts in the eyes of the world, but against those whose
comfortable acquiescence in a false standard of religion^
has made the ideals and enthusiasms, the capacities and
the joys, of the life that is truly Christian, unintelligible
to the world.
300 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
It is a terrible thing when those who might have had
full access to the reality of Christian experience, do by
their own choice so secularize all its meanings and ideals,
as to make the nominal Christianity of society bear
witness against the truth of the Christian creed. The
widely prevalent form of life which calls itself Christian,
yet goes rarely to Church, and makes no attempt at all
to realize the power of communicant experience ; which
has its intellectual hesitations about prayer, and has never
seriously tried to meditate; which has no room in its
conception of practical life for the reality of the unseen
or the supernatural ; which deprecates evangelistic zeal
and is pained at all symptoms of a claim on the part of
the Christian faith to any essential superiority over others,
— much more if it should presume to think itself unique,
the one true life and necessity for all mankind: this is
the sort of creedless creed, the idle phantom or ghost of
religious theory, through whose thick wreaths of fog and
chill it becomes impossible for those of little learning and
little opportunity to discern any lineaments of the Christ
at all. It is a terrible responsibility, — the responsibility
for debasing the Christian ideals, and making the Christian
life, as practically preached to the world, a thing devoid of
every trace of its characteristic significance and power. If
I, the educated and instructed Churchman, exhibit to those
whose direct advantages are far less than mine, a concep-
tion of Christianity in which there is no supernatural rela-
tion, no personal dependence and communion with Christ,
I am doing what in me lies to make their true understanding
of Christ impossible. I am testifying to the secularity of
the spiritual, and the falsehood of the Church's creed. And
in all this there is a guilt which comes dangerously near
to the guilt of " poisoning " the very " springs " of the foun-
tain of life.
Non-communicant Churchmanship itself involves a con-
►
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 301
tradiction in terms, and is a perpetual witness against
Christ. The extraordinary prevalence of a life without
communion — not on the part of those who are either, on
the one hand, openly anti-Christian, or, on the other, bowed
down with self-accusing penitence, but on the part of men
who think themselves Christians, and deliberately prefer,
as more practical and free from mysticism, a travesty
of New Testament Christianity, is a terrible sign of the
blindness from within which has come upon the eyes of
a large part of what should be the living Church of Christ.
This at least is a test fact of an overt kind. Whatever
perplexity there may be about this or that individual,
the broad significance of this fact can hardly be obscure.
Churchmanship which so little seeks for Christ, and so
little either believes or obeys His words, as to live, and
acquiesce in living, in permanent remoteness from His
communion, stands openly self - condemned. It is con-
demned, not so much for having failed to overcome the
fierce impulses of passionate temptation, but for having
refused, through indifference, to try. It is condemned —
not for not having attained an ideal which nevertheless,
in its own rough way, it loved ; but for refusing to care
to have, or to love, any real ideal at all. It has not only
fallen short of, it has turned by deliberate preference aside
from, so much as it clearly saw of the way of the Spirit
of Christ.
It is necessary to say these things broadly, because they
are, beyond question, broadly true. Yet even in saying
them broadly, we disclaim, as of course, the judgment of
any individual. A man may be living a life whose tenor
is, in fact, a witness against the faith of Jesus Christ. We
are right, not wrong, to recognize that the fact is so. Yet
no human insight can measure how far this is, in him, a
rebellion against light Too often alas ! the most inveterate
and damaging prejudice against the orderliness of Church
302 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
life is itself an honest prejudice, the revolt of a genuine,
and not ignoble, though an ill-considered, revolt against the
glaring moral and spiritual unrealities of those who had
stopped at the husk and niissed the kernel, or (in other
words) who both preached and practised the outwardness of
Christian habit, without any real reflection of the Christian
spirit in their personal character and life. It is impossible
to pursue this thought in the present context, or do any
justice to the extent to which the worldliness, or hypocrisy,
of Churchmen is the real cause of the revolt of many a
noble nature from Churchmanship. But it was necessary
to say that this thought, however little it can be enlarged
upon, is most certainly not overlooked, — in order that we
may insist also, without being misunderstood, on the prin-
ciple which remains after all none the less true in itself,
that revolt from, or indifference to, the communion of the
Church — whatever may be its excuse in the individual — is
in its proper nature, revolt from, and indifference to, the
Incarnation and Atonement of Christ.
In the same way, and with the same sort of guarding
explanations, we must utterly demur to certain other
symptoms, too familiar in conventional Christian life, as
wholly antithetical to the Spirit of Christ. Thus under
whatever provocation, — and the provocation often is great, —
all consistent cynicism as to the real presence and working
of goodness in the world, is, in fact, flat refusal of belief in
Christ. Those who live in the midst of what is called
" the world " ; and who take, as their data, only the things
which familiarly meet their eyes ; are likely enough to be
cynical. But had their data included their own sincere
experiences of prayer and communion, and their sustained
effort to serve, in the ways that were open to them, such
as needed their service; the evidence before them would
have been full of new facts which are not to them in evi-
dence now ; and it would have been moreover a quickened
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 303
power of discernment with which they would have
viewed and judged the evidence : so that, in both ways,
theirs would have been an insight into the very true
proportion of things, at once more penetrating and more
reverent than it is ; and on these terms cynicism would not
even have been felt as a temptation. The sense indeed of
wrong in the world, and of the power of wrong, would
have been not less but greater. And yet, more impres-
sive even than the wrong, would have been the profound
realization also of the hidden working of the Spirit
which can never tolerate or make compromise with wrong.
This phrase strikes a further note. For another
symptom of secularized religion, is its over-complacent
toleration of wrong. There is indeed a large-heartedness
which is wholly Christian : and it is easy to slip, imper-
ceptibly, from the one to the other. Largeness of heart
towards evil-doers is a Christlike sign. But such largeness
of heart is in fact a working of love, which yearns over
them, even in their evil, because it yearns to separate them
from their evil. It will do all that love can do to deliver
them, and in their dimmest approaches towards contrition
it is near at once to succour and strengthen them. But
this is a difficult goodness : and the world has an easier
substitute for this. The world's substitute simply is, — to
ignore or condone the evil : to treat the evil, with a large
indifference, as if it were not evil but good. It is one thing
to yearn towards the persons who have fallen into evil, and
to be willing to do and bear for them. It is quite another
thing to make light of the evil : or embrace, without a differ-
ence, those who, having identified themselves with evil, have
hardened their foreheads without shadow of relenting.
" To abhor the evil " is as necessary a sign of the spirit of
holiness as is to love the good. " Neither doth he abhor
anything that is evil " ^ is a sentence of condemnation which
* Psalm xxxvi. 4.
304 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
shows essential incapacity of any true enthusiasm for what
is good. In those who cannot be stung into horror and
hatred of evil the absolute antithesis between evil and
good has been only too effectually melted away. They
are all " more or less " this or that. Enthusiasm is dead.
The whole ultimate drift is indifference. There is nothing
at all like this in the new Testament. The publicans and
the harlots who were drawn towards Christ were received
with the gravest tenderness. But what of those who were
not drawn at all ? Or what of those — not harlots and
publicans only but scribes and Pharisees, — to whom He
and His searching tenderness, and His awful claims, were
only an " offence." The wrath of Jesus of Nazareth was
— and is — uncompromising and very terrible. " Every one
that falleth on that stone shall be broken to pieces ; but on
whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as dust" ^
Another form of the tolerance which belies religion is
the total lack of enthusiasm for the mission of the Gospel of
Christ Zeal for evangelistic work throughout the world
is a necessary note of belief and love towards Christ.
Indifference to mission work, scepticism as to its possible
value and duty, though it is painfully common in the world,
and both accepted in fact, and maintained in principle, by
many who think and mean themselves to be Christians, is,
in simple truth, a fatal disloyalty. Of course this or that
particular mission or missionary may fail, more or less
glaringly, in his own ideal purpose and significance. To
see, with whatever scathing clearness of view, the in-
adequacy of individual persons or efforts, is no disloyalty ;
it is rather a direct and certain result of true enthusiasm.
But to disbelieve in the cause, to hesitate about the duty,
to class Christianity as merely one type, amongst many
more or less perfect or imperfect types of religion, to doubt
its sovereign relation to all mankind, to accept imperfect
^ Luke XX. i8.
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 305
success as an excuse for desisting from enthusiasm ; is
utterly incompatible with any real understanding of what
the Christian faith is. Such cold detachment is the
opposite of zeal for the Lord. It is not the same religion
at all as that of St John.^ It cannot, when cross-examined,
escape conviction as an essential lack of the knowledge,
the belief, and the love, which are characteristic and
indispensable notes of the Spirit of Christ.
These things, and others like these, are illustrations —
not indeed of the defiant wickedness of the world, not
even of the vices, the failures, the inconsistencies, known
and recognized as such, which make a painful dualism in
professedly Christian lives ; but of that loss and lack of
the true Christian faith and hope, which goes so far, in
the midst of our modern world, to change and degrade
the very significance of the Christian name. It is not
vice as vice, nor failure as failure ; it is the perversion of
the Christian conception, the worldly slackening and loss
of the ideal, the letting-slip, through indolence and dis-
taste, of what is most vitally distinctive in Christian hope,
and experience, and power, which has been the subject of
the last few pages. It is this which is so fatally remote
from Christ. It is acquiescent and comfortable. There
is no struggle about it, and no aspiration. The life in it
is smothered, and near to death.
In saying this we are very far from denouncing the
conditions of common life in the world as such. There may
be much of Christward aspiration and anxiety in the Court
pageant, and the ball-room, and the banquet ; as there may,
on the other hand, amongst lives that are sordid and noisy
in crowded city courts. The surroundings and temptations
of luxury on the one hand, and the atmosphere on the
other of fighting and pushing, of crowding and suffering,
do not exclude, — on the contrary they may, in some
» I JoLn i. 3, 4.
U
3o6 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
cases, even stimulate it. In either direction there is
room as well for the wistful and aspiring, as for the law-
less and the grovelling, life. But what is not compatible
with the living movement of the Spirit of Christ, is
acceptance, by preference, of ideals that have all been
tuned down to the pitch of worldly comfortableness.
This explaining away of hope and slackening of ideals,
and determined acquiescence in the standard of the
world as good, when the higher aim was, or might
perfectly well have been, familiar, is far nearer to the
direct antithesis of the Spirit, than is much wild fury of
passion in those who have had but little knowledge of
good. Such life is a wilful scepticism — or a flat refusal —
of the light and truth of life. To acquiesce in it is not
to be an image of Christ upon earth, a personal reflection
of the Person of the Crucified, living upon His Humanity
as spiritual food, growing into ever perfecter consummation
of oneness with Him, and recognizing, in perfect oneness
with Him, the one effective atonement, the one true
significance and goal, of the whole life of man. But in
the midst of all the pitiful unrealities of Christianity, can
any one doubt what a noise and a shaking and a coming
together would inevitably follow from anything which
(even without touching any other condition) should but
reawake once more, throughout men's consciences, the
true inward ideal and conviction of the meaning of the
doctrine of the Atonement of Christ?
After what has been said about the power, on the one
hand, which belongs to the ideal, and, on the other, the
great extent, and the disastrous meaning, of its defect in
conventional Christianity, it may seem almost superfluous
to add anything further to intensify the conviction of its
necessity. Yet the pressure of that necessity is illustrated
so strikingly in one or two directions, that it really seems
desirable to insist on it still. The fact is that the doctrine
(
r
xii.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 307
of atonement, as we have endeavoured to conceive it, is
no superfluous mystery, which, however wonderful it may
be when men come to understand it, is yet irrelevant to
their ordinary consciousness, and could, without any
practical disadvantage in every-day life, be dispensed
with or ignored. On the contrary, it is what the practical
every-day consciousness itself absolutely needs and de-
mands. There is that in the very constitution of human
consciousness with which it perfectly fits, and to which
it is wholly indispensable. Human consciousness cannot
even be properly itself apart from it. And the conse-
quence is that, however much it may be ordinarily
overlaid or befogged, human consciousness is, in one
way or another, constantly bearing its own witness to
the truth of it. Any real appeal, straight from the Christ
and the Christ-standard, strikes right home to human con-
sciousness. We all know, at the bottom of our hearts,
that there is, in real truth, but one meaning, and one
standard, of human life. This is the secret of the extra-
ordinary power of any preacher, or of any book, which
without the least deflection or compromise of principle, bids
I men fearlessly, at every point, correct the standard of the
world by the standard of Christ, and walk always and only
" in His steps." For so far at least, and in respect of the
central principle appealed to, there is no element of ex-
aggeration in the appeal. The one legitimate aim and effort
of every man, at every time, is to do exactly what is right.
And to do exactly what is right, is to do exactly what Christ
(so far as He can be conceived under similar conditions)
would Himself have done. Between what is right to do,
and what He would have done (so far as He could have
been under similar conditions) there is no distinction at
all. And at all times, in all ways, the scope and meaning
of the life of a Christian, is to believe in doing, and to do,
without diffidence or qualification, what is right.
3o8 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
But it is well to lay some emphasis upon the proviso
which we have just twice repeated in parenthesis. For
in the first place there are a vast number of situations in
life, which constitute the most perplexing of practical
problems, in which it is not compatible with a reverent
conception of His Person, to conceive of Him as placed.
It was wholly incompatible with the nature of the work
which He came on earth to do, that He should have been
within the scope of matrimonial responsibilities or anxieties,
or should have been closely identified with party politics,
or should have initiated a great commercial enterprise,
or should have been a successful general, or should have
dominated the public press. All these things are good ;
and a score of others, of which these are but samples, are
also good ; but it is levity of mind, not religious reverence,
which will conceive of Him as directly conditioned by
them. He is indeed a standard to all these ; but the
standard cannot be applied with any rough and ready
directness of method. And in the second place, if we ask
ourselves, more indirectly, not what He would have done,
but rather to what end, in conditions so wholly dissimilar,
the essential principles of His life would work out, or what
His apostles and saints would have done, in conditions
which are not so hopelessly incongruous to them ; (which
is in fact the same thing as asking, in the only reverent
form, what it would perfectly beseem the Christ-Spirit
to do): we have still to beware of rough and ready
answers. In complicated circumstances it is often really
difficult to know exactly what is right. We are not helped,
but hindered, in our search for what is right, by the crude
attempt to imitate, across all gulfs of intervening difference,
the precise things which He did. Across all the complica-
tions of a duty that really is complicated, it is mere
spiritual ignorance and the rashness of extreme presump-
tion, that expects to find a short-cut by asking, and ex-
I
I
I
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 309
pecting off-hand to be able to answer the question, what
would Christ have done? He would have done that
which is the absolutely wisest and best. When we know
what is absolutely wisest and best, we shall know what
He would have done. But we are far more likely to find
what He would have done, by learning dutifully what is
wisest and best ; than to discover, by a short-cut, what is
wisest and best, through asking what He would have done,
and presuming, in all the crudeness of spiritual indiscipline,
to give off-hand, perhaps in biblical phraseology, a wholly
unjust and superficial answer.
No sober-minded Christian would really expect to cut the
knot of all his own practical difficulties thus. It is far less
consistent still with Christian sobriety to presume, by a
short and crude prescription like this, to map out, for
all other men or classes of men, their several paths of
spiritual duty and truth. It would be easy to enlarge
upon this thought, and to illustrate it from many sides.
But at this moment, after all, our object is not so
much to expose the rashness necessarily involved in
any attempt to define in detail the method of following
His steps ; as to welcome and afifirm the truth of the
principle as principle. So unqualified is the truth of the
principle, that the utmost extravagance in the exposition
of it goes only, after all, a limited way towards destroying
its inherent fascination and power. The doctrine of the
Holy Spirit, (which is the extension of the Incarnation,
the application of the Atonement,) is that which reveals
the possibility at once, and the true and dutiful method,
of learning to do this which absolutely ought to be done.
There is also another direction in which the neglect of
the doctrine and experience of the Holy Spirit, indis-
pensable as it is to real Christianity, and therefore to the
real constitution of human consciousness, avenges itself,
too surely, upon those who are guilty of it. This
3IO ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
tendency, on the side of its baser development, will include
all that we understand by the word Spiritualism. Its
deeper and more aspiring aspect is Mysticism. As the
self-styled spiritualism is the extreme imperfection (when
it is not the gross caricature) of the Christian doctrine
of the Holy Spirit : so the so-called mystical is too apt to
become only a one-sided understanding of the essential
mystery of Christian personality.
Spiritualism is the nemesis of unspirituality. The
spiritualist plays upon the inherent consciousness of
spiritual reality in those whose experience has never
learned the meaning and methods of the Presence of
God's Holy Spirit. He makes use of spiritual phrases,
and spiritual instincts ; knowing indeed that the spiritual
is real, yet fancying that it is a specialized region apart,
to be explored by special apparatus of quasi-scientific
faculties. He does not know that the spiritual is as
wide as life, that it includes the material, and is its
ultimate goal and significance. He does not know that
the spiritual is the crown of the moral, and can only be
gauged or known, with any certainty or any fulness, in, and
as, experience of moral righteousness. Instead of setting
himself to apprehend the spiritual by the faculties and
experiences — the bracing of character and the discipline of
life — through which men can adore, and reflect, and there-
fore know, their God ; he tries, by methods and powers to
which the Holiness of God is irrelevant, to penetrate into
his so-called spiritual, as into a new compartment of un-
explored, and unhealthily fascinating, science. He is right
in believing in, and demanding, the spiritual. But he is
wholly, and for the most part even grotesquely, wrong, in
the direction in which he looks for the spiritual, and his
fundamental conception of what spiritual means. He
thinks of it only as another, though more delicate and im-
palpable, form of the physical, amenable ultimately (if we
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 311
can but adjust them with sufficient subtlety) to the tests
and methods of physical experience. He does not realize
it as a mode of being of which our only direct knowledge
is in that personal experience of self-communing with
righteousness, to which all physical tests, methods, and
conditions whatsoever, are felt to be merely transitory — and
even, in the last resort, in a real sense, irrelevant — acci-
dents. The spiritualist who does not, by his spiritualism,
mean the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which is God,
made manifest in the manifest " fruits of the Spirit," is try-
ing an impossible short-cut to the region of spirit, and sub-
stituting, for the highest imaginable reality, the most
hungry counterfeit and caricature.
It may have seemed, perhaps, little less than offensive
to mention just now, in the same breath, the spiritualist
and the mystic. In both cases, indeed, a word of the
noblest meaning has been perverted to strange, if not
ignoble, uses. But the difference is very great. The word
spiritualism has come to mean little else than its own
degradation. The word mysticism has a far nobler history.
And yet it may be said, with some truth, that the. word
mysticism, as a distinctive term, exists chiefly to express a
disproportion. This is not said in anything like deprecia-
tion of the mystical aspect of the Christian life. On the
contrary, the spirit of mysticism is the true and essential
Christianity. Renewal of the study of mysticism is wholly
a matter for rejoicing. But it will be felt that in all
writing about mysticism there is a difficulty in defining
what is written about. In truth there is an inherent am-
biguity in our definitions of mysticism. We do not settle
exactly which it is that we wish to define. Is it mysticism
as ideally it ought to be ? the essential harmony of truth
which the mystics were (often inharmoniously) aiming at ?
Or is it the actual meaning which mysticism has borne,
historically, in the life and thought of the " mystics " ? To
312 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
frame a definition which shall include the different histori-
cal varieties of mysticism is difficult : to frame a definition
which, whilst including them, shall characterize them as
distinctive, excluding a perfectly real but non-mystical
Christian experience, is an impossibility. It is compara-
tively easy to say what the real truth of Christian mysti-
cism is. It is, in fact, the doctrine, or rather the experi-
ence, of the Holy Ghost. It is the realization of human
personality as characterized by, and consummated in, the
indwelling reality of the Spirit of Christ, which is God.
Mysticism as identical with true Christianity, mysticism
as the realization of the Spirit of Holiness, the Spirit of the
Creator of Heaven and Earth, in, and as, the climax of
human personality, is intelligible enough. But if mysticism
is to be distinguished from "simple" Christianity as a
special experience apart, a distinctive compartment of ex-
ceptional possibility, it encounters insuperable difficulties.
On the one hand there will be rival conceptions, with
more or less equal claim to be regarded as distinctive of
mysticism. On the other hand, whatever definition is
adopted as distinctive, will be ipso facto an exaggeration.
It is only by virtue of what is exaggerated or dis-
proportioned in it, that mysticism can be conceived as a
separate department, other than the realization of
Christianity itself.
And in point of fact, not only have all forms of mys-
ticism had their characteristic liabilities to exaggeration,
but it is by their exaggerations that they have loomed
large in history, and are, in the main, distinguished and
characterized. The doctrine of God the Holy Ghost is
what Christian mysticism has properly aimed at and
meant. But Christian mysticism has, for the most part,
historically, framed for itself some narrower definition
and aim, realizing a part of the inclusiveness of the Divine
Spirit of human personality, at the expense of the whole.
>
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 313
The ascetic mystic, while pursuing an ideal which is
absolutely true, has really under-valued the dignity of
the body, and the divine excellence of the harmony of
bodily cleanliness and vigour and health.
The mystic who tries to find God negatively through
the intellect, by disallowing, in thought, all the attributes
of God, is saved only by his moral earnestness, and a
happy incapacity of being fully consistent, from what
would have been at first an intellectual scepticism, and
ultimately a moral chaos also.
The contemplative mystic misconceives the true
relation of thought to experience, and experience to
thought: the part, therefore, which the life of service
bears in the highest capacities of spiritual insight into
truth.
The mystic who would rise to God by despising nature
fails to see the divineness of little things, the real ex-
pression of God in what is outward or inanimate.
The symbolic mystic, seeing God in things little or
inanimate, very rarely understands aright the proportion
between the wonderful revelation of God in nature, and
that more wonderful and more capable reflection of God
in man, which causes so many of the highest saints to
seem absorbed in the life of practical service, and accounts
for what would otherwise be wholly amazing, — the scriptural
conception of love. Moreover he tries to find the com-
pleteness of God revealed in inanimate nature just as it
stands ; forgetting the extent to which inanimate nature also
" groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now," and
being subjected to the law of perfecting through sacrifice,
has to reach its own ideal significance, not by simple
development but rather through a process of transfiguring
" deliverance " — " from the bondage of corruption into the
liberty of the glory of the children of God."
* Rom. viii. 21, 22.
314 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
One and all, they tend by disproportionate emphasis
upon their own aspect of truth to impair the perfect
harmony of the truth of the Spirit, — that very truth to
which they only exist to bear witness ; and it is precisely
upon their exaggerations that conceptions, and definitions,
of mysticism are apt to be made to depend. One and all,
the exaggerations find their full correction in the Person of
the Incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ ; for all the exaggera-
tions are partial lights from the full splendour of the
presence of His Spirit, which is the ideal meaning of
Christian personality.
It is Christ who is the true mystic ; or if the mode of
expression be preferred, it is He who alone has realized all
that mysticism and mystics have aimed at — with more, or
with less, whether of disproportion or of success. And in
Him this perfect realization evidently means a harmony, a
sanity, a fitly proportioned completeness. It is an inward
light which makes itself manifest as character ; a direct
communion of love which is also, to the fullest extent,
wholly rational at once and wholly practical ; it is as much
knowledge as love, and love as knowledge ; it is as truly
contemplation as activity, and activity as contemplation.
In being the ideal of mysticism, it is also the ideal of
general, and of practical, and of all. Christian experience.
For the most practical type of Christian experience mis-
conceives itself, until it conceives itself as an expression,
in action, of a central truth, — that truth of transcendent
fact, which practical Christians are too often content to
call "mystical," and, so calling it, to banish, or try to
banish, from the region of practical life.
We may shrink indeed from any mere disbelief in ex-
periences in which we ourselves have no part. In trance,
in exalted contemplation, in raptness of spirit, there may
be greater possibilities than we ordinarily dream of. We
may shrink from limiting the possibilities of insight into
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 315
truth, in those who surrender themselves in childlike sim-
plicity, body and soul, to the reception of truth. But we
need not hesitate to say that no partial experience can be
the more excellent for being partial. Active duty is not
heightened by paralysis of contemplative power ; and con-
versely, paralysis of the life of active duty and benevolence
is a numbing, not a quickening, of spiritual faculty. True
spiritual experience is not, as such, a remoteness from the
livingness of life ; rather it is to be livingly animated, for all
purposes of living, with the Spirit of the Incarnate, which
is God.
It is the width of this truth of the Christian creed which
the mystic so often has missed. It is not that he has too
high a doctrine of the Spirit. On the contrary, it is not
high enough. Because he fails to apprehend the indwell-
ing presence of the Spirit, which is God, as cardinal to
the Christian creed and life, therefore he looks for the
meaning of the doctrine of the Spirit, as something fenced
apart, and exceptional in its conditions and results. Of
mysticism as a distinctive aspiration, or abnormal possi-
bility, or remote compartment of experience, nothing need
have been heard in the history of Christendom, if only
every Christian had been a mystic in the true sense, as
assuredly every Christian ought to be ; that is, had been
so filled with the pervading Presence of the Spirit of the
Incarnate (which is the Personal presence of the eternal
God) that he himself, being constituted what he was by
the character of the indwelling Spirit, " with unveiled face
reflected as a mirror the glory of the Lord."^ In pro-
portion as mysticism either claims to be, or is regarded
by ordinary Christians as being, an abnormal by-way or
by-region of special experience, rather than as the realiza-
tion in special fulness of that which is the central inspira-
tion and meaning of all Christian life, as well practical as
* 2 Cor. iii. 18.
3i6 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
contemplative ; in that proportion does the mysticism
itself become directly liable to various forms of exaggera-
tion and unhealthiness, while the Christianity which is
content to remain " non-mystical " is impoverished at the
very centre of its being. All Christians profess belief in
the Holy Ghost. Had only all Christians understood,
and lived up to, their belief, they would all have been
mystics : or, in other words, there would have been no
" mysticism."
Such, then, is our ideal. But once more who is
there that realizes it ? Something has been said about the
many, in familiar life, who plainly fall short of it What
of the few, whom we might be inclined to call Saints?
Or IS the world simply divided into the many who
fail, and the few who perfectly realize and reflect
Christ?
If we should have the opportunity of cross-questioning
the inner consciousness of those who seem to be saintliest,
it is probable that while on the one hand, they would bear
emphatic testimony to the truth that this, and nothing
less than this, is to them the real ideal and significance
of Life in Christ, on the other hand, they would be no
less emphatic in disclaiming anything at all like an actual
attainment of it. The more they realize what their life
means, the less do they seem to have accomplished its
meaning : even while (paradoxically enough) the very
sense of non-accomplishment is rather their hope and
confidence than their despair. They know that Christian
life means, and that it will be perfectly consummated in,
Christ. They are confident of the meaning, and confident
of the issue. They know it moreover not as a merely
blind faith, but with what is, in fact, the knowledge of
experience. Yet their experience is so inchoate, that it is
experience rather of a faith than of an achievement, of a
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 317
living principle out of which results must issue rather than
of results already possessed.
As to the meaning of the ideal, or the certainty of the
ideal, you will try in vain to shake the immovable
confidence of their faith. For indeed it is more than
what most of us mean by faith. It belongs to the
highest form of all possible knowledge. It is part of the
inherent consciousness of their own personality. Yet,
immovable as is, on this side, their certainty, it still is a
faith, and a faith believed rather than realized, on the side
of its effects. These men are not conscious of an inherent
righteousness. Rather, so exceptional is their insight into
righteousness (and insight is affinity), that there is no
class of men on the face of the earth who feel so keenly
— and so truly — their own immeasurable failure of
righteousness. They do not feel themselves animated by
the Spirit of Christ, — living reflections of the glory of
Christ. On the contrary, in proportion to their own in-
sight into the vision of holiness, is their insight into, and
their consciousness of, sin. They are the true self-
accusers. They are the thorough penitents. Even this
indeed is, in a certain way, a likeness with Christ, a school-
ing in the discipline of the Cross. For Christ, in the
conditions which He deliberately undertook, — though free,
and because free, from personal sin, — was yet the sin-bearer,
the perfect — the only perfectly possible — penitent. But
our thought at this moment requires not so much the
discernment of the Christlike lineaments in the penitent
as penitent ; but rather, what is equally true, the discern-
ment that the consciousness of the penitent, as penitent,
is a consciousness rather of contrast than of affinity
with Christ. What he feels is his unholiness, his in-
capacity, his remoteness from God. And what he feels
in itself is absolutely true. Even he, though, as penitent,
he is nearer to the truth than other men, yet errs rather
3i8 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
in under than in <?z;^r-estimating his own actual failure,
and incapacity, of righteousness. Penitent as he now is,
he will yet be still more emptied, still more humiliated,
still more utterly penitent, as he draws nearer to the
great consummation. But our thought just now is not
on the incompleteness so much as on the reality of his
humiliation and emptiness. It is not incompatible — nay
it intimately corresponds — with his own inherent certainty
as to the meaning, and destiny, of his own personality.
Yet as humiliation and emptiness it is quite unreservedly
sincere and real. No one on earth is so absolutely un-
affected in self-accusation and realization of sin, as the
saint in whose spirit is the vision of God. He is, and he
knows that he is, a sinner, without worth or dignity. He
is, and he knows that he is, in himself by himself, guilty
before His God without excuse, and impotent without
hope. And therefore when he realizes also, as he does
realize, in himself, the earnest of the presence, and the
certainty of the destiny, of Christ ; he realizes something,
which, though it has indeed a present reality, is yet so in
contrast with the present, that it may after all be truly
described not only as of faith rather than of sight, but
perhaps even as of blind faith, of faith whose eyes are
fixed wholly on the far future, of faith magnificent in its
transcendence, or even defiance, of all conditions sensibly
realized.
After all, in respect of conditions sensibly realized, the
difference between man and man on earth, the difference
between the greatest sinner (whose eyes are yet turned
feebly towards God), and the greatest saint (who could be
no saint if he did not feel himself a sinner) is a difference
only of degree: and it may be that this difference of
degree may seem hereafter to be strangely, perhaps even
infinitesimally, small, when compared with the difference
between what the highest saint can now feel himself to
XII.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 319
be, and what he even now believes — nay knows — that he
shall himself, in the Spirit of Christ, become. The faithful
Christians who are saints in Christ, are not enjoying a
present fruition of holiness. They are looking forward
to it in a faith which, in respect of all sensible conditions,
is fearless in over-riding present experience, even whilst,
as faith, it is itself inwrought with experience. They
are, after all, steadily looking forward, in the certainty
of an immovable faith, to something which they believe —
and know — to be the very inmost truth of themselves,
even whilst it is, in the certainty of immediate experience,
not only external to, but in actual, often in painful, contrast
with themselves.
Such, then, is the outcome of our exposition of Atone-
ment. We would ask people to believe in the work of
Christ's Passion as a real transformation of themselves,
as finding its climax in the real climax of themselves.
So far it may truly be said that we are demurring to a
purely objective theory of atonement. Atonement cannot
be described, or accounted for, simply as a transaction,
external to the selves who are atoned for. In themselves
is its ultimate significance. In themselves is its ultimate
reality. Nor can they themselves be ultimately realized
any otherwise save through it.
Are we then pointing to conditions merely subjective,
as a substitute, or at least a sort of imitation, or reflex
result, of Calvary ? Are we making the real atonement
a personal achievement ? are we finding its original signifi-
cance either in personal feeling or personal character?
or are we trying to stimulate in ourselves a strong
imagination of personal holiness? It is obvious that we
are doing nothing of the sort. Any such imagination
would be the most hollow, and the most pitiable, of make-
believes. The sense of goodness in ourselves would prove
only our incapacity of understanding goodness. Atone-
320 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
ment as a personal achievement would be impossible. Nor
are we so far deceived as to the bitterness or the depths
of sin by the grandeur of a transcendent (albeit a true)
theory, as to look for the consummation of the meaning
of Christian personality within the conditions, and dis-
abilities, of present experience. Such consummation is no
matter of present consciousness, or present fruition. To
imagine so would be to degrade the augustness of the
meaning of Christian personality.^
Nor is Christian personality attained, through effort, by
those who, but for effort, had it not. There is indeed
Christian effort. And there is imitation of Christ. But
these are rather the necessary outcome, than the producing
cause, of the Spirit of Christ. It is by His initiation rather
than ours, and by the acts of His power rather than ours,
that we were first brought into relation with Him, and
that His Spirit is progressively imparted to us. He does
ask of us a certain response of docility. He does ask us
to be willing to receive, to be willing to correspond, to
1 '* I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I
know not ; or whether out of the body, I know not ; God knoweth), such a
one caught up even to the third heaven. And I know such a man (whether in
the body, or apart from the body, I know not ; God knoweth), how that he
was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not
lawful for a man to utter. On behalf of such a one will I glory : but on mine
own behalf I will not glory, save in my weaknesses, inrkp rov toioijtov Kavx^-
ffo/J.ai' vrrkp Sk ifiavrov ov Kai%i^<yo/xaL, ei fir] iv rals dadevelaLS." 2 Cor. xii. 2-5.
Of whom is St Paul speaking ? There is one before his thought, whom he
sharply contrasts with himself, — inr^p 8^ ifiavroO ov. "Who is it ? Who is the
** self" of whom he will not glory ? and who is the ** such a one " of whom he
will? Are they not both — with whatever difference — himself?
Even, then, the veteran apostle and martyr, who, in vision, by anticipation,
had himself seen and tasted the truer reality of himself, yet means by "himself,"
in the present, the imperfect self, the self characterized by weaknesses within
and distresses without, and sharply chastened by the *' thorn in the flesh," the
" messenger of Satan to buffet " him.
As the clear vision of his transfigured self does not prevent his self-identifica-
tion meanwhile with the weakness and distress; so does not his true self-
identification with the weakness and distress obscure the truth that the trans-
figured being whom, having once felt, he cannot but contrast with himself, yet
is, to say the least, something very far nearer than he is, to the true and
ultimate reality of himself.
xn.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 321
obey in order that we may receive, to rejoice in correspond-
ing, to believe in what we have received, and shall become,
to believe in ourselves and in Him. But it is always He
who achieved, and who imparts. Essentially we are
throughout receivers, not workers. The Pentecostal Spirit
is bestowed in grace, bestowed on faith, bestowed through
sacraments, anyway bestowed, not earned. Certainly we
are not speaking of a subjective that can be detached
even for a moment, even in imagination, from its own
essentially objective original.
We have, then, a magnificent faith, — a faith, at once
grounded in, yet transcending, experience ; a faith in a
magnificent future, which is at once incompatible with,
and yet is the very truth and meaning, of the conscious-
ness of the present. We do ask for belief, and indeed
enthusiasm, for a certain conception (or consciousness) as
to the relation between the achievement of Calvary and
the inner meaning and possibilities of human personality.
We do believe that the Spirit of Calvary is to animate our-
selves ; and that the animating of ourselves by the Spirit
of Calvary is a reality wholly God's and wholly ours ;
wholly objective at once and wholly subjective; and we
do believe that the mere belief in such a reality is itself
the first proper condition of its own consummation, — is
itself a transforming and enabling power, received from
without, and yet vitally within, the real being of the
self.
But precisely because this consummation is so much
more future than present, so much more grasped by faith
(though a faith which is experience) than realized in
feeling or in sight, therefore after all, so far from parting
company with those who in faith adore an atonement
external to themselves, it is precisely with them that we
shall seem, most and last, to take our stand. When we
contemplate the Cross we do indeed recognize that we are
X
322 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY [chap.
gazing on no remote transaction, no mere paying down
(as it were) of purchase-money, but rather upon the
meaning, the destiny, the true character, and revealed
possibility, of ourselves. Yet even because its ultimate
significance is to be within ourselves, we adore it as yet
as external to ourselves. Except we first so believe, and
adore, and love, we are trying to close up the very avenues
through which the external fact should first begin to become
the characteristic reality of ourselves. We study it indeed
not as a transaction that is either properly, or ultimately,
external. We see in it the revealed climax of human
personality, and the one only possibility by which our
imperfect personalities can hope to be consummated in
that which alone can ever be their true meaning. We
see ourselves really in it ; and in it alone we discover
the reality of ourselves. Yet after all, our present in-
completeness is necessarily such that, here at least and
now, the curtain falls, and must fall, upon us still in the
attitude of rapt belief and imploring worship, towards what
— though by faith we see our true selves nowhere save
in it, — is still, to all sensible experience, quite outside —
nay the contradiction — of ourselves. We are still in the
ranks of those who live by fastening their eyes, in faith, as
on the serpent of brass, set before their eyes to be an object
of faith.
In the failure of ourselves, which is an integral part of
experience, that which helps us most is that which we feel
to be without, and beyond, ourselves. It will not comfort
us so much, in our moments of weakness or dying, to
be adjured to remember the dignity of our being, as to
be pointed to the scene enacted once for all upon the
Cross. We believe that Calvary wonderfully includes and
conditions ourselves. Yet it is to Calvary, not as ourselves
but as Calvary, that, in the breaking up of ourselves, we
most earnestly desire to hold fast. We are left, here at
xir.] OUR PRESENT IMPERFECTION 323
least and now, still gazing as from afar, not in fruition
but in faith, on that which we have not realized in our-
selves. We are still kneeling to worship, with arms
outstretched from ourselves in a wonder of belief and
loving adoration, that reality wholly unique and wholly
comprehensive, the figure of Jesus crucified.
SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER
ON
THE ATONEMENT IN HISTORY
It would be quite foreign to the present purpose to write a
history of the doctrine of atonement. The historian of a
doctrine must aim at completeness. He will do justice to
every development or variation. He will overlook no
eccentricity. And his finished work will often present
more directly a curious picture of the working, perhaps
of the failure, of the human mind, than a vivid or vivifying
statement of the inner truth of the doctrine itself.
Such a study is full, no doubt, of its own fascination.
But for minds whose great interest is the reality of the
doctrine, as practical, living, and true, such a study is by
no means always edifying. So far from leading minds
straight to the living heart of truth, it seems often to
perplex and repel. A comparison between different
teachers or schools is occupied more, in proportion, with
their differences, and perhaps eccentricities, than with
the central reality which they diversely present. To pass
in thought from one disproportion to another ; to study,
and dissect, successive inadequacies, if not grotesquenesses :
is, to a mind partly puzzled and wholly eager, a repugnant,
and sometimes even a perilous, exercise. If a man doubts
the truth of the atonement to himself, he is hardly likely
to be reassured by a close historical study of the different,
more or less unsatisfying, ways, in which a great variety of
minds have struggled to express it. The variety itself is
distracting ; and each several exposition, when tabulated in
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 325
comparison and contrast with others, is put in its own least
persuasive, because least living, form. The very weariness
and entanglement of the history of a doctrine, as history,
makes it harder to many minds to embrace with any
vivid insight, or moral enthusiasm, the living truth itself as
living and as true.
But if a history, as history, is as much outside the
purpose, as the power, of the present effort ; that purpose
may nevertheless be served by some glimpses into history.
The glimpses, such as they are, may seem to be miscel-
laneous ; but they will have, of course, a connected purpose.
That purpose is to show how real is the freedom of essential
Christian thought, from those conceptions of atonement
with which it has become gradually, and has been sup-
posed to be inherently, identified : and thereby also to
vindicate, from the point of view of theological history,
the view which has been taken in the foregoing pages. It
is, then, even more for a defensive than for a purely
historical purpose ; it is to justify the rest of the volume
against some not unnatural distrust, that, in the main,
this supplementary chapter is written. It may be felt that
there is a suspicion of newness about the present exposi-
tion : that it is more distinct, than is wise or right, from
what look like the larger currents of traditional thought.
To this I do not plead guilty. If there is anything in it
which seems to our present assumptions to be novel, I
should plead in reply not only that in much larger measure
it is antique, conservative, orthodox, and scriptural ; but
that it is only the element of mistake in our present
assumptions which causes even the appearance of novelty.
The simplest way of justifying this plea is to try to exhibit,
in their delicious largeness and simplicity, the mode in
which the earliest generations of Christians felt and spoke
about the cardinal fact of the atonement. I should like
to be able to show that the essential position of the present
volume would have sounded in no way either novel or bold
to any Christian teachers or communities — though of course
every teacher did not put everything in exactly the
same way — until, at the least, the end of the Athanasian
age.
For this purpose I propose to dwell a little upon the
earliest Christian utterances, and to pass from them to
Athanasius. From Athanasius, in particular, I hope that
it will conclusively appear, not only that his own mind was
wholly without some modes of thought about the atone-
326 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
ment which we are sometimes tempted to regard as in-
separable from it; but also that he is altogether un-
conscious of any such assumptions in the mind of the
Church of his time. If there be anything narrow or
artificial in the explanations of Irenaeus or Origen, or
any others, I hope that Athanasius will make it plain
enough that any such elements of rigidity belonged to
the private efforts of individual theologians to illustrate
the central faith of the Church ; they were no part either
of the central faith, or even, as yet, of those popular
Christian conceptions which gathered round the central
faith.
For the rest, there seem to be some special reasons for
d welling a little upon Anselm and Abselard : and I have
ventured to try and make my position the clearer by
direct comment upon one or two of the treatises upon
the atonement which seem to be most current and most
practically influential amongst ourselves.
To begin, then, with some references to the Apostolic
Fathers.
In the epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians
there are two passages, each of which strikes a single note,
and strikes it most impressively. In the first the blood of
Christ is the real possibility of human penitence. Human
penitence — not vicarious penitence only in man's stead,
but reality of penitence in man himself: this is its beauty,
its joy, its preciousness, in the presence of God. It has
" won for the whole world the grace of penitence."
At5 d7roA,t7r(o/x€i/ ras Kcvas kol fxaraias ^/oovrtSaSj Kal eXOio/iev eirl
rhv evKXerj kol cr^fJLvhv ttjs TrapaSocreo)^ rjfxoiv Kavova, kol tSiofJiev rl
KaA.bv Kttt Tt refyTTvbv koX ri ir pocr^iKrhv evaymov tov Trot-qcravTO'S
rjfias. dT€VLcro)fi€V €is rh affxa rov X^ptcrrov koi yvfofxev ws eo-rtv tl/xlov
T^ 0€^ Tw TLarpl avTov, ort Sta ttjv rjfX€T€pav crwTiyptav €K)^vO€v
vravTi T^ Koa-px^ ficTavolas X^P''^ CTn^veyKev, k.t.A.^ I. ad Cor. vii.
In the other passage, the one thing that is absolutely
clear is that the passion of Jesus Christ was all love, love
beyond human conceiving, the love of God Himself There
is not a whisper here of anger, or vengeance. It is simply
the unplumbed mystery of love.
^ The text is that of Gebhardt, Harnack, and Zahn. Lightfoot reads {m-^-
veyKcv and upon it makes this note, — *' xnrqveyKev * offered.* So it is generally
taken, but this sense is unsupported; for Xen. Hell., iv. 7. 2, Soph. EL, 834,
are not parallel. Perhaps * won [rescued) for the whole world.* ** iiriiveyKi^
would seem to ccmvey the same meaning still more directly.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 327
" Whoso has love in Christ, let him do the command-
ments of Christ. What the bond is of the love of God,
who is there that can declare ? The grandeur of its beauty
who is sufficient to utter ? The height to which love leads
up is beyond telling. Love joins us unto God. Love
covers over a multitude of sins. Love bears with all things.
Love is all long-suffering. In love there is nothing mean,
and nothing haughty. There is no schism in love, and no
spirit of division. Love does all things in oneness of soul.
In love the elect of God were all made perfect. Without
love there can be nothing well pleasing to God. In love
the Master took us unto Himself For the love which
He had toward us, Jesus Christ our Lord, in the will of
God, gave His own blood for us, and His flesh for our
flesh, and His life for our lives." ^
An act wholly proceeding out of, wholly characterized
by and consisting of, love : an act whose priceless beauty
lay in this — that it was, in possibility at least, the actual
penitence of all mankind : this is the conception of the
atonement which meets us at the outset of post-apostolic
literature. It is a conception singularly free from the
technicalities and perplexing constraints of a good deal
of the logic of subsequent writers ; and perhaps hardly
less striking, in respect of this contrast, than it is in its
own large and living suggestiveness.
There is very little in the Ignatian letters which bears
upon the rationale of the interpretation of Christ's death
on the Cross. The event itself indeed, in its historical
reality, is most earnestly insisted on, as the very centre of
the Christian gospel and life.^ It is astonishing into how
many aspects of life it enters as not only a relevant, but
the cardinal, thought. The following passages are collected
by Bishop Lightfoot, when commenting upon the phrase,
in the inscription of the epistle to the Ephesians, which
speaks of the Church of Ephesus as " united and elected
in the power of a real Passion through the will of the
Father and of Christ." " This [eV 7rci6^ti]," he says, " should
probably be connected with both the preceding words.
The ' passion ' is at once the bond of their union, and the
ground of their election." For the former idea compare
^ iv Aydwu vpoffeKd^ero 17/tas 6 SecT&njs' Sid. v^v AydTrrjv fjv lo-xf tp6s
Tj/ias rb alfMa airrou ^dojKev vtrkp r]fj.wv 'Irjaovs Xptardy 6 Kijpios rjfxCiv, iv ^eXi^/x-art
SeoO, Kal rqv adpKo. uirkp rrjs (xapKbs ij/xQiv Kal tt)v ^vxhv inrip rwv \l/v\wi' rj/jiiiy.
I. ad Cor. xlix.
•* Sjee, £.i. Trail. 9, Smyrn. ]|,
328 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
ov a-vyKararidcTaL ; for the latter, 7V«//. 11. Iv tcJ 7ra^€i arrov
irpoarKaXelraL vfxas. This latter relation it has, because in
foreordaining the Sacrifice of the Cross God foreordained
the call of the faithful. Thus their election was involved
in Christ's passioo.
" This word has a special prominence in the Epistles of
Ignatius. In Christ's passion is involved the peace of one
Church ( 7><a://. inscr.) and the joy of another {Philad, inscr.).
Unto His passion the penitent sinner must return {Smyrn.
5) ; from His passion the false heretic dissents (^Philad. 3) ;
into His passion all men must die (Magn. 5) ; His passion
the saint himself strives to imitate {Rom. 6) ; the blood of
His passion purifies the water of baptism (Ephes. 18) ; the
tree of the passion is the stock from which the Church has
sprung {Smyrn. i) ; the passion is a special feature which
distinguishes the Gospel {Philad. 9, Smyrn. 7). In several
passages indeed it is co-ordinated with the birth or the
resurrection {Ephes. 20, Magn. ii, Smyrn. 12, etc.); but
frequently, as here, it stands in isolated grandeur, as the
one central doctrine of the faith."
Many of the passages here quoted go chiefly to show
the dominant place of the passion in the theology of
Ignatius ; but there are perhaps two specific thoughts
which may be emphasized as inherent in them. The first
is that to possess Christ is to desire to suffer with Him,^
or (in other words), that a voluntary sharing in the passion
of Christ is the life of Christ in us ;2 and the second, which
is a corollary from the first, is that for us the effect of the
passion is incomplete, until it finds a consummation within
ourselves, — our penitence, our death, and therefore our life,
and our resurrection through death.^
It may be allowable to refer, further, to the phrases in
which the Blood of Christ is said to be love. In one
context "faith" is the "flesh," and the "blood" is love ; in
another the "flesh" is the "bread of God," the spiritual
food of the soul, and the " blood " is imperishable love.
' 'Eirtrp^^aT^ fioi fiifxiyr'^v clfai rod wddovs rod Qeov fiov. ef ris a&rbv iv
iavTc^ (X^h vor}<x6.T(a 8 diXw, Kal (rvfiTradelru fioi, eldCDs ri <rwix''>vT^ P-^'
Rom. vi.
2 02 5^ iriffTol iv dydwr) xO'PaKTrjpa [^xo*^0 ®foC Harphs did, 'Irjaov XpicrTOv,
5i' o5 idbu fx/i) avdaip4TU)S (x^f^^^ '''^ dirodaveiv elt rb avrov irddos, rb ^ijv airov
oi/K (<TTi.v iv ijfuv. Magn. v.
^ Compare the two passages just quoted with 'AXXa firjd^ yivoirb /not aln-Qv
fivrjfioveieiv, fUxpi-i o5 fieravoijffoxnv els rb vd$o$, 6 iariv -^fiQv avdcrraffis.
Smyrn. v.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 329
^AvaKTia-acrOe eavTOvs €V iricrTei, 6 kcrriv (rdp^ rev Kvpiov, koi Iv
dyaLTTD, 6 ka-riv alfxa 'iTyaov X.pia-rov,^
Ovx yjSofiat rpo<f>y (jiOopds, ovSe ^8ovaL<s tov ^iov tovtov. aprov
Qeov deXio, 6 kcrriv crdp^ 'Irjaov Hpicrrov, rov €k cnrkpfxaro^ Aa/318,
Kal TTOfxa deko) to alfLa avrov, o kcrriv dyaTrrj d(f)Oapros.^
A passage is quoted from the epistle of Barnabas in
which, (in contrast with the Israelites who were so in-
capable of receiving the covenant, when given, that Moses
broke the two tables in pieces before reaching the people)
Christians are said to have been made capable of God's
covenant, " through the Lord Jesus, who was the heir of
the covenant : " ^ and Christ is said to have come into the
world for this, that* when we had recklessly thrown our
hearts away to death, and were given over to the lawless-
ness of sin, He might Himself redeem us out of the
darkness, — according to the charge given Him of the
Father, that He should make ready for Himself a holy
people.
Such a sentence does not carry us very far. But it may
certainly be said, that, on the one hand, it is the " Righteous-
ness " of Christ, not anything like His " punishment," which
is instinctively thought of as the redeeming power ; and,
on the other hand, that it is not the excusing of man from
punishment, but his recovery to holiness, which was the
goal, and is the effect, of redemption.
A good deal more important than these is the well-
known passage in the Epistle to Diognetus. The 7th and
8th chapters contain an eloquent statement of the thoughts
(i) that the Incarnation, (and the atonement as the crown-
ing purpose of the Incarnation,) proceeded from the Divine
goodness of the Eternal Father, "communicated" to the
Eternal Son, — aA,A' oStos "^v pxv aei roiovros^ KOI IcTTt, /cat la-Tttf
Xpr]<Trhs KOI dyadhs koi d6pyr^ro<s koX dXrjOrjs, koi fMovo^ dyados k(rriv'
kwoijcras Se jjLiydXrjV koi dcf>pacrrov Ivvoiav dvcKoivuxraro fiovi^ r(p
TraiSi : (2) that the Incarnate was Himself the very Maker
and Lord of all things in Heaven and earth and under
the earth, — avrhv rhv rexvirrjv koi Srjfxiovpyhv riov oXwv, ^ rovs
ovpavovs iKrurev, <f r^v OdXaa-a-av, K.r.X. : and (3) that this
coming of the Creator to His sinful creatures was (against
all human imagination of probability) not in anger, not in
terror, not for judgment ; but in gentleness and meekness,
^ Trail, viii. 2 -^^^^ ^n
' 5iA rod K\i]povofJi.ovvT05 di,adi^KT)v Kvplov 'iTjaoO Xd^ufiey. c. xiv.
* tAs ijSr] 8e8airavrj/jAyas ijfACiv Kapdias ry daudrtp Kal irapaSeSofx^vas ry rijs
rXdiftji dvofxta Xvrouxrduevos ix rod ffK&rovi. c. xiv.
330 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
in royal condescension, in divine love, to win, to persuade,
to save, — oipd ye, a)S dvOpioTTiav dv Tts A-oytcraiTo, €7rt rvpavviSL koi
<f)6/3(p Kttt KaTaTrki/j^eL ; ovfxevovv' dkX^ kv €7ri€tK€i^ KaX TrpavrrjTL ws
/^acrtAevs ttc/xttwv vlbv fBacriXka. eVc/x^cv, ws Oebv 67re/i.^€V, ws dvBpaiTrov
7rph<s dvOpwTTOvs CTTCfixpeVj ws crtu^wv €7re/x;/'€v, ws irddoiv, ov /5ia^d-
fX€V0<5' /Sea yap ov Tr/DocrecrTt t(J) Beo). cTre/x^ev ws /caXwi/, ov StWKCov*
cTTC/x^ev (US dyaTTCov, ov KpivdiV,
These chapters supply, then, the general background
of the thought, — how unlike the implacableness of the
Father and the punishment of the Son ! how unlike even
to the thought of a " just " kingdom of Satan, which God
can only invade by force or fraud ! — and it is upon this
background of thought that we come to the sentences
which speak of the Atonement more particularly.
" But when the measure of our iniquity was full, and it
had become quite plain that nothing was to be looked for
but its due reward, — punishment and death ; and the time
was come which God had before determined to make
manifest His own goodness and power (O surpassing kind-
ness and love of God for man !) : He hated us not, nor
thrust us away from Him, nor remembered evil ; but was
long-suffering, was patient, in His pity took Himself our
sins upon Him, Himself gave up His own Son as ransom
for us, — the holy for the disobedient, the harmless for the
harmful, the righteous for the unrighteous, the imperishable
for the perishing, the immortal for those who were in
death ! For what besides could possibly have covered our
sins, but only His righteousness ? In whom could we, the
disobedient and unholy, be possibly made righteous, save
only in the Son of God ? O the sweetness of the inter-
change ! O work of God beyond all searching out ! O bounty
beyond imagining! That the sinfulness of many should
be buried in One righteous Person ; and the righteous-
ness of One should make many sinners righteous ! " ^
I think it may fairly be said that, in this representation
of the adorable wonder of the Redemption of mankind,
the following principles may be recognized: (i) that the
plight in which man lay was sin, sin within himself; and,
through sin, the inherent incapacity of holiness. It is not
how to deliver man from being treated as he deserves, but
how to deliver him out of the deserving of death (a deserv-
^ T^ yhp dXXo rAs afiafyrlas iifiCiv ijBvv'ljdii} KaXij^at ■^ iKeivov dcKaio<r\ivrj ; iv
rivL 8iKai.(i}dT]uai. dwarbv roiis dvd/xovs ijfiai Kal aae^eis fj iv ixbvip t(^ Tfy tov GeoO ;
6) ttJs yKvKclas ivTaWayi}^, & t?}s dv€^ixfi-<i<rTov S-qfiLovpryLas, d tQv airpoaSoK'fp-tav
tiiepyeaiQv Iva dvo/da [xkv iroWdv iv 5iKal(fi iul Kpv^y diKacoaijyj] 5^ evbs iroWoifS
dylfiovi dLKaidjcrj], Ep. ad. Diog., ix.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 331
ing from which death is inseparable) ; it is this which is
the apparently insoluble problem. (2) The entire concep-
tion and process of Redemption is, from first to last, a
revelation of unimaginable love; a love which can only
elicit, from men who have eyes to see it, the profoundest
emotions of amazement and of adoration : and this love is,
at least, not less emphatically the love of the Father, than the
love of the Son who died. (3) The Son of God, who died,
was absolutely righteous ; and that which was efficacious
in His death, was the sovereign power of His righteous-
ness. Whatever, in fact, the necessity of His suffer-
ing ; it is not upon the amount of His suffering, as suffer-
ing, but upon the inherent and perfectly victorious character
of the righteousness which triumphed through, and over,
suffering, that the whole efficacy of His atonement is
conceived as turning. (4) Whatever be the analysis of the
explanation of it, the essential sinfulness of humanity was,
in that sacrifice of perfect righteousness, — not ignored, not
overlooked, not regarded as having paid its way by punish-
ment, and so acquired a right to be tolerated, though sinful,
but rather as merged, buried, done away, gone ; and (5)
the result is — wonder of wonders ! not a fictitious imputa-
tion, nor a dishonest treatment of the unholy as holy : but
is the actual beauty of holiness in man. What was con-
ceivably possible in this one way only, is, in this one way,
an accomplished fact. " In the Son of God " man has be-
come righteous : and God, in man, is his mind, his light, his
glory, his strength, his life.^
It need not, of course, be said that every one of these
things is fully drawn out ; still less that every question is
fully answered which it would occur to us to ask about
them ; yet all these things seem to be necessary parts of
the underlying thought of the writer of this letter, and
what is not really consistent with these things is not
really consistent with that conception of the atonement,
which is more or less explicitly present to his mind.
The different indications which we have hitherto met
with are in the most perfect agreement with one another :
and they constitute, it is believed, a fair statement of
the evidence which comes from the earliest generations
of all. It would seem therefore that we are entitled to
take the representation which is now before us, as, on the
negative side, in the points which it leaves unsolved, so also
^ Airrbv ^etadai rpocpia., trar^pa, diddffKoKoy, aijfjt.fji.(iov\oy, larpdv, vovv, <piJSf
Ufirfiy, 56^av, l<TXuVf ^(tr^v. Ibid.
332 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
affirmatively, in the much more important principles which
it instinctively postulates, as indicating not unfairly the
most primitive and instinctive ideas about atonement in
the post-apostolic Church.
Hitherto there has been nothing whatever to criticize.
We may indeed desire to ask more. But we have had
nothing which, as a positive statement, could be a cause
of difficulty to any one. It is afterwards, when different
expressions about the atonement begin to be questioned
very closely, and pressed very far, that difficulties arise ;
and human logic begins, whether more or less, to entangle
itself in the web of its own meshes.
It may be well therefore to pause at this point a little,
and, before entering upon the later developments, or the
immediate causes of them, to remind ourselves how com-
plex and varied are the different conceptions, and by
consequence, the different images, which are part of the
"Expression, in the New Testament, of the doctrine of
che atonement ; a doctrine indeed of which it would
be no rhetorical flourish to say that, in a larger sense,
the whole New Testament is the expression.
Let it be remarked first of all that, to the work of
Christ's Redemption, which is the subject before us,
the death on the Cross is absolutely cardinal. The death
is not merely the ending off of the life. It would be
less untrue to say that the life is merely the preliminary
necessity, with a view to the death. The life exhibits much
of the significance of the death. But the death is the great
outcome, the crucial climax, to which the life has led up.
This first : but secondly, though the death is cardinal, it is
not after all the death simply as death. It is the victorious
death, the passing through death, and conquering death
by dying. He died who was inherent Righteousness.
He died, who was inherent Life. The inherent life of
righteousness in Him, whilst accepting death, shattered
death. It is not, then, death simply, but the shattering
of death : it is not death as an end, but death as a means
to eternally triumphant life, which is the cardinal fact
of which we are speaking. It is death ; but it is something
more complex than merely death ; something, the full
significance of which is not only not death, but is the
antithesis, and annihilation, of death. We cannot possibly
stop short on Good Friday evening. It is the Crucifixion,
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 333
and the Resurrection and the Ascension : it is the Passion,
and the consummation of the Victory.
Then there are two other observations, of a partly
preliminary kind, which it seems desirable to make.
This complex fact of which we speak, before we ask for
any analysis of its meaning, is broadly exhibited to us
in scripture in these two aspects, viz. as (a) a manifest
unveiling, to all creatures that could spiritually apprehend
it, of the infinite wonder of the Love of God ; as, e.g, Rom.
v. 6-8, viii. 31-39, xi. 33-36; I John iv. 8, sqq.\ and {h)
as the object of the faith of Christians, — a faith in which the
very character and being of the believer is transformed, e.g,
John iii. 16, vi. 35, vii. 38, xi. 25, xii. 32, xiv. 1-29 ; Acts xiii.
39, xvi. 31 ; I Cor. ii. 2 ; Rom. iv. ; Heb. xi. i, xii. 2, etc.
Next, this death, — ^which was not death, but the crushing
of death, — is a sacrifice^ and the culmination and realization
of all that the sacrifices of the Old Testament had but
inchoately and imperfectly represented. Mat. xxvi. 26-28 ;
Isaiah liii. with Acts viii. 34, sqq.^ and Luke xxiv. 26-27 \
I Cor. V. 7 ; Heb. ix. 23-26, x. 12 ; Rev. v. 9, xiii. 8, etc.
With this goes the corresponding truth that the sacrifice
was offered by Himself; and that He, in offering it, was
a priest : and not a priest only, but the only true and full
realization of the meaning of priesthood. John x. 18 and
context, xvii. 19 and context, and Hebrews /^jj/w.
The whole meaning of Priesthood and Sacrifice becomes
thus a part of the meaning of the sacrificial Death of
Christ: not in the sense that Sacrifice, in Him, can be
simply measured by what Sacrifice meant in the old
Covenant, or before even that : but rather that all the
lines of true tendency which are discernible as underlying,
or implied in, the older sacrifices, must find their ultimate
fulness of meaning in Him. All Levitical sacrifices together
were but only an outline of what was in Him fulfilled.
Yet their outline sketch, as far as it went, was true. And
their lesser significance was only superseded, because it
was absorbed, in something which included, while it trans-
cended, them.
More particularly, He is spoken of in the New
Testament, in this His victorious death of sacrifice, as
"suffering for sins," eg. i Pet. iii. 18; as " bearing " sins,
eg. Heb. ix. 28; as "made to be sin," 2 Cor. v. 21 ; as
"made a curse," Gal. iii. 13 ; — all these phrases being along
the line of sacrificial phraseology.
And all this, emphatically and always, " for us." This
334 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
" for us " is an integral part of almost all the phrases just
quoted ; and belongs to the argument of such diverse
passages as Rom. v. and Heb. ii.
Sometimes, perhaps, this "for us" is expressed almost
as if it meant as our " substitute," " in our stead " (a sense
which obviously contains a partial truth), as in the phrases
XvTpov and avTiXvT/Dov, or in i Pet. ii. 24 — following Isaiah
liii. (It is observable, however, that the peculiar phrase
" imputation," ceases, in the R.V., to be a New Testament
phrase. The Greek Xoyi^io-dai does not carry with it all the
peculiar associations of the English "impute.") But far
more commonly and characteristically He is represented as
suffering " for us," not as a substitute, but as a representa-
tive ; not as doing something which we did not do, or
that we might not do it ; but as doing something which
we ourselves, in Him, at once must do, and did. If the
paradox is a startling one, it is the more worthy of fearless
interrogation, and the less likely to be found to be weak
or indefinite in meaning. The emphasis upon it is un-
mistakable, Rom. vi. 4-8, and viii. 17; Gal. ii. 20; Eph. ii.
5-6; Col. ii. 13 and iii. 3 ; 2 Tim. ii. 11, 12, etc.
Besides all this, there are various more or less meta-
phorical expressions under which the character of Christ's
atoning act is described. Thus :
He is our Redemption — as Rom. iii. 24 ; i Cor. i. 30 ;
Gal. iii. 13 ; Eph. i. 7 ; Col. i. 14 ; i Pet. i. 18.
He is our Ransom — as Mat. xx. 28 ; Mark. x. 45 ;
1 Tim. ii. 6.
He is our Deliverance or Recovery from Satan and the
power of darkness, — as Col. i. 1 3 ; 2 Tim. ii. 26 ; cp. Acts
xxvi. 18.
These three terms, (the first two of which are not really
distinguishable in the Greek,) are all unmistakably meta-
phors, expressing, under the similitude of certain familiar
earthly forms of rescue, what the atoning act effects
for man, in relation to that out of which he is rescued
by it.
Again He is our Propitiation — as Rom. iii. 25 ; i John ii.
2 ; Heb. ii. 17 (R.V.)
He is our Reconciliation — as Rom. v. 10, 11; 2 Cor. v.
18, 19, 20; Eph. ii. 16; Col. i. 22.
He is QMX Justification — as Acts xiii. 39 ; Rom. iii. 24, 26,
30, iv. 5, 25, V. 9, viii. 30 ; i Cor. vi. ii ; Gal. ii. 16, iii. 24.
These three terms may be taken, in the main, as ex-
pressing, more or less under earthly metaphor, the
I
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 335
alteration made in man's condition, in respect of his
relation to the eternal and immovable Holiness of God.
But the term Justification is too many-sided to be
brought under any single category. If it expresses
partly a process of change — it expresses also an inherent
condition — which is the result of the process. There
is no ultimate distinction between to "justify" and to
" make righteous " ; between man's being pronounced
righteous by the Truth of God, and man's being, in the
Truth of God, righteous ; between, therefore, God's
"justification" and the "righteousness" of man. For
this reason I deliberately repeat the word in a further
group. Once more, then.
He is OMX Justification (as above).
He is our Righteousness — as i Cor. i. 30 ; 2 Cor. v. 21 ;
cp. Jer. xxiii. 6, xxxiii. 16.
He is our Sanctification — as I Cor. i. 30; Heb. ii. 11,
X. 10, 14, xiii. 12.
He is our Peace — Eph. ii. 14.
He is OMX Life — Rom. viii. 2; Gal. ii. 20; Phil. i. 21;
Col. iii. 3, 4 ; I John i. 2.
Now in this last set of terms we have plainly passed, —
but passed by imperceptible transition, because there is in
fact no real line of difference or distinction, — from descrip-
tions of His act regarded under metaphorical similitudes
as a transaction about us, but external to ourselves:
into language which, not metaphorically but literally
and directly, characterizes it as an essential transformation
within, and of, ourselves. He is victorious Righteousness
within, and as, ourselves. ^
^ If any one will look out in a concordance the words just, justify, justifica-
tion, justice, justifier, righteous, make righteous, righteousness, and see how
these words bulk in the Old Testament and the New \ and then remember
that they are not two groups of words, but only in fact grammatical variations
of one single word, and thought, in Greek ; he will begin to realize the
unreality of any rigidly technical definitions of the word in any of its forms.
The verb, for instance, which is translated "to justify" StKaiovv, occurs
some fifteen times from the 3rd to the 8th of Romans. What does the
word mean? On the one hand, the -ot6 termination, as in xp^^^^^^t tu0X6w,
troXe/xdu), oIkciSu, 5ov\6(a, iXevdepdu, etc., is associated with the meaning "to
make " so and so. On the other hand in received usage it is easily shown
that diKaidu, and some kindred words, are found only (or almost only) with
the sense of "pronouncing" or "accounting" righteous. But is the dis-
tinction really valid ? In human experience to "make righteous," literally, is
an impossibility. Therefore the verb which is, in form, "to make righteous,"
can mean only, in practice, to pronounce, or regard, or treat as being so.
But on the other hand, is it possible that when any one is pronounced, or
regarded, or treated as righteous dy the very truth of Gody his being so
pronounced can be, in its full or proper meaning, dissevered from his so being ?
336 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
It will be felt, then, upon the whole survey, that we
cannot possibly stop short of finding our climax in those
passages which express, in its own characteristic language —
the language at once of revelation and of experience — this
transforming mystery of His Presence within ourselves. It
is the extension, — which is also the effectiveness, — of the
Incarnation ; it is the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ ;
it is, in a word, the doctrine of the Holy Ghost.
I must ask to have it particularly observed that this is
not a magnificent sequel, separable in kind from the atone-
ment, and from the exposition of it. It is the necessary
climax of the doctrine of the atonement ; a climax without
which atonement is not yet explicable, because it is not
yet real, to experience, which is the only perfect knowledge.
I must add, then, as the culmination of our third group
of terms, that He is the Spirit of our spirit, the only
ultimate and essential reality of ourselves, as Rom. viii. 2,
9, II, 13, 23; I Cor. vi. 17, XV. 45; 2 Cor. iii. ; Gal. iii.
2, iv. 6; I John iii. 24, iv. 13 ; cp. John vii. 38, 39.
Upon this slight sketch of the living depth and com-
His righteousness may be still provisional and unconsummated. But it is a
reality, not a fiction, even if an inchoate and provisional reality, in reference
to which God pronounces the verdict " righteous." And if He pronounces
righteous what was certainly not righteous before; could "making" be
excluded from the import of the Divine act of "pronouncing" righteous,
even if the word used were verbally limited, with the utmost distinctiveness,
to "pronouncing?" But if, further, the word for "pronouncing righteous"
has itself a grammatical form which would suggest primarily "making
righteous" (although the limitations of human possibility had confined it to
"pronouncing" in current human usage,) by what right can we be assured
that "making righteous" is still no part of the meaning of the word, when it
is used of Him in whom to "pronounce" is to "make"? To me it seems
impossible for any man to say to how large an extent the underl)dng suggestive-
ness of the verbal form in -6w, i.e. the thought of " making righteous," is, or is
not, consciously present, wherever the word is used of God's dealings with
man. I doubt whether the consciousness that the word is, in form, " making
righteous " is ever wholly absent from the mind of St Paul throughout these
chapters ; however often it may (possibly) be true that " pronouncing right-
eous " is nearer to the centre of his overt logic, and therefore, perhaps, more
defensible, or secure, as translation. But "pronounce righteous" would not
always be applicable as translation; and "justify" only seems to cover the
ground better, so far as it still retains some ambiguity, and does not exclude
"making righteous" from the form of the expression.
I have said this at the greater length, partly, at least, in defence of my
own translation of StKatw^^vai in the passage quoted above, on p. 330, from
the Epist. ad Diognetum. I do not believe that any rendering in English
of its final clause would be adequate, which said less than that "the righteous-
ness of One should make many sinners righteous"; which is exactly the
assertion of Rom. v. 19.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 337
plexity of the doctrine as it appears in Holy Scripture, it
seems obvious to remark that no one with any ordinary
modesty, that is with any ordinary insight into truth,
would expect to be able to exhaust in thought, — still less
to exhaust in simple logical statement, — the whole scope
of its truth. A simple logical formula for atonement
would be no more probable than a simple logical formula
for experience of personality. Of course it does not follow
that atonement, any more than personality, is to remain a
contradictory or unintelligible conception. On the con-
trary, intelligence of it, in that insight of experience, which
is the highest form of intelligence, is an inherent necessity
of human consciousness. Human intelligence, in its higher
forms, cannot but be continuously working upon, and
towards, the realization of it. And meanwhile every im-
pediment to its intelligence, which human logic has reared,
in its perverseness or in its incompetence, must by human
logic be tested and done away. To every generation of
Christians it must be explained, and be intelligible. But
it is not at all probable, a priori^ that any generation of
Christians will exhaust the depth of its significance. And
it is not at all surprising if that (almost necessarily) partial
conception of it, which is most intelligible to one genera-
tion, should fail to match precisely the necessities of the
intelligent experience of another. For so profound, and
so far back at the root of personal experience, are the
essential facts which the word atonement sums up, that
the doctrine itself remains, and will remain, something
more and truer than the largest and truest explications
of it in human imagery and human language. These do
reflect it, vitally and really enough, to those whose natural
language and imagery they are. But they are less than itj
and cannot express it fully to all minds in all times. There
is a sense in which every Church period, — there is a sense
perhaps in which every Church member, — must find its
living interpretation, in his own terms, for himself
I am tempted to illustrate this matter by a sentence,
written on a widely different subject in a paper printed in
the Guardian of 21st March 1900. "Surely," writes the
Dean of Christ Church, "the De Monarchid illustrates
admirably the truth that the connection between argu-
ments and conclusions is apt to be much less, much
slenderer, than those who argue think. Most men, and
more women, are more reasonable than their reasonings ;
they stand on stronger ground than they rely on. They
Y
338 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
apprehend truth by a hidden complex, subtle, unanalysed
process, all the while that they think themselves to be
reaching out after it and striving towards it by explicit
arguments which are artificial and inconclusive, needing far
more support than they can yield." Something like this
has been true, of theological, as well as of popular, exposi-
tions of the doctrine of Atonement Probably no genera-
tion of Christians has ever really been at fault in its
instinctive apprehension of the Atonement, — its essential
nature, and its cardinal place, in Christian thought and
life. But there have been expositions of it, in many
generations, of which other generations have clearly dis-
cerned the essentially inconclusive, and, in some cases,
untenable character. The current expositions of it have
been, in their own setting, and for their own purpose, true,
not false. But it has always lain deeper than the current
expositions of it.
On the basis of this reflection, which appears to me to
rise directly out of any survey of the mode of the present-
ment of the doctrine in the New Testament, it may be
useful to go back a little to the variety of New Testament
imagery. Besides all the more direct teaching about it in
terms of Sacrifice and Priesthood, (which have, it is to be
remembered, their own wonderful vista behind them of
age-long teaching, worked in, as it were, to the very life-
blood of Israel by ritual and worship, the most immemorial
and august) ; it will be remembered that we distinguished
three groups of phrases, by which the work of Christ's
Sacrifice, and Christ Himself as the Sacrifice, and the
worker of it, are in different passages deliberately de-
scribed. The first set were mainly vivid metaphors. He
was our Redemption, our Ransom, our Deliverance.
Now, as a matter of fact, the chief difficulties about the
doctrine of atonement, for many centuries, rose out of the
over-technical emphasis which was laid on these three
words. If He was our Redemption, from whom did He
buy us back ? what price did He pay ? by what right was
the price due ? and by what reckoning did it constitute a
due equivalent? If He was our Ransom, to whom was
the ransom given ? If to the devil, what right had the
devil to a ransom? or if he had the right to receive a
ransom, why not to retain it ? how did he accept a ransom
which gave him nothing ? If to God, in what sense did
God hold us captive ? or Christ purchase us from God ?
Again, If He was our Deliverance out of captivity, what
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 339
was the nature of the right under which we were held
captive ? what was the relation of the devil's dominion to
God's dominion ? and the precise justice or forbearance
of God which prevented Him from delivering us by force ?
Obviously it is easy to multiply questions like these, and
obviously they pass very quickly from being inquiries into
truth, and become mere entanglements of error. Why so ?
Because a spiritual truth is expressed under a similitude
of physical life ; and because the similitude, though really
illustrating the spiritual truth in the central point for the
sake of which it was used, yet involves certain corollaries
in the physical life, to which it cannot be assumed that
there are spiritual parallels. Ransom was most familiar to
the ancient world. When, at a great cost, Christ won us
back from death to life. He did something which was made
luminous to the thought of our fathers, by the use of the
word ransom. But ransom involves a payment made to
some other person : and involves the admission of his
power, or his right, or both, to accept — or to refuse — either
any ransom at all, or the adequacy of this particular
ransom. In these particulars the suggested analogy broke
down. And just in so far as these particulars were in-
sisted on, the phrase " ransom," which had been luminous
for truth, became a false light, misleading into error. This
is to make false use of a true similitude.
So again, to speak of the dominion of darkness and sin
and Satan is to speak of what human experience knows
to be true. But directly corollaries are drawn from the
phrase, and Satan becomes a quasi-independent sovereign,
(with rights of tenure and possession which it would be an
injustice not to respect ; the earthly setting of the simili-
tude has been so misused, that truth has been clouded,
after all, by a word which was, nevertheless, even obviously,
true. In other words, these metaphors are illuminative
up to a certain point, but they cannot be pressed into all
corollaries.
It may be worth while at this point to draw some ex-
press distinction between different sets of phrases which
may alike be said to be metaphorical. The same word
covers several different things. Most words that are really
profound are metaphorical in origin : that is, they begin
with a concrete, bodily, and go on to a more abstract and
^R spiritual, sense. Grace is primarily beauty of physical
^" shape. Sin is primarily a missing of a mark. Words of
g^ief or sorrow belong primarily to the physical sensation,
340 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
or physical expression, of pain. Father, Son, Spirit : it is
obvious that every one of these words has an ordinary
earthly significance first, which is pre-supposed, when it
is taken over to serve a profounder purpose. It is obvious
also that as, in the religious consciousness, the significance
of such words deepens, the original physical sense is more
and more left behind ; even though the two senses of the
word, the religious and the physical, may remain in
common usage side by side. So obvious is this in the
case of a great multitude of phrases, that the mind is no
longer, in fact, in the least perplexed, by the scenery or
circumstances of the original literalness of the word. It
is so with almost all of the words just quoted. The words
Father and Son are perhaps a partial exception. But if
in the words Father and Son there are contained some
ideas which Christian thought has historically had very
serious difficulty in eliminating from its use of the words
(the idea, most of all, of the necessary posteriority of a
son) ; there are, no doubt, other ideas which have never
even presented themselves to Christian thought. It is or
some importance to claim even words like these as, in
their origin, resemblances borrowed from physical ex-
perience. The words would only caricature and degrade
spiritual consciousness if their meaning were constantly
brought back to the limits of the original physical ex-
perience ; yet that experience is sufficiently parallel to
spiritual consciousness to furnish verbal vehicles for its
expression, which are in a rudimentary way from the first,
and can be made in Christian usage to become more and
more progressively, illuminative of spiritual truth.
But besides such words as sin, and grace, and spirit,
the significance of which has been, in fact, indefinitely
altered and expanded by spiritual use, there are others
which have been spiritually adopted up to a certain point ;
yet their meaning is rather determined by the earthly, than
the spiritual, method of their use. To this class belong
words like Ransom, or Rescue from Captivity. (Redemp-
tion has perhaps passed out of this class except when its
meaning is very closely cross-examined.) And it is because
these words remain primarily, after all, words of human
circumstance ; that minds have been so often perplexed
as to the precise amount of human circumstance which
is to be introduced into the spiritual significance of the
words.
Other phrases there are, also plainly in a sense " meta-
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 341
phorical," which may not, at first sight, seem clearly to
belong to the one, or the other, of these classes. The
phrases which speak of Christ's work of love (or the
love of Christians working in the Spirit of Christ) in
specific terms of the ritual of sacrifice : the phrase of
the third of St John, in which Christ Himself insists, with
what strikes us at first as a needless rigour of literalness,
upon using precisely the language of natural birth in
reference to the spiritual changedness of man's nature in
Him : the phrases of the sixth of St John, in which again
the permanent relation of the believer to Christ is not
allowed to be described in any terms less physically
startling than those of eating His flesh and drinking
His blood : these are instances in point. If all such
language as this is undoubtedly, in a sense, " meta-
phorical " ; yet no one, with the least sense of reverence,
or the most superficial power of insight into the spiritual
which lies behind, and illumines, and interprets the
natural ; would dream of supposing that by the use of
that adjective he could rid himself of the responsibility,
inseparable from spiritual intelligence, of learning to discern
the wide sweep, the amazing directness, and the profound
depth of its fundamental — we can only say, after all, its
literal, — truth.
It would be, of course, outside our present scope to
go into these in detail. But it seemed important, while
dwelling on the word metaphor, and disowning some
misconceptions of atonement which have arisen through
failure to recognize the limitations to which metaphor
may be liable; that we should guard ourselves against
the very appearance of sharing in that extreme super-
ficiality of thought, which would confuse all degrees of
metaphor together, or fancy that whatever can be called
metaphorical can have only such remote analogy with
truth, that it may be, for practical purposes of argument,
set aside as unimportant, if not untrue.
There are words which were originally, and are in a
sense, metaphorical, in which we can plainly see that it
is the original, physical, or " literal " sense, which is but a
pale suggestion, a faint analogue, of the truth of their full
significance : while the spiritual and so-called " meta-
phorical " meaning is the supreme and inclusive reality.
What is the literal afiaprCa to the full meaning of " sin " ?
or the etymological 9e6s or Deus to the ultimate content
of the word " God " ? Spiritual is far more than physical
34» ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
" hunger " ; and spiritual than merely natural " birth."
While to dismiss the Eucharistic mystery as metaphor,
though there is a sense in which the word is not
verbally untrue, is simply to close up the faculties by
which alone all profounder truth is discerned.
But to return. The untenable elements of thought
which were often introduced into the theological explana-
tion of the atonement (itself substantially always held
in truth) from Origen to Anselm, and from Anselm
to Luther, may be broadly said to have arisen out of
exaggerated or disproportioned use of such metaphorical
phrases as Redemption, Ransom, and Deliverance out of
the dominion of Satan. The untenable elements of
thought which have been too often characteristic of the
atoning theories of popular Protestantism, may be said
to have arisen out of a still more mischievous misuse of
such phrases as those which constituted our second group,
Propitiation, Reconciliation, and Justification. Out of
these words have been drawn — perversely enough — the
conceptions of an enraged Father, a victimized Son, the
unrighteous punishment of the innocent, the unrighteous
reward of the guilty, the transfer of innocence and guilt
by fictitious imputation, the adroit settlement of an
artificial difficulty by an artificial, and strictly irrelevant,
transaction.
As to the third group of phrases classified above, —
Christ our Justification, our Righteousness, our Sancti-
fication, our Peace, our Life, the indwelling Spiritual
reality of ourselves ; we shall not indeed have to
complain that they have been made the basis for
perverse corollaries as to what Christ did in redeeming
the world from sin : but rather that, in the attempt to
compass in thought what Christ did as Redeemer of the
world, they have been strangely allowed to drop out of
sight. It is not of course suggested that they have
dropped out of sight in all contexts or for all purposes.
Yet in no respect probably have they played a part in
modern Christian thought at all comparable to their
prominence in the New Testament, — that is, in the
thought and life of the apostles. And probably one
direct reason for their diminished place in general Chris-
tian thought will be found to be the fact that they have
so well-nigh completely disappeared from their place in
the exposition of the doctrine of atonement : and have
lost thereby not a little of what would otherwise have
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 343
been felt to belong to their own full proportion and
significance.
The over-detailed use of the metaphors of the first
group, is traced back by Mr Oxenham, in his history of
the Catholic doctrine of the Atonement, to Irenaeus and
Origen. I am not concerned to criticize Mr Oxenham's
statement. But it seems to me very easy to exaggerate
the place which was really held, in the thought of such
writers, by their own exegetical theories or suggestions.
Even where a false exegetical theory of atonement has
been most dominant, the real vital relation to atonement
of personal human experience does not seem to have
been generally obscured. And whatever may be traced
back to the suggestive words of early Fathers, it would
be very difficult to maintain that any false exegetical
theory was in any real possession of the field for many
generations after Irenaeus and Origen. No teacher, per-
haps, of varied mind and rich imagination, has had strong
hold of any vital truth of experience, which he has not
sometimes expounded or illustrated by modes of thought
which proved in the end untenable. This is just the sort
of thing which seems to be true, in this matter, of Irenaeus
and Origen. Their essential interpretation is scriptural
and true. But they use phrases, in enforcing and illus-
trating it, which we, in reference to the history of later
exaggerations, may not unreasonably feel to be unguarded.
The passages quoted by Mr Oxenham from Irenaeus
amount really to very little. The principal passage is
c. Haereses V. i. It contains indeed one or two phrases,
which suggest hard questions, and require explanation ;
in particular what it was that the " justice " of God
required in His dealing with the " apostasy," i.e. the
kingdom of Satan, or why He showed justice in " buying
back" men therefrom without violence, — or what details
the " buying " presupposes. But the questions are not
asked and answered : still less answered in any crude
or offensive form.^
1 *• Et quoniam injuste dominabatur nobis apostasia, et cum natura essemus
Dei omnipotentis, alienavit nos contra naturam, suos proprios faciens discipulos ;
potens in omnibus Dei Verbum, et non deficiens in sua justitia, juste etiam
adversus ipsam conversus est apostasiam, ea quae sunt sua redimens ab ea non
cum vi, quemadmodum ilia initio dominabatur nostri, ea quae non erant sua
insatiabiliter rapiens ; sed secundum suadelam, quemadmodum decebat Deum
344 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
Meanwhile on the other side it is right to remember
that Irenaeus has the clearest possible hold of the essential
Christian principle that humanity is a corporate whole ;
that Christ is not an infinitesimal part, but the consummat-
ing whole, of humanity : and that, by consequence, Christ's
atoning acts were not so much acts done by Him instead
of us, as acts which, in His doing them, we all did. The
image contained in the word " recapitulatio " is character-
istic of his thought. " He summed up in Himself the
whole long series of humanity, and so in a single concen-
trated achievement brought salvation to us, that what we
had lost in Adam, i.e. to be in the image and likeness of
God, — we might regain in Christ Jesus." He says in-
deed more than this ; for in words not unlike those of
Athanasius afterwards, he insists that He, the Word,
had never been dissevered from the race of mankind.
— "Qui et semper aderat generi humano."^ Thus the
Incarnation and its consequences are themselves in line
with the inherent connection between the Logos and
humanity. " Quando incarnatus est, et homo factus,
longam hominum expositionem in se ipso recapitulavit, in
compendio nobis salutem praestans, ut quod perdideramus
in Adam, id est, secundum imaginem et similitudinem esse
Dei, hoc in Christo Jesu reciperemus." ^
Elsewhere, the obedience unto death, and the ascension
unto life, are expressly predicated not of Him in contrast
with us, but of " our race," of " ourselves." cv /xev yap t$ tt/owt^
'ASa/x Trpoa-eKOiJ/afxeVf nrj TrocqaravTCS avrov ttjv ivToXrjv kv Se t^
Sevrepo) 'ASoI/a d.TroKaT'qWdyrjiJLeVj VTrrJKOOL fJ^Xpi' Oavdrov y€v6fj.€V0L.^
Here the parallelism with Adam is complete : and " we "
were obedient unto death in Christ, as vitally and as really
as we sinned in Adam.
So again " It is for this that the Lord confesses Himself
the Son of Man, summing up again into Himself that
original man, out of whom the whole propagation by
suadentem, et non vim inferentem, accipere quae vellet ; ut neque quod
est justum confringeretur, neque antiqua plasmatic Dei deperiret." V. i. i.
In the 2 1st chapter, Mr Oxenham seems to me to introduce, in his English
translation, a definiteness of imagery which is wanting in the Latin. "The
* price ' of our disobedience in Adam was paid by Christ's obedience " is a far
more commercial statement than "soluta est ea . . . praevaricatio." ** Price"
is the really emphatic word ; and there is no such word in the Latin at all.
"Was cancelled," or simply "was done away," would probably represent
"soluta est" better. Compare the previous uses of "dissoluta est" in the
same chapter.
^ Cp. the Athanasian oUri ye fMKphv Giv irpbrepov, infra, p. 349.
' c Haer., IIL xviii. i. ' c. Haer., V. xvi. 3.
k
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 345
woman came ; that as, through man conquered, our whole
race went down into death, so, through man conquering, we
might ascend unto Hfe." " Propter hoc et Dominus semet-
ipsum FiHum hominis confitetur, principalem hominem
ilium ex quo ea quae secundum mulierem est plasmatio facta
est in semetipsum recapitulans ; uti quemadmodum per
hominem victum descendit in mortem genus nostrum, sic
iterum per hominem victorem ascendamus in vitam."^
It is in the light of these utterances, and as a climax
to them, that I would finally point to the conclusion of
that very passage which was just now referred to as
raising, no doubt, questions of perplexity. Here it is
taught most explicitly that the real outcome of God's
identification with man in the Person of the Incarnate, is
the real union and communion of man with God, — God by
the Spirit condescending to man, that man by the
Incarnation might be brought to God ; and that the
method of the realization of this union and communion, in
which alone the work of recovery is complete, is the out-
pouring of the Spirit of the Father. " Suo igitur sanguine
redimente nos Domino, et dante animam suam pro nostra
anima et carnem suam pro nostris carnibus (rrjv xpv^^v virep
TuJv rjfX€T€p(j}v ^v^wv KOi Trjv crdpKa tyjv eavrov avrl twv "^fxeTepdiV
o-apKwv), et effundente Spiritum Patris in adunitionem et
communionem Dei et hominis, ad homines quidem de-
ponente Deum per Spiritum, ad Deum autem rursus
imponente hominem per suam incarnationem, et firme et
vere in adventu suo donante nobis incorruptelam per com-
munionem quae est ad eum."^
Such teaching as this, strong and positive and clear, is
not really affected by the use of one or two phrases, in
another direction, of ambiguous, or even, (if any one chooses
to think so,) of indefensible meaning.
Origen goes, no doubt, somewhat further than Irenaeus.
On this, — as on many other subjects, — he expresses himself
rather with freedom and force, than with any extreme
guardedness of thought or phrase. But here too it is
easy to exaggerate his meaning. Or rather here too it
is clear, that however little we may defend, in all cases,
the way in which he puts it, his essential meaning is true,
alike to scripture and to experience. Such ideas as a
deception of Satan, practised by God, are really foreign
to the essence of his thought. It is no part of the present
purpose to scrutinize closely such expressions. They are
1 c. Haer., V. xxi. I. ' c. Hser., V. i. i.
346 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
there of course. But it may be doubted whether they
carried, to Origen or his readers, a picture at all so definite
as they carry to us. And it is worth while, on the other
hand, to notice how clearly many elements of a very
different conception of atonement are all the while insisted
on by Origen.
Notice first that whatever His death involved or meant
It was His own act. He was not given up to die by the
Father any more than by Himself. Thus after quoting
Rom. viii. 32, " He that spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all," Origen adds : * ISwkc Se koI 6
Ylhs VTrep riiiQiV kavrhv et? ddvarov^ SxrTe ov fxovov virh to{) IlaT/abs
aAA,a KOI v<^' eavTov TrapeSoOrj.' ^
Secondly, the offering of His life to death is expressly
spoken of as a valuable price, given as purchase-money
for the souls of men. avOpcoiros p-^v ovv ovk av 86r) Tt avrdX-
Aay/xa t^s 4'VXV'* ^^^tov^ Gcbs Se twv TravTWV -qpwv xpvxyjs avraX-
Xay/>ia ISwkc rh ripiov af/xo tov 'Ir/o-ov, Kad^ o Tt/m^Js 'qyopdardrjpiv,
ov cjiOapTois dpyvpiij} ^ XP'^^^V aTToAvrpo) Sevres, dXAct Tt/xi(^ at/xart,
(US dpvov dpwpov Kol dcrTriXov Xpio-rov.^ This of COUrse is
strictly scriptural. But as to the meaning it bore to the
mind of Origen, notice,
Thirdly, that this suffering of His is not, in strictness of
thought, so much a vicarious suffering, that we might not
suffer, as an enabling suffering, that we might be able to
suffer in one way and not in another, — with one spirit and
meaning, and not with another, — accepting suffering as
salutary discipline, not enduring it as vengeance.
" He gave His back to the scourges, and His cheeks to
the hands of the smiters, He hid not His face from the
shame of spitting, that, as I suppose. He might deliver
us who had deserved to suffer all these infamies, suffering
them Himself for us. For He did not die in order that we
may not die, but that we may not die for ourselves ; and
He was stricken and spat upon for us, in order that we,
who had really deserved these things, may not have to
suffer them as a return for our sins, but suffering them
instead for righteousness' sake, may receive them with
gladness of heart." ^
1 In Mat. Tom. xiii. 8, Vol. III. p. 580.
8 I Pet. i. 18, with I Cor. vi. 20. In Mat. Tom. xii. 28, Vol. III.
p. 546.
* Non enim mortuus est pro nobis, ut nos non moriamur, sed ut pro nobis
non moriamur ; et alapis csesus est pro nobis, et exputus est, ut ne nos, qui digni
fueramus omnibus his, propter nostra peccata patiamur ea, sed ut pro justitia
patientes ea gratanter excipiamus. In Mat Comment., series 113, Vol. III.
p. 912. al. Tract, xxxv.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 347
Fourthly, notice that death itself, so far from being the
ultimate expression of punishment, is expressive rather
of the precise opposite. It expresses the voluntary-
penance which cleanses from sin, as contrasted with the
curse which seals the damnation of sin. This thought puts
at once a new meaning upon the blood of Christ as the
purchase of our souls.
" It remains to be shown that to possess sin, and have it
in oneself, is a far graver thing than to receive the penalty
of death. Death inflicted for sin is a purging of the sin for
which it is commanded to be inflicted. The sin, then, is ab-
solved in the penalty of death, nor is anything left, so far
as that guilt is concerned, for the judgment day or the pain
of eternal fire. But when any one is made to possess his
sin, he carries it about with him, and it makes its abode in
him ; the penalty that has never been inflicted has never
been, by infliction, done away ; it is with the man even
after death ; and he who has not paid the penalty in time
pays it in eternity. You see how far heavier it is to possess
one's sin, than to suffer the penalty of death. ... So now
if there be any one of us who recalls in himself the con-
sciousness of sin, ... let him fly to penitence, and accept
a voluntary doing to death of the flesh, that, cleansed from
sin during this present life, our spirit may find its way,
clean and pure, to Christ." ^
This express recognition even of death inflicted for sin,
as having the character rather of penance than penalty ; as
a means, not an end ; as a method to life, not a consum-
mation of death : and at the same time, of the intimate
connection between this its morally regenerating power,
and what is to be after all, on analysis, its essentially self-
chosen character, a voluntary self-surrender to the ex-
treme self-contradiction of penitence ; is, in all ways, most
suggestive.
In context, then, with these thoughts, and as interpreted
by them, notice, Fifthly, that the death which He suffered is
spoken of as the chastisement or discipline which was due
to us — not for our destruction, but for our instruction, not
that we might be made an appalling example, but that
we might be able to receive peace. Such a death, — so
righteously humble, obedient, voluntary, was the abolition,
not the consummation, of judgment. " So it was that He
took our sins and was bruised for our iniquities, and the
chastisement which was owing to us that we might be
* In Le\it. Hom. xiv. 4, Vol. II. p. 260.
348 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
instructed and receive peace fell upon him ; ^ for this is
how I understand 'the chastisement of our peace was
upon Him.' ... So in His humiliation, wherewith He
humbled Himself, being made obedient unto death, even
the death of the Cross, the judgment was taken away ; for
this is how I understand * In His humiliation His judg-
ment was taken away.' " ^
And finally, notice that with Origen, as with the others,
and as with St Paul, we corporately do what Christ did for
us, being fashioned into reality of partnership alike with
His death, and with His resurrection : the result being our
own personal walking in newness of life, because of the
light of God, which thereby has risen upon us. It is a real
emancipation, from darkness and slavery, into life.
"Ore ya^ <rv/x/xo/3^ot ytvofJieOa t^ OavaTC^ tov X/okttov, ovKeri
ia-fxkv VTTO tovs Be<rfxov<s tQv <us aTToSeSwAca/Aev ^acriAecov r^s yrjs, ot;S'
virh TOV Xoyov twv Kara tov J^vpiov o-vvax^ei/Twv a/3)(ovTwv tov
aiwvos TOVTOV. Kat Sta tovto 6 Harrjp tov ISlov Yiov ovk €<^€toraTO,
aA,A,' vrrep "qfiwv iravTiov Tra/oeScoKcv avT^v, Tv' ol Tra/oaAa^ovTCS avT^v
Kat TrapaSovTCS aiVov ets j^eipas dvdpioiriav, virh tov KaT0iK7](ravT0<s
ev TOis ovpavoLS kyycXaaOokn, xat vtto tov Kvpiov eK/jLVKTrfpurOCicriVj
els KaToiXvcnv Trjs IStas (SaarLXetas kol 0Lp^7J<s irapa TrpoaSoKiav irapa-
Xa/36vTes dirh tov TIaTphs Thv Ylov, oo-Tts t-q TptTy rjfieptji. -qyepOrj^
T^ TOV kyOpov avTOv OdvaTov KaTrjpyrjKcvai, kol "qfias 7r€7roi7jK€vai
frvfxix6p(f)0VSj ov fiovov tov OavaTov avTov dXXa Kal Trj<s avao-Tacrews,
St' ov cv KatvoTTjTL Trjs ^(orjs TTeptTraTOVfxeVj ovkcti Kade^ofievot Iv X'^PT-
Kol (TKLC^ OavoiTOVj Siot TO dvaT€iXav l<^' "qfuds ^ws tov 0€OV.^
We have lingered, perhaps a little unnecessarily, upon
these words of Irenaeus and Origen, because it is to
Irenaeus and Origen that the first introduction has been
referred of conceptions which rather obscured, than illumin-
ated, the intelligence of the vital truth of the Atonement.
It is not probable that the thought either of Irenaeus, or
even of Origen, was greatly dominated by such conceptions.
But how little way any such conceptions really went in
the direction of obscuring — even if they found place in
over-logical attempts to elucidate — the essential doctrine,
or the essential hold of Catholic theology upon it, may
perhaps be made clearer, if, without any attempt to follow
more precisely the course of the history, we pass from
* In Joann. Tom. xxviii. 14, Vol. IV. p. 393.
^ 'H 6(f>€(,\o/J^in] r/fup els rb iratdevdijvai Kal elpi^vriv dpaXa^eiv K6\a<Ti,s in^ airhv
yey4pr)Tai. /c6Xa<rts not irolvr], discipline, not vengeance, as Mr Oxenham
remarks.
» In Mat. Tom. xiii. Vol. III. p. 583.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 349
Irenaeus and Origen to the writings of Athanasius. For
though Athanasius did not write a formal treatise on the
doctrine of atonement, yet his teaching on the subject
comes out, with the greatest spontaneity and freshness,
in his exposition of the Incarnation, and his vindication of
its true purpose and meaning, amid the stress of Arian
controversy. From the teaching of Athanasius it is
abundantly clear that at least in, and to the middle of,
the fourth century of our era, there were no real obscurities
or perversions which could be said to be attached, with
anything like either official sanction, or general popular
acceptance, to the view of the doctrine of atonement in
the Catholic Church.
The following are the points which seem to emerge in
the Athanasian thought upon the subject.
First there is the inherent connection between the
Redeemer and His creation which He came to redeem.
The relationship of created man to God, the eternal Logos,
did not begin in the fact of the Incarnation ; but the fact
of the Incarnation grew, as it were naturally, out of it. As
in the Person of the Eternal Logos God created man, so
by inherent aptness, it was in the Person of the Eternal
Logos that God restored man to life.
OvSev yap evdvTLOv <f)av7](T€Tat, €t Sl ov ravrrjv iSrjjJLiovpyrjaev 6
Harrjpy iv avr&i koX rrjv ravrrys (roiTTjpiav elpydaaro?-
The human race was made 'XoyiKov' in the image of the
Logos of God. Kara rrjv eavrov eiKova ^irotrja-cv avTOv<s, ftcraSovs
avTOLS KOL TTJ^ Tov lSlov Aoyov 8wdjJL€w<s, tva wcnrep cr/ctas tlvus ej^orrcs
Tov Aoyov Kttt yevofxevoL XoyiKol , . . etC.^
He, the Logos, was never really separate from the human
race : nor could the love of the Creator leave His creation
to be obliterated, and as it were stultified, in the ruin of
sin.
TovTOV hr] tv€K€v 6 da-wfJULTO^ KOL d^OapTo^ Kttt ai5A.09 rov ®€ov Aoyos
TrapayiveraL €ts rrjv rj^^ripav X^P°''^> o^'^'- 7^ fJ^aKpdv wv Trporepov.
OvSkv yap avrov K€vbv woXcXciTTTat r^s ktio-cws fi€po<S' iravra Se Sta
TTcivTcov TrerrX-qpoiKcv avros (Tvvoiv roi eavrov UarpL 'AAAo, TrapayCverai.
orvyKaTaPaLViov ry els rffxas avrov cjiLXavOpcoTTLa Kal eVt^aveta. /cat
tSwv TO XoycKov aTToWv/xevov yevos, Kai tov Odvarov Kar avrov
^aa-iXeoovra ry <{>dopa- opliiv 8c koX rrjv aTreLXTjv ttjs Trapa/Sdaeuiq
StaKparovaav rrjv KaO^ rjixoiv cf>9opdVf Kal otl droTrov yv irpo rov
irXrjpioOrjvaL tov vo/Jiov XvOrjvai, opwv Se Kal to ctTrpeTres ev tw
(TVfjif^ef^rjKOTL, OTL mv avTos rjv Brj/XLOvpyoSy TavTa Trapr)(f>avL^€TOy etc.*
This kinship of the human mind or soul with the Logos,
* De Inc. ii. ' De Inc. iii. ^ j)g i^^ ^j^^
350 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
was not only a past fact, which moved the compassion of
the Logos to save : it was also the capacity in man of being
saved — that is of receiving, and being made like to, God.
*05 yap Aoyou ovrog rov Yiov rov 0€ov ct/cwi/ Icmv 6 rjixinpo^ Xoyos,
ovTwg orro9 avrov ^o<^tas ctKwv 7raA.1v IcttIv rj iv rjixiv yivofxivrj (ro^ta*
iv 7] TO elSivat koI to ^povetv exovTes, ScktlkoI yivofx^Oa t^s Srjfxiovpyov
So^ta?, Kttt St' avT^<s yivoio-Keiv Swd/xeOa tov avr-^s IlaTepa* * 'O yap
ex<^y\ ^rjcrXy * tov Ycov, e'xct /cat tov TLaTepa* koX^ * 6 8€;(o/>(.evos fte,
SixcTaL TOV a7roa-T€cXavTaL fie.*^
It will be observed that whilst it is unbefitting to God
(dTTpeTres) that man should perish, it was an impossible idea
(aroTTov^v) that he should be simply released, till the law was
fulfilled. Why was this an impossible idea? The word
" threat " (dTrctX^) seems to suggest the thought that it was
because God had once said that the sinner should die, and
His word could not be stultified. This thought, which no
doubt is true, even if it does not carry our understanding
very far, is expressed clearly in the previous chapter. But
something more is implied, though it is less clearly ex-
pressed, in the disclaimer of the adequacy of penitence to
compensate for sin, when sin has once for all spoiled the
capacities of the nature. We might possibly have preferred
a denial of the possibility of restorative penitence, under
the condition of fallenness, to a denial of its adequacy — if
only it had been possible; but in any case the passage,
while formally emphasizing the necessity of God's con-
sistency, points really to an inherent, as opposed to an
arbitrary, impossibility of any off-hand mode of human
restoration.
" What then was to happen ? or what ought God to have
done ? To ask of men a repentance which should match
the transgression? This might be said perhaps to be
worthy of God, that as transgression brought mankind to
corruption, so repentance should bring them back to
incorruptibleness. But neither could God accept repent-
ance equitably (for He would not have been found true if
man had not come into the power of death), nor is repent-
ance a recovery from a tainted nature, it is only a surceasing
from sin. Had there been but one act of discord, with no
consequent corruption of nature, repentance might have been
well enough. But if the direct result of the transgression
was that man's nature was corrupt and shorn of the grace
which belongs to being in the image of God, what could still
be done ? Or what or who was required for the grace of
* c. Ar, ii. 78,
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 351
such a recovery, save the Logos of God who Himself in
the beginning made all things of nothing ? Only He could
bring the corrupt to incorruption again, and yet preserve
the equity of the Father's government. Just because He
was the Logos of the Father, and supreme over all, there-
fore only He had power to renew His creation ; only He
sufficed to suffer on behalf of all, and to be the ambassador
for all before the Father." ^
In chapter xx. death is spoken of as a necessity — a debt
that was "due." There is no attempt to analyze the
necessity, or follow up, in any way, the metaphorical word
" debt." Neither is there any inquiry into the character of
the death that is due, whether it is the actual death of the
body, or a penal death of the soul, nor any comment upon
the relation between these two.^ But the death which is
owed is the death of all mankind : and therefore it is that
He, who alone, as the author of being, could change
corruptibleness into incorruption ; He, who alone, as the
very image of the Father, could restamp God's image on
man ; He, who alone, as the very life (avro^wTJ) could make
dying man immortal ; He, who alone, as the all ordering
Logos and only begotten Son, could teach man the real
service of the Father ; " offered the sacrifice on behalf of all,
giving up to death in the stead of all, that humanity which
^ T( ovv cSet Koi iT€p\ Toirov yiviffOai ^ irot^cot rhv ®e6v ; fi^rdvoiav iirl ttj
napafidcrei rovs avdpci>irovs dxaiTTjcai ; Tovro yap &v ris &,^tov (piiarmv &eoVy
\4ya)V, &Ti &<Ttt(.p fK TTJs irapa^da-fuis its <l>6ophv ycydpaariv, oSruis ck ttIs
ueravoias yivoivro irdXiv h.v ds acpdapcrlav. 'A\a' r/ ftcrdvoia oUre rh iUXoyov
rh irphs rhv &ihu itpuKarrev (l/xeve yap irdxiv ovk a\r]6^s, /a^ Kparovfievuv iy
T(f davdrcf) ruv ap9p(i>iru)i')' otre 5e 7} fi^rdyoia avh roov Karh. <pv<ny avaKaKilraiy
aWa ix6vov Trauet rS)v afiapTriixdroiV. Et fikv oZv n6vov ^u ir\Tjfifie\T]fJLa Kal /xif
(pdopas iTraKo\ovdi](Ti5, Ka\Qs hv ^v 7) furdvoia. El 5e 07ro| vpoXafiovaT}s ttjs
rrapafidcr^ws, (Is tV fcarh (pvffiv (pdopav iKparovuro ot AvOpwiroi, Kal ttjv tov
Kar* ilK6va X'^P"' a<paip€d(VT€S ^crav, ri &\\o ^Sei yei/fadai ; f) rivos iiv XP*^«
vphs T^v roiavTTiu xdpiv KaX avaKXr^aiv, ^ rod Kara rT]v apx^y ff tou ix^ buros
Tmroir}K6rQS rh '6\a rov ©eoO A6yov ; AutoG yap ?iv irdKiv Ka\ rh (pdaprhv els
a(pdap(rlav ipeyKeTv, Kal rh VTr^p irdvrav etj\oyou airoffuxTai irphs rhy Tiarfpa.
A6yos yap iay rov Ylarphs Kal vtrlp irdyras i>y, aKoKoiQas Kal avaKricrai ra 6\a
fx6vo5 ^v hvvarhs Kal vTrep vdyruy iraO^ly Kal Trpeafieva-ai irtpl irdvrwy iKaybs
irphs Thy Uar^pa. De Inc., vii.
'-^ It may be said, however, in the light of the 27th chapter, that the death
from which men are delivered neither is, nor is not, the natural death of the
body, regarded sinipliciter in itself. Rather it is the death of the body in
respect of that character and meaning which it would have had if Christ had
not died. The physical fact of death indeed remains. But its meaning is
transformed. The horror is gone out of it. Death is now a weak thing. It
is dead, outws aoQiv^s yiyov^^ ws koX yvvalKas ras airarrjO^iaas rh irplv irap
ahrov, yvv irai^ay avrhv ois yeicphv Kal irapiijj.4yoy. Death was once a fierce
tyrant. But death was bound tight hand and foot, by the victory, through
dying, of Christ ; and all now who in Christ pass through death can mock at
his fears. ** O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy victor}' ?'*
352 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
was the shrine of Himself, that He might liberate all from
the old transgression, and, proving Himself to be too strong
even for death, might show, in the unscathed incorruptness
of His own body, the first fruits of the resurrection of all." ^
It will be observed that the thought of this passage
emphatically recognizes two things. On the one side there
is a perfectly unique possibility in the Son of God, of repre-
senting all mankind, and dying as the representative of all ;
a possibility which, if it rests in one direction on the verity
of His manhood, rests no less on His being the Logos who
was with God, and was God, — the Life of Life, the Image
of the Father, the Creator of all created being ; a possibility,
therefore, which cannot even be conceived on any other
side, or in any other person. And on the other hand, what-
ever possible obscurity there may be about the precise
analysis of such words as debt, or necessity, or death, it is
perfectly clear that the purpose and the result of this
sacrifice of Christ's death, were to be, and were, the universal
human conquest over death, in the universal emancipation
of man from sin. This death meant a transformation of
human liability, because of human character, far deeper and
more real than could be expressed in any terms of a change
of feeling on the side of God, a mere willingness to forego
punishment, or pardon those who were not made capable
of pardon.
Why could not God redeem man by a word of command,
in power? Simply because such a command-word would
not have had the effect which was required. What was
required was a change, not so much in the treatment of
man, as in man's deserving. It was not his freedom from
punishment but his freedom from sin : it was not an
external change but a change within himself, which was
really to be brought about. God's change in purpose, or
remission of penalty, would simply have failed to do what
needed to be done.
" The equity of what was done may be recognised thus :
if the curse had been removed by a word of power there
^ 'EirciS'Jj SeKal rh 6(p€i\6/jL€vov Trapa ird.vrwv eSet Xoiirb*/ airo^oOTivai' axpelXero
yap Ttivras, ws Trpo^l-nov, airoOavilv, St' t fiiKiara kolL 4iriSii,ur](r€V' tovtov
€V€K€V /X6TO Tos TTipl TTjs 06OTTJTOS auTov e/c Twv epyoiv aTToSei^iiSy ^5tj Xoiwhy
Kal vTTcp irdvTwv tt}p Bvaiav av€((>ep€U, afrl iravrwv rhv kavrov vahv els BduaTOV
iropaStSous, Iva rous /xfu ■jrdvras av\Jir€vd{>povs Kal i\fv6epous rris apxaias irapa-
Bdacas iroiiirrr)' Sel^T) Se iavrhv Kai davdrov KpiiTTova, diropxV ttjs tuu '6\wy
avaardaius 7h tSioy <Tcofj.a &(f)dapTov (iriSeiKviifxcvos. , , . davdrov yap iiv
Xpc^o, Ka\ Qdvarov virep irdyTwv eSu yiViadai, 'iva rb traph. vdvTwy o<piL\6ixfvoy
ytynrat. De Inc. xx.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 353
would have been indeed a manifestation of the power of
God's word ; but man would only have been (as Adam was
before the fall) a recipient from without, of grace which had
no real place within his person ; for this was how he stood
in Paradise. Or rather he would have been worse off than
this, inasmuch as he had already learned to disobey. If,
under these conditions, he had again been persuaded by the
serpent, God would have had again to undo the curse by a
word of command ; and so the need would have gone on
for ever, and men would never have got away one whit
from the liability of the service of sin ; but for ever sinning
they would for ever have needed to be pardoned, and would
never have become really free, being flesh for ever them-
selves, and for ever falling short of the law because of the
weakness of the flesh." ^
What was really needed was that humanity itself, the
humanity of all mankind, should again become divine, and
capable of the holiness of God. Nor could anything short
of the personal holiness of God in human nature effect this
reunion of the human with the divine ; and so really bring
man back — not from the curse only, regarded as separable
from sin, but from the curse which is sin, and therefore is
death, to the life which is life.
" Again, if the Son had been a creature only, man would
in no way have been rescued from death, not being united
with God. For a creature cannot unite creatures with God,
itself needing to be united ; nor could a part of creation,
itself needing to be saved, be the saving of creation. To
avoid this He sent His own Son, who took created flesh,
and became Son of Man ; that, when all were within the
danger of death. He, being other than all, Himself for all
might offer His own body to death ; and thenceforth, since
through Him all died, the word of the sentence on man
might be fulfilled (for * in Christ all died ') ; and yet all
might through Him be made free from sin and the curse
^ riA-V Koi rb i^Ko'yov rod yivofiivov Ofwpelv e^ecriv iurevOfv' ci Si^ rh
Svvarhv flpiiKei, Koi 4\4\vto t} Kardpa, rov fjikv K€\fv(ravros 7) Svvafiis
eTreSefKi/uTo, <5 fji.4vT0i &j/6pa)7ros toiovtos iyiuero, oTos "hv koX 6 'A5a/i irph ttis
tr apa^daiois, €|«06V Xa^ibv r^v X'^P^^t 'f'*^ H-^ a'vvT]pfJ'0(Tfi€VT]v exft»>' avTi]y r^
ffdiiiaTi' TOIOVTOS yap i)v koX t6t6 TedciTo iv TCf irapaSelffCff t^xo- 5^ koX ;^e/p«i/
iylveTO, Sti koL irapafiaiveiv fiefidOrjKfv. *fli' toIvvv toiovtos, fl Kol irapa-
-ireviKTTo virh tov o06cds, iyivero vd\iv XP^^« rrpoa-Td^ai Tbv &fhp koI Xvffcu
tV KaTupav' Kal oStcds ils i-Treipov iyivero Tf XP*^«> ^^"^ ovSev ?ittov ol
6.vdpoitroi ^ficvov vTTivdvvoi, SovXeiovTiS rp afiapria' ael Se afxapTdvopTts, iel
iieovTo TOV <rvyx<»povvTos, Kal ovSeiroTc 7]\evdipovvTO, cdpKiS 6yT€S Kad*
eavTohs, Kal oel 7]TT(i/ifvoi t^ v6fi^ Stci t^v aadfveiav ttjs ffapK6s. C Ar.
ii. 68.
Z
354 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
upon sin, and remain for ever truly alive from the dead and
clothed in immortality and incorruption." ^
" The Word became flesh that man might be capable of
receiving God." ^ " He was made human that we might be
made divine." ^ These are brief phrases which summarize
the very essence of the thought.
Had He been less than very God, or taken less than the
very reality of man, this union, for which He was Incarnate,
could never have been complete.
"Never would man have been made divine by union
with a creature, had the Son not been very God; never
would man have stood at the Father's right hand, had He
who put on flesh not been, in essential nature. His very
Logos. And just as we should not have been set free from
sin and its curse, had it not been, in essential nature, human
flesh which the Logos took (for we should have been un-
touched by what was none of ours) ; so would man not
have been made divine, had He who became flesh not been,
by essential nature, from the Father — His own, and His
very Logos. Therefore the union was on this wise — to
make one the essentially human with Him who belonged
to the essence of Deity, that so man's salvation and deifica-
tion might be sure." *
What was needed then, was no plausible excuse for
going back upon, nor artificial appearance of avoiding the
necessity of going back upon, a word which had once been
pledged. The question was not how man, though sinful,
* Ud\iv Tf €t Krifffia ^v 6 IClhs, ^fiivev & HvOpwvos ovSev Jittov Ovrirhs, p.^
ffwairrSfjievos t$ 06^' ov yh-p Krla/xa <rvv^Tre rh. Kriffnara ry 06^, ^tjtoSi/ koI
avrh rhv ffvydvTOvra' ou5e rh ficpos rrjs Krlcrews aurrjpia rrjs KTiaiws Uv fttj,
Se6fievov Kot ai/rh cwT-riptas' iva ovv firjZe tovto yevTjTai, Trefxjrei rhv eavrov
vlhvy'Kal yfverai vlhs avQpdiirov, r)]v KTKTrijv <rdpKa Xafiaiv Xv*, iireii^ vdvrts
elfflv vTTivQvvoi T^ 6avdT(p, &\\os iiv rwv vavruv, avrhs vvip Tr&uruv rh XSiov
(TUfia rtf Bavdrcf icpofffveyKri, Koi \onrhv, ws irdvTUV 5i' avrov airoOaviyTwy, 6
pXv \6yo5 rr^s avo(t>d(ri(as vXrjpwOrj {'irdvres yap airiQavov iv XpterTy')* irdvrts
Se 5t' avTov yivuvrai Xoivhv iXivdepoi pXv dirb rrjs Ufiaprias Kai ttjs 5t' avrijv
Kardpas, iXrjOws 5^ Siafulvaxriv dcrael avaaravris €/c PiKpuv, Koi a6ava(rlav Kal
htpeaparlav evBvffdfiivoi. C. Ar. ii. 69.
* 'O \6yo$ ccbpf iyev€TOf 'Iva rhv ivOpuirov SiKTiKhv ©cuttjtos iroi'ftcrri, C.
Ar. ii. 69.
* Abrbs yap iv7}v6p(&irri(T€v, Iva rjiiiis ©eononjOcofiev, De Inc. liv.
* OvK tiv Se TrdXiv ideoTroffjOrj KTia-fiaTi (rvva(l)dels 6 tkvQpaTros, el /x^ 0ebs ^v
aktlQivhs & Tl6s' Kal ovk tiv iropeVrTj t* Uarpl 6 Ikvdponros, et fi^ <f)vatt Kal
aXrjdivhs ^v avTOv A6yos 6 iu^vcrdfievos rh ffwfia. Kal Sxrvep ovk hv rjXfvOtpdi-
6r]fifv avh rrjs afiaprias Kal rrjs Kardpas, fl /x^ (picrci o'opi ^^^ avdpwTrlvrjy ^y
iviS^ffaro 6 A6yos' {ovSev yap Koivhv ^v tj/xIv irphs rh aWdrpiov') ovtcos ovk ttv
iBeoiroiiiQr} 6 ^.vdpoirros, u fi^ (pixrei e'/c rod Uarphs Kal a\r]6ivhs Kal tSios avrov
^v b A6yos, 6 y€v6fi€vos ffdp^. Aia tovto yap roiavTri yeyoyev rj <rvya<p^f 'iya
rlf Karh. <f>v(nv rris BeSTrjros (rvvd\lfr) rhy 0yo-€i iydputirov, Kal /3ej8afa yfyrirai if
aurrjpia Kal rj Ofovoirjais avrov. c. Ar. ii. 70.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 355
might be treated, but how he could be brought out of being
sinful. And Athanasius clearly feels that death is so in-
herently inseparable from sin, that the sinful cannot become
sinless except through a process of dying. It was the
reality of the human nature of the Logos, or (on the other
side) it was the reality of the indwelling of the Logos in
human nature, which constituted the possibility in and for
human nature, of so dying as really to conquer, and recover
from, sin. So much as this seems clearly to be insisted
upon by Athanasius, even though he makes no attempt to
analyze what it was in this unique, and uniquely possible,
dying which constituted the conquest over, and recovery
from, sin. That process of dying, which alone could
eliminate sin, would itself have been impossible — it would
have involved utter destruction — to anything less than the
very Life of God ; but when it was by the inherent Life of
God, in the Person of Christ, outlived and overborne, the
fact of having lived through the passage and process of
dying became the capacity, in all humanity, of the life ot
the holiness of God.
" For the Logos, when He saw that there could be no
escape for men from destruction without actually dying ;
yet the Logos, being the Son of the Father and incapable
of death, could not die ; He therefore took to Himself a
body which could die ; that this, being the body of the
Logos who is over all, might satisfy death for all, and yet
by virtue of the indwelling Logos might remain itself im-
perishable, and so destruction might be averted from all by
the grace of the resurrection. Thus it is that, offering to
death the body which He had taken to be His own, as a
sacrificial victim without flaw or stain, He abolished death
at a stroke from his fellowmen by the offering gf that which
stood for all. For being, over all, the Logos of God, when
He offered, as a substitute for all, that body which was the
very shrine of Himself, He justly fulfilled all that was owing
in death. And so the imperishable Son of God, being one
in mortal nature with all, justly clothed all with immortality,
in the proclamation of the resurrection. For the destruction
which belongs to death has now no more place against
men, because of the Logos who indwells, through the one
body, in them." ^
^ ^vviOfv yap 6 A6yos, 6ti iWots ovk hv Aufle^rj rwv avOpdiroty v <f>6ophf ct
fx^ dih Tou TrdvTus airodavf'iy, ovx ol6v n Se "^v rhv Auyoy atrodavfty adiyarop
ivra Koi Tov Tiarphs Tlhy, roxfrov evtKfy rh Svydfieyoy airoOaytlv kavr^ \afi0dy€i
at^fAa, lya tovto tov ivl irdvTWV A6yov fJLtraka^hy, ianX vdyruy iKavhy ywriroi
356 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
Here such phrases as His death sufficing in the stead
of all (avTL TravTODv) or being the offering of an equivalent
(ry -rrpoa-cfiops tov KaraWiyXov), which obviously express truth
up to a certain point, are in no way pressed out of their
proportion. Their suggestive metaphorical language is
not allowed to be pushed (as in later thought it so often
came to be) to the distortion, or exclusion, of the central
thought. His death is not a mere alien thing of value,
an 'equivalent' substituted for the death of men. But
it is, potentially at least, the death of all men : for in Him
all died. The very next sentence goes on to emphasize
this thought by the illustration of a king who is said to
live in a great city, because he lives in a single house within
it; an illustration which, whatever may be thought of it
as an illustration, plainly marks a serious attempt to
explain how God Incarnate was in all men, not only
in one.
^ But this thought is very far from depending upon a
( single imperfect illustration. There is nothing which is
] more central to the teaching of Athanasius upon the whole
\ subject. His death. His resurrection, His exaltation. His
1 consecration, whatsoever He is said to have received — all
were corporate and representative, not individual or
\^eparate. These things only happened to Him that, in
Him, they might be true of us. It was not He, it was
we, who needed these things. For us they happened to
Him. They are ultimately ours even more than they
are His. Whatever I lis death really signified or effected
(which is the point least analyzed by Athanasius), His
death was our death, as truly as the correlative resurrection
is our resurrection.
" Since then — Himself deathless, as the Image of the
Father — the Logos took the form of a servant, and in
His own flesh as man underwent death on our account,
that through death He might present Himself to the
Father for us : therefore on our account, and for
our sakes. He is also said to be 'highly exalted' as
rip davdTip, Koi dih rhv iuoiK^ffavra A6yop &4>0apTov Siafietyri, fcoi Koiirhv Airh
ir&VTwv 7} (pdoph travfffirai t^ t^j avaffTaffius x<£ptTi* ^Qtv as Upilov Koi 6vfia
iravrhs i\iv9ipov (riri\ov, t avrhs kavrcf e\afii (Too yi.airpo a dyoav els Odt/arov, atrb
irdvTwv ivdvs Twv bfxoluv T}(pdpiC^ rhv Qdvarov rf} Trpo(r(pop^ rod KaraW-fiXov.
*Tirep Trdyras yap tbv 6 A6yos tov ©eoO, eiKSrus rhv eavrov vahv koI rh cwuaTiKhv
ipyavov irpoffdyoov a.vri'^vxov iiirep TcduTcov, iirXiipov to 6(pei\6fiiVou ev T(p
Bo-vdrip' KoX ovTws <TvV(i)v St^ tov bjxolov to7s Traaiv 6 &^6apT05 rod 0€oC Tlhs
elKSroos rohs irdvTas iu45vaep a(f)9ap<riav iv rrj "mpl ttjs avaaTdffiws iirayyeXia.
Koi avT^ yap t] iv rcf davdro} (pdopa KaTO, tuv apOpcoirwy ovKeri x^pc-v ^X** ^*^
rhv ivoiKij<rayTa A.6you iy tovtois 5ih rod tvhs <r(iofiaT05. De Inc. ix.
I
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 357
man ; that as by His death we, in Christ, all died, so
we should also in Christ be highly exalted, rising from
the dead, and entering into the heavens * whither as a
forerunner Jesus entered for us,' etc. [Heb. vi. 20]. . . .
But if at this time, for our sakes, Christ entered into the
very heaven, who Himself was before, and for ever, Lord
and Maker of the heavens, it follows that it is for us that
He is described as * exalted' now. And just as when
He sanctifies all, He says to the Father that He ' sanctifies
Himself for our sakes,' not that the Logos may be
sanctified, but that He may in Himself sanctify us; so
is the * highly exalted Him ' of this present passage, not
that He may Himself be exalted highly — for He is the
Highest — but that He for our sakes may be made
righteousness, and we in Him be exalted, and come into
the gates of the heavens. ... So again it was not to
Him that the gates were shut, who was Lord and Creator
of all, but this too was written for us, on whom the door
of Paradise was shut. ... It was this exaltation in
relation to us which the Spirit foretold in the 88th Psalm :
* In Thy righteousness shall they be exalted, for Thou
art the glory of their strength' [Ps. Ixxxix. 17-18]. But
if the Son is righteousness, it follows that it is not He
who is exalted, as if He lacked anything, but it is we
who are exalted in the righteousness which He is." ^
Christ is corporately and inclusively man, just as Adam
was corporately and inclusively man : only the method of
the corporate relation is different, and its effect is opposite.
^ 'Eire! oZv fiKciiv &>v rod Tlarphs /col addvaros tbv 6 Adyos * eAojSe r^v rov
SovKov fiopcp^y,^ Koi virf/xeipe 5i' ^/ias ws ^vSputros iv t§ kavrov aapKi rhy
BivaTQV, Xv* ovroos eavrhv vnep rjfiuv Sib, rod davdrov irpoceyeyKTi rep Ilarpi'
Sict rovro /col &s &vdpa)Tros Si* -^ifias Kal virep rjfiwv \4yeTai virepv^ovardai, tv
Siffvip T(p Oavdrtf avrov vdvres ^/uets air^ddvojj.^v iv Xpicrr^, ovtoos iv avr^ ry
Xpicrr^ Trd\iv Tjfxeis virepurf/w^cS/iev, e/c re raiv vcKpwv iyiip6fi6voi, Kal els ovpavovs
d.vepX'i/Ji'it^oi, *€v6airp6Spo/JLOsvTr€p'}}fic!)v 4i(ri]\6ey'l7i<rovs,* K.T.\. . . . EiSevvv
virtp T}fiS)v its aiirhv rhv ovpavhv (IffTJXdev & Xpi<rrhs, kuItoi koI irpb roirov Kal
oel Kvpios cSv /col Sijfjiiovpyhs twv ovpavSiv, VTcep 7)/xwv &pa Kal rh vrpudrjvai vvv
ydypaTTTai. Kol Sxrirep avrhs irdvras ayid^wv X4yei irdXiv rip HoTpl * kavrhv
virep TjfjLwv ayidC^iv,* ovx 'iva ayios & Adyos yevrjrai, oA.\' 'iva avrhs iv kavrtp
ayidffri irdvras Vfias' oiircos &pa Kol rh vvv \iy6fiivov ' vrrepvtpaxrev avrhv,' ovx
'Iva aiirhs v\\io)B-^ ' vrpiffros ydp iariv' oAA.' %va avrhs fie v vTrhp rifiuv * SiKaioffvvrj
y4vrjrai,' rj/iih Se ui^w^w/xej/ 4v avr^, Kal els rhs vvXas elaeXOw/iev ruv
ovpavav. . . . Kol wSe ybp ovk avrip ^ffav oi iriJAa: KiKXiKrjxfvai Kvpiai Kal
voirjry ruv irdvrwv 6vti, aWa St' rj/xas Kal rovro yiypanrai, oTs ^v v B{)pa
K^K\ii(rfi4vT] rov vapaSeiarov. . . . Thv Se roiair-qv els rifias yevofidvrjv rjrl/w(riv
Trpoavi(pd>vii rh TrveCjtta iv oySor\KO<Trcp oyS6cp \pa\n^ \4yov' * Kol iv rn
SiKaioa-T^vp aov v^wQiicrovrai, '6ri rh KavxTH^o. tt}s Swdfiews avrwv 6? ei.* El Se
SiKaioa-vvT) iffrlv & Tlhs, ovk &pa avr6s iariv^ as ivSe^s, vif/oi/Mtvos, i\X* tjiaus
trifi6v 01 iv ry SiKaiovvvri vri^ovfiivoi, T^ris i<rriv avr6s. C. Ar. i. 41.
358 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
"No longer, according to our old birth-nature, do we
die in Adam ; but now that our birth-nature with all its
weaknesses is transferred to the Logos, we are raised above
earth, because the curse for sin is done away by reason
of His presence in us who for us was made a curse. And
justly so. For as, being all of earth, we die in Adam, so,
being born again of water and spirit, are we all in Christ
made alive, the flesh being no longer a thing of earth,
but made to be ' logos ' from henceforth, by reason of the
Logos of God, who for our sakes became flesh." ^
We are not, then, simply ourselves but He is in us;
and we are what we are by virtue of Him who is in us.
It is not He, simply. Himself, but He in us, who receives,
and is blessed with, the blessings and gifts which are said
to be poured on Him.
" When it is said * Power was given unto me ' and ' I
received,' and *for this cause God highly exalted Him,'
these are gifts from God given to us through Him. For
the Logos never was, nor was made to be, lacking in them ;
nor on the other hand were men capable of providing
them for themselves ; but they are given, through' the
Logos, to us. So then, as given to Him they are com-
municated to us ; for it was just for this that He became
man, that, as given to Him, they might pass over to us.
For as mere man could not have won these things, so He
who was Logos only could not have lacked them. And
so the Logos was united with us, and then communicated
to us His power, and exalted us on high. For the Logos,
being in man, highly exalted man ; and because the Logos
was in man, it was man who * received.' Since then it
was because the Logos was in flesh that man was exalted,
and received power, therefore it is to the Logos that these
things are referred, since on His account they were given ;
for it is on account of the Logos in man that these gifts
were given. And just as ' the Logos became flesh,' so man
received the things which came through the Logos. For
whatever man received, the Logos is said to have received,
that it might be shown that when man was unworthy to
^ OvKeri yhp, Karh r^v irporepav yevecriv, fv t$ 'A5^/x kiroOv-fia-KOfifV' aWh
\oiir6p Tijs yevececas T}fiwv koX irdcrTis ti)s (rapKiKTJs acrdeveias fxcTand^VTwy fts
Thv A6yov, iyfip6/Me6a arrh yr}s, Xvdflarjs rrjs 5i' kfiapriav Kardpas Sia rhv ir
rifuv * virep rjficey yevdfitpov Kardpav'' Kal flKdrws ye. "flo-Trep y^p, fK yrjs
6trrfs vdyres, iy ry ^A$h/i airoOvficrKonev, oStws * &veo0€J^e^ SSaros Kal iryevfiaTos
kyayeyvi\Q4vTi5,* iy t^ Xpttrrtp rrdyres Cwotroiovfieda, ovkcti q>$ yv'iyis, 6.K\a
Xoiirhy Xoyct6d<rris rrjs crapxhs 5t^ r6y rov Seov A6yoy, ts 5t' rjfjLcis ' iyeyero
adp^.* c Ar. iii. 33.
i
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 359
receive it, so far as his own nature went, he received it
nevertheless on account of the Logos made flesh. . . .
Since, then, through the union of the Logos with man,
the Father, looking upon the Logos, bestowed upon man
exaltation, possession of all power, and so forth ; therefore
to the Logos Himself are there referred, and as it were
given to Him, all the things which through Him we
receive. For as on our account He became man, so on
His account are we exalted. Nor is it strange if just as
on our account He humbled Himself, so on our account
He is said to have been exalted. He bestowed the gifts,
then, ' upon Him ' for * us on account of Him ' ; and * highly-
exalted Him' for *us in Him.' And so too, the Logos
Himself, when we are exalted, and receive, and are
succoured, gives thanks to the Father, as Himself exalted,
and receiving, and succoured ; transferring our conditions
to Himself, and saying, * all things which Thou hast given
unto Me, I have given unto them.' " ^
In this last passage, the clearness and the emphasis are
most remarkable, with which he not only lays down the
immanence of the Logos in ourselves as a doctrinal truth
more or less mysterious and remote, but finds in it the
whole of human capacity to Godward; and finds at the
same time, in that capacitating, the very purpose and
significance of Incarnation.
1 *OTav 5^ {Xeynrai) '6ti ' 'ES6er] fiot i^ovffia' Ka\ * ^AajSov,' /coi ' Sia rovro
virepvrpcDffev ahrov 6 Oebs,' ra rapa tov &60v els T}/xa5 iffrt x^P^o'MttTo 8t*
avTov StSrf/tcj'o. Ob yap 6 Adyos eVSe^js -^u ^ yiyove ir^irorf' ovSh trdXiv
01 livdpcoTToi iKavol ^crav kavrols SiaKovrjffai ravra' Sih Se tov A6yov SlSorai
r)ix7y' Sih, TovTo, ws avrt^ 5i56fjL€va, T}puv fXfTaSlSoTai' 5tA rovro yap Kal ivrjv-
6p(JoTr7j<Tev, Xva, ws aitT(p SiB6/x€va, els T]fJia.s Siafi-p. ''Avdpwiros yhp ^iXhs ovk &v
ij^i^dr} rovTwv. Adyos Se irdMv /xSyos ovk tiy iSe^Ori rovrcap. '2,vvi\(j)Qr] ovv
rifjitv 6 A6yos, koI rSn i^ovcriav rjfi'iv fiirfSwKe, Kal virepvipuaiv. 'E» avBpdiiri^
yap 2)V d A6yos vmp^'^caa-i rhv &u6pwirov' Kal iv avdpdircf} ovros rov ASyov,
I'Ao/Sc*' 6 &pdp(i>iros. 'EiTil ovv rod A6yov ovros iv trapKl v^a)6rf 6 &v6pooiros, Kal
€\afi(V i^ov<riav, 5ia rovro ils rhv A6yov ava<p4perai ravra, iiretSij 8t' avrhv
iSSdrj' Bia yap rhv iv avOpdivw A6yov iSSOri ravra ra xap^o'/iCTo. Kal wcrirep
* 6 ASyos ar&p^ i')iviro,^ oiiro) Kal 6 &vdpa>iro5 t^l Sia rov Adyov ft\r]<pf. Udvra
yap Stra 6 &vdpwiros et\r]<pev, & A6yos Xeyerai tl\r]<p4vai' %va Siix^V' ^'^* ^^'^
&^ios i)V 6 &vdpwrros \afie7v, iffov JjKev (Is r^v avrov <f>v<riv, S/xws 5t^ rhv y€v6-
fi6vov adpKa A6yov iX\t\<j>iv 'EirciS^ olv, ffvva(p04vro5 rov
Adyov r<f avOpcoirtp, us rhv A6yov hiro^xiiruv e'xap^C^TO 6 Tiar^p r^ avOpdnif
rh {nffwdrjvai, rh exetv iraaav i^ovcrlav, Kal Baa roiavra' Sih rovro ainip rep ASyip
irdvra ava(pepirai, Kal ws avrip 5i56fxivd i<rriv & 5i' ainov T]fji(7s \afi$dvofJL(v.
'tts yap 5i' r)/j.as ivnvOpwirrjffev avrhs, ovroos rjiJ.f7s 5t' avrhv v^ffovfifOa. OvSev ovv
Uroirov et, Sxrvep 5t' rifias iravdvufffv eavrov, Kal 5i' Tj/ias Xeyfrai vitipv^uxTQai.
* 'Exap^jraTo' oZv * oury ' avrl rov ' r}fji.7v 5t' ainhv,' Kal * vvipi'^wcrev' avrl rov
* rj/xas kv avT(p.* Kal avrhs Sk 6 A6yos, tj/jluv v^ovfAfveuv, Kal XanfiavdvrwVt
Kal BoriOovfJiivwv, us avrhs vi^ovfiivos, Kal \apL$dyuv, Kal fioTjdo^t/iivos,
fvxapiarfi t$ Tlarpl, ra rjfxerepa fls eavrhv ava<pipuv Kal \4ywv ' vdvra ttra
SeSuKds fioi, SeSwKo owToty.' c. Ar. iv. 6, 7«
36o ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
He is not afraid to say it very strongly. We ourselves
as Christians, are now made * sons of God ' : within us the
presence of the Lord is seen and is worshipped : those who
look upon us^ see and testify that of a truth God is in us.
And how is He in us ? What is the method, and what is
the proof of His Presence? There was only one thing
more waiting to be said : and this too, Athanasius has
said with clearness. The presence of the Lord within
ourselves is the presence of His Spirit, which He gave us.
He clothed Himself with the flesh which was subjected
to sin, and, for sin, died, that He Himself might be, as
Spirit, within us ; and we, characterized by His Spirit, and
so informed by Himself, might be raised to the height
in Him.
" But in that the Lord, even when He was in the body,
and known as Jesus, was worshipped, and believed to be
Son of God, and through Him the Father was known, it
would seem to be plain that it was not the Logos as Logos
who received this grace but ourselves. For by reason of
our kinship of nature with His Body, we ourselves also are
become a temple of God, and have been made from hence-
forth sons of God; so that in us too now the Lord is
worshipped, and those who see us proclaim, as the apostle
said, that ' God is in them of a truth ' : as John also says in
the Gospel ' as many as received Him, to them gave He
power to become children of God,' and in the epistle he
writes : * By this we know that He abideth in us, by His
Spirit which He hath given us.' And this is a token of
the goodness which is to usward from Him, that we were
exalted because the Lord most High was in us ; while the
Saviour humbled Himself in the taking of our humble body,
and took the form of a servant, in putting on the flesh which
was servant to sin." ^
* Tb 5e fcoi iv adtyiwri yiv6ixivov rhv Kipiov koL K\i)B4vTa 'irjffovv vpoff'
Kvvi7(r6ai, viffreifa'Oai re avrhv Tlhv @eov, koI Si* uvtov iiriyivdxTKiffQat rhv
Tlarepa, Srjhov tLv eXri, KaOdir^p itpi\rai, '6ti ovx ^ Adyos, 17 Adyos i<rr\v, eXajSe
T^v Toidvrrjv x^P^^t ^^^* ^/Ae?s. Aia yap t))v irphs rh ffwfia avrov ffvyyiveiav
vabs 06oD yiydvafiiv koX ^jueTs, Koi viol ®iov \onrhv veiroiiipiiBa, &<rTe Kol 4y
rjfuv ^5?? irpoffKvvelffdai rhv Kvpiov, Kol rohs bpwvras 'anayyeWeiv* ws 6
'Air6(TTo\os itp-qKiV, ' 8ti 6vroas 6 @ehs iv roirois icrri'' Kaddirep kuI 6 'ludvvrjs
iv fiev rcfi ivayyi\ia> (p7j<rlv' ' Haoi Be €\a$ov avrhv, %hooKiv avroiis i^ovffiav rcKva
&eov yeveffOai'' iv 5e rrj ^EiriffroXfi ypdtpei' * 'Ev rovrcf ytvdiffKOixev tri fievn
iv Tifiiv, iK rov Uviv/xaros avrov ov tZuKev Tjfuv.' Tvdpifffia S4 itrri Kal rovro
rrjs tls Tifias irap* avrov yevofxevTjs ayad6r7]ro5, '6ri rifuls fiev v^(t>6r}fiev, Sia rh
iv Tiyuv iivai rhv v^icrrov Kvpiov' . . . avrhs Se 6 Siwr^p irair€ivw<r€v eavrhv iv
▼(j3 \a$e7v rh ramivhv rjfACov ffw/xa, So{>\ov T6 jxoptp^v eA.ajScj/, ivZvffdfifvos rifv
SovXuQt'iffav ffdpKa r-p afiapria. C. Ar. i. 43.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 361
Not for Himself but for us, was He, as man, endowed
with the Holy Spirit. Ours really is the anointing. We
are His Christs. And He was Christ for this. This is
the consummation of His Presence in us — that Presence
of Christ's Spirit, characterizing us, which transfigures us
from sin.
" But if it is for our good that He sanctifies Himself,
and this He does after becoming man, it is very plain
that the descent of the Spirit also, which came on Him
in Jordan, came really on us, because He put on our body.
It came not for the advancement of the Logos, but for
our sanctifying, that we might share His * Chrism/ and it
might be said of us ' Know ye not that ye are a temple of
God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? ' For when
the Lord, as man, was washed in Jordan, it was we who
were being washed in Him and by Him. And when He
received the Spirit, it was we who were being made by
Him capable of receiving it."
So He was anointed, not with the Old Testament oil,
but above all His fellows, with " the oil of gladness,"
" which He Himself, through the prophet, interprets of
the Spirit: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because
He hath anointed me ' ; and the Apostle said also, * How
God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit' Of what time
is it that this is said of Him, but the time when, being in
flesh, He was baptized in Jordan, and the Spirit descended
on Him? And the Lord Himself says to His disciples,
the Spirit ' shall take of mine,' and ' I will send Him,' and
* Receive the Holy Ghost.' Yet He who, as the * Logos '
and ' the brightness of the Father ' imparts the Spirit to
others, is now said to * be sanctified,' because He has
become man, and the body that is sanctified is His own.
From that time therefore it was that we first began to re-
ceive the Chrism-unction and the Seal, as John says, ' Ye
have a chrism from the Holy one ' ; and the apostle, * and
ye were sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.' What is said
therefore is on our account and for our good. ... If He
is God, and the throne of His kingdom is for ever and
ever, how could God be advanced ? or what did He lack
who was sitting on the throne of the Father ? But it, as
the Lord Himself said, the Spirit is His, and taketh of
His, and He Himself sendeth Him, it follows that it is
not the Logos, as He is Logos and Wisdom, who is
anointed with the Spirit who is given by Him, but it is the
flesh, which was assumed by Him, which really is in Him
362 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
and by Him anointed ; that the sanctification which came
on the Lord as man, might come on all men from Him." ^
So again : *' It is not then the Logos, as Logos, who
receives advancement — for all things have been His
and are His for ever ; — but it is men who first begin to
receive in Him and from Him. For when He is at this
time said to be anointed as man, it is we in Him who are
anointed, just as when He is baptized, it is we who are
baptized in Him. . . . For He did not say, ' for this cause
He anointed thee that Thou shouldest become God, or
King, or Son, or Logos * — for all this He was and is for ever,
as has been shewn; but rather, 'because Thou art God
and King, therefore art Thou anointed Christ, since none
other could unite man with the Holy Spirit but Thou, the
Image of the Father, after whom we were created from
the beginning ; for Thine is the Spirit also.' For no created
nature could be adequate for this, since angels transgressed
and man had disobeyed. Therefore was God required —
and the Logos is God — to deliver by Himself those who
were underneath the curse." ^
The Spirit is not the Spirit of another, but the Spirit
* Ej h\ Tifiwy x^P^^ eavThv ayid^fi, koI tovto iroiet 3t6 yeyovey &v9puiros,
f&ST]\ov, Uti Kol 7] ils avrhv iv t<^ 'lop^dvr) rov YlviVfiaros yevofievT] KoiOoSos, els
ri/xas ?tv yivofifyri, Sict rh (poptlv avrhv rh T^fxinpov ffwfia. Kai ovk eVl
P(\Ti(a(rii Tov A6yov yeyovev, oAA.' ets Tjfiuy ird\iv ayiafffihv, %va rov xp^f/iaTOS
avTOv fxeraXd^oofieVf Koi irepl ijfjLuv \€x^^'^V> * ovk oXSan on vabs ®eov i<m,
KoX rh Tlv€Vfia tou 0€oO otKcT eV vfuv ;* rod yhp Kvpiov, us avOp^irov, \ovoju.4vov
tls rhv 'lopSdyriv, rj/xf7s 17 /uev 01 iy avr^ Koi irap avrov \ov6(xiyoi. Koi Sexo/i^yov
5i avTot; rh Tlvtvfia, rj/xils ^fny 01 vaji avrou yiv6fieyoi roWov ScktikoI. At^
TOUT© ou5* &<ririp 'Aapcby, fj AajSlS, fj ot &\\oi ■jtovtcj, oSrws Kol avrhs iXaici)
KfXpKTTai, aWh &W<ds irapct trdyras roi/s /j.€t6xovs avrov, i\al^ ayaWLdaews'
hirtp epfiriyfvwy avrhs ttyai rh Tlv€v/xa, 5ih rov irpocp-firov (pv<Ti, * Uvivixa Kvplov
iir 4fih, ov iJyeKfy expice ^e*' KaBifs Ka\ 6 'Pi.ir6<Tro\o5 tipriKty, * 'Hs ixpio'^v
abrhv d &ihs iryiin.ari ayi(f' neire oZy Koi ravra trepl avrov itpr^rai, fj Sre Ka\
iy (TapKl ytySfieyos ifiairrl(iro iy r^ ^lopSdy-p, koI ' KarafiefirjKey eV avrhy rh
Tlytv/iia* ; Koi A*V oVThs 6 KipiSs <p7](ri rh Uyivfia ' l/c tow i/iov K-fj^erai,' Koi
* '£7^ avrh a7ro<rr(\\w ' ' kuI 'Adhere Uyivfia ayioy* ro'is [laBiira^s. Koi
'ofiois 6 i.Woi5 irap^X'^^ ^^ ' A6yos /cai aTraiyaffiia rod Uarphs^ xiytrai yvy
* ayid^fffdat,* ivtiSi) irdXiy yiyov^y &y6p(ioiros, Kal rh ayia^S/xiyoy awfia avrov
iffriv. 'Ef iKiivov yovy Ka\ Tifiils ijp^dficda rov rh xp^Cf^a nal tV (T^payiSa
\a/jLfidvfiy, \4yovro5 rov fi4v 'loodyyov, ' Koi y/xeTs xp^cr/to ^x^Tf airh rov
07/01/.' TOV Se 'ArroffrSXov, 'Kal vfiflv i(T<f>payia6T}ri rif tlyiifiart rrjs
ivayyeXlas Ty ayl^.^ OvKovy 5t' fifias koI vvep T^fidv iari rh Kfyifieyoy.
Tloia roiyvy Kal e/c to<Jtow irpOKOv^ fieXridoffews /cai ' fiicrdhs dpcT^s' ^ av\a>s
irpd^fus rov Kvpiov SiiKyvrai ; €t Se, «oi us aiirhs 6 Kvpios
ftprjKey, avrov icri rh nceS/io, ix rov ovroG Xa/x^dytiy avr6s re avrh
airoffriWei, ovk &pa 6 A6yos iffrly, ■§ A6yos effrl Kal '^ocpla, 6 rQ vap avrov
SiSofj.4yu Ilreifiari XP^'^f^^^^s, oW* rf Trpo(r\'i\(f>Qei(ra tto/J ovtow ffdp^ iffriv t) iy
avrtf koHL ira^ avrov XP^ofieyri' tva Kal 6 ayiafffihs, &s els &y6pti)troy rhv Kdpiov
yiyi/jievos, els -wdyras ayOpdiirovs yevrjrai -nap avrov. C. Ar. i. 47.
' Ovic iipa 6 A6yo5 iffrlv, ■§ A6yos iffrly, 6 fie\rioifi>eyos ' elx^ 7*P vdyra Kal
aci exei ' oXX' ol ^ydputroi elffiv, 01 apx^v exovres t»u Kafifidveiv iv avrif Kal
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 363
of Himself, who has in Him become, through His In-
carnation, the Spirit of Man.
" But through whom, or by whom, should the Spirit be
given but through the Son, whose the Spirit also is ? and
when could we possibly receive Him, save when the Logos
became man ? . . . . For since the flesh that was in Him
was sanctified first, and He because of it was said to
have * received ' as man, it is upon us, who receive of
His fulness, that the resultant grace of the Spirit dwells." ^
It was thus that death was conquered in man, because
man was really separated from sin: and thus that the
law, powerless in the form of command to man as he
naturally is, was merged in the power of grace to those
who, made capable now of receiving the Logos, realize,
in the Spirit, their lives and themselves.
" For in this too the ministration which is through Him
is better, in that * what the law could not do in that it was
weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the
flesh,' taking away from it its fallenness, in which it was
held captive continually, so that it could not receive the
mind of God. But in that He made flesh capable of
receiving the Logos, He made us to walk no longer after
flesh but after spirit, and to say, again and again, ' we are
not in flesh but in spirit,' and that * the Son of God came
into the world not to condemn the world but ' to deliver
all men, and * that the world through Him might be saved.'
For then, as having to answer for its deeds, the world was
judged under the law ; but now the Logos has received the
judgment into Himself, and suffering in the body for all,
has conferred salvation upon all. This John saw and cried,
5(' avTov, Avrov yhp vvv Xeyofiivov oLvOpwirivcos xP^^^^^-h VH-^^s ifffitv ol ip
avrcf XP^^A^^*'*'* * ^T6t5)) KoX fiaimCofifyov avrov, rjfjie'is ifffiev ot iv avr^
fianT 1^6 fiivoi ' oh yap tlirf * Am tovto exP^^^ ^^ ^''" T^W 0e^s»
^ BaffiK^hs, ^ tlhs, ^ A6yo5^ -^v yap Koi vph rolrov Kot <i(TTiv del, Kadd-irtp
SeSeiKTai ' aAXct ixaWoy, ''Eirei^^ ©ehs el Kal fiacriXehs, Sih tovto /col ixp^c^VS '
eirel ovSh &Wov ^y ffvvd'^ai t^v &y9p(>)'iroy Tip Uyt^ffiaTi ry 'Ayiw, -^ ffov ttjs
€Ik6vo5 toS UaTohs, Ka0^ %y Ka\ i^ apxvs yeyivafxey. Sou ydp iffTi Ka\ Th
IIvcD/ta.' Tuy /xey yh.p yfvriTwy r) ^Ixris ovk ^y a^iSiria-Tos els toCto, a-^yeXwv
fiev TrapaPdvTuy, avOpc&irwy Se irapaKOvadyTwy. Ath. tovto Qeov XP^^* ^^
(*0ebs 5e 6(rT«' 6 Arf-yos ' ') lya tovs virh T^jy KaTapay yevofieyovs aiiThs
eXevOepdarr}. c. Ar. i. 48, 49.
^ Aid tIvos 5e Kal traph. tIvos eSei Th Ilyevfjia SiSoadat ^ Sid tov tlov, ov Koi
Th Uyevfid icTi ; wdre Se Xafifidveiy T]fie7s iSvvdfieda, el fi^ 8t6 6 A6yos
yiyovtv &ydpofvos ; ttjs yhp iy avT^ ffapKhs irpd^Tjs ayiaff-
OfiffTfSt Kot ainov Keyofieyov 8t' o^t^i' el\T}<peyait &s ayOpdirov, rifiels eiraKO-
Xovdovcav ?xo/**»' '''V Tou TlyevfiaTos X'^'P^^t *" ''"''*' vXrjp^fiaTos airov
XanfidyoyTes. C. Ar. i. 50-
364 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
' the law was given through Moses, but the grace and the
truth came through Jesus Christ.' Better is the grace than
the law, and the truth than the shadow." ^
Nothing, as it seems to me, can be more emphatic than
is, to the thought of Athanasius, the conception of a vital
regeneration of humanity in general ; that is to say,
potentially at least, of humanity as humanity. What,
then, is the secret or method of this stupendous trans-
formation ? It is certainly no mere change in the attitude,
which would be, in fact, a change in the character, of God.
It is not that God — with colourable ground first provided
or otherwise — consents to treat man inconsistently with
man's deserving or capacity. It is not in God at all, but
in man, that the change is wrought : a divine change which
actually produces a divine capacity (if we dare hardly say
deserving) in man. It is certainly not, then, an act which
properly affects one unit only in humanity : as if the Person
of Christ were regarded artificially, as a substitute for man-
kind. It is not an act external to humanity in general,
like an act of mere purchase or barter. Still less is it a
balancing of an abstract equation by infliction of a quantum
of vengeance as counterpoise to a similar quantum of sin.
Least of all is it the self-indulgence of anger by irrelevant
outpouring of vindictiveness upon an extraneous and
innocent victim. The phrase 'vicarious punishment,' if
it is not at all points wholly irrelevant to the Athanasian
language, or wholly unrelated to the truth, has, at best, a
relevancy so faint that it can do much to mislead, and
comparatively little to illuminate, the thought that is con-
tent to be based upon it.
What is it, then? It is a Divine act, profound and
many-sided. It is an act of almost inconceivable con-
descension, and goodness, and love. It is the self-identifica-
tion of God with humanity ; one primary aspect of which
^ Kal yhp koX Kara tovto KpeiTTcov ri 5i' avrov SiaKovia yeyovtVf Sti kuI
* rh aZvvoTOv rov vSfjiou, iv ^ TjcOevn Stct rrjs aapKhs, 6 &€hs rhv eavrov Tlhv
ire/jLypas iy SfiOidofian ffapKhs auaprlas koX Trepl afiaprlas KareKpipe r^v a/xapTiav
iv rp (TapKV, iKffT'f}(Tas ott' avTTJs rh irapdirTca/xa, iv ^ Siairavrhs 77XA*oA.«Tf^€TO,
Scrre n^ Sc^ecr^at rhv 6i7ov vovv. Trjv Se ffdpKa 56/ctikV tou A6yov
KaraffKivda-as, iirolrjarev rjfias ' firjKSTi /cot& ffdpKa ■Kepi-Kari'iVf aWk Karh
TTVfVfia,^ Koi TToWdKis Kiynv ' ''Hfitls Se ovk iff/xev iv crapK\, dW' iv irvfOfiari'^
Kol "Oti ^\9€V 6 Tov ®€ov Tlhs * els rhv kSct/jlov, ovx 'iva Kpivp rhv Kdff/xov,
oW' Iva Tdvras \vrp^(rr}rai, koI ccoO^ 6 K6crfj.o5 St' avrov.^ T6r€ fiev yhp, ws
vireidvvos, 6 k6(T^os iKpivero vtrh rov v6fiov ' &pri Sh 6 A6yos fls tavrhv
iSe^aro rh Kpifxa, Kol rip erdfiari iraOitiv vtrep irdvrwv, ffwrrjplav rois Tcacriv
ixapiffaro. Tovro 54 $\4irwv KCKpayev 'ludvvns ' * 'O v6/xo5 5ih Maxreus iS697it
71 x^P^^ f «i V aXiiOiia Sih 'Itjcou Xpicrov iyevero.^ Kpeirrav 5e t] X^P^^ ^ ^
v6fio5t KoX 7] ahiideia vapa r^v ffKidv. c. Ar. i. 60.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 365
is the willing surrender of humanity, in the Person of God,
to that dying without which there can be no passage for
the sinner to sinlessness ; but to the very essence of which
belong also the infusion, or reproduction, in humanity in
general, of the living Spirit of the Divine Redeemer ; the
realization, in humanity, of His very Spirit, which, alike in
His self-sacrifice to purgatorial dying, and in His inherent
and essential victory, is His sanctification through dying, —
nay, His ' deification ' — of human character and life.
It would seem to me idle to try to divide these things :
to say that the doctrine of the immanence of Christ, as
Spirit, in humanity is one thing, and that the Redemption
of humanity by the sacrifice of Christ's death is quite
another ; to say that the doctrine of the Spirit is true, and
is a sequel to Redemption, but that it forms no part of the
interpretation of Redemption itself; to say, in other words,
that the doctrine of Redemption, or Atonement, either
must be, or can be, completely interpreted by itself, apart
from the separate doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Neither
the thought of God, nor the thought of God's redeeming
work upon man, is thus divisible into sundered parts.
God is one. And the drama of the Atonement, however
complex or many-sided, is one.
I cannot believe that the writer of the passages quoted
above would have acquiesced in any real separation of
these two aspects of the atoning purpose, or atoning effect,
of the Incarnation of the Eternal Logos. But if so, I
cannot but feel that the position of S. Athanasius as a
whole is not really compatible with the technical inter-
pretations of the doctrine of the Atonement which form
so large a part, perhaps not of the living creed, but at least
of the logical discussion, of later times. The fact that
S. Athanasius did not write a formal treatise on the
doctrine of Atonement is by no means necessarily a
disadvantage to us. The different elements of his thought
on the subject come out with sufficient clearness in his
argumentative treatment of the Incarnation. Perhaps they
come out the more freshly, and with all the fuller life,
because they have not been too closely or formally swathed
in the symmetry of a logic, which might possibly even in
his case, as in the case of so many after him, have been
too rigid to do full justice to them.
For the purpose of vindicating the view of Atonement
taken in this volume against the charge of novelty, or
366 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
(what IS generally implied in novelty) undue contradiction
against a real Christian consensus, this glance into the
mind of the first four centuries, incomplete as it is, might
probably suffice.
And further, it seems reasonable to suggest that what
plainly is true so far down in the history is true substantially
very much further; and that things said in individual
efforts, of exposition or of illustration, had not anything
like the place in popular — any more than in authoritative
— acceptance, which the modern world, looking backwards,
has been inclined to suppose. The theories of Gregory of
Nyssa, as of Origen in earlier times, were individual
attempts at illustrative exposition, received in all pro-
bability and regarded as such. If, in the absence of
other and better illustrations they gradually influenced
popular imagination almost as if they had been authori-
tative ; this was probably at most a very gradual and
unconscious process. The intellect of the Church was not
seriously at work upon the subject, and therefore never
consciously reached, much less formulated, any conclusions
which could for a moment claim to represent the real
consensus or authority of the Church. Moreover, even
where such theories were held, it is in the highest degree
unlikely that they were held by those who adopted any
more than by those who originated them, as an exhaustive
statement of the truth. They are such forms of statement
as would find place in the lecture room rather than in
the oratory, in the speculation of a curious logic about
religion, rather than in the religion of the heart. In
devout Christian hearts, whose prayer was towards God,
whose faith was in the Crucified, and who were led and
moulded by the Spirit, such speculations never would
displace an instinctive faith of larger and deeper import.
Such a faith would always remain, however inconsistently,
side by side with them and beneath them, more vital
ultimately, and more real than they.
No doubt, as the centuries passed on, artificial modes of
thought about the rationale of atonement became, or
seemed to become, more integrally a part of the thought
of the Church; and no doubt the inconsistency between
such modes of thought and the deeper instincts of
devotion came more frequently, and more clearly, to the
surface of Christian consciousness. The absence, for the
first ten centuries, of any serious attempt to co-ordinate
such difficulties, as a whole, is really a proof not only of
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 367
the extent to which the Church was free from any authori-
tative ruling, or even discussion, upon the question ; but
of the very gradual process by which Christian conscious-
ness realized the hampering character of certain (more or
less instinctive or familiar) modes of illustration of the
doctrine ; and therefore also of the very imperfect extent
to which those modes of illustration had entered into, or
in any way affected, the true heart of Christian worship or
of Christian faith.
Still, there were the misconceptions. And they did by
degrees grow, alike in their own definiteness of outline, and
in a certain sort of prescriptive authority. And, so growing,
they did become more and more consciously oppressive to
worship and to faith.
The Cur Deus Homo of S. Anselm, which must always
be of importance as the first formal attempt to philosophize
the whole subject, is animated (as is so often the case with
the most constructive works of theology) by the desire to
protest against misconceptions. And no doubt by the
time of S. Anselm it required some measure alike of
courage and of caution to stand openly against modes of
thought which had become so far inveterate. Thus it is
part of his caution or considerateness, that the objections
which he plainly feels and wishes to satisfy are not urged
by Anselm in his own name, but rather in that of his inter-
locutor Boso, who speaks as quoting, with a quite undefined
degree of sympathy, or at least of perplexity, the difficulties
started by the * infideles! It is, then, formally, the infideles
who cannot see how men were held in effective thrall ; or how
the kingdom of Satan or its subjects were outside the power
of God ; or how anything else was needed to set men free
from punishment except the will of God ; or what occasion
there was for the Incarnation at all. With difficulties like
these, which are partly Christian and partly anti-Christian,
the argument as to the 'justice' of Satan's dominion
is skilfully combined, the whole being put as the difficulty
which the orthodox champion is called upon to explain.
" For under what tenure, or in what prison-house or in
whose power were you detained, from which God could not
have set you free, without redeeming you with such great
effort, and at last with His own blood ? If you say
that God had no power to do all this by His sole command,
when you say that by a command He created all things,
368 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
you are inconsistent with yourselves in denying His power.
Or if you admit that He could have done it in this way, but
would not ; how can you shew Him to be wise while you
assert that it was His will to suffer what so ill became
Him ? For everything which you have to suggest was in
His will only ; for the wrath of God means nothing but
His will to punish. Therefore if He does not will to punish
man's sins, man is free from his sins, and from God's wrath,
and from hell, and from the devil's power, — from all the
things which he suffers by reason of sin ; and all that
he lost by the same reason of sin, he gets back again.
For in whose power is either hell or the devil ? or whose
is the kingdom of heaven, but His who made all things
that are? Every single thing which you either dread
or desire, is subject to the irresistible power of His
will
" And as to that other position which we are accustomed
to take, that it was due from God to deal with the devil for
the release of man by law rather than by force ; so that
when the devil slew Him in whom was no cause of death,
and who was God, he justly lost the power which he held
over sinners ; but otherwise God would unjustly have done
him violence, since he had a right to the possession of man,
for he had not snatched him by force, but man had come to
him of his own accord ; I can not see any force in it. For if
devil or man had belonged to himself, or to any other than
God, or had been held within any power other than God's,
this might possibly be said ; but since both devil and man
belong only to God, and neither of them stands outside of
God's power, what legal dealing should God have with His
own property, for His own property, within His own
property, except to punish His own slave who had per-
suaded his fellow slave to join him and run away from the
master of them both ; and so had been traitor enough to
harbour the runaway, and thief enough to steal the thief,
who belonged to his Lord ? For thieves they were, both
of them ; since the one stole himself from his Lord, while
the other was the instigator of the theft For how-
ever justly man was tormented by the devil, yet the devil
was unjust in tormenting him Therefore there was
no cause whatever in the devil why God should not deal
with him by force for man's deliverance." ^
* In qua namque, aiunt nobis, captione, aut in quo carcere, aut in cujus
potestate tenebamini, unde vos Deus non potuit liberare, nisi vos tot laboribus
et ad ultimum suo sanguine redimeret ? .... Si dicitis quia Deus haec omnia
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 369
There is thus considerable skill in the way in which the
question as a whole is introduced ; and the modifications of
current language which Anselm meant to adopt are inter-
woven with error which he meant to refute. The whole
problem as stated is well worthy of the deepest thought
and the most careful handling. Even to this day it would
be no mean theological exercise to disentangle exactly, and
to analyze, the fallacies and the truths which are woven
together in these two chapters.
Anselm's constructive treatment, when we come to it, is
a real contribution, no doubt, and yet it is to our eyes an
obviously inadequate one. It has in part the character of a
first attempt to philosophize completely. It is a starting
point for much improvement upon itself, while its own in-
adequacies become quickly apparent.
It is indeed abundantly plain that S. Anselm's theory
never can have represented with any adequacy the whole
of the living thought which tried to express itself in it. He
is trying to give symmetrical expression, in terms of logic,
to a faith which lies deeper than his essay towards a logical
exposition of it. It would be impossible to suppose that
any really devout spirit could have felt, in his worship of
the atonement, no more than is contained in Anselm's logic.
facere non potuit solo jussu, quem cuncta jubendo creasse dicitis, repugnatis
vobismetipsis quia impotentem ilium facitis. Aut si fatemini, quia potuit, sed
non voluit, nisi hoc modo ; quomodo sapientem ilium ostendere potestis, quem
sine ulla ratione tarn indecentia velle pati asseritis ? Omnia enim haec, quae
obtenditis, in ejus voluntate consistunt ; ira namque Dei non est aliud quam
voluntas puniendi. Si ergo non vult punire peccata hominum, liber est
homo a peccatis, et ab ira Dei, et ab inferno, et a potestate diaboli, quae
omnia propter peccata patitur ; et recipit ea, quibus propter eadem peccata
privatur. Nam in cujus potestate est infernus aut diabolus ; aut cujus est
regnum coelorum, nisi ejus, qui fecit omnia ? Qusecunque itaque timetis aut
desideratis, ejus voluntati subjacent, cui nihil resistere potest .... Sed
et illud, quod dicere solemus, Deum scilicet debuisse prius per justitiam,
contra diabolum agere, ut liberaret hominem, quam per fortitudinem, ut cum
diabolus eum, in quo nulla mortis erat causa, et qui Deus erat, occideret,
juste potestatem, quam super peccatores habebat, amitteret ; alioquin injustam
violentiam fecisset iUi, quoniam juste possidebat hominem, quem non ipse
violenter attraxerat, sed idem homo se sponte ad ilium contulerat : non video
quam vim habeat. Nam si diabolus aut homo suus esset, aut alterius quam Dei,
aut in alia quam in Dei potestate maneret, forsitan hoc recte diceretur ; cum
autem diabolus aut homo non sit nisi Dei, et extra potestatem Dei neuter
consistat ; quam causam debuit Deus agere, cum suo, de suo, in suo,
nisi ut servum suum puniret, qui suo conserve communem dominum deserere
et ad se persuasisset transire, ac traditor fugitivum, fur furem, cum furto domini
sui suscepisset ? Uterque namque fur erat, cum alter, altero persuadente, seipsum
domino suo fiirabatur. . , . Quamvis enim homo juste a diabolo torqueretur,
ipse tamen ilium injuste torquebat. . . . Nihil igitur erat in diabolo, cur Deus
contra ilium ad liberandum hominem sua uti fortitudine non deberet, Ch.
vi. and vii.
2 A
370 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
Of this, indeed, Anselm is abundantly conscious. He is
constantly referring to the * altiores rei rationes ' which his
expression cannot reach. One such phrase was quoted in
the preface to these pages. Another very striking one is
in the i6th chapter of the 2nd part. Another is near the
end of the 19th chapter: " Puto me aliquantulum jam tuae
satisfecisse qusestioni, quamvis hoc melior me facere plenius
possit, et majores atque plures quam meum aut mortale
ingenium comprehendere valeat hujus rei sint rationes." He
is, of course, not wrong in attempting to rationalize what
he knows that he can at best rationalize very incompletely.
And his treatise has helped us all ; though in part by
helping us to see the inadequacy of some prima facie
modes of interpreting certain realities of our own conscious-
ness, which lie, in fact, deeper than our interpreting power.
But it follows from this that we are able to criticize Anselm's
theory with the utmost freedom, without even imagining for
a moment that we are criticizing the heart of Anselm's faith.
The fact is that the failure of the Cur Deus Homo lies at
the very outset of his attempt. It lies in his statement of
the problem, and his view of the meaning of the terms with
which he starts : What is sin ? and what is forgiveness
of sin? In his nth and 12th chapters he raises such
questions as these ; and by the time he has answered them
a really adequate rationale of atonement has become im-
possible. His answer to the great question may be as
good as his statement of the question allows. But his
question is conceived arithmetically, and raised really in
terms of arithmetic. What wonder if the conclusion
reached is also arithmetical ? " Non est aliud peccare
quam Deo non reddere debitum." Here is a definition,
which — though true no doubt as far as it goes — is fatal. It
makes sin in its essence quantitative, and, as quantitative,
external to the self of the sinner, and measurable, as if it
had a self, in itself. The problem caused by sin is exhibited
as if it were a faulty equation, which by fresh balancing of
quantities is to be equated aright. But, in fact, sin is not
in what I do so really as in what I am. What I am may
be evidenced, nay, may be actualized, through what I do.
Yet the sin lies not in the deed, as deed ; but in the ' I,' as
doer of the deed. The * I ' is not distinguishable from the
sin. The sin is within the * I.' It is in what ' I ' am.
It follows that it is an impossibility, in any full sense of
the words, 'dimittere peccatum,' so long as, in real fact,
' peccatum ' remains. But if sin is within the * 1/ it does
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 371
remain until the * I ' be changed. It is an essential altera-
tion of the very constitution of the ' I,' not a transaction or
equation external to the ' 1/ in which the true forgiveness
of sins finds its meaning. There could hardly be a better
illustration than the Cur Deus Homo, of the inherent
failure of any exposition of atonement, which is not, at
every turn, in terms of personality ; which does not find,
in all the terms concerned, in sin, in punishment, in
penitence, in forgiveness, in atonement, meanings which,
if conceived of apart from personality, and not as aspects,
or states, or possibilities of personality ^ would rapidly become
no meanings at all.
The quantitative character of the conception comes out
very clearly as Anselm works towards his final conclusions.
The question is how to cancel the great " amount " of the
" debt " of humanity to God. The service of Christ's life as
man does not count for this purpose, for that was anyhow
due, a due of humanity to God. But his death was {a) not
due, and {b) infinite in amount. Therefore the amount of
this, which was not due, being infinite, outweighed the
amount of all the sins of the world, which though vast were
not literally infinite. Nothing could be more simply
arithmetical, or more essentially unreal. And yet the
unreality of the conclusion is no more than was inevitably
involved in the artificiality of the conceptions with which
the logic first set out.^
Three further remarks may be added about S. Anselm.
First, that while it is easy for us to say what is artificial
and unsatisfactory in his thought, the process of dis-
entangling the true heart of the thought itself from the
^ Si dicimus quia dabit seipsum ad obediendum Deo, ut perseveranter servando
justitiam subdat se ejus voluntati ; non erit hoc dare quod Deus ab illo non
exigat ex debito. Omnis enim rationalis creatura debet hanc obedientiam
Deo, pt. II. ch. xi.
Video hominem ilium plane, quem quserimus, talem esse oportere, qui nee ex
necessitate moriatur, quoniam erit omnipotens ; nee ex debito quia nunquam
peccator erit ; et mori possit ex libera voluntate, quia necessarium erit. Ibid.
Cogita etiam quia peccata tantum sunt odibilia, quantum sunt mala, et
vita ista tantum amabilis est quantum est bona. Unde sequitur, quia vita ista
plus est amabilis, quam sint peccata odibilia,
Boso. Non possum hoc non intelligere.
Anselm. Putasne tantum bonum tam amabile posse sufficere ad sol-
vendum, quod debetur pro peccatis totius mundi ?
Boso. Imo plus potest in infinitum.
Anselm. Vides igitur quomodo vita hsec vincat omnia peccata, si pro illis
detur.
Boso. Aperte.
Anselm. Si ergo dare vitam est mortem accipere, sicut datio hujus vitrc
prsevalet omnibus hominum peccatis, ita et acceptio mortis. lb. ch. xiv.
372 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
forms under which it expressed itself was really of course
a gradual one, so that neither he himself (though he knew
how much the truth must transcend his expression of it)
nor his contemporaries (though they might demur, with
more or less clearness, to some parts of his expression)
were really able to see, as in process of time men learned
to see, exactly how much of what he said belonged to his
truth, and how much to the imperfectly illustrative forms
in which he tried to embody it. The second remark will
be that, in drawing marked attention to the imperfectness
of the forms in which he embodied his thought, we have of
necessity done injustice to the large amount of true insight
and devotional reality — to the obvious sincerity that is, of
the Christian Spirit — which breathes through what he says,
even where the logical form of it is found to be ultimately
least tenable. And the third will be that whatever he said
was commended to his contemporaries, and to the whole
Church, by this obvious sincerity of the spirit in which it
was conceived ; it was commended not only by the tact-
fulness of the manner in which he approached current
prejudices, but still more by that most persuasive of
arguments, the fragrance of a saintly life.
But fragrant as is the memory of the saintly Anselm,
it is probable that modern thought is really more interested
and more likely to be interested, in the somewhat frag-
mentary suggestions towards an explanation of the atone-
ment, which are connected with the name of Abaelard.
The teaching of Anselm, whatever it might be, was likely
to be commended by the reverence which inevitably
belonged to his person and character. But with Abaelard
it was different. He never indeed brought his suggestions
on the subject, which are chiefly in his commentary on the
Romans, into a connected and completely self-consistent
system. But if he had, they would hardly have been
accepted. There was not the fragrant life, and the gracious
personality, nor the persuasive tone, the devout patience,
the constraining beauty of spirit, which would all have
been necessary, in an age of rigid and narrow discipline of
ecclesiastical thought, to commend in the teeth of a (not
unnatural) suspicion of unorthodoxy, the really beautiful
conceptions which underlay his thought. Neither was his
conception adequately complete, nor was the tone of his
exposition adequately persuasive. Nor, it must be added,
was he personally quite capable of holding the position of
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 373
a mighty prophet in the Church. The life of Abaelard is
a tragedy throughout, — fascinating, if at all, as tragedy, — a
life of stress and storm, full of its own strange horror, and
strange pathos. Something more was needed than it was
in him to supply, in order to commend — I will not quite
say the Abaelardian view of the atonement, but rather the
view which he approached, but to which he did, after all,
very imperfect justice, to the heart and conscience of
Christendom. Whatever sympathy we may feel for him,
intellectually or otherwise, it would not be fair to condemn
those who, under all the circumstances, looked askance on
his teaching and set themselves to oppose it, if only they
had themselves been scrupulously fair in the methods of
their opposition.
But incomplete and imperfectly consistent though his
teaching was, it contains, beyond all question, the germ,
and something more than the germ, of an exposition of the
atonement far deeper and more inclusive than that of the
theologians who condemned him.
It may be well to put together various things which he
does say about Christ's atoning work, beginning with some
of those in which he most conforms to the thought of his
age, and asserts the things which he was accused of
denying. Thus he asserts that, seeing that we were
bought by the blood of Christ, we must have been bought
from the master, who, by the bond of our sins, held us
enslaved, and to whom it belonged to fix his price. It
was the devil, then, who, as our master and owner,
determined his price, and who asked for us the blood
of Christ.
"Scriptum est in Epistola Petri quia redempti sumus
precioso sanguine unigeniti, ab aliquo sine dubio empti
cujus eramus servi, qui et pretium proposuit quod voluit,
ut dimitteret quod tenebat. Tenebat autem nos diabolus,
cui districti fueramus peccatis nostris. Poposcit ergo
pretium nostrum sanguinem Christi." ^
So, in commenting on the last verses of Rom. vii., he
speaks of us as "justly delivered from the dominion of
sin or the devil": "ut nos juste a dominio peccati sive
diaboli possit eruere et a captivitate praedicta tanquam
suos reducere."
So, on V. 6, he says that Christ's dying for the ungodly
was to deliver them from condemnation, — " ut eos videlicet
a damnatione liberaret."
* In Rom. Lib. II. (on ch. iv. 11).
374 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
So, on viii. 3, " God caused his co-eternal Wisdom to
assume passible and mortal humanity, that while He
subjected Himself to the punishment of sin, He might
appear to have a personal share in the flesh that is
conceived in sin." "Co-seternam sibi sapientiam fecit
humiliari usque ad assumptionem passibilis et mortalis
hominis, ita ut per poenam peccati cui subjacebat, ipse
etiam carnem peccati, id est in peccato conceptam, habere
videretur." Commenting on the same passage, he goes
on : " And for sin, that is, the punishment of sin, which
He bore for us in the flesh " ; " de peccato, id est de
poena peccati quam pro nobis sustinuit in carne, id est
in humanitate assumpta non secundum divinitatem/'
And so in the so-called Apologia he says, with con-
fident brevity, that the Son of God was incarnate
that He might deliver us from the slavery of sin, and
the yoke of the devil, and might open to us by His
death the entrance into everlasting life. "Solum Filium
Dei incarnatum profiteer, ut nos a servitute peccati et a jugo
diaboli liberaret, et supernae aditum vitae morte sua nobis
reseraret."
On Rom. iv. 25, he lays down that there are two ways
in which Christ died " for our sins " ; first, because the sins
which were the cause of His death, and of which He bore
the ' poena,' were our sins : and secondly, because His death
was to do away our sins, purchasing our exemption from
* poena,' while it also won us by the revelation of His love,
and so drew away, from any will to sin, the souls that were
in love with Him. " Duobus modis propter delicta nostra
mortuus dicitur, tum quia nos deliquimus propter quod
ille moreretur, et peccatum commisimus cujus ille poenam
sustinuit, tum etiam ut peccata nostra moriendo tolleret,
i.e., poenam peccatorum introducens nos in Paradisum
pretio suae mortis auferret, et, per exhibitionem tantae
gratiae, quia, ut ipse ait, majorem dilectionem nemo habety
animos nostros a voluntate peccandi retraheret, et in
summam suam dilectionem intenderet."
The relations of cause and effect, which are not quite
clear in the second half of this thought, become clearer in
his reply to the ' quaestio ' raised upon the passage ending
Rom. iii. 26. Here he says explicitly that our real
justification, in which we are reconciled to God, is the
Divine love kindled in our own hearts, through our appre-
hension of the Divine love manifested in the crucifixion.
It is the supreme presence of love within ourselves — the
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 375
direct result of the passion of Christ, a love which lifts us
out of the slavery of sin, into the true liberty of the
children of God. It was for the kindling of this true
liberty of love in man, that Christ declares Himself to
have come.
" Nobis autem videtur quod in hoc justificati sumus
in sanguine Christi, et Deo reconciliati, quod per hanc
singularem gratiam nobis exhibitam, quod Filius suus
nostram susceperit naturam, et in ipso nos tam verbo
quam exemplo instituendo usque ad mortem perstitit,
nos sibi amplius per amorem astrinxit ; ut tanto divinae
gratiae accensi beneficio, nil jam tolerare propter ipsum
vera reformidet caritas. . . . Redemptio itaque nostra
est ilia summa in nobis per passionem Christi dilectio,
quae non solum a servitute peccati liberat sed veram nobis
filiorum Dei libertatem acquirit; ut amore ejus potius
quam timore cuncta impleamus, qui nobis tantam
exhibuit gratiam, qua major inveniri ipso attestante
non potest. Majorem hac^ inquit, dilectionem ne^no habet,
quam ut animam suam ponat pro amicis suis. De hoc
quidem amore Dominus alibi ait, Ignem veni mittere in
terrain^ et quid volo nisi ut ardeat} Ad hanc itaque veram
caritatis libertatem in hominibus propagandam se venisse
testatur. Quod diligenter attendens apostolus in
sequentibus ait, Quia caritas Dei diffusa est in cordibus
nostris per Spiritum sanctum qui datus est nobis." ^
The passage is a very striking one. But there are two
matters for sincere regret ; the first that he seems to lay so
much causal stress upon the * exhibition ' of the love of the
Cross, as though he conceived it as working its effect mainly
as an appeal, or incitement, to feeling : and the second that
he fails to follow up the clue which his own quotation
of Rom. V. 5 might have supplied to him. The doctrine
of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ within the
personality of Christians, would have supplied the whole
truth which he desired, without the risk, to which his own
expressions seem to be liable, of making the effect of Calvary
itself appear primarily as an appeal to human emotions.
The same thought is re-echoed when he comes to the
passage in Rom. v. itself " Merito dixi caritatem diffusam
in cordibus nostris. Nam propter quid aliud, nisi videlicet
ut in nobis dilataretur caritas Dei ? "
" Notandum vero est apostolum hoc loco modum nostrae
redemptionis per mortem Christi patenter exprimere, cum
1 Rom. V. 5, with 6 and 8. The passage is in the comment on Rom. iii. 26.
376 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
videlicet eum pro nobis non ob aliud mortuum dicit, nisi
per veram illam caritatis libertatem in nobis propagandam,
per banc videlicet qua nobis exhibuit summam dilectionem,
sicut ipse ait Majorem hac dilectionem nemo habet etc
Commendat Beus.] id est, aedificat sive confirmat. suam
caritatem in iiobisJ] quoniam scilicet Dei Christus Filius pro
nobis mortuus est cum, adhuc peccatores essemus.] Quod si
ita respexit cum essemus peccatores, morti scilicet unicum
suum pro nobis tradendo, mzilto magis ergo.] id est, multo
facilius sive libentius vel probabilius nunc respiciet nos ad
salvationem jam justificatos in sanguine suo, id est, jam per
dilectionem quam in eo habemus, ex hac summa gratia,
quam nobis exhibuit, pro nobis, scilicet, adhuc peccatoribus
moriendo. Et hoc est, salvi erimus ab ira.] scilicet futura,
id est, a peccatorum vindicta, per ipsum.] videlicet Christum
pro nobis semel morientem, et saepius orantem, et assidue
nos instruentem."
It was thus that the Cross really did what the law had
tried and failed to do, for the law had commanded love to
God and to man : but the Cross drew it out perforce : and
in this love it is that sin is condemned and destroyed. This
is what is meant when Christ is said to have been made a
victim for us. " Non dicit opera legis, quae nequaquam jus-
tificant, sed quod lex praecipit de his quae ad justificationem
attinent, sine quibus justificari non possumus, sicut est Dei
et proximi caritas ; quam lex imperfectam facit, sicut supra
monuimus ; sed per Christum in nobis perficitur. Et hoc
est quod ait, ut caritas Dei et proximi^ quam lex praecipit,
in nobis perfecta nos justificaret. Ipsum quippe Christum
tanquam Deum, ipsum proximum vere diligere, summum
illud beneficium, quod nobis exhibuit, compellit ; quod est in
nobis peccatum damnare, id est, reatum omnem et culpam
destruere per caritatem ex hoc summo beneficio. Quod
verius, inquit, habetur apud Graecos pro peccato damnavit
peccatum ipse hostia pro peccato /actus. Per banc hostiam
carnis quae dicitur pro peccato damnavit, id est delevit
peccatum, quia remissionem quoque peccatorum nobis in
sanguine suo et reconciliationem operatus est." ^
Thus, then, we hang wholly upon Christ, in believing
faith, which is our righteousness. " Haec est ilia justitia
quae ex fide est Christi, id est, ipsa fides in Christum habita
nos justificans." "^
And true faith is not only of the lips but of the heart
land the will, of the character and the life. " Ore suo con-
* pn Rom. viii. 3. "^ On Rom. x. 6.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 377
fitetur, qui quod enunciat intelligit. Corde suo credit qui
cor et voluntatem suam applicat his quae credit, ut ipsa
videlicet fides eum ad opera trahat ; veluti cum quis credendo
Christum a mortuis resurrexisse in vitam aeternam, satagit
prout potest ut vestigia ejus sequendo ad ejusdem vitae
beatitudinem perveniat" ^
It would be unfair to pass from Abaelard without some
representation of those more pathetic expressions which
exhibit, at least in part, the translation of his speculation
into his experience. How really and how profoundly he
conceived of the study of the Cross as entering into the
very being of him who studied it, may be gathered from his
5th letter, the letter in which he attempts to give comfort to
Heloissa, when she had bewailed, in language most piercing
and pathetic, the haunting misery of her repentance.
" Art thou not moved to tears or to compunction by the
only begotten of God, who, having done no wrong, was
for thy sake and for all, seized by most impious men, and
dragged away and scourged, and with covered face mocked,
smitten with the hand, spat upon, crowned with thorns, and
at length hung between thieves on the gibbet of the Cross,
then so disgraceful, and slain by the sort of death which
was then most ^appalling and accursed. Have Him, my
sister, — thine own and the whole Church's true spouse —
have Him before thine eyes, carry Him in thy mind !
Gaze upon Him as He goes out to be crucified for thee,
laden with His own Cross. Be thou of the people and the
women who were bewailing and lamenting Him (quoting
Luke xxiii. 27-31). Suffer thou with Him who suffered
willingly for thy redemption, and be thou pierced with Him
who was crucified for thee. Stand, in mind, ever at His
sepulchre, and lament and mourn with the women, of whom
it is written (as I said before) * The women, sitting at the
tomb, lamented the Lord with tears.* Prepare, with them,
the ointments for His burial — yet better ointments than
those, of the spirit not of the body — for He who received
not those spices asks for these. So, with love's utter
devotion, be thou pierced to the heart ! He, Himself, by the
word of Jeremiah, calls His believers to this fellowship of
passion and of piercing. * O all ye who pass by, behold
and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow,' that
is, if there be any sufferer whose suffering so calls for
sympathy and sorrow ; since I alone, without fault, atone for
the faults of others. He is. Himself, the way by which the
^ On Rom. x, 9.
378 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
faithful pass out of exile to their home. And the Cross, of
which He thus cries, He has lifted up as a ladder to us for
this. He, the only-begotten of God, was killed for thy
sake, as an offering, of His own will. Over Him, not
another, let thy sorrow be in entering into His sufferings,
and enter into His sufferings by sorrow! Fulfil the
prophecy of Zechariah about devout souls : * they shall
wail,' he says, ' a wailing as for an only son, and shall mourn
as one that mourneth over his first-born' (Zech. xii. lo).
See, my sister, how great the lamentation is, among those
that love the king, over the death of his first and only son.
Observe the lamentation of the household, the mourning
which possesses the whole court ; and when thou comest to
the bride of the only-begotten who is dead, her wailing will
be greater than thou canst bear. Be this, my sister, thy
lamentation, this thy wailing, for this is the Bridegroom to
whom thou hast joined thyself in blessed marriage. He
has bought thee, not with what is His, but with Himself.
With His own blood He bought thee and redeemed thee.
See what right He has over thee, and consider of how high
a price thou art. The apostle, when he thinks of this price,
and in the light of this price, weighs his value for whom it is
given, and also what return he should make for so great a
favour, says, ' God forbid that I should glory, save in the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is
crucified unto me, and I unto the world.' Thou are greater
than heaven, greater than the world ; for thy price is the
very creator of the world. What, I ask, did He see in
thee — He, who has lack of nothing — that to win thee He did
battle, even to the last agonies of a death so full of horror
and of shame ? What, I say, does He seek in thee except
thyself? He is the true lover, who longs for thyself, not for
anything that is thine. He is the true friend, who said
Himself, when ready to die for thee, * Greater love hath no
man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." ^
* Non te ad lacrymas aut ad compunctionem movet unigenitus Dei innocens
pro te et omnibus ab impiissimis comprehensus, distractus, flagellatus, et velata
facie illusus, et colaphizatus, sputis conspersus, spinis coronatus, et tandem in
illo crucis tunc tam ignominioso patibulo inter latrones suspensus, atque illo
tunc horrendo et execrabili genere mortis interfectus ? Hunc semper, soror,
verum tuum et totius ecclesise sponsum prae oculis habe, mente gere. Intuere
hunc exeuntem ad crucifigendum pro te et bajulantera sibi crucem. Esto de
populo et mulieribus, quae plangebant et lamentabantur eum. . . . Patienti
sponte pro redemptione tua compatere, et super crucinxo pro te compungere.
Sepulchro ejus mente semper assiste, et cum fidelibus feminis lamentare et
luge ; de quibus etiam ut jam supra memini scriptum est, Mulieres sedentes
ad monumentum lamentabantur Jlentes Dominum. Para cum illis sepulturae ejus
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 379
And here are a few sentences from the prayer which the
letter ends by commending to her :
" Pardon thou, O most benign ! Thou who art benignity
itself! Pardon even the exceeding greatness of our sins,
and may the unutterable vastness of thy pity explore the
multitude of our offences ! Punish us, I beseech thee, now,
who confess our guilt, and spare us in the life to come!
Punish for a season, that thou may est not punish for ever !
Take to thy servants the rod of correction, not the sword of
fury ! Make the flesh suffer, that thou may est save the
souls ! Be with us to purify, not to revenge ! in mercy
rather than in justice! a pitying Father, not an austere
Lord ! Prove us, and try us, O Lord, as the prophet asks
for himself; as if he plainly said, measure first my powers,
and temper to them the burthen of thy trial ! as blessed
Paul said in promise to thy believers, ' For God is powerful,
who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are
able, but will with the temptation make also a way of
escape that ye may be able to bear it' Thou; O Lord, hast
joined us together ; and hast separated us ; when it pleased
Thee, and how it pleased Thee. Now, O Lord, complete in
the greatness of Thy mercy what Thou hast in mercy begun !
Whom Thou hast separated once for all in the world, unite
unguenta, sed meliora spiritualia quidem, non corporalia ; hsec enim requirit
aromata qui non suscepit ilia. Super his toto devotionis affectu compungere.
Ad quam quidem compassionis compunctionem ipse etiam per Hieremiam
fideles adhortatur dicens, O vos omnes qui transitis per viatn^ attendiU et
videte si est dolor similis sicut dolor nieus. Id est si super aliquo patiente ita
est per compassionem dolendum, cum ego scilicet solus sine culpa quod alii deli-
querintluam. Ipseautem est via per quam fideles deexilio transeunt ad patriam.
Qui etiam crucem, de qua sic clamat, ad hoc nobis erexit scalam. Hie pro teoccisus
est unigenitus Dei, oblatus est, quia voluit. Super hoc uno compatiendo dole,
dolendo compatere. Et quod per Zachariam prophetam de animabus devotis
prsedictum est comple : plangent, inquit, planctum quasi super unigenitum, et
dolebunt super eum tit doleri solet in morte primogeniti. Vide, soror, quantus
sit planctus his qui regem diligunt super morte primogeniti ejus et unigeniti.
Intuere quo planctu familia, quo maerore tota consummatur curia : et cum ad
Sponsam unigeniti mortui pervenisti, intolerabiles ululatus ejus non sustinebis.
Hie tuus, soror, planctus, hie tuus sit ululatus, quae te huic Sponso felici
copulasti matrimonio. Emit te iste non suis, sed seipso. Proprio sanguine
emit te, et redemit. Quantum jus in te habeat vide, et quam preciosa sis
intuere. Hoc quidem pretium suum Apostolus attendens, et in hoc pretio quanti
sit ipse, pro quo ipsum datur, perpendens, et quam tantae gratise vicem referat
adnectens : Absit niihi, inquit, gloriari nisi in crtue Domini nostri Jesu
Christi, per quern niihi mundus crucifixus est, et ego mundo. Major es coelo,
major es mundo ; cujus pretium ipse conditor mundi factus est. Quid in te,
rogo, viderit, qui nuUius eget, ut pro te acquirenda usque ad agoniais tam
horrendae atque ignominiosae mortis certaverit ? Quid in te, inquam, quaerit
nisi te ipsam ? verus est amicus, qui te ipsam, non tua, desiderat. Verus est
amicus, qui pro te moriturus dicebat Majorem hoc dileciionem nemo habet,
ut animam suam ponat qui s pro amicis suis.
38o ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
us to Thyself for ever in heaven ; Thou our hope, our portion,
our expectation, our consolation, O Lord, who art blessed
for ever and ever. Amen.
" Farewell in Christ, Christ's spouse ! in Christ farewell,
and in Christ be thy life. Amen.'* ^
It is abundantly clear that Bernard of Clairvaux did no
justice to Abaelard. The faith of Abaelard in the Cross
was a faith to inspire the most searching penitence, and
the most ardent love ; a faith which really reached beyond
its own statement of itself; a faith in which a true peni-
tent could live, and could die, in Christ. And yet, on the
side of theological exposition, it was really defective
still. It would have been, indeed, unfair for any prose-
cutor to assert that Abaelard explained the whole meaning
of Calvary as only an instruction, a pattern, an exhibition,
a commendation of love. But that these things should
be formally urged on the Pope by one whose indictment
would not even be seen by the accused, far less answered,
or checked in any way, but accepted as a judicial summing
up of the case, was, judicially speaking, monstrous.^ Yet
^ Ignosce, benignissime, immo benignitas ipsa, ignosce et tantis criminibus
nostris, et ineffabilis misericordise tuse multitudinem culparum nostrarum
immensitas experiatur. Puni obsecro in praesenti reos, ut parcas in future. Puni
ad horam, ne punias in seternum. Accipe in servos virgam correctionis, non
gladium furoris. Afflige carnem ut conserves animas. Adsis purgator non
ultor ; benignus magis quam Justus ; Pater misericors, non austerus Dominus.
Proba nos Domine, et tenta, sicut de semetipso rogat Propheta ; ac si aperte
diceret, Prius vires inspice, ac secundum eas tentationum onera moderare.
Quod et beatus Paulus fidelibus tuis promittens ait : Potens est enim Deus qui
non patietur vos tentari supra id quod potestis, sed faciei cum tentatiotu etiam
proventum ut possitis sustinere. Conjunxisti nos Domine, et divisisti quando
placuit tibi, et quo modo placuit. Nunc quod, Domij^e, misericorditer coepisti,
misericordissime comple. Et quos a sc semel divisisti in mundo, perenniter
tibi conjungas in coelo. Spes nostra, pars nostra, expectatio nostra, consolatio
nostra, Domine qui es benedictus in saecula. Amen.
Vale in Christo sponsa Christi, in Christo vale, et Christo vive. Amen.
2 Hsec est justitia hominis in sanguine Redemptoris ; quam homo per-
ditionis exsufflans et subsannans, in tantum evacuare conatur, ut totum
quod Dominus glorise semetipsum exinanivit ; quod .... passus indigna ;
quod demum per mortem crucis in sua reversus : ad id solum putet et disputet
redigendum, ut traderet hominibus formam vitse vivendo et docendo ; patiendo
autem et moriendo caritatis metam prsefigeret. Ergo docuit justitiam et
non dedit ; ostendit caritatem, sed non infudit ; et sic rediit in sua ? (vii. 17).
Non requisivit Deus Pater sanguinem Filii, sed tamen acceptavit oblatum ;
non sanguinem sitiens, sed salutem, quia salus erit in sanguine. Salus,
plane, et non sicut iste sapit et scribit sola caritatis ostensio. Sic enim
concludit tot calumnias et invectiones suas quas in Deum tam impie quam
imperite evomuit, ut dicat : Totum esse quod Deus in came apparuit, nostram
de verbo et exemplo ipsius institutionem, sive ut postmodum dicit, in-
structionem ; totum quod passus et mortuus est, suae erga nos caritatis
ostensionem vel commendationem (viii. 22). Ceterum quid prodest quod
nos instituit si non restituit ? .... si omne quod profuit Christus in sola
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 381
however keenly we may feel the judicial unfairness of
Bernard and Innocent, there is certainly something to be
said for Bernard's view, or instinct, that Abaelard's position,
as Abaelard himself expounded it, had danger in it. The
things which he had said about * ransom ' and * purchase,'
and ' bearing tho-pcena of sin,' ought of course to have been
before any court which affected to try him. And yet it may
be doubted whether they really quite cohere with his proper
thought. He seems in them to be doing a somewhat con-
ventional (and indeed in some cases even undue) homage
to conventional modes of expression. Plainly his real
heart is rather in such statements as that our real justifica-
tion is the Divine Love within us. Was he then quite
capable of expounding the atonement adequately upon this
basis — the basis of his own truest feeling.? He comes
indeed, in many respects, very near to an exposition which,
in depth and comprehensiveness and vital reality, would have
been far in advance of what was current in his own, or
indeed in almost any other generation. But I must own
that he does not seem to me to attain to it. If S. Bernard,
instead of arrogating the position of a judge, had been
merely, in courteous controversy, pointing out what seemed
to him to be dangerous tendencies, he might have been
reasonably anxious about the emphasis laid on 'the
instruction' through the 'exhibition' of love. It is true
that such phrases say less than Abaelard meant. The
emphasis of his thought is not really so much upon Calvary
as a picture exhibited before our eyes, as it is upon Calvary
as a constraining and transforming influence upon our
characters. It is not so much really upon the love of God
manifested to us, as upon the love of God generated within
us. The difference is important. And, so far, he is wholly
in the right direction. But if the question be pressed, how
is it generated ? Abaelard's exposition seems to have no
deeper answer to give than that the exhibition of the Cross
constrains it. He dwells on the Cross very finely, as an
incentive to love ; but hardly conceives of it more profoundly
than as an incentive. He has lost the emphasis upon the
thought of humanity as a corporate unity, summed up
and represented in Christ, so that what Christ did and
suffered. Christians themselves also suffered and did in
Christ, — which was so strong and clear in the earliest
fuit ostensione virtutum, restat ut dicatur quod Adam quoque ex sola peccati
ostensione nocuerit, ix. 23, etc. (All these are in Bernard's letter to Pope
Innocent II.)
382 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
Christian theologians ; and, on the other hand, he has
totally failed to interpret the production of Divine love
within us, not as a mere emotion of ours, elicited in us as
our response to an external incentive, but as being the
doctrine of the Holy Ghost ; — that presence of Christ as
constitutive Spirit within, which is the extension of the
Incarnation and Atonement, the very essentia of the true
Church of Christ, the real secret of the personal being
of Christians, and therefore the characteristic doctrine of
the Christian faith, as it is the characteristic experience of
the Christian life.
Had he carried his thought on, this one bold step further,
and had he possessed the charm of grave reserve and personal
saintliness, which would have served to commend his theories
to the hearts as well as to the thoughts, or rather to the
thoughts, because first to the hearts, of his own contempor-
aries, the history of the doctrine in subsequent generations
might have been very different. As it is, it may well be
doubted whether Bernard was not at least half right in his
underlying instinct ; andwhetherthe acceptance of Abselard's
teaching in the somewhat inconsistent as well as incomplete
form in which Abaelard himself expressed it, would not have
led towards a view of the Atonement which would have
been perilously incomplete. In the stress laid upon that
constraining appeal to the feelings which the story of the
Cross is indeed, as subjective appeal, calculated to make,
it is more than probable that the sense of the unique
greatness of the historical fact, as historical fact, of the
sacrifice of perfectly triumphant Righteousness, consum-
mated once for all, for man, in man, and transforming, once
for all, the meaning and the possibility of man, — would have
been, to say the least, very seriously impaired.
Before closing this— most fragmentary — excursion into
history, it seems well to add some consideration of the
expositions of Atonement which have been most current
in our own day and amongst ourselves.
There is probably no book on the subject more widely
known and read amongst churchmen than the lectures
of the late Dr Dale. But in order to appreciate it rightly,
it is well to remember something of the conditions in
reference to which it was written. In an age which had,
for the most part, been accustomed to a doctrine of atone-
ment of the rigidly logical and crudely substitutional kind,
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 383
the leaven of a more philosophical and more humanizing
spirit had begun on many sides to be felt. The sermons,
for instance, which were preached at Lincoln's Inn by the
Rev. F. D. Maurice upon the Doctrine of Sacrifice breathe
a spirit of devoutness and humanity very unlike that of the
more conventional exponents of what was supposed to be
orthodox theology. It may be doubted indeed whether
the position of Mr Maurice, valuable as it was in its
positive teaching, and in the temper which underlay its
teaching, was really quite adequate to the truth. It had
in it something of the character of a reaction : and
probably, as is usual in such cases, did less than full justice
to that against which it reacted. It protested against
a crudely objective atonement. Perhaps the conception
of atonement which it substituted gave hardly its adequate
place to the objective fact. He was clear that the ultimate
purpose of Christ's sacrifice was a moral transformation of
ourselves. Perhaps he was hardly successful in correlat-
ing together with exactness the work of Calvary and its
effects ; or in showing how the moral transformation of man-
kind was connected with the fact of Christ's death. It
is possible that he inclined too much to what is known as
the simply subjective view : the thought of Christ's death as
a constraining appeal and incentive to the love of man.
I do not, however, propose to dwell at length upon the
sermons of Mr Maurice, or to discuss the question of their
adequacy, but should like before leaving them, to quote one
passage of considerable length, which shows much of the
best and deepest character of his thought :
" There was a time in our Lord's life on earth, we are
told, when a man met Him, coming out of the tombs, exceed-
ing fierce, whom no man could bind, no, not with chains.
That man was possessed by an unclean spirit. Of all men
upon earth, you would say that he was the one between
whom and the pure and holy Jesus there must have
existed the most intense repugnance. What Pharisee^
who shrank from the filthy and loathsome words of that
maniac, could have experienced one-thousandth part of
the inward and intense loathing which Christ must have
experienced for the mind that those words expressed?
For it was into that He looked ; that which He understood ;
that which in His inmost being He must have felt, which
must have given Him a shock such as it could have given
to no other. I repeat the words ; I beseech you to con-
sider them ; He must have felt the wickedness of that mart
384 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
in His inmost being. He must have been conscious of it,
as no one else was or could be. Now, if we ever have had
the consciousness, in a very slight degree, of evil in another
man, has it not been, up to that degree, as if the evil were
in ourselves? Suppose the offender were a friend, or a
brother, or a child, has not this sense of personal shame,
of the evil being ours, been proportionably stronger and
more acute? However much we might feel ourselves
called upon to act as judges, this perception still remained.
It was not crushed even by the anger, the selfish anger,
and impatience of an injury done to us, which, most
probably, mingled with and corrupted the purer indignation
and sorrow. Most of us confess with humiliation how
little we have had of this lively consciousness of other
men's impurity, or injustice, or falsehood, or baseness.
But we do confess it ; we know, therefore, that we should
be better if we had more of it. In our best moments we
admire with a fervent admiration —in our worse, we envy
with a wicked envy — those in whom we trace most of it.
And we have had just enough of it to be certain that it
belongs to the truest and most radical part of the character,
not to its transient impulses. Suppose, then, this carried
up to its highest point, cannot you, at a great distance,
apprehend that Christ may have entered into the sin of the
maniac's spirit, may have had the most inward realization
of it, not because it was like what was in Himself, but
because it was utterly and intensely unlike ? And yet are
you not sure that this could not have been, unless He had
the most perfect and thorough sympathy with this man,
whose nature was transformed into the likeness of a brute,
whose spirit had acquired the image of a devil ? Does the
coexistence of this sympathy and this antipathy perplex
you ? Oh ! ask yourselves which you could bear to be
away ; which you could bear to be weaker than the other !
Ask yourselves whether they must not dwell together in
their highest degree, in their fullest power, in any one of
whom you could say, * He is perfect ; he is the standard of
excellence ; in him there is the full image of God.'
Diminish by one atom the loathing and horror, or the
fellowship and sympathy, and by that atom you lower the
character ; you are sure that you have brought it nearer to
the level of your own low imaginations ; that you have made
it less like the Being who would raise you towards Himself
" I have taken a single instance, because you can better
apprehend the whole truth in that instance, and because
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 385
from it you may understand that I am not speaking of
abstractions, but of that which concerns us as human
beings, as conscious sinners. But now carry on your
thoughts beyond that particular man with the unclean
spirit; carry them to any man in the crowds whom our
Lord fed, and to whom He preached : carry them to these,
because they were specimens of the race ; because His
knowledge of their evils is that which He must have had
of the evils which are in all the world ; because His
sympathy with them is the sympathy which He must
have had with all who bore their nature : and then you
will, I think, begin to doubt whether S. Paul could have
diluted the language which you find in the text without
cheating us of a divine treasure. If he had said that
Christ took upon Him all the consequences of ou/; sins,
would this have been an equivalent for the words, * made
Sin ' ? There might be a deep meaning in that assertion.
The sympathy which I have spoken of, extended, as we
know, to all the ills of which men are heirs. The evangelist
says, speaking of His healing the sick. Himself took our
infirmities and bare our sicknesses ; as if every cure He
wrought implied an actual participation in the calamity.
He endured in this sense the consequences of sin in
particular men ; He endured the death which is the
consequence of sin in all men. But men have asked more
than this. Their superstitions show how much more is
required to satisfy them ; they have asked for some god,
or demigod, who could not only sympathize in their sorrows
but in their evil ; they could only conceive of sympathy
coming through participation of it ; the gods must do like
them, be like them, or they are cold and distant objects
of reverence. The demand is indeed monstrous ; all the
perverseness and bewilderment of sin lie in it. But to get
rid of the falsehood of the desire, you must vindicate its
truth. Here is the vindication : He knows no sin,
therefore He identifies Himself with the sinner. That
phrase, identifies Himself with the sinner^ is somewhat
nearer, I think, to the sense of the Apostle than the phrase,
takes the consequences or the punishment of sin. But still,
do you not feel how much feebler it is than his, feebler in
spirit more even than in form ? It conveys no impression
of the sense, the taste, the anguish of sin, which St Paul
would have us think of, as realized by the Son of God —
a sense, a taste, an anguish, which are not only compatible
with the not knowing sin, but would be impossible in
2 B
386 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
anyone who did know it. The awful isolation of the
words, * Ye shall leave me alone! united with the craving
for human affection in the words ^ with desire I have
desired to eat this Passover with youl — the agony of the
spirit which is gathered in the words, * If it be possible, let
this cup pass from mel with the submission of the words,
' Not as I will, but as Thou wilt ' ; above all, the crushing
for a moment even of that one infinite comfort, ' Yet I am
not alone, because the Father is with me] when the cry
was heard, ' My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
me ? ' — these revelations tell us a little of what it was to be
made Sin ; if we get the least glimpse into them, we shall
not dream that the Apostle could have spoken less boldly
if he was to speak the truth." ^
This quotation, whether it be more or less necessary for
the present purpose, is one which it has been, for many
reasons, a pleasure to make. But the tendency of which
Mr Maurice is an attractive exponent, found expression in
others also whose statements were less attractively reverent,
whilst they tended far more certainly, and far more completely,
to explain away, as a mistake, the Church's faith in the
unique fact of the sacrifice of Christ. This form of thought
is represented, significantly enough, in the essay upon
Atonement which forms part of the commentary of the late
Master of Balliol iipon the Epistle to the Romans. Nothing,
perhaps, represents quite so directly what Dr Dale was
anxious to fight against, as this essay. And even apart
from Dr Dale, it is a fair illustration of a strain of thought
which has had, and still has, no small place, not so much in
formal theology, as in the general instinct of a large part of
Christian society.
Professor Jowett, like Dr Dale, is to be understood in
the light of what he is anxious to oppose. He is writing
against a logical theory of atonement, rigid, hard, and
technical, which would understand it as wholly transactional,
and wholly substitutional. " God is represented as angry
with us for what we never did ; He is ready to inflict a
disproportionate punishment on us for what we are ; He is
satisfied by the sufferings of His Son in our stead. The sin
of Adam is first imputed to us ; then the righteousness of
Christ. . . . The death of Christ is also explained by the
analogy of the ancient rite of sacrifice. He is a victim laid
upon the altar to appease the wrath of God. The institu-
tions and ceremonies of the Mosaical religion are applied
^ Sermon XII. on " Christ made Sin for us," pp. 185-189.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 387
to Him. He is further said to bear the infinite punishment
of infinite sin. When He has suffered or paid the penalty,
God is described as granting Him the salvation of mankind
in return."^ This is what he wishes — naturally enough — to
repudiate. But he does not repudiate this, as we should
have desired, as a perverted and misleading interpretation
of sacrifice and atonement. Rather he assumes that
sacrifice and atonement can have no proper interpretation
but this ; and desiring to repudiate this, he repudiates, in
fact, the conceptions of sacrifice and atonement altogether.
" The language of Sacrifice and Substitution " ^ is some-
thing which is not so much to be explained aright as to be
explained away. He labours not so much to give new life
and depth to its meaning, as to show that men ought to
look for life and depth elsewhere : for that these phrases are
but transient figures ; living significance is not to be pressed
out of them.
The completeness with which he identifies the whole
Scriptural and Catholic phraseology with the sort of hard
Calvinistic associations which we should most of us agree
with him in disowning, is illustrated by his assumption that
the conception of Christ as inclusively representing mankind,
and of man as corporately identified with Christ — partakers
of His Cross and His Resurrection — is incompatible with the
conception of atoning sacrifice ! " For one instance of the
use of sacrificial language," he writes, " five or six might be
cited of the language of identity or communion, in which
the believer is described as one with his Lord in all the
stages of His life and death. But this language is really
inconsistent with the other. For if Christ is one with the
believer, he cannot be regarded strictly as a victim who
takes his place." ^ " St Paul says, ' We thus judge that it
One died, then all died, and He died for all, that they
which live shall not henceforth live to themselves, but unto
Him which died for them and rose again.' But words like
these are far indeed from expressing a doctrine of atone-
ment or satisfaction."* These astonishing statements
show not only what it is that he really desires to oppose ;
but also, and far more strangely, with what unreserved
completeness he identifies, with that which he desires to
oppose, the whole phraseology of atonement, satisfaction,
and sacrifice.
It will probably cost us some effort at the present time
to realize the narrowness of the meaning which he attaches
1 p. 547, 2nd ed. 1859. 2 p, 55^^ 3 p, ^go. 4 p, ^53^
388 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
to these terms; and therewith perhaps also, to realize
within what comparatively recent times it was reasonably
possible that they should be supposed to be identified with
such a meaning. But so long as this thing was reasonably
possible, it may be admitted that there was great need of a
solvent ; and as such a solvent, the contribution of
Professor Jowett may be justified.
It is true, moreover, that in a more positive sense, the
thought of Professor Jowett, and of those who agreed with
him, was on wholly right lines, in so far as it insisted upon
' moralizing ' the doctrine, and upon a rational apprehension
of it. A theological system that is technical only and not
spiritual — a view of a doctrine which sees it only as a trans-
action, without moral or mystical aspect — must be fatally
wrong. All insistence upon a rational and moral interpreta-
tion of a doctrine which, as currently interpreted, had
ceased to be moral or rational, is of permanent value.
Here again, it is curious to see in a casual phrase, how
completely Professor Jowett assumed that theology, as
such, was other than moral ; and therefore that his moral
theory ot atonement was an overthrow, rather than an
interpretation, of dogmatic theology. " It is instructive,"
he actually says, " to observe that there has always been
an undercurrent in theology, the course of which has
turned towards morality, and not away from it." ^ Conceive
it ! an * undercurrent ' which has * not turned away from '
morality !
And further, it may be added that when, in the final page
of his essay, he pleads for the living value of moral
character, the direct result of personal nearness to Christ,
as something both truer, and higher, than belief in a
transactional atonement, and an unreally imputed
righteousness, he is, alike in aim and in temper, really
reflecting not a little of the discipline, the gentleness, the
lofty aim, and the large-hearted tolerance of the Spirit —
whom he desires to vindicate in argument because the echo
of His presence is within his heart.
To say this is, no doubt, to say much. But it is not to
accept Prof. Jowett as an interpreter of theology. And,
indeed, whatever there may be about his thought that is of
beauty or value; it is, in respect of its negations, its
attempts to evaporate away the vital facts, and vital faith,
of Christianity, a strange exhibition of ineffectiveness, if
not of perversity. The apparent assumption that Christ's
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 389
'parables' are conterminous with His 'teaching*; the divorce
between His teaching and His history — of which the great
culmination is the Cross — between, that is, His teaching by
word and His teaching by action, or passion ; the antithesis
between the Gospels and St Paul ; the explaining away of
all particular statements as figures of speech borrowed from
the Old Testament ; and of the Old Testament, as if its
relation of significance to the New rested on no divinely
underlying truth, but could be paralleled by that of " the
Iliad and Odyssey " to " the Platonic or Socratic philo-
sophy " : there is, as we read, a wonderful sense of failure,
and laboured impotence, about all this. We can, indeed,
look back upon it now with a quiet appreciativeness which
has in it more of wonder than of indignation ; but in its
time it was formidable enough. There was a real danger
of its acceptance as a true and enlightened exposition of
Christian doctrine. And it is only in its reference to the
peril of this mode of thought, seemingly enlightened but
really latitudinarian, a mode of thought which would in
the end have been solvent not only to the rigider Calvinism
but to all definiteness and permanence of belief, that the
value of Dr Dale's work can be estimated rightly.
In this reference Dr Dale had a work to do, and he
has done it with effectiveness. The early chapters of his
work are a careful study of Scripture, in some detail, in
vindication of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, both as a
fact objective and historical in itself, and also as cardinal
to the Christian faith and life. There are, no doubt, ex-
pressions in these chapters which are open to criticism,
more or less serious ; and there are omissions, the most signi-
ficant of which will be noticed presently. But in the main,
the positive work of these chapters is, in reference to his
immediate purpose, admirable. He has shown quite con-
vincingly, that no conception of the work of Christ, or of
the hope of Christians, is really compatible with the New
Testament, which would sweep aside the fact, or minimize
the transcendent significance, of the death on Calvary,
regarded as the unique atoning sacrifice for the sins of
mankind. He has shown that this atoning sacrifice is
regarded, from one end of the New Testament to the other,
as being the climax of the Incarnation, the central fact in
the history of the world, the transformation of human
possibility. This is the great strength of the book.
It will be felt, however, that his argument is directed
more and more exclusively against those who would wholly
390 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
evaporate this fact ; against a conception of the atonement
which is merely ' subjective.' He is strong against an ex-
aggeration in the subjective direction. On the other hand
he hardly attempts, and certainly does not attain, any
adequate synthesis of the two diverging aspects, the
objective and the subjective, the transactional and the
moral. We go in vain to his pages for that deeper insight
which would really mediate between, and ultimately recon-
cile, the conflicting conceptions of truth. He is strong
against a perilous exaggeration, in the sense of showing
that it is untenable. But he is not strong, with that more
valuable form of strength which would distinguish, in the
view he opposes, what is exaggerated from what is true,
and would give full place, and do full justice, to its truth.
He is effective, therefore, to an important extent, as against
Prof Jowett. But he is far from effective in reference to
those religiously inquiring minds, which, without being com-
mitted to Prof Jowett's position, are asking, and must needs
have, some rationale of the doctrine offered them, on which
their intelligence can conscientiously rest. So far is he
from doing justice to the truth of the moral theory, that
he objects to the phrase ' moral theory ' altogether. We
may see what he means in speaking thus, and may
sympathize largely with his meaning. But no such
sympathy can make us feel it to be less than a disaster
when he says, of the question with which Rom. vi. opens,
that it " is a decisive proof that the Pauline conception of
the relation between the death of Christ and the remission
of sins is irreconcilable with the * moral theory ' of the
atonement, whatever form that theory may assume'' ^
It is, all through, the vindication of the fact rather than
the explanation of the fact, in which he is really strong.
There are some very effective pages at the beginning of
Lecture VII. in refutation of the suggestion that theologians
invented the atonement ! ^ " All this," Dr Dale well says,
" is precisely the reverse of the truth. Theologians did
not invent the idea of an objective atonement in order to
complete the symmetry of their theological theories. They
have invented theory after theory, in order to find a place
for the idea. That the death of Christ is the ground on
which sin is remitted, has been one of their chief diffi-
culties. To explain it, they have been driven to the most
monstrous and incredible speculations. Had they been
able to deny it, their work would have been infinitely
^ The Atonement^ p. 244 ; the italics are mine. ^ Cp. Jowett's essay, § 2.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 391
simplified." ^ This distinction between the decisive clear-
ness of the fact, and the comparative difficulty of its ex-
planation, constitutes a sort of comment upon Dr Dale's
own book. For it suggests at once the chief direction of
criticism to which the book is open, and on the other hand
also the real reason why, in spite of all such criticism, there
still is an undying value in the book.
If we press for a rationale of the atonement which our
mind and conscience can apprehend, we are driven, I think,
in the book to accept it in some such form as this : (a)
Christ, being made sin for us, suffered, in our stead, the
actual punishment of sin ; {b) this constituted a ground
on which the moral justice of God could, and did, forgive
us our sins.
Thus in reference to {a) he says: " He was forsaken of the
Father, and He died. His other sufferings were such as
the innocent may endure in serving the sinful and the
wretched. On the Cross He submitted to the actual
penalty of sin." ^ " It was a Vicarious Death. He died * for
us,' ' for our sins,' * in our stead.' For the principle that we
deserved to suffer was asserted in His sufferings, that it
might not have to be asserted in ours. He was forsaken
of God, that we might not have to be forsaken. He did
not suffer that He might merely share with us the penalties
of our sin, but that the penalties of our sin might be
remitted."^ It does not seem to me unfair to compare
with these statements of his own, the explanation which
he gives elsewhere of the famous passage of Luther's
commentary on Gal. iii. 13. He says : "No doubt this is
popular rhetoric, and popular rhetoric of a very intense
and fervent kind. But Luther's rhetoric is only Luther's
creed set on fire by imagination and passion. To take words
like these as though they were a literal and scientific state-
ment of what Luther believed about the death of Christ,
would be to violate the most ordinary principles which
must govern the interpretation of language. But he meant
what he said, and the substance of the passage is this —
Christ so assumed the penal responsibilities of mankind,
that all who believe in Him are delivered from the
penalties of sin. The law has inflicted on Him the
sufferings, which but for His mercy would have been
inflicted on us."*
When Dr Dale thinks of Christ as enduring " the actual
penalty of sin," the one definite thing which seems to be at
1 p. 269. 2 p. 424. ' p. 433. * pp. 289, 290.
392 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
the core of his thought is the great cry of desolation upon
the Cross. This, it will be noticed, was the culminating
thought in each of the two passages which have been
quoted. To these may be added the following, " Immedi-
ately before His death He was forsaken of God. When we
remember the original glory in which He dwelt with the
Father, His faultless perfection, and His unbroken com-
munion with the Father during His life on earth, this is a
great and awful mystery. That sinful men, even though
they have been transformed into saints, should sometimes
lose the sense of the Divine presence and the Divine love
is explicable, but how was it that He, the Son of God, was
forsaken by the Father in the very crisis of His sufferings ?
He Himself had anticipated this desertion with a fear
which sometimes became terror. It seems not only
possible but probable, and even more than probable, that
the intense and immeasurable suffering which wrung from
Him the cry, * My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
me?' was the immediate cause of His death. On any
hypothesis it accelerated His death." ^
In another context, speaking with rather tentative
suggestiveness in a different direction, he says, " How the
Death of Christ effects the destruction of our sin, we may
be unable to tell. Perhaps that great moral act by which
Christ consented to lose the consciousness of the Father's
presence and love — an act different in kind from any to
which holy beings, in their normal relation to God, can be
called — rendered it possible for us to sink to that complete
renunciation of self which is the condition of the perfect
Christian life ; for that renunciation is also unique, and has
no parallel in the normal development of a moral creature." ^
It is probable that any theory of atonement must find
its culmination in this great cry. But a theory which
asserts that Christ bore the ' actual punishment ' of sin,
and finds in this cry the one direct justification for such
an assertion, seems to me to isolate the cry overmuch as
distinct in kind from everything that had gone before ; as
a single glimpse into what is in itself inexplicable, and
yet as the only direct explanation of what atonement
means.
But we pass to {b) the second thought, that this enduring
by Christ of the punishment of sin constitutes a reason
why God can and does ' forgive ' us. This seems to be
asserted by Dr Dale in what is, after all, a quantitative or
* p. 360. ' p. 429.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 393
equational form. "Christ is the * Propitiation for our
sins ' ; and therefore, He has allayed the Divine anger, so
that God, for His sake, is willing to forgive us." ^ "If the
punishment of sin is a Divine act .... it would appear
that, if in any case the penalties of sin are remitted, some
other Divine act of at least equal intensity, and in which
the ill desert of sin is expressed with at least equal energy,
must take its place." ^ "If God does not assert the
principle that sin deserves punishment by punishing it,
He must assert that principle in some other way. Some
Divine act is required which shall have all the moral
worth and significance of the act by which the penalties
of sin would have been inflicted on the sinner. The
Christian atonement is the fulfilment of that necessity."^
" When the heart is shaken by fears of future judgment and
* the wrath to come,' a vivid apprehension of the Death of
Christ, as the voluntary death of the Moral Ruler and
Judge of the human race, will at once inspire perfect peace.
Without further explanation, the conscience will grasp the
assurance that since He has suffered, to whom it belonged
to inflict suffering, it must be possible for Him to grant
remission of sins." * " His hostility to our sins has received
adequate expression in the Death of Christ, and now He is
ready to confer on us the remission of sins for Christ's sake.
The remission of sins .... brings to the man who has
received it a sure and permanent escape from the hostility
and the wrath of God." ^ Some of the expressions in these
passages are particularly unfortunate. They provoke the
query, which is hardly under the circumstances an unfair
one, — May I, if my child is shamefully wicked, * forgive '
him, provided that, as an adequate expression of ' hostility,'
I cut off my own finger first ?
Elsewhere Dr Dale writes, "If we ask in what sense
He effected this reconciliation, the reply is contained in
the words which follow — ' Not imputing their trespasses
unto them . . . .' If we further ask what relation there is
between Christ and the non-imputation to mankind of
those trespasses by which God's righteous condemnation
had been merited, the reply to this further question is
given in the boldest representation of Christ's redemptive
work to be found in the New Testament : God * made Him
to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him.' This was the ultimate
foundation of the Apostle's ministry, and the ground on
394 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
which in Christ's stead, and as Christ's ambassador, he
could entreat men to be reconciled to God. God reconciles
us to Himself, according to St Paul, not in the first
instance by delivering us from sin, but by not imputing
our sins to us : the reconciliation is primarily, not the re-
moval of our hostility to God, but the cessation of God's
hostility to us. The ground of this reconciliation lies in
the fact that God made Christ to be sin for us, and its
ultimate result is that we are made the righteousness of
God in Him." i
Now I am quite unable to acquiesce in the sense which
in these chapters is put upon the words punishment
and forgiveness ; for punishment remains as retaliatory
infliction from without by another ; and forgiveness as
simply remission, or non-infliction, of penalties; and I
doubt the possibility of any rational explanation of atone-
ment while this meaning for the two words is assumed.
But the most fatal flaw in Dr Dale's exposition, regarded
as a rationale of atonement, lies in this — that he has
wholly omitted all reference to the presence, or work of
the Holy Spirit. He has, in fact, essayed the impossible
task of explaining how the atonement affects * me ' at
a point, and upon a hypothesis, on which it does not affect
me. He stops short of Pentecost ; and short of Pentecost
tries to show how I am included in the 'forgiveness' of
God. But short of Pentecost * I ' am not so included.
I am not forgiven — apart from the Spirit of Christ. I
am not forgiven through the Spirit, — apart from His
operation within myself It is not the old unchanged
* I,' who am simply, for the sake of an equivalent, let go
unpunished. But the old * I,' brought at first by Divine
grace within the region of forgiveness, am therein more
and more progressively changed, till my forgiveness is
consummated in infinite love. And this love is the love
of the righteousness and of the truth, as directly as of the
mercy of God. For righteousness and truth and wisdom
and power and mercy and love are one.
The crucial point, then, after all, is Dr Dale's omission.
And the crucial illustration of this is his exposition of
atonement from St Paul's Epistle to the Romans. So
exclusively do the thoughts of punishment, and Christ's
death as a bearing of punishment, monopolize his mind,
that he actually expounds the doctrinal argument of the
epistle, as though it finally closed with the close of chapter
* p. 262-3.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 395
vii. The 8th chapter, the grand culmination, the crown-
ing glory of St Paul's exposition, is treated as though
it had never been written at all ; or, at most, as though it
belonged to an utterly different subject, and had no
relevance to the atonement whatever. There is absolutely
not a hint of its existence. To those who believe
that the 8th chapter is at once the climax of all that
has gone before, and the indispensable key to any true
insight into the rationale of the whole, as a whole ;
this blank ignoring of its very existence is the most
curious illustration that could be conceived of the limited-
ness, or, to speak quite frankly, the failure, of Dr Dale's
explanatory work.
I am quite aware that I have drawn my statement of
Dr Dale's theory almost wholly from his first nine lectures ;
and that in the tenth, while there are emphatic passages
which repeat the position of the nine, there are passages
which belong to a different strain of thought. But while
sincerely welcoming all that he there says as to the
relation of Christ, as the Eternal Son, to the human race,
and as to our ultimate holiness in Him, I must still say
that these things seem to me to belong to another con-
ception of the atonement, which is not the conception of
his book. If they are, as they seem to me to be, in-
consistent elements, they are inconsistencies for which we
may well be altogether grateful. The volume is much the
richer for them. For they bear their fragrant witness to
a larger and a deeper truth than is properly included
within the logic of the previous theory.
In conclusion, it seems to me just to say these two
things. First, that whilst Dr Dale had a work to do
in stemming a tide of thought that was dangerously
latitudinarian, it must nevertheless be admitted that there
was something really retrograde, as well as loyally con-
servative, in his own work. Indeed if, as years go by,
nothing more could be said in explanation of the moral
righteousness of the atonement than he has succeeded
in saying, it is impossible not to feel some doubt whether
belief in the atonement, even as fact, could be, on any
large scale, ultimately maintained. On the other hand,
so great is the value of his vindication of the fact, and
so profound and so grateful is the response of the Christian
consciousness thereto, as long as the fact is presented in
any form whatever in which it can even seem to justify
itself or to be intelligible (and the apprehension of the
396 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
heart herein is apt to be far wider and more reasonable
than the theories by which it struggles to explain itself) ;
that Dr Dale's work, after all, has stood, and will stand,
as a real and solid contribution to the faith and goodness
of his own generation.
In passing from Prot. Jowett and Dr Dale to Dr
Macleod Campbell, we are, to a certain extent, going
backwards, as far as the strict order of dates is concerned.
Yet this order seems to be more convenient, inasmuch as
Dr Macleod Campbell's thought, however much it may
be open at some points to criticism, appears to be greatly
in advance, alike in philosophical grasp and in theological
insight, of the other two. And the order may find,
perhaps, some further justification in the fact that most
English readers of this generation are probably first, and
most, familiar with Dr Dale. It must be owned that
Dr Macleod Campbell is not an attractive writer. He
is constantly prolix and difficult in style. Too often,
indeed, this is simply a literary defect. But it is also
connected with the largeness of a thought which is apt to
be too many-sided for its language. If he confined him-
self stringently to the logic of the one thought instantly
in hand, his style would be often far clearer. But the real
thought would be less rich. What he would have pruned
away would not have been merely superfluous. It would
have contained many germs of real thought, incidental
touches upon other, more or less relevant, aspects of truth.
Still, for practical purposes these things cumber, even
while in a sense they enlarge, the immediate thought.
We need not ask what occasions the writings of Dr
Macleod Campbell. He himself supplies his own back-
ground. And very interesting is the representation which
his pages contain both of Luther, and of the earlier and
later Calvinism. He is anything but hostile. He writes
with respect and sympathy of all these. And yet he
burns to correct the untruths in their logic which are so
transparently plain to the insight of his heart. He is
touching in his insistence upon the Fatherhood of God as
the fundamental truth of life, and the revelation of the truly
filial relation in Christ, — " that spiritual relation to Christ
in the light of which we can alone hear and respond to the
call to follow God as dear children," ^ He is clear that the
* The Nature of the Atonement^ p. 366 (314). The references are to the
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 397
root cause of the atonement is not the anger, but the love
of God. " An atonement to make God gracious, to move
Him to compassion, to turn His heart toward those from
whom sin had alienated His love, it would, indeed, be
difficult to believe in ; for, if it were needed, it would be
impossible. To awaken to the sense of the need of such
an atonement, would certainly be to awaken to utter and
absolute despair. But the scriptures do not speak of such
an atonement ; for they do not represent the love of God
to man as the effect, and the atonement of Christ as the
cause, but — ^just the contrary — they represent the love of
God as the cause, and the atonement as the effect. * God
so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him, might not perish, but
have everlasting life.*"^ He is interesting in his protest
against a conception of atonement, the core of which is
amount of suffering. " What I have felt — and the more I
consider it, feel the more — is surprise that the atoning
element in the sufferings pictured, has been to their
minds sufferings as sufferings, the pain and agony as pain
and agony .... my surprise is, not that, to men believing
the sufferings contemplated to be strictly penal, the pain
as pain should be the chief object of attention, being indeed
that for which alone, on this view, a necessity existed ; but
my surprise is, that these sufferings being contemplated as
an atonement for sin, the holiness and love seen taking the
form of suffering should not be recognized as the atoning
elements — the very essence and adequacy of the sacrifice
for sin presented to our faith." ^
He is suggestive again in his tentative definition of
forgiveness. " Forgiveness — that is, love to an enemy
surviving his enmity, and which, notwithstanding his
enmity, can act towards him for his good ; this we must be
able to believe to be in God towards us, in order that we
may be able to believe in the atonement. ... If we
could ourselves make an atonement for our sins .... then
such an atonement might be thought of as preceding
forgiveness, and the cause of it. But if God provides the
atonement, then forgiveness must precede atonement ; and
the atonement must be the form of the manifestation of
the forgiving love of God, not its cause." ^ And he is
suggestive in his protest against the ordinary sense of the
second edition, published 1867. Those in brackets are to the sixth edition,
1886.
1 p. 20 (17). * p. 116 (99, 100). 2 p^ ig (i^^ i5)^
398 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
word punishment as used of the suffering of Christ ; " it
seems to me impossible to contemplate the agony of
holiness and love in the realization of the evil of sin and of
the misery of sinners, as penal suffering. Let my reader
endeavour to realize the thought. The sufferer suffers
what he suffers just through seeing sin and sinners with
Gods eyes, and feeling in reference to them with Gods heart.
Is such suffering a punishment? Is God, in causing such a
divine experience in humanity, inflicting a punishment?
There can be but one answer. ... I find myself shut up
to the conclusion, that while Christ suffered for our sins as
an atoning sacrifice, what He suffered was not — because
from its nature it could not be — a punishment."^ As to
this last point we may doubt, not whether Dr Macleod
Campbell is essentially right, but whether he is quite wise
in simply rejecting the word. * Punishment' need not
simply mean retributive vengeance. To deny that our
Lord's sufferings were in this sense penal is one thing.
But it is another and more doubtful matter, to deny that
they can be called penal in any sense at all.
What, then, is the real character of the atonement ? Dr
Macleod Campbell's answer will appear sufficiently from a
comparison of the following passages. It is *^ the living
manifestation of perfect sympathy in the Fathers condem-
nation of sin" ^ " I have already urged the impossibility of
regarding as penal the sorrows of holy love endured in
realizing our sin and misery" ^ " The distinction between
penal sufferings endured in meeting a demand of divine
justice, and sufferings which are themselves the expression
of the divine mind regarding our sinSy and a manifestation by
the Son of what our sins are to the Father's hearty is indeed
very broad." * " What a vindicating of the divine name,
and of the character of the lawgiver, are the sufferings
now contemplated, considered as themselves the manifesta-
tion in humanity of what our sins are to God, compared to
that to which they are reduced if conceived of as a punish-
ment inflicted by God ! " ^
" That oneness of mind with the Father, which towards
man took the form of condemnation of sin, would in the
Son's dealing with the Father in relation to our sins, take
the form of a perfect confession of our sins. This confession
^ p. 117 (lOl).
* p. 132 (113), The italics in this and the three following quotations are
mine.
* p. 133 ("4). * p. 133 (114)- • P- 134 ("S).
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 399
as to its own nature must have been a perfect Amen in
humanity to the judgment of God on the sin of man!' ^
" That response has all the elements of a perfect repentance
in humanity for all the sin of man, — a perfect sorrow — a
perfect contrition — all the elements of such a repentance,
and that in absolute perfection, all — excepting the personal
consciousness of sin; — and by that perfect response in Amen
to the mind of God in relation to sin is the wrath of God
rightly met, and that is accorded to divine justice which
is its due, and could alone satisfy it. In contending
'that sin must be punished with an infinite punishment,'
President Edwards says ^ that * God could not be just to
Himself, without this vindication, unless there could be
such a thing as a repentance, humiliation and sorrow for
this (viz., sin) proportionable to the greatness of the
majesty despised,' — for that there must needs be 'either
an equivalent punishment or an equivalent sorrow and
repentance' — ' so,' he proceeds, *sin must be punished with
an infinite punishment,' thus assuming that the alternative
of * an equivalent sorrow and repentance ' was out of the
question. . . . Either of these courses should be regarded
by Edwards as equally securing the vindication of the
majesty and justice of God in pardoning sin. But the
latter equivalent, which also is surely the higher and more
excellent, being a moral and spiritual satisfaction, was, as
we have now seen, of necessity present in Christ's dealing
with the Father on our behalf." ^ "A condemnation and
confession of sin in humanity which should be a real Amen
to the divine condemnation of sin, and commensurate with
its evil and God's wrath against it, only became possible
through the incarnation of the Son of God. But the
incarnation of the Son of God not only made possible such
a moral and spiritual expiation for sin as that of which the
thought thus visited the mind of Edwards, but indeed
caused that it must be" * " There is much less spiritual
apprehension necessary to the faith that God punishes sin,
than to the faith that our sins do truly grieve God. There-
fore, men more easily believe that Christ's sufferings show
how God can punish sin, than that these sufferings are the
divine feelings in relation to sin, made visible to us by
being present in suffering flesh. Yet, however the former
may terrify, the latter alone can purify." ^
" We are now able to realize that the suffering we con-
* p. 135 (116, 117). * Satisfaction for Sittf ch. n. 1-3.
* P- 137 (1 17-8). * p. 138 (119)- ' P- HO (121).
400 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
template is divine, while it is human ; and that God is
revealed in it and not merely in connection with it ; God's
righteousness and condemnation of sin, being in the suffer-
ing, and not merely what demands it, — God's love also
being in the suffering, and not merely what submits to it.
Christ's suffering being thus to us a form which the divine
life in Christ took in connection with the circumstances in
which He was placed, and not a penal infliction, coming on
Him as from without, such words as * He made His soul an
offering for sin ' — * He put away sin by the sacrifice of
Himself — ' By Himself He purged our sins,' grow full of
light : and the connection between what He is who makes
atonement, and the atonement which He makes, reveals
itself in a far other way than as men have spoken of the
Divinity of the Saviour, regarding it either as a strength to
endure infinite penal suffering, or a dignity to give adequacy
of value to any measure of penal suffering however small.
Not in these ways but in a far other way, is the person of
Christ brought before us now as fixing attention upon the
divine mind in humanity as that which alone could suffer,
and which did suffer sufferings of a nature and virtue to
purge our sins. By the word of His power all else was
accomplished, by Himself He purged our sins — by the virtue
that is in what He is ; and thus is the atonement not only
what was rendered possible by the incarnation, but itself a
development of the incarnation." ^ " The divine righteous-
ness in Christ appearing on the part of man, and in
humanity, met the divine righteousness in God condemning
man's sin, by the true and righteous confession of its
sinfulness uttered in humanity, and righteousness as in
God was satisfied, and demanded no more than righteous-
ness as in Christ thus presented." ^ " That due repentance
for sin, could such repentance indeed be, would expiate
guilt, there is a strong testimony in the human heart, and
so the first attempt at peace with God is an attempt at
repentance, — which attempt, indeed, becomes less and less
hopeful, the longer and the more earnestly and honestly it
is persevered in, — but this, not because it comes to be felt
that a true repentance would be rejected even if attained,
but because its attainment is despaired of. . . ."^ "We
feel that such a repentance as we are supposing (i.e. a
repentance quite ideally and impossibly perfect) would be
the true and proper satisfaction to offended justice, and that
there would be more atoning worth in one tear of the true
1 p. 141-2(122). 3 p. 143(123).
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 401
and perfect sorrow which the memory of the past would
awaken in this now holy spirit, than in endless ages of
penal woe." ^ " In proportion asMt is seen that that which
expiates sin must be something that meets a demand of
the divine righteousness, the superiority of a moral and
spiritual atonement, consisting in the right response from
humanity to the divine mind in relation to sin, becomes
clear. But that superiority is surely rendered still more
unequivocal when, from the conception of God as the
righteous ruler, we ascend to that of God as the Father of
spirits. It is then that we fully realize that there is no real
fitness to atone for sin in penal sufferings, whether endured
by ourselves or by another for us. Most clearly to the
Father's feelings such sufferings would be no atonement ;
and yet are not these the feelings which call for an atone-
ment, — is it not to them that expiation is most righteously
due .? " 2 " What I thus labour to impress on the mind of my
reader is, that the necessity for the atonement which we
are contemplating was moral and spiritual, arising out of
our relation to God as the Father of spirits ; and not merely
legal, arising out of our being under the law." ^
So he speaks of " the deep and fundamental distinction
between the conception of Christ's enduring as a substitute
the penalty of sin, and Christ's making in humanity the due
moral and spiritual atonement for sin." * " No doubt the
perfect response from humanity to the divine mind in
relation to our sins, which has been in Christ's confession of
our sins before the Father, has been the due and proper ex-
piation for that sin, — an expiation infinitely more glorifying
to the law of God, than any penal suffering could be ; but
that confession, as it would not have been at all, but in con-
nection with that intercession for the transgressors which
laid hold of the divine mercy on our behalf, so neither would
it have been the suitable and adequate atonement for our
sin apart from its fitness to be reproduced in us^ and the
contemplated result of its being so reproduced .... here
was the highest righteousness, the divine righteousness in
humanity : but that righteousness could never have been
accounted of in our favour, or be recognised as 'ours'
apart from our capacity of partaking in it ; that is to say,
apart from its being a righteousness in humanity, and,
therefore, for all partaking in humanity." ^ "If the eternal
life given to us in Christ is that divine life in humanity in
1 p. 145-6 (125). 2 p. 184 (158). » p. 187 (160-1).
* p. 315 (270). • p. 331-2 (284).
2 c
402 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
which Christ made atonement for our sins, then the connec-
tion between the atonement and our participation in the Hfe
of Christ is not arbitrary but natural." ^ " No result refer-
able to simple Almightiness could be the same glory.
That God should, by a miracle, change a rebellious child
into a loving child, would be no such glory to God as that
the knowledge of the fatherliness rebelled against should,
by virtue of the excellence inherent in that fatherliness,
accomplish this result. * We love Him because He first
loved us.' The power to quicken love in us is here ascribed
to the love with which God regards us, considered simply
as love." 2
Extracts such as these may be left to speak for them-
selves. To me it seems difficult to estimate too highly the
debt which Christian thought owes to that reverent spirit
whose insight has expressed itself in them. Nevertheless,
it will really further our purpose to add some criticisms
upon the book as it stands. Perhaps the leading criticism
will be this : Dr Macleod Campbell appears to me to have
discerned with more complete success the nature of the
relation of Christ to God, than that of the relation of men
to Christ. The identification of Christ with humanity, the
* recapitulation ' of humanity in Christ, are aspects of truth
which require to be dwelt upon with more emphasis, and
perhaps with a more daring simplicity. I do not, of course,
mean that this side of the truth is absent from his mind.
Here, for instance, are a few passages which directly deal
with it. " We are prepared, as to the prospective aspect of
the atonement, to find that the perfect righteousness of the
Son of God in humanity is itself the gift of God to us in
Christ — to be ours as Christ is ours, — to be partaken in as
He is partaken in, — to be our life as He is our life : instead
of its being, as has been held, ours by imputation, — precious
to us and our salvation, not in respect of what is inherent
in it, but in respect of that to which it confers a legal title." *
"Abstractly considered, and viewed simply in itself, the
divine righteousness that is in Christ must be recognized
as a higher gift than any benefit it can be supposed to pur-
chase."* The honour done to God in humanity is "the
revelation of an inestimable preciousness that was hidden
in humanity .... the revealer of the Father is also the
revealer of man, who was made in God's image ....
humanity had this capacity only relatively, that is, as dwelt
in by the Son of God ; and, therefore, there was in the
1 p. XV (xviii). « p. 340 (292). 8 p. 154 (132, 3). * p. 154 (133).
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 403
righteousness of Christ in humanity no promise for
humanity apart from the Son of God's having power over
all flesh to impart eternal life." ^ " What it is to be a man,
what we possess in humanity, we never know until we see
humanity in Him who through the eternal Spirit offered
Himself without spot to God." ^ " * Our fellowship is with
the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ' * Father ' and
* Son ' here do more than indicate persons : they indicate
that in these persons with which the fellowship is ex-
perienced. Eternal life is to the apostle a light in which
the mind of fatherliness in the Father, and the mind of
sonship in the Son, are apprehended and rejoiced in
To me it appears that the temptation to stop short of the
light that shines to us in the communion of the Son with
the Father in humanity is strong, and greatly prevails.
But this light is the very light of life to us ; for this com-
munion is the gift of the Father to us in the' Son." ^
" What is thus offered on our behalf is so offered by the
Son and so accepted by the Father, entirely with the pro-
spective purpose that it is to be reproduced in us. The
expiatory confession of our sins which we have been con-
templating is to be shared in by ourselves : to accept it on
our behalf was to accept it as that mind in relation to sin
in the fellowship of which we are to come to God." * " Our
faith is, in truth, the Amen of our individual spirits, to
that deep, multiform, all-embracing, harmonious Amen of
humanity, in the person of the Son of God, to the mind
and heart of the Father in relation to man, — the divine
wrath and the divine mercy, which is the atonement. This
Amen of the individual, in which faith utters itself towards
God, gives glory to God according to the glory which He
has in Christ ; therefore does faith justify. . . . The
Amen of the individual human spirit to the Amen of the
Son to the mind of the Father in relation to man, is saving
faith — true righteousness ; being the living action, and true
and right movement of the spirit of the individual man, in
the light of eternal life." ^
And yet, while he labours to emphasize our relation to
Christ, he seems always to stop short, both in phrase and
in thought, of that conception of our identification with
Christ, which is at once the higher, the more compre-
hensive, and the more scriptural, conception. His thought
is hampered, on the one hand, by the phrase justifying
1 p. 160 (138). 2 p. 170 (147). * p. 172-3 (148-9).
* p. 177(153). 'p. 225-6(194,5).
404 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
faith, and all its conventional associations and claims in
that atmosphere in which it has most been reverenced
(with strange disproportion) as a thing abstract and apart :
and on the other hand, by his comparatively imperfect
familiarity with that conception and experience which
may be said to be the most characteristic conception and
experience of the historic Church, that is to say, its
intense and instinctive realization of identity of spirit, in
the life of sacramental communion, with the very Spirit
of the Sacrifice of the crucified Christ. Even, then, when
his thought is upon our relation to Christ, he is con-
sciously or unconsciously separating us overmuch from
Christ. The emphasis with which he speaks of Christ's
righteousness as the 'divine' life in Christ,^ when the
equally true, and more characteristic, thought would be
that it was a realization of * human ' righteousness, already
in some faint degree lends itself to this. The phrase
touches His contrast rather than His identity with
ourselves. But we feel the same thing more clearly in
the form of some of Dr Macleod Campbell's most favourite
phrases. Two of them are ' the Son's dealing with the
Father in relation to our sins ' ; and the description of this
as taking *the form of a perfect confession of our sins.'
These occur together in the sentence quoted above from p
135 (116, 117). Both phrases are characteristic, and both
are misleading. If Christ was humanity perfectly penitent,
humanity perfectly righteous, humanity therefore in perfect
accord with, and response to, the very essential character
of Deity, it is both inadequate and unfortunate to describe
this. His re-identification of humanity with holiness by what
He Himself was, as His * dealing with the Father in rela-
tion to ' us. Yet this * dealing with ' is one of Dr Macleod
Campbell's regularly recurring phrases.^
Again to summarize Christ's atonement on Calvary as
His expiatory confession of our sins, is to use a phrase
which at once, and inevitably, distinguishes Him from us.
The phrase is really almost a disastrous one. It seems, to
our natural thought, at once so easy and so irrelevant — so
irrelevant because so easy — to confess the sins of other
people ; that a theory of the atonement which is content to
describe itself in this phrase 'Christ's confession of our sins'
has no real hope of commending itself to the conscience of
» E.g., on pp. 141-3. etc. (132 foL).
' See pp. 135, 138, 204, 287, 288, 289, 294, etc. (116, 117, 120, 176, 183,
246, 247, 250, 252 ; or 260, 264, 266, 269).
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 405
mankind. The phrase, we may say at once, does very im-
perfect justice to the real thought of Dr Macleod Campbell.
And yet it is his own most characteristic phrase. He quite
certainly means by it much more than the words suggest.
And he uses, occasionally, other phrases which come nearer
to the fulness of his meaning. Thus, * a perfect repentance
in humanity for all the sin of man — a perfect sorrow — a
perfect contrition ' ; a * perfect response in Amen to the
mind of God in relation to sin ' ; ^ * a condemnation and
confession of sin in humanity which should be a real Amen
to the divine condemnation of sin, and commensurate with
its evil and God's wrath against it ' ; ^ ' the divine mind in
humanity which alone could suffer, and which did suffer
sufferings of a nature and virtue to purge our sins' ; ^ these
are phrases which go far deeper, for they make absolutely
clear that what is meant is (i) a perfect realization of
penitence, with that complete self-identity at once with
holiness and with sin-consciousness which is the impossible
paradox of perfect penitence ; and (2) a realization of
penitence, that is, of holiness, in and by htimanity. Yet
again, and again, as the volume goes on, Dr Macleod
Campbell is content to refer back to his own theory as
though it were adequately summarized by the phrase * His
confession of our sins' : * so that we feel that it is not quite
wholly the fault of Dr Dale that he is content to refer to
the theory with a passing reference so inadequate as this,
" Had He simply made a confession of sin in our name —
the theory advocated by Dr Macleod Campbell in his very
valuable treatise on the atonement — He would still have
remained at a distance from the actual relation to God in
which we were involved by sin." ^ Utterly inadequate as
this reference is, it nevertheless indicates a real blot. The
identity of Christ with humanity, and of humanity with Christ,
is not adequately conceived. * His confession of our sins
before the Father,' His * dealing with the Father in relation
to our sins,' * are phrases which do not rise to the truth that
in Him ' to confess ' was * to be.' He ' confessed the Father '
by being the very manifestation of the Father to men. He
confessed the sin of humanity by being the very manifesta-
tion of humanity, in its ideal reality of penitential holiness,
before the Father.
' p. 137 (117. 8). ^ p. 138 (119). » p. 142 (122).
* Cf. together pp. 135, 136, 152, 157, 158, 177, 178. 182, 183, 204, 287,
288, 303, 308, 309, etc. (117, 126, 135-7, 150-3, 156-7, 169, 246-8, 260,
264, 265). " Dale, On the Atonement, p. 424. ' pp. 135, 136 (117).
4o6 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
There is one passage in particular in which the lack of
the simplicity of this conception is illustrated by the very
attempts which he makes, incompletely as well as clumsily,
to approach the result which this conception would at once
have fully given. " In order," he writes, " to the complete-
ness of the parallel between the hypothetical case " {i.e. the
imagined case of a single man who had committed all the
sin of the world and had also reached the ideal righteous-
ness of penitence), " and the constitution of things in Christ
which the Gospel reveals, Christ's confession of our sin must
be seen in connection with our relation to the righteousness
of Christ, and the sin confessed, and the righteousness
in which it is confessed, be seen as if they were in the same
person — being both in humanity ; though the sin really
exists only in humanity as in us, and used in rebellion by
us rebels, and the righteousness only in humanity as in
Christ, * who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself
without spot to God.' " ^ This antithesis between His
humanity and ours, and the 'as if which it involves,
illustrate the hesitation of his thought upon this side, and
the difficulties which result.
But the attenuation of his theory, which in its real
completeness is a very grand one, down to the one mis-
leading word * confession,' is not the only result which
follows from an undue assumption of distinction and
antithesis between Christ and ourselves. It is probably, at
bottom, the same thing which leads Dr Macleod Campbell to
give explanations of Christ's mental anguish in the Passion,
such as may seem to match his individual consciousness, as a
holy man suffering, rather than what may be called His
representative consciousness, as humanity realizing peniten-
tial holiness. In Himself, regarded as a separate individual,
there could be, of course, no penitential heaviness at all.
Therefore in Him, regarded only as a separate individual,
whatever seems to approach towards such heaviness of
spirit, must needs be explained from some wholly different
side. This might, perhaps, in itself be enough to warn us
that any explanation of the heaviness of spirit in the
Passion, which looked to Him only in Himself by Himself,
and not to Him as inclusive Humanity, bearing 'man's'
sin and consciousness in relation to sin, must necessarily,
for that reason alone, be at fault. Yet this is the mistake
which Dr Macleod Campbell appears to make.
We may notice this in a subordinate way, in the ex-
1 p. 158 (136).
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 407
aggerated prominence which he gives, in commenting on
the ' shame ' of the cross, to the extreme sensitiveness felt, by
loving goodness, to an unloving response. " Therefore our
Lord, the true brother of every man, desired this response
of heart from every man ; and the refusal of it, the giving
of contempt instead of favour, and scorn instead of that
accord of true brotherhood which would have esteemed
Him, as was due to Him, as ' the chief among ten thousand,
and altogether lovely,' was as a death to that life which
desired the favour thus denied." ^ The whole thought is a
striking one. It is only when the thought is pressed as if
it were the special meaning of the shame of the cross, that
it is felt not as adding light, but rather as minimizing, if
not explaining away.
These same things are true, on a far more striking scale,
when we come to his explanation of the great cry on the
cross. If this is a touchstone by which theories of atone-
ment are tried, we shall have to admit that there must at
least be something defective in the theory of Dr Macleod
Campbell. He is indeed the extreme opposite to Dr Dale.
Dr Dale made it the actual infliction of the retributive
punishment due to sin. Against this Dr Macleod Campbell
utterly protests. So far as he is protesting against this, we
may sympathize with him without reserve. But when we
come to his positive explanation, it is impossible not to feel
that he has not so much explained the cry, as explained it
away. What are the facts ? The climax of the crucifixion,
on the side of physical outwardness, is the darkness of the
three hours. The sole interpretation of the inwardness
of the darkness is in that cry, the most wonderful in the
history of the world. The cry is itself a cry of pleading
remonstrance. Because of what ? Because of the sense
of being forsaken of God. By no possibility can we say
less than this. What, then, is at the heart of Dr Macleod
Campbell's explanation, as the basal fact by which all
interpretation must be characterized ? Strange to say, it is
this — that the suffering Christ never felt Himself forsaken
at all. It is not a question of a contrast drawn between an
absolute reality, and a temporary consciousness, of forsaken-
ness. It is not a question of why, or how far, or in what
way, or with what meaning, the sense of being forsaken
could enter into His consciousness. It is, in fact, a denial
that anything of the kind did enter into His consciousness
at all.
* p. z6g (231).
4o8 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
This result is reached partly by an illegitimate use of the
historical origin of the words at the opening of the 22nd
psalm. It is assumed, first, that the meaning of the words
as used by the psalmist, is a measure of their meaning in
the supreme moment of the sacrifice of the Crucified : and
secondly, that, as used by the psalmist, they must be taken
as merely part of the outward setting of an utterance whose
whole inner essence is expression of unbroken trust.
Therefore the cry on the cross, that one great utterance of
desolation which illumines and interprets the darkness, is
to be interpreted as an utterance — not of desolation but of
unbroken trust. This is the method exegetically. And
this exegetical method is corroborated, or rather perhaps
is inspired, by a conviction of the inherent impossibility
that there should be, in Him, any consciousness of desolation.
So it is that the conclusion is confidently reached — a
conclusion which appears directly to contradict the words
of the cry themselves. "The character of this psalm as
a whole is therefore quite unequivocal, viz., a dealing of the
Father with Christ, in which the cup of man's enmity is
drunk by Him to its last drop, in the experience of
absolute weakness — the true weakness of humanity realized,
whereby scope is given for the trust of sonship towards the
Father. . . . But trust in God, personal trust, is that of
which the trial is most conspicuous as pervading the
psalm — trust in utter weakness — trust in the midst of
enemies — trust which the extremity of that weakness and
the perfected enmity of these enemies tries to the utmost —
trust which the Father permits to be thus tried ; but trust,
the root of which in the Father's favour has not been cut
off, nor even touched by any act of the Father or expression
of His face as if He were turned into an enemy, — as if He
looked on the suppliant in wrath, — as if He regarded
Him as a sinner, imputed sin to Him. Not this, not the
most distant approach to this." ^ He goes on to quote and
italicize the following words, as expressly disallowing the
idea of any obscuring of the Father's face : " He hath not
despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted ; neither
hath He hid His face from him " ^ ; words which, as he
claims, " leave no place even for that negative wrath . . .
which . . . has been set forth as a hiding of the Father's
face." He disallows not only the fact of such aversion of
countenance, but any approach whatever to any temporary
experience or consciousness of being forsaken. " That we
* p. 280 (240). ■ verse 24.
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 409
meet here an interruption of the continuity of that life
which was in the consciousness of the Father's favour, an
exception to the experience of abiding in the Father's love
because keeping His commandments .... of this, or any-
thing in the most distant way suggestive of this, there is no
trace." 1
These are very strong phrases. It is difficult to imagine
that they can be really warranted in this form. Not * the
most distant suggestion ' of any * exception ' to the * con-
tinuity' of the conscious * experience' of abiding in the
Father's love : there is, in this, as in what he says of the
darkness on p. 305 (262), a painful sense of unauthorized
and almost wilful minimizing, such as, along with his use
of the word * confession,' has done much to discredit his
theory as a whole, and to prevent it from exercising all
the influence over thought which, in its deeper aspects,
it certainly deserves.
Once more I must suggest that all these difficulties
would be modified by a stronger conception as to the
representative, or rather the inclusive, completeness of the
Humanity of Christ, and the nature of the directness of our
relation to Him. And I must add that this conception
would at once have been strengthened, had he realized
beforehand the impossibility of explaining atonement in its
personal relation to ourselves, apart from the doctrine of the
Holy Ghost. He wholly lacks, or rather his exposition of
atonement wholly lacks, any reference to that outpouring of
the Spirit of Holiness, the very Spirit of the Incarnate and
the Crucified, which is our personal identification with
Him, and therefore is alone the realization of the atone-
ment within ourselves. It is one more instance, after all, of
the impossible effort to expound the relation of Calvary to
ourselves, otherwise than in and through exposition of
Pentecost.
Exposition of Pentecost involves further the Church and
the Sacraments. It involves them both, of course, as
spiritually rather than mechanically conceived. They are
the methods of spiritual reality, not substitutes for it.
But they are methods of divine appointment, and certainly
not humanly dispensable. Had he been born and bred
within the range of all that (as it were) instinctive con-
ception and consciousness, in relation to sacramental
communion, which characterizes the best and deepest
tradition of the Catholic Church; had it been to him
* p. 281 (241).
4IO ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
Christ's own method for the personal identification, in
Spirit, of His mystical Body the Church, and of all her
members, with the very atoning Sacrifice of Calvary ; he
could hardly, in expounding the rationale of atonement,
have ignored so completely the relevance of all this side of
Christian experience. How far he is in fact from an
adequate conception of sacraments may be illustrated by
the manner in which he goes out of his way, quite need-
lessly and even (from a churchman's point of view) quite
unintelligently, to depreciate the conception of regeneration
in baptism.^ His doctrine of atonement requires no
reference to the Eucharist at all.
The debt which Christian thought owes to Dr Macleod
Campbell's work is a very great one. And yet it seems,
after all, that his comparative lack of wide popular accept-
ance is intelligible : and, indeed, it would be impossible to
most of us to accept his whole exposition, without reserve,
as it stands.
There are, no doubt, other books also which have made
their real contribution to modern thought, and upon which
it would be a pleasure to comment. But the examination
of the treatises of Dr Macleod Campbell and Dr Dale may
be sufficient to serve the practical purpose ; and this
chapter is already too long. I will therefore end only
with a reference, brief but audacious, to the recent Hulsean
Lectures of Archdeacon Wilson. They are full of fresh air,
instinct with real and vigorous movement and life. They are
alive, they are direct, they are stimulating, they are real.
No one can read them without being braced as well as
refreshed by them. None the less I cannot but think
that he has minimized, to the point of explaining away,
many elements in the stern teaching which is characteristic
alike of the Old Testament and of the New, as to the
depth of sin and the gravity of penitence, as to the import
of death and the inherent necessity of sacrifice, and there-
fore as to the true significance of Calvary in the regenera-
tion of mankind. And yet, if I rightly understand him,
I fancy that I can sympathize with every single thing
which affirmatively he either means or desires. The view
which has been taken in these pages seems to me to give a
more vital, and a truer, place to some aspects of truth which
loom large in the Gospel message, and yet to him are little
' p. 366-7 (314-S).
ATONEMENT IN HISTORY 4"
more, if I do not misunderstand him, than misleading figures
of speech. Yet my own view unites with his in setting
aside all that is really material, or transactional, or un-
worthy, in those interpretations whose crudeness or untruth
we alike desire to correct ; whilst I persuade myself that
it realizes every element of his positive thought. This,
then, is the effrontery of my audacity ; that though, whilst
rejoicing in his spirit, I am unable to accept his exposition
as it stands, I do not see why he should not accept
mine. I hardly dare think of the terms in which many
people, in the position of the Archdeacon, would charac-
terize this impertinence. What he will say of it I know
not. And yet I think that he will judge it without a
breach of that kindly tolerance of spirit, which is itself,
perhaps, in some part responsible, if I have really ventured
to say too much.
Perhaps this chapter hardly needs a summarizing con-
clusion. But I may end, as I began, with expressing a
conviction that the true doctrine of the atonement, in the
New Testament and in early Christian thought, and faith,
and worship, is singularly free from those encrusting diffi-
culties of false explanation, which have attached themselves
to it in the course of ages ; and for the sake of which it
is so largely discredited by certain elements in modern
thought, which, if they are foolishly careless about being
orthodox, are nevertheless in themselves both robust and,
in great measure, true. We do not want the New
Testament itself to be rewritten in any particular, or in
any particular explained away. We may well be suspicious
of any theories, however nafve or however confident, which
are based upon the necessity of such a treatment. But
none the less we may be convinced that interpretations
of the New Testament which seem at first sight (from the
modern point of view) to have been immemorial in the
Church, are really nothing more than the gradual develop-
ment of mistaken attempts at exegesis, which are natural
(perhaps even necessary) stages in the growth of a full
intelligence, but are themselves neither primitive nor
scriptural.
It is upon Scripture that we take our stand ; admitting
no interpretation of Scripture as authoritative which
cannot claim a consensus of clearly conscious faith and
deliberate teaching, alike universal and continuous, through-
412 ATONEMENT AND PERSONALITY
out the history of the undivided Church. The authority
of such a consensus, and the authority of Scripture — alike
of the New Testament by itself, and (more strikingly still)
of the New Testament as the fulfilment and illumination
of the Old, — can indeed be pleaded, with a truth and force
which are wholly irresistible, on behalf of the crucial im-
portance of the Death, and Life through Death, of the
Lord Jesus Christ, as an atoning sacrifice for the sin of
the whole world. It cannot be pleaded on behalf of any
one of those interpretative theories which have perplexed
either ancient or modern thought.
Once more let me repeat that this does not mean that
the fact must — or can — be held apart from rationalizing
interpretation. The fact could not, as unintelligible to
reason, be held or believed at all. But the fact, though never
wholly compassed by our intelligence, is never unintelligible.
Reason can — and must — understand it. Reason can — and
must — take cognizance of whatever has been said irration-
ally in its explanation or defence. It is rational through
and through ; and it is to be rationalized by the intelligent
conscience of mankind. But it is a fact, the necessity of
which, and the results of which, lie too far back in the very
structure of human consciousness, the very possibility of
human character, to admit of any rough and ready, or
mathematical, or simple, or final, interpretation. The fact
itself is eternal and immutable. The fact itself is the very
centre of the Gospel message to a world of suffering and
sin. But the understanding of it must develop pro-
gressively ; for it must seem to vary, while it grows in
depth, with man's deepening capacity for intelligence of
God, and of himself.
INDEX
Ab^lard, 372-382; interpretation of
justification and redemption, 375;
letter to Heloissa, 377 sqq. ; his
limitation, 381.
Adam, the first and the second, 88 sqq.^
266, 267, 344, 357.
"Amen," the, 399, 403, 405.
Analogies of Trinity, 170-176.
"Another," 99, 100, 107, 227, 256,
287.
Anselm, St, 218, 367-372, see under
Cur Deus Homo?
Apostolic Fathers, 326-332.
Asceticism, 148, 313.
Athanasian Creed, the, 82.
Athanasius, St, 325, 326, 349-365 J
relation of Logos, as Creator, to
humanity, 344, 349, 35 1, 352;
Logos incarnated to conquer death
by dying, 354-357 ; Logos inherent
in humanity, 356-360 ; by the Spirit,
which is His own, 360-364.
Atonement, the essential problem, 74,
no. III, 329, 350-353; presentment
of, in the New Testament, 332-336 ;
juridical imagery misleading, 80;
illustration of a mother, 80, 122 ; the
body the instrument of, 113, 266,
267 ; as a transaction, 138, 218, 278,
371, 386, 410; objective and sub-
jective, 140 sqq., 281, 319-321 ;
moral theory of, 143, 388, 390;
lived upon in the Eucharist, 267 ;
Christ is consummation of, 282-286 ;
deeper down in human consciousness
Atonement — conlintud.
than any theories of it, 337, 369,
370, 412 ; gradualness of misconcep-
tions, 343, 348, 366, 411.
Augustine, St, defide et symbolo, 170;
de Trinitatgy 160, 171, 206.
Balliol, late master of, 386-389.
Baptism, as incorporation into Christ,
260, 261, 265 ; as regeneration, 261,
263.
Baptismal formula, the, 182, 186.
Baptismal rights, in relation to Laying
on of hands, 263, 264.
Barnabas, letter of, 329.
Bernard, St, 380-382.
Body, the, the instrument of atonement,
113, 266, 267 ; its consecration in
atonement and Eucharist, 266, 267.
Body and Spirit, 270, 271.
Calvary, only explicable through
Pentecost, 151, 152, 281, 321, 322,
382, 394. 409-
Calvinism, 387, 396.
Campbell, Dr Macleod, 396-410; on
suffering, punishment, and forgive-
ness, 397, 398 ; theory of atonement,
398-402 ; inadequately represented
by the word "confession," 404-406 ;
criticism upon, 402-410; on the
shame of the Cross, 406 ; on the Cry
on the Cross, 407-409 ; omission of
sacraments, 409.
Cause to oneself, to be a, 224, 225.
418
414
INDEX
Christ, identically not generically God,
82, 92, 279 ; inclusively not generi-
cally man, 88 sqq.^ 92, 279; His
human nature not impersonal, 93,
94; not so much a dualism *'God
and man" as a unity "God as
man," 95 sqq. ; as Incarnate is
never not Incarnate, 95, 97, loS ;
the revelation of Deity to man, 95,
97, III, 112, 15s, 167, 189, 192;
the revelation of humanity to man,
97, 98, III, 282, 283; His human
character the reflection of Another,
99, 107, 193 ; His meditation and
prayer, loi ; His activity of obedience,
102 ; the phrase *' not of myself,"
103-107 ; His death as the climax of
obedience, 114, 116; His identifica-
tion with man, and the point of view
of sin, 128 ; His death the consumma-
tion of penitence, 129, 130, 317 ;
and therefore the triumph of inherent
righteousness, 130, 132; {cp. St
Athanasius, on the inherence of the
Logos in humanity, 344-363 ; ) the
atonement is Himself, 47, 275, 276,
282-286, 405 ; His presence con-
tinuous through the Spirit, 156, 169,
181, 194-197, 259, 264, 272, 281,
282, 285 ; Baptism is incorporation
into, 260, 261, 265 ; Hved on by
Christians in the Eucharist, 266 sqq. ;
is the consummation of human per-
sonality, 250, 252, 255, 272, 275,
276, 282-286; 319-322 ; cp. 356-365.
Christ Church, Dean of, 337.
Church, the, is the Soirit, 259, 264,
272, 281, 282 ; is Christ, 258, 259,
261, 264, 272, 281, 282, 285.
Clement of Rome, St, 326.
Confirmation, 261-264.
Contemplation, a stage towards love,
146, 281.
Conventional Christianity, 299 sqq.
Corporate conception of humanity, 65,
87, 119, 124-126, 344, 345> 356-365.
402.
Cross, the Cry on the, 131, 134; Mr
Maurice on, 386 ; Dr Dale on, 392 ;
Dr Macleod Campbell on, 407-409.
Cui servire regnare, 228.
Cur Deus Homo ? 367 ; less than
Anselm's real faith, 369 ; definition
of sin, 370 ; theory purely quantita-
tive, 370, 371 ; commended by his
saintliness, 371, 372.
Cynicism, 302.
Dale, Dr, 382-396 ; on punishment, 4 ;
on atonement as an objective reality,
139 ; his strength, 386, 391, 396 ; his
theory of atonement, 391-394 ; on
the Cry on the Cross, 392 ; criticisms
on, 393, 394-396; on Dr Macleod
Campbell, 405.
Dante, de Monarchia, 337.
Death, the, of Christ, 133, 280; as the
climax of obedience, 114, 116; as
the consummation of penitence, 129,
I30> 317 ; as the triumph of inherent
righteousness, 130, 132, 329, 355.
Diognetum, Epistola ad, 329-331, 336.
Discipline, the proper meaning of punish-
ment, II, 13, 23, 39, 40.
Dualism, not to be predicated of Christ,
96.
Dying, experience of, 114, 293.
Eating, the sacred significance of,
267-271.
Edwards, President, 399.
Elijah, 289.
Elisha's servant, 289.
Epistola ad Diognetum, 329-331, 336.
Equal choice between alternatives is
not free will, 221 sqq.
Equals, forgiveness between, 67-70.
Equation theory of punishment, lo.
Equation theory of Atonement, 370,
371, 393-
" Eternal Generation," 21 1, 212.
Eucharist, the, a living upon Atone-
ment, 267, 273.
Eusebius, 208, 210, 215.
Experience, the only perfect knowledge,
161, 317.
Experience of dying, 1 14, 293.
Father, Son, and Spirit, in what sense
words of metaphor, 184, cp. 340.
Filioque, the, 195.
INDEX
415
Flesh and Blood of Christ, represent
His Humanity, 266 ; specially as the
instrument of Atonement, 267.
Forgiveness, as remission of penalty,
49» 5o> 394 ; or of debt, 370 ; Dr
Macleod Campbell on, 397 ; in
Christianity can only mean rightful
forgiveness, 51, 60, 280; as ignoring
of guilt, 53 ; what it really is— the
embrace of righteous love, 55, 61,
62, 71, 72, 279; correlative to for-
giveableness, 56 ; not arbitrary nor
optional, 57 ; on earth, is provisional,
61, 62 ; towards a little child, 64-66 ;
towards an equal, 67-70; with no
reference to holiness, is pagan, not
Christian, 72.
Free Will, in what sense we possess
it, 220 sqq. ; is not equal choice
between alternatives 221, sqq. ; nor
even to make one's own, in doing
things of any kind, 223 ; but to be a
cause to oneself of what is right for
the self, 225-228 ; a capacity, there-
fore, of response, 226 ; whose climax
is divine obedience, 228 ; perfected
only in the Spirit of Christ, 233.
Future, the, a form of present, 33.
Gentlemanly, 258.
God, the Unity of, 83, 154, 166 ;
threefoldness within, 155, 164, 165 ;
** mutual inclusiveness," 157, cp. 169 ;
the word "Person" applied to, 158,
160, 162, 178; relation of the Father
and the Son, 185, 187, 208-215;
perfectly revealed in Christ, 94, iii,
155. 167, 189, 192; through the
Spirit, 195 sqq.
Gradualness of misconceptions about
the Atonement, 343, 348, 366, 411.
Gregory of Nyssa, 366.
Guilt, two sets of penal consequence
upon, 17.
Hell, 12, 15, 24.
Heloissa, Abselard to, 377-380.
Hippolytus, on the Valentinians, 184 ;
contra Noetum^ 208, 209.
History of doctrine, its drawbacks, 324.
Holiness, the essentia of perfect peni-
tence, 38, 39,41-46, 117, 278.
Hooker, quoted, 84, 169, 206.
Hulsean lectures, 410.
Human faculties, at their highest,
coalesce in personal unity, 240, 245.
Human justice inherently imperfect, 9,
n-
Humanity, corporate solidarity of, 65,
87, 119, 124-126, 344, 345, 356-365,
402.
"I," 150 [cp. 31, 32, and 217), 249, 250,
251, 252.
Ideal, practical power of, 295, 298.
Ignatius, St, 327-329.
lUingworth, Rev. J. R., 171, 173.
Impersonal, not a predicate of Christ's
humanity, 93, 94.
In His steps, 307.
Incarnation, the dominating idea of the
New Testament, 185 sqq.y 282 ; the
Person of the Son and the Spirit re-
vealed in relation with, 181, 182,
185, 203 ; shapes the salutations of
all the Epistles, 189 sqq., 282.
Indifference, to sin, 303 ; to missions,
304 ; to goodness, 305, 306.
Innocent II., 381.
Irenseus, St, 343-345*
John, St, words " Father " and ' ' Son "
not found in opening verses of, 185.
Jowett, Professor, 386-389.
Juridical imagery as to atonement
misleading, 80.
Justice, human, inherently imperfect,
9, 77.
Justification, 335 ; Abselard on, 375.
Ladylike, 258.
Laying on of hands, 261-264.
Lightfoot, Bishop, 326, 327.
Logos, the, 186, 193, 209-214; ante-
cedent relation to humanity, 344,
349, 351, 352; inherent realization
in humanity, 355, 358-363.
Love, in what sense man possesses it,
245 sqq. ; perfected only in the Spirit
of Christ, 246 ; through the method
of sacrifice, 248 ; the spring of peni«
4i6
INDEX
Love — continued.
tence, 28; the clue to forgiveness,
64; the climax of forgiveness, 61,
71, 11, 279-
" Loving" and ** being in love with,"
136, 146 sqq.
Luther, 342, 391, 396.
Marcellus of Ancyra, 208 sqq.
Martyrdom, in a sense, self-chosen, 1 14.
Mason, Dr, 264.
Maurice, Rev. F. D., 383-386.
Metaphor, as applied to spiritual terms,
183, 339-342; the words Father,
Son, and Spirit, in what sense a,
184, 346.
Milligan, Dr, 195.
Mirror of Deity, perfect humanity a,
252-254-
Missions, indifference to, 304.
Monastic obedience, its untruth, 230;
its strength and beauty, 232.
Moral theory, 143, 388, 390.
Mother, illustration of a, 80, 122.
Murderer, a word of past or present
meaning? 37.
Music, 175, 282.
Mutuality, the most intelligible element
in Tri-Personal consciousness, 166.
My God, My God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me? 131, 134; Mr Maurice
on, 386; Dr Dale on, 392; Dr
Macleod Campbell on, 407-409.
Mysticism, 311-316.
Nestorianism, 93, 96.
Newman's Avians^ quoted, 84.
Non-communicant Christianity, 300-302.
Obedience, to God and to men, 102,
103, 229-231 ; not a breaking of the
will, 229 ; false conception of, 229,
230 ; the truth of, 228, 232, 257 ;
Christ's death the climax of, 114,
116.
Objective Atonement, 140 sqq.y 281,
319, 321.
Origen, 34S-348.
Oxenham, H. N., the Catholic doctrine
of the Atonement i 343, 344.
Paradise, St Paul and, 320.
Past, the, a form of present, 33 ; can it
be undone? 35-41, 47.
Penitence, is never realized in experi-
ence, 2, 22, 31, 39, 40 ; save in and
through Christ, 284; is the great
reality of experience, 44, 284 ; what
it really is, — its identification with
the Spirit of Holiness, 38, 39, 41, 43,
45, 46, 117, 278; in its perfectness
impossible to the sinful, 42 ; possible
only to the perfectly sinless, 43, 117,
279 ; as sorrow, 27, 28 ; as love,
28 ; as faith, 29 ; its atoning quality,
37, 38 sqq., 41, 43, 130, 397-402;
vicarious, 75, 76, 80, 118 ; vicarious,
of deeper capacity than personal,
121-124 ; consummated in the death
of Christ, 129, 283.
Penitent thief, the, 29, 239, 290.
Pentecost, indispensable for apprehen-
sion of atonement, 151-153, 321,
322, 382, 394, 409.
Pentecostal Church, the, 45, 91, 272,
275, 281, 285, 409.
Person, value of the word as applied to
" Persons" of Deity, 1^^ sqq.
Persons of the Trinity mutually in-
separable, 158, 167-169.
Personality, punishment only explicable
in terms of, 6 ; and penitence, 26 ;
and forgiveness, 50 ; is affected by
sin, 32 ; the seat of the real problem
of atonement, 150; not isolated, nor
to be defined by exclusiveness, 120,
I57i 252 ; intelligible only in ex-
perience, 161 ; relation between ex-
perience of human and idea of
Divine, 161; the place of "re-
sponse" in the total of, 174-176;
what is it? 153, 219; realized only
in the indwelling Spirit of Christ,
248, 250, 252-254, 275, 284, 297,
322 ; not equally real in the evil and
in the holy, 225, 251 ; as humanly
revealed in Christ, a total dependence
on God, 193, 256; a Christian for-
mula for, 255.
Personality of God, I77-I79-
Personality of the Holy Spirit, difficult
INDEX
417
Personality — continued.
to human understanding, 176; the
difficulty no bar to understanding
Him as gift or response, 180; but
this to be transcended, 181.
Philosophical, dependent upon spiritual
insight, 242-244.
Prayer, in Christ, lOi ; in the Christian,
256.
Present, the future a form of, 33, the
past a form of, 33.
Punishment, Dr Dale on, 4; Dr
Macleod Campbell on, 397, 398;
only applies to personality, 6;
human, inflicted with a view to
society, 9; represents penitential
discipline, 11, 17; its real end,
penitence, 13, 19 sqq., 131, 278;
self-acting in its higher realities, 15,
283 ; approximate definition of, 12,
22, 23 ; atoning only in proportion
as it becomes penitence, 23, 30, 36,
278.
Ransom, 334, 339-
Reason, the meaning of, 233 sqq. ; not
individualistic, 235 ; a hierarchy of
reasonable truths, 236 ; of which the
most complex are the deepest, 237 ;
moral and spiritual, 238 ; in its
climax coalesces with will and love,
240, 245 ; natural changed into
spiritual through sacrifice, 241-244 ;
perfected only in the Spirit of Christ,
244.
Reason and Religion, 237.
Rebaptismate, de, 264.
" Recapitulatio," 344, 345, 402.
Reconciliation, 334, 342, 394.
Redemption, 334, 338, 340.
Reflection of God is human perfectness,
94, 107, 193, 256.
Regeneration, 261, 263, 410.
Relation of Confirmation to Baptisniy
263, 264.
Remorse, 36.
Representative, Christ the true, 283.
Response, an element in the total of
personality, I74i I7S, 203; capacity
of 47, 226, 252, 254.
Sabellianism, suspicion of, 85, 86,
165 ; in Marcellus, 210.
Sacramental system, the, 91, 258 ;
means Christ, 258, 261, 285.
Sacramental materialism, 275.
Sacrifice, the condition of freedom of
will, 227, 228 ; and of the crowning of
reason, 241, 242 ; and of the crown-
ing of love, 248.
Sacrifice, the, of Christ, 333, 334, 338,
387, 389 ; as an example, 149 ; as
an object of love, 114, 150, 376-381.
Sacrilege of crushing human will, 229.
Saints, consciousness of, 316 sqq.
Salutations of the epistles wholly shaped
by the fact of Incarnation, 189 sqq.
Sanday, Dr, 198.
Simon, son ol John, 136.
Sin, affects the personality, 32.
Son, in what sense a word of metaphor,
184 ; its primary reference to the
Incarnate, 185 sqq.^ 208-215.
Spirit, the Holy, 46, 152 ; revealed as
continuance of the presence of the
Incarnate, 156, 169, 181 ; is to us
therefore primarily the Spirit of the
Christ, 194-197, 203; and so con-
stitutes the Church of Christ, 254,
264, 272, 281, 285 ; as o.inh and as
AiJrds, 177 ; Personality of, difficult
to human understanding, 176 ; but
we do well to understand Him as
gift or response, 180 ; which, really,
is Personal, 181, 282; is the con-
summation in us of free will, 233 ; of
reason, 244 ; of love, 246 ; of our-
selves, 204, 248-255, 275, 282 320,
345, 360 ; the undiscerned work of,
in the Church, 290-294.
Spiritualism, 310.
Stephen, St, 68.
Subjective atonement, 141 sqq.^ 281,
284, 319, 321.
Substitution, 386, 387, 393, 401.
Thief, the penitent, 29, 239, 290.
Transactional theory of atonement,
138, 218, 278, 371, 386, 410.
Trinitate, de, St Augustine, 160, 171,
206 ; Vigilius Tapsensis, 193.
D
4i8
INDEX
Trinity, the Persons of, mutually in-
separable, 158, 167-169 ; danger of
distinguishing them as qualities, 172,
206; analogies of, 170-176.
Tri-personal, not properly intelligible
to uni-personal consciousness, 161,
173-
Tri-theism, 84, 156.
Unforgiving servant, the, 62.
Unity of God, 83, 154; not the unity
of singularity or distinctiveness, 166,
Valentinians, 164.
Vengeance not atoning, but the reverse,
18, 24, 132, 401.
Vicarious, penitence, 75, 76, 80, Ii8,
283 ; deeper in capacity than personal
penitence, 121 -124; penalty, 78,79;
punishment, 278, 283.
Vigilius Tapsensis, 193.
Will, see Free will.
Wilson, Archdeacon, 410, 411.
Woman, the, which was a sinner, 28,
Wrath, the, of Jesus, 304.
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