GIFT or
j George B^ Allen
"THE LIFE AND LIGHT
OF MEN"
*'The Life (the Living One) was the Light of men."— John 5. 4.
" The true Light, which lighteth every man, ivas covrhig into
the world."— John i. 9.
'THE LIFE AND LIGHT
OF MEN"
^n C!^S0S2
By JOHN YOUNG, ll.d. (edin :)
(I
*]"-*''** \' ' I '>
ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER
LONDON AND NEW YORK
1866
GIFI
« t ««
i^foati0n.
TO
THE MODERATOE, MINISTERS, AND ELDERS
OP THE
UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
Fathers and Brethren, —
Some years ago, you are aware, I retired
from the Ministry of Albion Chapel, and at the same
time resigned my connexion with the United Presbyterian
Church. The first had its meaning chiefly in the second.
Had it been possible to have remained in the Church, I
should never have relinquished the special charge, for the
people to whom I ministered deserved everything at my
hands, which was consistent with the obligations of an
earlier and holier fidelity. But it was not possible. I
had ceased to regard the articles of our faith in the light in
416512
VI DEDICATION.
which I once had seen them, and was unable to limit my-
self by the Confession and Formularies of the Church.
The ground of my resignation was not broadly pro-
claimed at the time, but was left to be inferred, as it very
readily could be, and as, in point of fact, it was by all who
knew the circumstances. I have ever since been thankful
that I was hindered from prematurely thrusting on wider
notice an affair of personal and private life. Had this
been done, mischief might have followed, without real
benefit in any important direction. At the same time, I
have not been ignorant that a reticence, which being tem-
porary, was justifiable, and even incumbent, all the cir-
cumstances considered, if persisted in, beyond the limits of
the necessity, might deserve to be branded as cowardice
and disloyalty to truth. I have also felt that something
was due to you, and to the sacred relation in which, espe-
cially in the years of my pastorate, I stood to you, some-
thing to the cordial friendship), to which, now as before, I
am admitted by valued ministers and members of the
United Presbyterian Church, and something also to myself,
to the position which I held, and to my personal truth-
fulness and integrity. The three inconsiderable volumes,
bearing my name, which have been published in the last
few years, were intended, amongst other purposes, to serve
as a partial discharge of these obligations, and the work
which I now dedicate to you, is a further instalment with
the same motive and aim.
DEDICATION. Vll
Thoroughly at one with the Churches called evangelical^
in all that is really essential, I do not imagine that truth,
and nothing but truth is with them, and only with them :
that they are all right, and all others all wrong. Can it be
deemed presumptuous to suppose that there may be errors
in our evangelical teaching, and grave dangers to which
these errors are likely to lead? And has there never been
cause to condemn, in our public action, as a party, manifest
narrowness and bigotry, and still more — what has at least
seemed to be disingenuousness and intolerance? But these
and such things notwithstanding, the evidence to me is
abundant that the divine spirit of Christianity is mightily
working in the evangelical churches, and that the warmth
and the living energy of true religion, piety towards God,
and love towards man, and those holy central impulses
which originate and sustain all the highest good that is
done on earth, are to be found very largely in them.
Fathers and brethren ! I was baptized, admitted to the
holy communion, trained and educated in that church, of
which you are the acknowledged heads. I think I under-
stand the evangelical faith as maintained by you, and
especially what, in these days, is considered its leading,
testing article. I think I understand what is meant by the
sacrifice of Christ, the atonement for sin (involving the
idea of satisfaction to justice) through his blood. Cer-
tainly, I am much to blame, if I do not understand it.
I have been most carefully instructed in it, from my earliest
Vm DEDICATION.
youth upward, in the family, from the pulpit, and from
the chair of our Theological Hall. Its ground, its nature,
its evidences, and its defences have long been familiar to
me, and all my prepossessions, and prejudices, and associa-
tions, and circumstances national, educational, hereditary,
ecclesiastical, and social, have been in favour of it. So
far as an ordinary capacity can justify the claim, I may
claim, without presumption, to understand this special
tenet. I well know, besides, that by thousands of godly
and devoted souls, this is regarded as the very life of their
life, the -ground of their well-being, and the one solitary
hope of the whole world, a protecting shield also, thrown
around the Almighty himself, and a sun which pours its
glory on His perfections and His nature. They believe
that from this source peace is shed into their hearts, that
by this the sacred fire is supplied, which kindles them to
purity and love, to heroic daring, and noble endurance,
and that all their happiest thoughts of God, all their
strongest motives to holy living, all their selectest moments
of spiritual communion, and all their clearest visions of the
eternal future, are derived from this. Were this to go, they
believe that everything valuable and essential would perish
with it.
I could not attempt to disturb, if such a thing were in
my power, a faith like this, did I not believe, as I do, that
all which is really essential in the common convictions
would abide untouched ; that divine peace in the troubled
DEDICATION. IX
heart of man would be even more secure ; tliat the pure
free grace of the Almighty, in the redemption of the
world through our Loid Jesus Christ, away from all idea
of human merit, would be more firmly established ; that the
impression of the mercy of God, and of the dying love of
the Kedeemer of men, would be far deeper ; and that all the
motives to holy living, and all the purest influences of the
cross on Calvary, would be multiplied and intensified.
At the same time, and on the other hand, the unquali-
fied admission is here made most gladly, that the doctrine
of satisfaction, as usually taught among us, is often, very
often, held in association W-ith the most exalted piety and
with the purest virtue. Judging by the limited experience
of my life, I have never found, and I never expect to find,
nobler examples of the true fear of God, of unbending
moral principle and of generous, self-sacrificing devotion to
the good of others, than in the evangelical churches. A
" creed " so called, is but a small part of the true man, and
the worst side of the professed creed, as I humbly presume
to judge, is often unconsciously, but habitually kept down,
while the best side almost entirely is left to exert its force
upon the mind, and to form the character after the purest
model of spiritual excellence. Multitudes in the past have
found the seed of eternal life, in spite, as I venture to
think, of rigorous and false conceptions of Christ's sacri-
fice, multitudes at this hour find, and multitudes in the
time coming may yet find, through the same medium, the
DEDICATION.
incorruptible germ of renewed being. It is not imagined
by them, that living love of Christ and filial self-surrender
to the redeeming, reconciling God in him, can ever be
separated from such conceptions, and far less is it believed,
that only when thus separated they are most pure, most
noble, and least open to the possibility of abuse.
Fathers and brethren ! I have "satisfied my mind that
the conclusions put forth in this volume are substantially
true, but I am very fi\r from imagining that they are per-
fectly and wholly true. There are a few things to us
men, sure and stable as the universe, or as the Great God
himself. In principles, strictly so called, in all that we
see to be eternal, immutable, universal, we can repose with
the calm conviction of absolute truth. But wherever the
positive element intrudes — and where does it not intrude 1 —
the penalty of partial insecurity, and uncertainty, must be
borne. In every so-called truth, as conceived and stated
by any human being, there must always be the taint either
of defect, or of error, or of both ; and conversely, in every
so-called error^ as taken up by any human being, there
must always be some infusion of truth. The common
proverb popularises without degrading, a principle which is
of unlimited application, "one man's poison is another
man's food," that is, he is able to find in it some alimentary
power, some particles which he can convert and assimilate
to his own living substance. On the other hand, " one
man's food is another man's poison," that is, he finds in it
DEDICATION. XI
what is so distasteful, that liis physical system rejects it,
and would render it destructive to the vital functions.
Tlie nutritive, alimentary power for the spirit, as for the
body, easily distinguished in the generality of cases, is yet
subtle and mysterious, and may exist in very varying
amount, and in most diverse and unlikely combinations.
It does not belong to men, to determine for one another
where it may or may not be found sufficient to sustain
soul-life, or in how many opposite forms, and in spite of
what gross adulterations, it may be sifted out by the
spiritual, as by the physical system, so as to support a real,
though strange vitality. Truth, pure and simple, perfect
on all sides, is only for the One Unerring Mind. Error,
unmitigated and unmixed, can be only for the reprobate
and refuse of our race. On this earth, constituted as we
are, and in a state of confessed imperfection, we may
anticipate knowledge, without defect, and without flaw;
but it must be beyond and above, not here.
Fathers and brethren,
I am, with unfeigned respect and regard,
Yours faithfully,
JOHN YOUNG.
PREFACE.
rpHE structure and form of this work are
-^ due to necessity, rather than choice. The
system of doctrine, the modes of thought, and
the conventional phrases and terms, which are
common, more or less, to all the evangelical
churches, rendered a method of treatment
adapted to these peculiarities unavoidable. It
seemed imperative, that those whom, first of
all, it was sought to influence should be met
on their own ground, and through the use of
their own selected forms of speech.
The favourite theological phraseology of an
earlier period, and with it the scholastic, syste-
matic treatment of religious truth, have grown
distasteful, are now often unintelligible, and
XIV PEEPACE.
certainly are quite unappreciated. Men of
free and wide cultivation, and of liberal and
generous tendencies, with no disrespect to the
existing sectional distributions of Christianity,
have learned to generalise, or rather to uni-
versalise, the principles and the spirit of the
New Testament. Instead of attempting to set
its manifold deliverances in exact logical order,
and to compact them into a fixed system — a
process essentially artificial, and always desti-
tute of the smallest authority, save from the
wisdom and the organising faculty of indi-
vidual men — they have learned to take them
just as they lie in the sacred writings, separate,
scattered, without order and without method,
imperishable seed, but sown broadcast, not in
straight lines drilled with mechanical pre-
cision. They have sought, not to cut them
sharply ofi", but to connect them with all ex-
isting and concurrent truth wherever it may
be discovered, and to look for their ground,
not in the necessities and the niceties of any
artificial system, but in the great wants of
PEEFACE. XV
the world, in the essential truth of things,
and in the eternal excellences of the Father of
all souls. They have, moreover, sought to find
the highest evidences of revealed truth, with-
out in the least undervaluing other regions of
proof, in the nature of man himself, in the law
originally written in his soul, in those mysteri-
ous and holy intuitions, not yet erased, which
reveal, if anything in the spiritual structure
can reveal, the awful presence and voice of
the Creator. Having thus emancipated them-
selves, as they believe, from human creeds,
they stand far apart from those who are not
only in chains, as they judge, but who love
and exult in the bondage. Incapable of ap-
preciating the difficulties which oppress others,
they scarcely understand at all how such diffi-
culties should be felt, and are uninterested in
the reasonings by which they may be removed
or relieved. They occupy a totally different
region, have no sympathy with what they
deem narrow conceptions, and are offended
by a phraseology which to them is uncouth.
XVI PKEFACE.
teclinical, artificial, and nearly unintelligible.
But all the while, the so-called system of reli-
gious truth, logically arranged and compacted,
remains a fact, make of it what we will, and
demands to be dealt with on its own ground.
It is common in these days to speak, not
respectfully, of human creeds as such. They
have had a long trial, sufiicient, it is thought,
to demonstrate what they are good for, and to
make it now full time to decide conclusively,
whether the amount of good outweighs the
necessary attendant evil. Instead of servants
ministering to the general convenience, and to
the ready, accurate, and economical arrange-
ment of knowledge and of thought, the creeds,
some allege, have grown into tyrants, wielding
a sceptre of iron, sometimes glowing with fur-
nace heat. Instead of adapting the creeds at
successive periods to an advancing elevation
and expansion of thought, it is conceived that
the vain effort has been made to adjust the
ever-growing mind of the world to their un-
changed bulk and shape — just as if, in a library
PREFACE. Xvii
with its fixed lines of shelves, instead of alter-
ino; the shelves to the size of the books, we
should cut down the books to the measure of
the shelves.
But the evangelical creed is not a thing to
be named without deep respect, whether for its
intrinsic character, or for the purposes it has
served as a spiritual influence on the nations
of Europe, and as a large educator of the
popular mind. It has undoubtedly gained,
and it has long preserved, a real, a deep, and
an extended sway. Several of its chief points
have been effectually drilled into the minds of
masses of the people, have moulded their
thinking, and coloured their speech, and in
part created for them a new vocabulary. It
is a product on which the intelligence, the
learning, the acuteness, the organising power,
and the practical skill of many of the ablest
and best endowed minds of Europe have been
successively bestowed. It is unequalled for
the vastness of its sweep : first of all, reaching
back, (surely not without hazard of blasphemy,)
h
XVIU PREFACE,
to what is styled, " The Council of Eternity/' to
the absolute decrees of God issued by that
council, and to the concerted plan for their
gradual evolution in the course of the ages ;
then, tracing the entire history of redemption
in all its principles and methods, from the
creation and the apostasy of man, on through
the antediluvian, patriarchal, and Jewish eras,
to the Incarnation and the Cross ; and then,
stretching forward from these, beyond all the
Christian ages, to the consummation, the last
judgment, and the life everlasting. It is a
work of profound thought, and of severe ela-
boration, it is based on hard strong argument,
it is constructed with rare logical ability and
ingenuity, and will be found altogether most
compact and skilfully arranged and consoli-
dated. There may be gaps in the wall of
enclosure which protects what is called the
system of revealed truth, and these may be
left to be filled up by individuals as they best
can, but it is impossible not to marvel at the
massiveness and the extent of the defences.
PKEFACE. XIX
and at the amount of labour, of skill, and of
intellectual prowess and power which have
been expended on them.
Some of the most holy and honoured men,
Augustin and Anselm and Luther and Calvin,
and multitudes hardly less distinguished, Ca-
tholic doctors, and later Protestant divines, as
well as Waldensian, Bohemian, French, British,
and other confessors, have had a share, more
or less, in this great work. It is not the crea-
tion of one age or one party, but a legacy
handed down from all the ages, with their
endless parties, almost every one having left
its mark, more or less distinctly, upon it in its
passage onward. Men of the most opposed
opinions, some directly and others indirectly,
have exercised an influence in its formation,
and many who would not have accepted it as
a whole, have nevertheless contributed to some
of its details. It is properly an agglomerate,
unique but most composite, here venerable for
Catholic antiquity, there purely Protestant
and again comparatively modern, receiving its
XX PREFACE.
latest modifications tlirougli Puritans, Cove-
nanters, Methodists, and the various sections
of the existing evangelical school.
The attempt would be simply absurd, to
discuss a complex system within the limits of
a small volume. But it may be possible,
nevertheless, to discover and to examine care-
fully what constitutes, in these modern days,
in the judgment of those who have adopted it,
its central and vital distinction. Evangelical
writers, preachers, and disciples, are in the
habit, without exception, of narrowing the
issue, and bringing the creed to a single test.
That test is the doctrine of sacrifice, the sacri-
fice of Christ on the cross, the atonement made
to God for human sin, the satisfaction ren-
dered to Divine Justice by the shedding of
'Christ's blood. It is taught that Christ stood
in the room of men, and endured the punish-
ment which they deserved, and that God, on
this ground, but only on this ground, is now
able to set men free, and to receive them back
to His favour. In modern evangelical speech,
PEEFACE. XXI
this is the gospel, the true gospel, the one, only
gospel of God to the world; which accepting, a
man is safe ; which rejecting, he is eternally
lost. That familiar phrase, " the gospel," always
in the same fixed sense, is so constantly pro-
nounced from the press, from the pulpit, and
in private society, that it is hardly possible to
misapprehend it. Invariably one thing is meant,
one thing chiefly, almost alone — the expiation
of human sin by Christ's death, and the divine
pardon, purchased by this costly means.
The following pages are devoted chiefly to a
free consideration of this article, in several of
its important bearings, and if there be found
in them any closer approximation to truth, or
any help to truth-seekers, the writer will have
gained his best reward.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
INCARNATION — IN TWO SECTIONS.
Section First. — The Idea and the Fact : — Divine Response to the
Soul's deepest Want — Its wide Relations — Incarnation and
Miracles — Necessity of Anticipative Record — The Light of
Secular History, .... Pp. 3-18
Section Second. — Sacrifice in Incarnation : — God Self-sacrificing —
Limitations of Human Medium — "Lamb of God" — Super-
naturally Provided — God in Christ Unveiling Himself — In-
carnate, Unknown, Rejected — Life Sacrificed — "Accoi'ding
to Counsel of God"— A Prey to Rage and Lust of Men — Divine
Self-sacrifice for Sin Pp. 19-41
CHAPTER II.
HUMAN SIN— IN TWO SECTIONS.
Section First. — What Sin is, and the Sense of Sin : — Essential Dis-
tinction-Burden of Universe — Radical Difficulty in Specula-
tion — Unrest in all Earnest Souls — Consciousness of Sin — Its
Development — Legitimate Result, , . Pp. 45-68
XXIV CONTENTS.
Section Second. — Eedemption from Sin : — " Way of Salvation " —
Adaptations and Subtlety — Ground of Forgiveness — Not
Honouring to God — Sin, not Punishment, greatest Evil —
Divine Self-sacrifice smites Root of Sin — Gradual and Final
Redemption, ..... Pp. 69-73
CHAPTER III.
SPIRITUAL LAWS.
Their Sphere — Material Laws — Not Eternal and not Necessary-
Ordained by God — Spiritual Laws Immutable — In Harmony
with Will of God — Their Ground — Human Laws — Need Vin-
dication and Support — Self-sustaining Law — Sin and Death
• — Holiness and Life — Divine Sacrifice — Destroys Sin — Saves
the Soul, ..... Pp. 77-98
CHAPTER IV.
ETERNAL JUSTICE.
Opposite Conceptions of Justice — Providence — Inequalities, Real
Equality — Mere Justice — Not in God — A Human Notion —
God always More and Better than Merely Just — Justice and
Mercy— Evil, Not of God — Moral, Physical Evil — Ethical
Nature of God and Man — Mercy Loftier, Holier than Justice
—Inevitable Doom of Sin— Triumph of Mercy, Pp. 101-120
CHAPTER V.
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION — IN TWO SECTIONS.
Section First. — Imagined Necessity of Satisfaction : — 1. Law — But
Penalty inflicted — 2. Justice — Never Defrauded — No Un-
settled Claims — 3. Moral Government — Not Dishonoured or
Overthrown — Its Security, Divine Self-sacrifice, Pp. 123-138
CONTENTS. XXV
Section Second. — Satisfaction for Sin not Possible: — 1. The Fact
of Sin; 2. Its Criminality; 3. Its Power for Evil Unchange-
able—Sin Destroyed and Forgiven — Divine Anger — How In-
appeasable — Anger and Love in Cross — Destruction of Sin in
Soul— This, Salvation, . . . .Pp. 139-152
CHAPTER VI.
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION — IN TWO SECTIONS.
Section First. — Meaning of Terms : — Science of Theology and other
Sciences— Essentially Different Ground — Theological Terms —
Settled by Scripture — Words, "Justify," &c. — Literal Sense —
Righten, Set Right — Examples — Non-Natural Sense — Spirit of
Man, Wrong — Needs to be Set Right — Proof Passages — Justi-
fication— Only Thrice, Used, . » . Pp. 155-175
Section Second. — Truths, Answering to Terms of Scripture: —
Righteousness Rightness — State of Right-en-ed-ness — Righten-
ing-ness — The Power, Act, Mode of Rightening — Imputation
— Rightness Imputed because Real — Fact Recognised — Thing
Reckoned, What it is, never. What it is not— Imputation In-
evitable — Instinctive — Figures of Speech — Judicial Imputa-
tion Crime, » • . . .Pp. 176-195
CHAPTER VII.
SACRIFICE.
fs God Essentially Self-sacrificing ? — Lesson to Universe— Sacrifi-
cial Rite, Universal — Esthetic Gradation — Contrary to Facts
— Animal Sacrifices — Earliest Form of Offering — Taking of
Animal Life, Revolting — In Name and by Command of God —
1. Provision for Human Sustenance — 2. Merciful Protection
to Animal Creation — Sacredness of Life — Worship of Life-
XXVI CONTENTS.
giver — Surrender back of His own — Virtual Self -surrender —
3. Silent Confession of Life Forfeited and of Sin— Early Re-
volting Corruptions of Sacrificial Rite, . Pp. 199-217
CHAPTER VIII.
MOSAIC ECONOMY — IN TWO SECTIONS.
Section First. — Its Chief Characteristic : — Religion of Blood — End-
less Sacrifices — Rites Simplified and Purified — Appeal through
Senses to Soul — Two Ideas — Human Sustenance and Divine
Worship — Paschal Lamb, a Supper — Also, Act of Worship —
No Idea of Expiation — How Blood, Atonement for Soul — Blood
and Fat, God's Portion — Rest for Food — Kaphar, 'IXdaKOfiai,
Atonement — Not Expiation — Proof Passages, Pp. 221-242
Section Second. — Its True Meaning and Interpretation : — Visible
Punishments and Rewards in Old Testament — Atonement for
Life, not Soul — System of Discipline and of Worship — Not
Scheme of Salvation — Training of Israelites — Old Testament,
Record of Spiritual Truth — Special Privileges — Salvation
always Common to World — Sacrifices never Ground of Pardon
— " Purifying of Flesh " — No More — Anticipation of Death
of Christ Impossible — " I, even I, am He that Blotteth
out," &c., . ... Pp. 243-269
CHAPTER IX.
SACKIFICE OF CHRIST.
Voluntary — "I lay down My Life" — Issue Foreseen, Willingly
Encountered — Escape without Dishonour, Impossible — Men,
Sole Agents in Crucifixion — Determinate Foreknowledge of
God — Natural Course of Events — Wholly, a Human Crime —
No Sacrifice by Men to God — No Divine, Judicial Arrange-
CONTENTS. XXVU
ment — Two Gods — Tri-unity Destroyed — Substitution, its
Meaning — Figure, not Reality — Human Notions, transferred
to Mind of God— Natural Sense of Scripture — Fictions taken
for Facts— Perfect Love, in Death of Christ — Human Self-sac-
rifice — Noble and Ennobling — Ray from Heaven — Eternal
Fountain of Pure Generosity — God's Sacrifice for Men — Con-
quers Soul, Pp. 273-302
CHAPTER X.
SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT —
IN THREE SECTIONS.
Section First. — The Epistles : — Written by Jews — Addressed, First,
to Jews — Jewish Phraseology and Imagery, Inevitable — Expo-
sition of Passages — Beautiful, Natural Sense — Christ's Death,
and Ancient Sacrifices — Epistle to Hebrews— Typical Language
— Use and Abuse — Apostolic Gospel, . . Pp. 305-335
Section Second. — Acts of the Apostles: — Early History of Christianity
— First Christian Sermon — Peter's Gospel — Martyr Stephen —
Ethiopian Eunuch — Cornelius — Saul of Tarsus, His Conversion,
His Ministry — Antioch, Athens, Miletiis, Philippi — ''Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and Thou shalt be Saved, and Thy
House," Pp. 336-355
Section Third. — The Gospels:— Hostile Criticism — Unsound Basis
— Sayings and Discourses of Jesus — How Preserved and Trans-
mitted — Christ's Soul, their Fountain — Immeasurable Supe-
riority — Early Christian Writings — Noblest Heathen Utter-
ances — Exposition of Passages — No Expiation or Satisfaction
— Must have been, if True — Lord's Prayer — Last Supper —
Calvary — After Resurrection — Olivet — Christ's Teaching
Opposed to Satisfaction — Pharisee and Publican — Prodigal,
Pp. 356-398
XXVIU CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XL
ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION —
IN TWO SECTIONS.
Section First. — From the Apostolic Age to that of Ansehn:—
Foundation in Human Nature — Ignorance and Fears — Early
Christian Writings — Repeat Language of New Testament — No
Independent Statement — Proof Passages — Dr Shedd's Admis-
sions — First Idea, Satisfaction to Satan — Irenseus — Origen —
Abuse of Figures the Original Root of Error — First Explicit
Statement — Athanasius — Augustin — Anselm, Pp. 401-446
Section Second. — From the Age of Anselm to the Present Time : —
Athanasius and Anselm — Second, Deeper Source of Error —
Pride of Reason — Intellectual Subtlety — False Philosophy —
Misapplication of Logic — Anselm's Tractate, Logical, not
Philosophical — Conclusion False — Thomas Acquinas — Luther
— Secret of his Power — Success of Evangelical Churches —
Calvin, Theologian of Reformation — Evangelical Transcen-
dentalism — Essential Relation of Divine to Human — God,
Father of Souls — Loving, Redeeming Father, Pp. 447-480
Conclusion, . . . , . Pp. 481-497
CHAPTER T.
INCARNATION.
Section Fikst.— The Idea and the Fact.
Section Second.— Sacrifice in Incaenation.
SECTION FIRST.
The Idea and the Fact — Divine Eesponse to the Soul's deepest Wan\>
— Its wide Relations — Incarnation and Miracles — Necessity of
Anticipative Record — The Light of Secular History.
LIFE and light belong to all languages — words of
liappy omen, and only of happy omen, to all
peoples and times. Their very tone is stirring and
sunny, and the things are brighter and more enkind-
ling than the words which denote them. They are
perhaps the very commonest, but they are also the
most inscrutable of all our notions ; the best under-
stood, but also the least understood of all human
things. A savage leaps with joy in the irrepressible
consciousness of vigorous life, and amidst the warmth
and beauty of noonday. But the severest student of
nature, when he has pushed his researches to the
farthest possible limit, is forced to acknowledge that
life and light are each, to him, an unfathomable mjs-
tery. He has observed, arranged, and recorded the
phenomena connected with both ; he has discovered
the laws which regulate the phenomena ; he has even
measured the inconceivable speed with which light
INCARNATION.
darts through space ; but what light is, and what life
is, he cannot tell. The impenetrable secret abides,
and the most gifted of our race, in presence of it, can
only gaze in mute astonishment.
The relations of life and light are as well under-
stood, but also as ill understood, as the things them-
selves. That they are connected — beautifully, essen-
tially connected— is certain, and many of the forms
of their connexion are familiar to us ; but how they
are connected we know not. The root and ground of
their relation, the middle point in which they meet,
and from which they act and re-act, the one on the
other, are undiscoverable. Life and light, like death
and darkness, are associated indissolubly in thought,
because they are associated constantly in fact. We
cannot separate life from light, nor light from life,
without an instant sense of incongruity and wrong.
The one seems to be the true complement of the
other, a real necessity to the other. In the lowest
and in the highest modes of existence alike, both are
essential, and the perfection of spiritual being is in
the full, beautiful blending and interfusion of the
two.
The wonderful proem to the fourth gospel overawes
and startles us with sudden openings into the abys-
mal secret of life and light, and into their primal,
eternal relations, with quick flashes, into the profound
darkness, quenched almost as soon as they are struck
INCARNATION.
out. " In the beginning was the Logos, and the
Logos was with God," essentially related to God,
eternally connected and identified with God. " And
the Logos was God." " In him (the Logos) was life"
— no abstraction, no mere quality of being, but life —
living, unoriginated, self-sustaining, self-perpetuative
power. " And the life" (this living One) " was the
light of men." " The true Light, which lighteth every
man, luas coming into the world" — at the fulness of
the times, he was actually coming into the world.
"He was in the world" — before this, he was, and
from the first, he had always been in the world.
" And the world was made by him" — the Eternal
Logos reigned supreme in the creation and formation
of all things. " And the world knew him not. But
as many" — in all the ages, all along — " as received
him" — recognised and admitted him into their
hearts- ihey " became sons of God ; born not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God." At last, in the fulness of the
times, " the Logos was made flesh, and dwelt among
us, full of grace and truth; and we beheld his
glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the
Father."
The divine in man, the true inner life and light of
his soul, not a poetical exaggeration, but a sacred
reality, is recognised by all theological schools. It is
taught that the Great Father of the spirit, in its very
INCARNATION.
nature and structure, has impressed His own likeness
upon it, and left discoverable tokens of a spiritual,
superhuman descent. Beyond this, the indwelling of
God, at least in some human minds, and His direct
action upon them, as a secret, illuminating, purifying,
and guiding Spirit, are well understood points of the
common faith. Manifestly it must be a question of
degree, not of kind, how many or how few the tokens
of alliance with the divine in any soul may be, or how
far into the human in any case the divine element
may penetrate. But the transition is immeasurable,
from such connexion between the created and the
creating Spirit, to the idea of Incarnation. Once,
only once, in all time, it is believed, very God so en-
tered into a human soul, so possessed and filled all its
capacities, and so united and identified Himself with
its being, that it was not, and never was, merely
human, but always Divine-human, a true Incarnation,
under no conditions, but those necessary ones which
must always limit the finite, whether as a receptacle
or as a manifestation of the infinite.
Jesus Christ was a true man, in all essential re-
spects, like other men. His soul was a true human
soul, endowed with all the ordinary susceptibilities,
tendencies, and powers of the common nature. Body
and soul, he was man. That is a historical fact,
which no fair criticism and no candid reasonings have
yet touched. But it is believed that ha was a divine
INCARNATION.
man, tlie one, sole Incarnation of divinity that ever
flighted on this earth. The fact, in all its profound
meaning, is necessarily inexplicable, and the most
wise and the most pious will be the farthest removed
from presumptuous dogmatism on such a subject.
The divine in man, in any sense, is mysterious, over-
whelming, and, in its full truth, incomprehensible.
But God-man, in the sense of Incarnation, is altoge-
ther so stupendous, that we can only bow down and
worship in presence of a mystery which we are utterly
unable to compass in thought.
At the same time, this at least is patent and indis-
putable, that there could be, in the Incarnate, no
blending or confusing or interchanging of the divine
and the human. The human could never be more
than human; the divine could never be less than
divine. The two natures must ever have been per-
fectly distinct ; but from their incomprehensible union
and interpenetration, their action and interaction, there
resulted a real life on this earth such as had never
otherwise been possible. Hence, in that life, some-
times the merely human and sometimes the properly
divine is alone visible, and sometimes the manifesta-
tion is complex, so that we are unable to distinguish
where the human terminates, and where the divine
commences. But all in all, this is the sum, if we may
dare to put it into words, that the human soul of
Jesus Christ was so possessed and inhabited by very
INCARNATION.
God, SO pervaded, and interpenetrated, and guided,
and moved by the divine, that he alone of all in
human form could say, and, in a sense, whose full
depth of meaning we cannot reach, " He that hath
seen me hath seen the Father."
I venture to suppose that too little is made of this
central truth, and that much of its meaning and many
of its very vital bearings are not understood, or not
appreciated.
Amidst the blundering legends, and myths, and
fables, and allegories, and designed fictions, with
which all lands and all ages have abounded, and which
have been largely accepted by an indiscriminating
and a greedy credulity, there has been one, but there
has been only one, true Incarnation. The miserable
caricatures of the sacred reality, if they have done
nothing else, have shown this at least, the hunger
gnawing at the heart of the world, the irrepressible
longing for the divine, and even the felt, mysterious
affinity with the divine, which has so strangely craved
and struggled for a nearer approximation, for some-
thing of an actual, literal fellowship and union. The
veiled shrine of Egypt, the sacred fire of Persia, the
Avatars, and Grand Llamas, and Absorptions, and
Nirvanas of Brahminism and Bhuddism, the Pyth-
onic possessions, the Sibylline inspirations, and all
the sacred mysteries of Greece and Kome, Popish
transubstantiation and Mariolatry, the wild visions of
INCARNATION.
Cliristian mystics, millennial vagaries, and all the ridi-
culous absurdities of modern spiritualism, utter one
unmistakable voice. The want of the human soul in
its deepest depths, through all ages, has been God, the
living God. Unintelligently, wildly, grossly, madly
the want may have been proclaimed, but at least its
existence and its depth have been proved beyond all
doubt. The sense of some unnatural estrangement
and isolation, it knows not what, but as if its higher
self had been cut off from it, has for ever burdened
the spirit of man. In ten thousand various forms and
ways, universal humanity has laboured to have some
unknown severed link reattached, some secret, long
closed communication opened up again. It has ever
longed to come nearer to the divine, and to bring the
divine nearer to it, to touch, as with its very hand,
the Father above, and to be touched by Him, to look
upon the very face of God, to hear the divine voice,
and to commimicate nearly and directly with the un-
seen.
Once for all, most mercifully and wondrously, a
response from above was given to the wild, vague,
ill-understood, almost unconscious cravings of the
human heart. " The Eternal Logos " took posses-
sion of a human soul in a human body, and made
it the medium 1 through which influence from Above
should flow down on the world.
^ See note, p. 27.
10 INCARNATION.
It is almost impossible to exaggerate the wide re-
lations of this divine mystery. More or less it must
touch everything which belongs to the sphere of revela-
tion. Perhaps it is the real, though not the ostensible
issue, even in some of the religious questions which are
troubling the present age. He, for example, who has
been constrained, by the overwhelming force of the
evidence, to accept the Incarnation, is already recon-
ciled to the idea of the direct intervention of God in
the affairs of men. JSTo so-called miracle can ever
transcend this mystery of mysteries. He may not,
must not, hesitate to bring the severest criticism to
bear on whatever claims to be a departure from the
ordinary course of nature. He may be convinced,
besides, of the high probability, that the very fact of
true miracles might lead to the invention and multi-
plication of fictitious counterfeits. But in presence
of the one stupendous contravention of the order of
nature, which he thoroughly believes, he will hold
himself prepared, on good evidence, as the meetest
and most reasonable thing, to admit the reality of
supernatural phenomena, immediately owing to Al-
mighty agency.
In like manner, he who has truly recognised the
God-man can never regard this as an isolated, dis-
jointed phenomenon, having no dependence on, and
no connexion with, previous history. He must feel,
on the contrary, that this can only have been the
INCARNATION. 11
culmination and the climax of a foregoing series of
divine operations and agencies, even as lie believes
it to be the root and the nucleus of all the new and
grand developments which make up the history of
Christianity. He is compelled, by the very nature
of the case, to connect it with the past. Had there
been nothing to guide and help him in this direc-
tion, he must, even then, have looked back to dis-
cover, if it were possible, how this extraordinary
divine intervention linked itself with the early his-
tory of man. He could not but be convinced, even
in the absence of actual confirmation, that there
must have been anticipations, premonitions, prepara-
tions, preparations worthy of God, for an event so
great and fraught with such consequences to hu-
manity. The Old Testament, in this view, becomes
to him a necessity. Apart from this, and on quite
other grounds, he finds God in that holy record, the
very word and voice of God, even as he finds them
in the New Testament. He is brought face to face,
in the one as in the other, with truth — eternal, uni-
versal truth — truth belonging alike to all peoples
and to all times. There, also, he comes upon facts
and experiences of human nature, which are as wide
as the race, and as enduring and unchanging as the
highest verities and uses of religion. But, had there
been none of all this, the Old Testament offers to
him the very thing which, with the Incarnation be-
12 INCARNATION.
fore him, he most needed and desired, for it professes
to be the record of the movements of the Most High,
introductory and preparatory to the final unveiling
of Himself.
All the while, he can freely admit a distinction
between the Old Testament and the New Testament
writings. He may see no cause to deny that the
former were never, like the latter, given by God
Himself to the whole world, and that what was ex-
pressly communicated to a single, select people, may
have a meaning for them, and be of authority with
them, in a way which does not apply beyond them.
Moreover, he is not ignorant that three thousand
years or more have elapsed since the earlier portions
of the Old Testament were written down, and that,
in this interval, they must have passed through
mjnriads of hands, and been transcribed myriads of
times, and must inevitably have undergone changes
— minute, perhaps important; changes accidental,
perhaps designed ; owing to good, perhaps bad in-
tention. And, finally, he may not be able to deny
the existence of apparent inaccuracies in the Old
Testament, or even of what seem to be contradic-
tions — things, at all events, which have not yet been
satisfactorily explained. But with all this, he can
calmly rest in the divine inspiration of the ancient
Scriptures, and find in them themselves their own
highest evidence. Whoever may lightly esteem
INCARNATION. 13
these holy records, to him they are unspeakably
precious on the highest of all grounds, and because,
independently of this, they marvellously fill up to
him a blank in sacred history which, unfilled, had
disturbed his very faith in God.
The mystery of Incarnation had been a thousand
times more bewildering than it is, if it had started
forth suddenly, sharply, unaccountably, out of utter
darkness and silence, and if no token, no hint, had
been given of it to the world. It had been stagger-
ing, even revolting to reason, if God, having a pur-
pose so grand to carry out, and bearing so mightily
on the destiny of man, had kept it a dark secret
till the very moment of its disclosure. The world
needed to be prepared for it. It is simply in har-
mony with all which might have been presupposed
that the Great Being should have given early in-
timations of His wondrous design, and that a track
of light, indicating the divine pathway from the
previous ages on to the advent of Christ, should
have been at least partially visible. The selection
of a peculiar race, and of a particular family, the
series of preliminary arrangements, of special, typi-
cal institutions, and of repeated predictive anticipa-
tions — all do not contradict, but beautifully fall in
with what might have been looked for. The earliest
of the Old Testament writings are precious, as the
religious literature of a period and of races, of which
14 INCAENATION.
no other monument is extant. But they are yet
more precious still, because they expose the nascent
unfolding and the successive growth of a grand
divine idea, bearing on the highest destiny of man.
With their aid, we can go back along the line of
preliminary preparations, and are able to follow it
up, till it terminates in the fulness of the times, and
in the coming of the promised Messiah !
The Incarnation is the great, central sun of reve-
lation ; but it is, also, the beating heart, the inner
soul of secular, human history. Light and life
stream from this source, through the dreary and
darkened annals of the world. A purpose of uncreated
wisdom and of infinite love is uttered forth in the
majestic eloquence of this fact. Like a bright, soli-
tary star, gleaming in the midnight sky, it tells that
there is light above, if all below and around be dark.
Since man is so near to his God, and so dear, as the
Incarnation proves him to be, his course can be no
aimless pageant, and he can be no poor player,
strutting, for a brief hour, on a mimic stage, and
then vanishing for ever, originating in no sublime
intention, and answering no god-like end. The
heart often asks, in deep perplexity — is compelled
by the agony of darkness to ask — " What of all the
peoples that have figured so largely, in the ages gone
by, with their wars, their commerce, and their civili-
sation, their arts and their sciences, their learning.
INCARNATION. 15
tlieir literature, tlieir philosophy, and their reli-
gion ? '" Have they not perished utterly, as if they
had never existed? Have they not been remorse-
lessly ingulfed in the fathomless immensity, leav-
ing no trace, or next to none, of any purpose of
their being, or of any end they have served ? As for
the existing populations of this teeming world, are
not they also changing, and passing and dropping
into o])livion ? And shall not the races, who may
yet cover the globe, and their achievements, and
their history, ere long be as those who preceded
them, ingulfed and forgotten, as if they had never
been ? "0 Grod ! wherefore hast thou made all men
in vain ? "
The mystery of Incarnation invests the human
races, and their movements, and their annals, with
a profound interest, and with an infinite significance.
It streams with light out of the darkness on all
which preceded and on all which has followed it.
If man l)e near and dear to his invisible Father,
that Father must ever have, and must ever have
had, l)eneficent designs to accomplish in his behalf
— however limited our insight into them may be.
The scene, on which the Incarnate appeared, can
be meant only for revealing, on a grand scale, the
highest purposes of power and of love. If man, on
his side, and in his blundering, perverse, wicked
way, has, through all the. ages, and not wholly in
16 INCARNATION.
vain, been struggling up towards God, it is far
more true, on the other side, that God, with divine
serenity and with loving persistencj^, has been ever
moving down towards man, nearer and nearer, as
the ages revolved, until at last, in the fulness of
the times, in Jesus Christ of Nazareth, He literally
and really dwelt with men ujion the earth.
The course of this world from the beginning, and
in all its parts, though we may not in the least be
able to discern either the steps or the results — the
course of this world, with all its countless races, and
their manifold evolutions and histories, must have
been a divine discipline and a progress ; a discipline
arranged with infinite wisdom, and administered in
infinite love; a progress, however opposed and ob-
structed, real and grand — though it have seemed not
so to us — towards a mighty and blessed issue. The
Incarnation was both an utterance and a prophetic
sign ; a mighty utterance in itself, bu-t a sign of im-
measurably more than it uttered, betokening in a
way not to be gainsaid that there was nothing, abso-
lutely nothing, within the range of possibility, con-
sistency, and rectitude which the Almighty would
not do for man. With profound awe we meditate
the marvellous intervention of Heaven, and thought
deepens into an assured though reverent and awe-
struck faith, that the Incarnation was not a sudden
extravagance of divine compassion, having no na-
INCARNATIONS. 17
tural antecedents, and no necessary consequents, — not
an unaccountable caprice, and not a solitary act of
mere arbitrary wilfulness, on which no dependence
could be placed, and the like of which might never
occur again. It must have been, it was, a deliberate,
a majestic, an awful unveiling of the essential, eternal
nature of the Great Being, announcing to the uni-
verse, and to all time, that that nature was love,
illimitable, self-sacrificing, pure love, and laying a
foundation for such trust in the Divine Father as
had otherwise been impossible. It is carried home
to the depths of the soul with irresistible force that,
in spite of all seeming, the very best and the very
utmost possible must ever have been done, must
now be doing, and must continue to be done by the
Almighty for the race of man, in consistency with
all the interests and claims of the universe. The
short, the instinctive logic of the conscience and the
heart leads us to the conclusion, that if the Great
God, in very truth, incarnated Himself in the nature
of man, that nature must be very dear to Him —
unless, indeed, we could persuade ourselves that the
whole was a mere pretence, or, at best, only the tem-
porary outburst of a vehement but transient im-
pulse. But it was, it could be no pretence, and no
impetuous, momentary effervescence: it sprang, it
must have sprung, from a profound, eternal affection
of the uncreated soul, which though manifested tran-
IS INCARNATION.
ecendently in one act, had ever commanded, and is
ever cc.nnmanding, all the resources of illimital)le
wisdom and power. We may not have made too
much of the cross ; hut there is ground to think that
we have made too little of the earlier fact, wldch in-
vests the cross with all its mysterious significance,
and encircles it with all its terrihle glory. We are
in danger of losing sight of God in the medium i
through which lie uttered Himself — in danger of
forgetting that it was really God, no less, who made
the sacrifice which was needed for our redemption,
and that he, on whom the pain and the shame of
the cross descended, was veiily the God man, a true,
a stupendous Incarnation of the divine.
^ See note, p. 27.
SECTION SECOND.
Sacrifice in Incarnation — God Self-sacrificing — Limitations of
Human Medium — " Larnb of God" — Supernaturally Provided
— God in Christ Unveiling Himself — Incarnate, Unknown, Ke-
jected — Life Sacrificed — " According to Counsel of God " — A
Prey to the Rage and Lust of Men — Divine Self-sacrifice for Sin.
THE root of the idea of the divine sacrifice, as it
presents itself in the New Testament, lies in In-
carnation. Throughout, quite habitually, the impres-
sion is conveyed to every candid reader that God was
giving up something very dear to Him, was making a
sacrifice, an immense sacrifice for the world. " God
so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son.'' " God commendeth his love towards us, in
that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."
" Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he
loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for
our sins." It is God's love and God's sacrifice that
are ever put before us. It is the strength of God's
love that is measured by what it prompted Him to
sacrifice. It is He who is represented as giving up,
20 INCARNATION.
sui rendering, sacrificing so much, that it is argued,
" herein is k)ve," the love of God.
In the propliecies of the Old Testament the seer,
projecting his mind far into the ages, hears the
Messiah expound his own mission, " Sacrifice and
offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou pre-
pared me." In the room of the old sacrifices some-
thing was to be transacted, not by men, but by God.
There was to be the preparation of a human body,
the assumption of a human form — an Incarnation.
" In burnt-offering and sacrifices for sin thou hast
had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come to do thy
will, my God." The rites of the law of Moses
were to be abolished, and in their place a totally new
order was to arise. A Messiah, veiling divinity in
the form of man, was to come forth, to serve, not to
command, and to live a life of obedience and sub-
mission.
There is something almost blasphemous in the
language we have been employing. Strictly speak-
ing, it is self-contradictory, and involves a clear im-
possibility. It must be wholly figurative, and must
demand for its just interpretation the utmost rever-
ence and modesty. God is essentially immutable —
can lose nothing and suffer nothing. From ever-
lasting to everlasting, He is the same, — " The
Father of lights, without variableness or shadow of
turning." Nothing can be added to Him, and
INCARNATION-. 21
nothing can be taken from Him. We are wont to
speak of God descending to this earth, in order to
take on Himself our nature, and again ascending
up where He was before. But we are not ignorant,
all the while, that change of place is impossible to
a Being who is, essentially, everywhere, at every
moment. We speak of God stooping down, laying
aside His glory, divesting and again investing Him-
self. But we know that, literally, it is all impos-
sible. It is figure, not reality ; but there is an idea,
nevertheless, underneath the figure, and an idea
which is both true and grand. We are obliged to
employ language which is literally untrue , we can
employ none other, but we have a true meaning to
convey by the use of the language. God is essen-
tially for ever the same, but divine manifestations
are endless and various. Unchangeable in Himself,
God is specially manifested here, but not there ;
in one form here, in another there ; in certain
aspects of His nature here, in certain other aspects
there. The flower, the star, the mountain, the
ocean, the living animal, the soul of man, are so
many distinct manifestations of God. All utter
truth concerning Him who created them, but each
a different shade of truth ^ whilst Himself is ever
the same, unchanged amidst all these varieties of
utterance, and unchangable.
The Incarnation of God in Christ Jesus tran-
INCARNATION.
scends all possible analogies and illustrations. It is
alone. There can be no likeness of it, except a
repetition of itself. We cannot explain it, cannot
comprehend it, but we believe it, and have ample
ground for believing that it must be true. And
more than this, there is even light for our poor
vision to guide, so far, into the darkness which
surrounds this profound mystery. We are able to
assert, for example, and, in some available degree,
to understand when we assert, that in the Incarna-
tion, itself alone, in the mere fact separated from
all its accessories, the Great God did the nearest
thing possible to making a personal sacrifice, for
behoof of His creatures. He identified Himself
with an inferior nature, and made it His, in a
sense, true only that once and never approached
in a single instance besides. All the old sacrifices
had been made by men to God ; but this, whatever
of the nature of sacrifice there was in it, was made
by God for men. The only thing coming under
the name of sacrifice, which was possible to Him,
the Great God did. He took into union with
Himself a nature which was capable of suffering,
and change, and loss ; He dwelt mysteriously, in-
comprehensibly in that nature, and He possessed
and pervaded it as His own. To our conceptions,
when God entered' into the soul of Jesus, when
He united Himself with it, when He spoke through
INCARNATION. 23
it and acted from it, forth upon the world of men,
He thus far, literally and truly, sacrificed Himself ;
that is to say, in this regard, and for the time,
He actually submitted to conditions, to certain
inevitable conditions. As God in man, though only
in this relation and aspect. He limited Himself,
necessarily limited Himself, to the kind and the
degree of manifestation which were possible through
a human medium, God's sacrifice for the world
was not a fiction but a reality.
The supernatural birth of Jesus exhibits, in a
manner altogether extraordinary, both the reality
and the solitary grandeur of the divine sacrifice.
Had the Messiah appeared in the common line of
succession, among human births, like any other
unit of the race, his life had then been, as all
others were and are, a natural necessity, irrespec-
tive of any purpose which might be served by it,
however exalted. That life had then been due to
the race from which he sprang, due to the laws of
nature, in obedience to which it had and must
have originated, and due to the order of provi-
dence, which must have included it in the sum of
the liuman population, and which could not be
contravened. The fact was wondrously and beauti-
fully, quite otherwise. The life of Jesus was not
owing to any law of natural succession or to any
fixed series of antecedents and consequents. There
24 INCARNATION.
was no necessity in nature or in common provi-
dence, no obligation from without, of any kind,
whicli made it imperative, that he should appear
among men at all. There was absolutely no reason
whatever, for his human existence, except that
God had a special purpose to serve by it, and
therefore, but only therefore, originated it. That
existence was wholly out of the natural line of
events, wholly supplemental and additional, not a
link in a chain, but a new, a solitary, an un-
paralleled insertion into the sum of earthly being,
standing wholly by itself, without antecedent and
without consequent. Had there been no special
divine purpose, Jesus not only might never have
lived, but most certainly never could have lived.
He was introduced among men for the very pur-
pose of being, from first to last, a sacrifice for the
w^orld, and nothing else. He existed for this sole
end, that he might give himself up, and might
be given up by God for men, and exce^Dt for this
he had never existed at all.
In simple literal truth, God made the sacrifice
which was needed for the world — though, all the
while, in perfect accordance with the human will
of Jesus. In His wise love, God added this true
man, body and soul, to the sum of the earth's
natural population. God so entered into, as to
identify Himself with this spotless Being ; entered
INCARNATION. 25
SO far, necessarily, only so far as it was possible
for a human medium i to contain and to reveal
His nature. But so really and so thoroughly did
God identify Himself with the man of Nazareth,
that Jesus was always from the first in immediate,
though incomprehensible union with Him, — the
God-man. A stupendous act of pure self-abase-
ment and self-sacrifice on the part of the Great
God, was done in the sight of all nations and
ages ; a true Incarnation, a descent of the divine
into the human, stood revealed in the person of
the Redeemer of men.
The purpose of majestic benignity was so manifest
in the act, that the wonder is it could be misappre-
hended. Men were to understand, as they never
otherwise could have understood, what their invisible
Father really was, and how infinitely He loved them,
even in their sins. They were to learn, in a way in-
expressibly subduing, that there was nothing which
He was not prepared to do, in order that they might
be reconciled and redeemed. They were to behold,
in a human impersonation, an image of divine
majesty, purity, wisdom, and love, and be drawn to
it in spite of themselves. They had forsaken God,
but God shall stoop to go after them. Separation
from Him was perdition. His restored ]3i'^sence
alone, freely recognised and welcomed once more by
^ See note, page 27.
26 INCARNATION.
them, could bring back life to their deserted and
dying natures. Hence, and only hence, the Great
God meekly put Himself before men, and in a hum-
ble form, came near to their homes and to their souls,
as near as it was possible for Him to come. In
one like themselves He came near, in one who went
in and out among them, one who had human
thoughts and human ways, human sympathies and
feelings, human experiences like theirs. He came.
Only life can kindle life. The Life, the one source
of all life in the universe, the eternally living Being,
came near to a dead world, to touch it, to breathe
upon it, to infuse Himself into it, and to quicken it
for ever. It was the divine in Jesus that was power
over the souls of men while He lived on earth. It
is the divine in Jesus, that now is, and that shall
continue to be power over the souls of men. Our
deepest need is God, our ruin, our perdition is
disseverance from God, our redemption is the re-
indwelling of God in our nature. Therefore it was
that our Father humbled Himself, sacrificed Him-
self, to come near to us in Christ, to let us see,
as with our very bodily eyes, and to make us feel
the love of His heart. Therefore it was, that He
so subduingly appealed to us, and was prepared to
respond to the faintest, lingering sense of the divine
that might lie dormant within, to recreate it where
it had seemed utterly perished, and to satisfy it
INCARNATION.
with Himself. Very God incarnated Himself in
Christ, the Christ who lived and died on this earth.
It was God who looked forth on men through the
eyes of Christ, God who spoke to men through the
voice of Christ, God who beamed on men from
the face of Christ. It was God, His majesty and
power, His pmity and wisdom. His abhorrence of
evil and infinite pity for evil-doers. His gentleness
and patience, His meekness and His boundless
mercy which were unveiled throughout the whole
life and in the whole spirit of Christ. The very
heart of God, in its deepest fountains, was laid open
and was seen to gush forth in the tears and in the
life-blood of Christ. Christ was full of God ; up to
the highest limit of the capacity of a pure human
soul, Christ was full of God, breathing out, stream-
ing forth, brimming over with the divine, that the
divine, through his medium i (mediation) might
re-enter men's souls and might subdue and quicken
and restore them. And it did ; as a simple matter
of fact, it did.
Jesus while he lived on earth sought and gained
an entrance — an entrance for God — into human souls.
Silently, even more than openly, he deposited in the
world a hidden leaven, which ever since has been
^ I look on this, as supplying the key to some of the eccentric
intricacies of scholastic theology, and revealing the entire meaning
of the doctrine of mediation.
28 INCARNATION.
diffusing itself tlirongh the mass of humanity and
shall continue to diffuse itself, until the whole be
leavened. Often unobserved, but with a free hand,
he scattered on all sides the incorruptible seed of
the kingdom. Many a harvest from that first sow-
ing has since been reaped, but the full produce
shall be known only at the last great ingathering
day, when the world's harvest-home shall be cele-
brated. During the earthly life of Christ many
were touched and probed as they never had been
before. New and strange thoughts were widely
awakened — thoughts concerning the existing state
of things, religion, worship, and personal virtue,
concerning sin and its desert, concerning the future
life and its double aspect, concerning God, His
character. His providence, and His relation to men,
and not least, concerning the marvellous Person,
who stood before them and spoke and acted in
God's name, with such authority and with such
meekness. We can imagine, what indeed was the lite-
ral historical fact, a state of profound wonder created
in many parts of Judea, a startled tremulous feeling
awakened, as if something were about to happen, they
knew not what, a sense of the divine, as if they felt
that somehow God was very near. It is certain that
by his blessed earthly life, by his acts of power and
love, by his words of wisdom and grace, by the stain-
less purity, the beauty and all the winning attractions
INCARNATION. 29
of liis character, by the lioly, loving spirit wliicli
flowed out from liis entire life, and encircled liim
like a robe and diffused a divine breath all around
him, by the ignominies and the agonies and the
unquenchable love of his death, by God in him, by
the God who found in him, and most wondrously of
all, in his cross, a new mcdmm^- through which to
come down on men, in a way never before possible,
Jesus while he lived and when he died, acted on the
world with a secret, holy power. He has never since
ceased, nor shall he ever cease, to wield this spiritual
power over the minds and hearts of men. " I, if I be
lifted up, will draw all men unto me." What was once
only prediction is now history. It is as if in calm, far-
seeing faith, our humbled Lord had said, " In spite of
the anguish and the shame of the cross, by means of
the anguish and the shame of the cross, as no remote
cause, I shall yet conquer the world and gain all hearts,
and reign in them as their chosen Saviour and King."
During the earthly life of our Lord, not one even
of his chosen disciples seems to have ascended to the
idea of Incarnation. He was " the teacher sent from
God," " a prophet in the power and spirit of Elijali,"
"the Christ," "the Son of the living God ;" but by
all such language, they meant no more, than that he
was the Messiah, the Anointed, the most honoured
messenger of Heaven. Perhaps on reflection it may
■^ See note, page 27.
30 INCAKNATION.
be found, that the real wonder is, not that the dis-
ciples did not at once discover the whole truth
concerning their Master, but that they recognised
so much as they did, and that even whilst he stood
amongst them, in his youth, his poverty, his
obscurity, and all the perplexing circumstances
which environed him, their reverence for him
was so profound and their devotion to him so in-
tense. They thought the very highest and worthiest
possible of their Lord, but in the nature of the
case he was too near, too constant an object of
sight, and too closely encircled with seeming in-
compatibilities for the idea of essential divinity, to
take assured hold of their minds. Incarnation,
profoundly true, was a truth of reflection, not of
perception, a truth for the meditative, contem-
plative states of the soul, when it is most set free
from the outward senses and from the prejudices
of education and of habit.
Jesus must be withdrawn in order to be truly
known. The disciples must be left to think, to
ponder in quiet all which they had seen and heard,
away from those outward environments which neces-
sarily encumbered and swayed their judgments.
Then, but not till then, the whole truth flashed
upon them, and they were simply amazed at their
previous blindness. But they could not have been
amazed at the last, unless they had been before-
INCARNATION. 31
hand ripening and were at length ripe for the con-
clusion at which they arrived. They now saw,
but not before, that the divine had so often come
forth in the words and the life and the very face
of Jesus, that unless their eyes had been sealed,
they must have been overpowered by the evidence.
The Incarnate was apprehended more clearly and
understood better, after his departure, than during
his stay among men. The disciples could then,
and only then, look back on his course as a whole,
weigh all the circumstances, compare, contrast, and
connect together, what they had witnessed only in
detached portions, and thus form a juster concep-
tion than had been possible before. The clear con-
viction took hold of them, and rooted itself in their
souls, that Jesus was divine. It was an over-
whelming truth, but it was a truth, and they
never ceased to proclaim it, as the highest theme
of their mission, that very God had loved the
world, had stooped down in Christ Jesus, that He
might lift up His creatures, and in order to conquer
man had Himself become man.
While he lived on earth, the veiled brightness
of the Father's glory was truly unknown ; in the
patient, wise love of God, he was suffered to be
unknown. Divinity might have flashed forth in
rays of overwhelming splendour, and ignorance and
unbelief had been impossible, but all the high
32 INCARNATION.
moral ends of the marvellous intervention must
have been lost in such a case. Jesus willingly sub-
mitted to be unknown, meekly gave himself up
to be set at nought and scorned. *' He was de-
spised, and we esteemed him not ; he was despised
and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and ac-
quainted with grief." Through life till death he
bore the contradiction of sinners against himself.
He was obscure, and poor, and hungry, and
thirsty, and faint. Full of gentle pity, weeping
with human sorrow, tenderly caring for the af-
flicted, for the children of penury and toil, for the
tempted and even for the fallen, his life from its
beginning to its close was one of constant humilia-
tion, privation, and suffering. Doing only good
in countless forms of loving-kindness and of power,
and uttering words of heavenly wisdom and grace,
which are living and mighty at this hour, men
could not endure him. Either he must cease to
be what he was, or he must cease to live. The
first was impossible ; the last became a terrible
reality. They falsely charged him with crime,
they condemned him to death, they crucified him
between two thieves, and he bowed his head and
gave up the ghost and died.
It is no question, but a historical fact, that
Jesus fell a sacrifice to the cruelty and hatred of
men. It is no question, but a historical fact, that
INCARNATION. 33
he deliberately and voluntarily sacrificed his own
life, and we are assured that this fact was no less
"according to the determinate counsel and fore-
knowledge of God." All that he endured, he
endured of his own free choice and purpose; but
he did so, at the same time, in loving submission
to the Supreme disposal. Not a jot did he seek
to bate. At all hazards and at whatever cost,
he calmly persevered to the last. Men, with
wicked hands, might seek to stop his course —
without supernatural intervention, they could not
have been restrained from the attempt — but that
course must not be abandoned by him. And it
was not. Calmly, meekly prepared for the worst,
he would not and did not quail before the ex-
tremest perils of his divine mission. God in him,
and through him, was willing to do anything and
everything for the redemption of the world. At
last the Father, instead of shielding and saving,
gave uj) to human malice and rage, that beloved
Son in whom He was ever well pleased. .
Behold " the Lamb of God ! " God's sacrifice,
not man's, although it was for man — wholly for
man. Behold the surrender which God was will-
ing to make, and did make, for the world ! If ever
that word, sacrifice, was fitly applied, it is here ;
for Jesus was literally offered up a sacrifice to the
rage and lust of men. And if ever a sacrifice
c
34 INCARNATION.
could justly be called God's, — could be said to be
made by God, it was this; for God had provided
the Lamb for a burnt-olFering, in a way altogether
unexampled. And it was God, ever in beautiful
and entire harmony with the human will of Jesus,
who, from the first, yielded up this victim for the
world, and at last suffered it to fall a sacrifice to
the clamours of a maddened populace.^ But,
withal, if that holy Being, born of the Virgin
Mary, was never mere man, but ever a divine man,
if very God was in mysterious union with this
humanity, inhabiting, possessing, and filling it, in
a way we cannot comprehend, what shall, what can
be said, without blasphemy, of the cross? The
overwhelming truth seems to stand out distinctly
and awfully, that in giving up Christ — himself
ever a willing victim — to a life of toil, and sor-
row, and thankless neglect, and to a death of shame
and pain, the Great God was making not only a
true surrender, but in some real sort a personal
surrender. The Incarnation itself alone — the bare
^ It abides for ever not less true, that our Lord freely sacri-
ficed his life in the cause of God and of man. "He loved us,"
says an apostle, "and gave himself for us, an offering and a
sacrifice to God, of a sweet smelling savour." No sacrifice ever
was so pleasing to God, as that which Christ offered in his own
body on the tree ; and none had ever so rich and sweet a fragrance
as when Christ bowed his head and died — died because he loved
man, and the God to whom man was, by this wondrous means, to
be restored and reconciled.
INCAENATION. 35
mysterious fact — was, to our conceptions, a descent,
a stooping down, a self-abasement on the part of
Grod. But tlie humbled, afflicted life of the In-
carnate, closing in an ignominious and cruel death,
was yet more significantly a sacrifice, a sacrifice
baptized in blood, and crowned with thorns, and
crushed beneath a cross; it was a prolonged act of
virtual self-sacrifice on the part of the invisible God,
for our Lord could say, though the words be strictly
inexplicable and unfathomable by us, "I and my
Father are one."
The ground of sacrifice can only be evil, not good.
In a perfect state, with only wise and pure beings,
sacrifice would be impossible, for amidst the con-
ditions of such a state, no cause of sufiering or
loss could exist. Things must have gone wrong,
disaster and mischief must have arisen, before the
necessity could be created for encountering, either
personally or through loving intervention, a lesser
evil, in order to prevent or retrieve a greater. If
the Father sacrificed His beloved Son, and if we
may dare to say that God in Christ submitted to
a real, literal self-sacrifice, it can only have been
on account of sin, for sin, certainly not for holi-
ness, i The spotless Lamb of God was ofiered
^ All such expressions in the New Testament, as " He died for
our sins," &c., that is, on account of sin, because of sin, express the
simple, literal fact ; unquestionably the notion of expiation is, at all
events, not necessarily or even naturally involved.
36 INCARNATION.
up, for no otlier assignable or possible reason,
than because of the sin and ruin of men. Hence,
with literal beautiful truth, the words are applied
to him, " He bare our sins in his own body on
the tree." So also, " He hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows." As a matter of per-
sonal desert, he could have had neither sorrows,
nor griefs, nor sins ; but in undertaking our cause
he made, as far as that was possible, our sorrows,
our griefs, and our sins, his own. The necessary
effects of evil in this evil world came upon him,
as if he had been an evil-doer. "We did esteem
him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted."
But it was a mistake, he was not smitten of
God, as the prophet had said. No, by no means,
*' He was wounded for our transgressions," not on
any personal account at all ; " He was bruised for
our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was
upon him, and with his stripes we are healed."
Jesus lived and died wholly and solely for man,
and because of man's sins. He sacrificed himself,
his life, his soul, and was sacrificed by God, for
the world, and on account of the world's sins.
As the second Adam, the new head of humanity,
he came to take the very position, and to enter
into the very circumstances, and into the entire
earthly condition of man. In this sense, he was
really substituted for man, in order that he might
INCAKNATION. 37
do what man ought to have done for himself, but
never could have done. In this view, all that he
said, all that he did, and all that he endured,
was truly vicarious and substitutionary, was on no
personal account, and for no personal ends what-
ever, but for the sake and on account of the
world, and nothing else. Our Lord Jesus Christ
had no personal interests to serve, apart from
man. and no purely personal obligations of any
kind to meet. He had not even a personal exist-
ence at all, except in relation to man. True, he
was acting for God. He was the being specially
introduced into the race, and literally produced
by God, to deal with men, and through whose
wondrous medium i (mediation,) God purposed to
reconcile them to Himself. He had, therefore,
the highest divine interests to care for and to
conduct. But emphatically he was acting foi
man, and originating spiritual influences which
should bear with almighty force upon the nature
of man. The highest human interests were com-
mitted to his hands, and lay on his heart. The
whole purpose of his being, the absorbing passion
of his soul, is expressed in a single word, recon-
ciliation — atonement — the reconciliation of man to
God. He came, he lived, he died, he lives for
evermore, to reconcile, to atone men to their
^ See note, page 27.
38 INCARNATION.
Father. Personally, during his life in this world,
this was the purpose at which he aimed, and
which he accomplished, in measure. But he
accomplished it, because he was unconsciously felt,
even where he was not fully known, to be God's
sacrifice — ^the outcome and the utterance of God's
reconciling, atoning love. The cross triumphed,
in the hands of the apostles, because it was the
cross of incarnate love, for this was not onb
never disguised, but everywhere proclaimed aloud, —
God-in-Christ, not God, not The Absolute God,
but " God-in-Christ is reconciling (gaining back)
the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them.'' This was the holy, lofty theme of
apostolic preaching ! — Infinite love, making a
stupendous surrender, uttering itself in a myste-
rious act of self-sacrifice, for man and on account
of man's sin. " Herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to
be the propitiation for our sins."
The cross, as a symbol of the divine, has be-
come the sublimest and most sacred object in the
universe ! It is a power all but resistless, to touch
and to subdue the soul of man ; and the source
of its power goes down to the earlier, deeper
mystery of Incarnation. The bare idea of God
loving the world at all, being what it was, of
God so loving the world as to become incarnate —
INCAENATION. 39
and it is only the remotest fringe and verge of
the thought which it is possible for us to reach ; —
the bare idea of Incarnation, and of the meek, en-
during patience of the Incarnate, is overwhelming,
and the heart realising it, even for an instant, is
scarcely able to bear the conception.
That the Great Grod, the Father of all souls,
should pity and love them in their sins, should so
love them as to come near to them, to come
down among them ; that He should preter-
naturally introduce and add to the race a true
human being, bone of our bone, and flesh of our
flesh, and His own only-begotten and beloved
Son; that very God, the one awful, incomprehen-
sible Jehovah, should enter into and unite Him-
self with the human soul of Jesus Christ, and
should, in this regard, limit Himself by the con-
ditions of humanity; that this God-man, in mere
pure love to a darkened, fallen, and sinful world,
should live on the earth and walk among men as
one of them ; that he should suffer liimself to
be unknown in his true character, and to be
known only as an obscure and poor young man, a
working mechanic ; that he, perfectly spotless, un-
defiled and separate from sinners, going about
doing good, preaching, and teaching, and working
miracles of mercy, should submit to be persecuted,
despised, and hated, and should meekly bear all
40 INCARNATION.
the contradictions of sinners without a murmur to
the last ; that he being what he was, should
preserve his obscurity and keep the veil drawn
close around him, in steadfast fidelity to his own
and his Father's purpose, and in simple consis-
tency with the position he had assumed, when a
word or an unuttered wish would have been suffi-
cient to reveal his glory ; that in intense, pure
regard for such beings as those who at last
murdered him, he should meekly go through all
the scenes of the last Supper, the garden of Geth-
semane, the hall of Caiaphas, the judgment-hall of
Pilate, and of Mount Calvary, and the cross !
This is the unscrutable mystery of incarnate
love! the hidden spring of that moral power over
the human heart, which, in myriads of instances,
has proved irresistible. On the one hand, God
in Christ — in Christ in his life, in Christ on the
cross — is reconciling men to Himself, and employ-
ing His mightiest instrument for recovering, gain-
ing back, redeeming the world. On the other
hand, Christ — Christ in his. life, Christ on the
cross, is God impersonated, so far as a human
medium and method of impersonation could reach.
Christ is the nature of God, brought near and un-
veiled to human eyes. Christ is the heart of God
laid open, that men might almost hear the beat
of its unutterable throbbings, might almost feel
INCARNATION. 41
the rush of its mighty pulsations. The Incarnate
in his life, and in his death, in his words and
in his deeds, in his whole character, and spirit,
and work on earth, was ever unveiling the Father,
and making a path for the Father, into the human
soul. But on the cross, Christ presses into the
very centre of the world's heart, takes possession
of it, and there in that centre preaches, as no-
where else was possible, the gospel of God's love I
'' Be ye reconciled to God,'' he cries, " Come back
to your Father I He hath sent me to call you
back ! Inflexibly righteous as He is. He pities.
He loves you, and only waits to forgive and wel-
come you I"
Beautiful and simple is the primitive New Testa-
ment gospel. It was this which, with plentiful
effusion of the Holy Ghost, was proclaimed through
the wide earth, with triumphant effect, by apostles.
It is this, which has ever since been and shall con-
tinue to be mighty through God, until every knee
shall bow to him, who lived and died for men, and
until every tongue shall confess that he is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father?
CHAPTEE II.
HUMAN SIN.
Section First.— What Sin is, and the Sense of Siir.
Section Second.— Redemption from Sin.
SECTION FIRSTr
What Sin is and the Sense of Sin — Essential Distinction — Burden
of Universe — Radical Difficulty in Speculation — Unrest in all
Earnest Souls — Consciousness of Sin — Its Development —
Legitimate Result.
DAEKNESS is a simple negative — the absence
of light, no more. In the moral region, that
which answers to physical darkness is a dire posi-
tive, no mere negative, but reality, as monstrous
as it is real. The radical difficulty in all specula-
tion which ventures within the highest sphere of
thought, is sin, — not weakness, not original imper-
fection, not misfortune, not accident, owing to some
untoward, fortuitous combination of influences, but
distinctly sin, — real essential evil, conscious, volun-
tary evil, resistance to what is known to be right,
and choice of what is known to be wrong.
Incarnation supposes human sin as its necessary
ground. Except for this deadly, self -originated
curse in the nature of man, no sacrifice, and above
all, no such sacrifice, had been needed from the
46 HUMAN SIN.
loving Father. There is one, only one, foul blot
on God's universe, and this the Almighty has been
at infinite pains to wipe out. Whatever creatures
think of it, to their Creator sin must be reality,
a dread reality. It means the disorganisation, the
pollution, the ruin of created minds, the one foun-
tain of misery and crime.
" Everything in Christianity," says Miiller, " re-
lates to the great contrast between sin and re-
demption, and it is impossible to understand the
doctrine of redemption, which is the very essence
of Christianity, until we have a thorough know-
ledge of sin. Christian theology here, if anywhere,
wages war, ^ro avis et focis, with Deistical extenua-
tions, and Pantheistical attenuations of this doc-
trine.'' "^ With much that is profoundly true, in
^ " Die Christliclie Lehre, von der Siinde." Julius Miiller, Breslau,
1858. Vorvvort, s. 3, 4. The English sentences quoted are taken
from a very faithful translation by the Eev. W. Pulsford, now of
Glasgow. Miiller's treatise is one of the most remarkable theolo-
gical efforts of which Germany can boast. It is a vindication of
evangelical doctrine, but in the language, and after the mode of
another school of thought. The voice is the voice of Jacob, but
the hands are Esau's, and the outward dress and figure belong to
the disinherited son. The work is orthodox as the phrase goes,
though with some not inconsiderable exceptions, but the method
and the structure are conspicuously philosophic, even rationalistic.
For extensive learning, searching criticism, exhaustive discussion,
accurate, subtle, and clear logic, the utmost painstaking and the
severest elaboration, it would be difficult, in any language, on any
subject, to match this masterly production. Modern philosophy in
HUMAN SIN. 47
these statements, there mingles, as we judge, a
dangerous fallacy. A thorough, meaning as Miiller
certainly intends, a scientific knowledge and inter-
pretation of sin, we must hold to be impossible.
We know sufficiently well what sin is in ourselves,
and we see clearly enough its manifestations in
others, but we cannot account for it. It defies
interpretation. There is an inscrutable mystery in
human sin, which removes it beyond the reach of
logic, and far out of the range of scientific treat-
ment. It is impossible to place it on a purely
scientific basis, and to reduce it to recognised laws.
Sin is not, in any sense, a law of matter or of mind,
it obeys no law, and is altogether outside the sphere
of law. It is not an intelligible principle, but the
the hands of Kant, Schelling, and Hegel, patristic and scholastic
theology are each laid under contribution. The nature of sin, its
ground-principle, the various theories respecting it, as simple or
dualistic, as privation, deformity, metaphysical imperfection, neces-
sity or antagonism between the senses and the soul ; the causa-
tion of sin, the fact and the universality of sin, the corruption ' of
human nature ; all are laboriously investigated and discussed. The
whole field is examined with most minute and patient care, and not
a single corner, not a spot of it is overlooked. At the same time,
this very excellence is also a fault. The distinctions and reason-
ings are too subtle, too minute, and the impression is produced of
logical wire-drawing and hair-splitting. And then, owing to the
author's manifest desire to leave nothing untouched, the side dis-
cussions are so numerous, without being important, that it amounts
to waste labour, and worse, for the labour wearies the spirit of the
reader. The work is one of extraordinary merit, but it can interest
deeply only a select class of readers.
48 HUMAN SIN.
overthrow of all principles. Essentially considered,
it is the violation of all order and of all law, wholly
an abnormal, anomalous outgrowth of human nature.
But inscrutable as the mystery is, its real existence
is proclaimed by the universal consciousness. Ke-
search, criticism, discussion are invaluable, here as
everywhere, in their own place, but with all their aid,
we reach our deepest satisfaction, only in the clear
testimony of the inward witness, and so much the
more, because we find this to be a distinct echo
of the voice of God in His holy Word. Each
human being knows within himself, that he sins
when he sins, and what sin really is.
There is no merit in admitting that in some
quarters, there has been too sweeping a denuncia-
tion of human nature, as if it were only and
wholly bad, and as if it retained no trace of God,
or of goodness of any kind. We have unhealthily
stimulated certain minds, peculiarly constituted,
have tempted them to brood over the fact, the
nature and the desert of moral evil, produced in
them a state of diseased sensibility, and have thus
led the way to fanaticism and superstition. The
habit of spiritual self-dissection, of analysing and
testing the inward states, has been unwisely fos-
tered, and has often been cruelly severe, and has
as often resulted in most dishonouring thoughts of
HUMAN SIN. 49
God, His severity, His justice, His vengeance, and
His pitiless infliction of punishment.
But it cannot be denied, on the other hand,
that there are many who, owing to their educa-
tion and associations, their keen enjoyment of
earthly life, and their eager interest in it, their
ambition, their self-reliance, and their buoyancy of
soul, do in effect make a mock of sin, and treat
it as a morbid fiction. That which underlies the
whole Bible, as among its deepest foundations ;
that, without which all God's inspirations and all
the agencies of moral providence are either mockery
or folly ; that to which the laws of all nations and
the history of all times bear emphatic witness ; that
which the consciousness of every thoughtful man
attests as strongly as it attests his existence, is put
aside, as worthy of no consideration. An atrocious
violator of human and divine laws, it is thought,
may reasonably be a prey to terror, and naturally
enough may cry to Heaven for mercy, since he can
expect none from earth. But it is strongly main-
tained, that with regard to men in general, with
regard to persons of average character and stand-
ing, a feeling of alarm on account of what is called
sin, must prove either imbecility or disease, or
both, and can argue nothing but the weakness of
ignorance, or a morbid fanaticism, unjust to man,
D
50 HUMAN SIN.
and betraying most false conceptions of the Al-
mighty. The very word " sin " is interdicted as an
offence, save in the sphere of theology. Though
all experience proves sin to be an invariable and
universal quality of human nature, it must not be
named, except under certain stringent conditions.
The vices and the crimes of nations and of times
are pronounceable, but their sins, not by any
means, except from the sacred desk and by the
professional teacher of religion.
Sin means something other than is conveyed by the
word " vice," or " crime," or any similar term. The
idea of God is called up, and is meant to be called
up. It is something with which He has to do,
which He sees and marks, and which amounts to
a real wrong done to Him. A man's sin touches
his character before his Maker, and declares him
amenable to the eye and to the law of the Great
Judge. But herein lies the very ground of offence.
Men are not, it is said, and must not constitute
themselves, each other's judges. The secrets of the
gonscience belong sacredly to the individual, and
no man, unless in a presumptuous and Pharisaic
spirit, is entitled to step forth from his compeers,
as if he were holier than they, and to speak of
their sins, and to rank them as sinners, intruding
into the very sacredest of all their relations — that
in which they stand to the Almighty. Sins come
HUMAN SIN. 51
only within the province of God. It belongs to
Him, and only to Him, to judge His creatures,
and to punish or forgive; and' before Him the
best and the worst of men, it is thought, may be
very much on a level. Perhaps the Infinitely Holy
does not at all regard sins as we, in our morbid
religiousness, are tempted to do. Perhaps all sins
will be dealt with mercifully by Him at the last.
The difference in these two modes of estimat-
ing moral evil is fundamental, and radical ; and
with pain it must be noted, that even the ancient
heathendom will be found to utter a lesson on this
subject, not unneeded in these later days. That
darkened, perplexed, troubled, mood of soul, at
the root of which lies the hidden consciousness of
evil, (imbecile as it may appear to modern heroism,)
was not strange to the earnest and gifted sages of
the old world. They did not use the conventional
words of modern creeds, and were not accustomed to
speak as we do of the anxious sense of personal sin.
But they were profoundly anxious and in earnest,
nevertheless, and what burdened and disquieted them
amidst their researches, and what lay underneath
all the perplexity and unrest which they felt,
was in very deed the old and ever new question,
which no true soul can escape, " How shall man
be right with God." The longer they pondered
the dark questions^ of the universe, and the farther
52 HUMAN SIN.
they seemed to pierce into the darkness, ever the
more forcibly were they thrown back on them-
selves, and made to feel vaguely and troubledly
that there was a mystery within, having its dark
type without, which they could not solve, which,
they ever dreaded to attempt to solve.
The ancient philosophies are all oppressed, con-
founded, and baffled, by the problem of God ! What
is He ? Where ? How ? Is there an eternal unity ?
And if there be, by what method can we ascend to
it. The real cause of this perplexity does not appear
on the surface ; it is hidden, covered over, involved
and tangled, but it is not hard to discover never-
theless. That which rendered the problem of God
80 overwhelming was a darker question still, which
ancient sages durst not face, a question lying far
more within than in the outer universe, the ques-
tion of evil, real, essential, voluntary evil, sin.
The great early thinkers tried hard to pierce back
into the eternal darkness, to descry if but a single
spark-point of primeval light. They searched for
unity, causality, absolute being. But the search
was for ever distracting. A voice from within,
answering to a voice from without, seemed to mock
their efforts. "First solve your own nature," it
demanded; *'all things are out of course," it pro-
claimed, "harmony is a dream, mystery impene-
trable is above, below, around" The few tones,
HUMAN SIN. 53
solemn and grand and deep, still sounding in the
world's ear, which were moaned out long ago, by
the old sages of Elea, Xenophanes, and Parmenides,
have an almost infinite sorrow in them. It is even
true of the Socratic and Platonic philosophy, with
on the one side its keen humour, its common sense,
and its deep profundity, and on the other side,
its all but divine beauty, its mystic imagery, its
discriminating, and far reaching insight. There is
throughout an undertone of sadness, of unrest,
and of doubt, which to miss, is to lose half the
power of the impression which it makes. It is
the same, if we look on, to the age of Proclus
and Plotinus, the Alexandrian followers of the
Athenian sage. Very emphatically it is the same,
if stepping across the intervening centuries, we
pass downward to Spinoza, and Schelling, and
Hegel, and Fichte, and from them, to the leaders
of the higher speculation in these modern days.
All true souls, in their hours of profoundest con-
templation, have been oppressed with deep sadness,
but it has ever been owing, far more to a cause
within their nature, than either to the profundity
or the vastness of the subject of their thoughts.
Philosophical methods have often broken up in a
wail of disappointment. The universe has defied
interpretation. Kesearch, long successful, has come
to an abrupt close, and the philosophical inquirer
04 HUMAN SIN.
lias found that without intending it, or for a long
time being even conscious of it, he has landed in
speculation on his own being, as if either the
deepest or the most vexing secret lay within and
not without. At the same time, it is also true
and equally true, that the individual soul is a fair
type of the outer frame of things. Both alike are
confused, ravelled, and disorganised. Impenetrable
darkness hangs over them, immovable perplexity
wraps them round, a sore burden is crushing them
with its intolerable weight. Ever and again, the
thought darts across the soul, that somehow the
perplexity, the darkness, and the burden are centred
in man. The radical curse of the world is moral,
not physical. Man is at fault out of harmony with
his Maker, and forsaking and opposing what is
supremely right and good. The dark mystery of
the outer creation is but the shadow cast by the
darker mystery within man's nature. Often alto-
gether unconsciously, but sometimes with a dim
half-consciousness, the ages have been struggling
towards light, but a dense opacity in the inner-
most region of the soul has intercepted and quenched
the descending rays. The sense of unrest and of
fear, at the bottom of the world's heart, has found
a voice, through many different modes, in mul-
titudes of separate souls. It is essentially the
same in all, and virtually it may be translated
HUMAN SIN. 55
into the ancient cry, " How shall man be right
with God." And this, again, Christianised and
more deliberately articulated and defined, assumes
the form familiar to us, "What shall I do to be
saved?"
Sin, the resistance of the human will to what
is known to be true, and right, and good — sin
is a dire reality. The Great God has pronounced
His judgment respecting it in the Incarnation, and
more profoundly or more solemnly He could not
have spoken. The sense of sin in the human
spirit is not less real than the existence of sin.
It is a genuine human experience, which will not
be ignored. To call it either weakness or disease,
is simply false and in the face of superabundant
evidence. There can be no impartiality or wisdom,
not even simple justice to a great question which
we profess to entertain, in shutting our eyes
against a distinct fact of human nature. Men,
neither imbecile nor fanatical, nor nervously dis-
eased, but intelligent, gifted, and sober-minded;
men, too, of at least as blameless lives as others,
have been oppressed by the consciousness of inward
evil against God, and have been filled with appre-
hension, when they calmly reflected, to what that
evil must lead, and ought in justice to lead.
And such men, when the light at length shone
within them, have invariably been confounded at
5G HUMAN SIN.
their previous indifference. It has then seemed
to them clear as day, that if they had had but
eyes to see, they must long before have seen all
which has at last become so vivid and so porten-
tous.
Can it be irrational or unnatural, for the created
spirit to think of the Infinite, All-creating Spirit ;
unnatural to try to conceive the relation in which
it stands to the great Father of aU souls ; unna-
tural to anticipate, in thought, the moment when
it shall be disembodied, before His presence? It
shall be disembodied, in no long course of years.
That is perfectly certain. Can it be unworthy of
the intellect, to recognise and to ponder deeply
this certainty ? On the contrary, must it not be-
come every enlightened man, is it not in the
highest degree imperative upon him, as a plain
dictate of reason and as the most sacred duty, to
forecast that unknown and inconceivable condition
of being, into which the disembodied spirit shall
be ushered ? He shall certainly then be near,
in a sense he has never before been, to that In-
finite Power, on whom, from the first moment of
existence, he has been wholly and ceaselessly de-
pendent. And is this an idea, were there nothing
more, unlikely to pierce to the depths of his
nature? Or, in the light of this guiding idea, is
it unnatural for him to reflect that, during his
HUMAN SIN. 57
earthly life, he has seldom deliberately thought of
this Being, to whom he may soon be so near, and
who is so great, so pure, and so good? But he
has been consciously disinclined to think of God.
That is the simple fact. He has put aside the
thought when it presented itself, and has felt it to
be unwelcome. The inner current of his mind,
his thinkings, his inclinations, his tastes, and the
outer eminent of his life, have been in frequent
opposition to the law and to the will of his God.
He has often been consciously and voluntarily out
of harmony with truth and right, and love and
God. There may be no exaggerated, fanatical,
superstitious self -accusations and condemnations.
He may feel that he has lived — much as others
have done — on the whole, innocently and virtu-
ously. There may be no flagrant violations of
morality with which he can charge himself. But
this is clear to him, he has not thought or cared
to think of his God. He has not loved and not
served, or even deliberately purposed to serve, the
Being to whom he owes everything — the Father of
his soul. The sense of God has not been the
uppermost force within him — the central inner
spring of his whole life. It has seldom touched
that hfe, or entered into it at all. Without any
violent hysterical alarms, but with deep solicitude,
his mind is distinctly conscious of wrong done to
58 HUMAN SIN.
God, as well as to the highest part of his own
nature, grievous and persistent wrong. Can it be
degrading in these circumstances, must it not be
rational and altogether inevitable, for an instructed,
reflective man to fall back on such questions as
these, — "How shall I meet my Maker? — how can
I lift up my face before Him now, and what can
I answer Him hereafter? — ^how shall I escape
righteous retribution?" If the Scriptures declare,
as they do, that " the soul that sinneth shall die,"
and that " the wages of sin is death," he, on his
part, is unable to withhold a full amen, unable to
deny that the sentence is just, simply just and
true, absolutely true.
This is the sense of sin, conscious, voluntary
evil against God, which is a genuine human ex-
perience, verified in myriads of instances, and re-
sulting simply from earnest and calm thought on
the highest and truest of all certainties. Where
it is profound as well as sincere, the experience
forces from the heart a cry to the living God for
escape. The man in whom it is begotten would
eagerly undo what he has done if he could, but it is
impossible. His instant necessity is escape — escape
from a danger which he sees to be immediate, and
dreads as inevitable, — " What must I do to be saved,"
SECTION SECOND.
Redemption from Sin — " Way of Salvation " — Adaptations and
Subtlety — Ground of Forgiveness — Not Honouring to God —
Sin, not Punishment, greatest Evil — Divine Self-sacrifice smites
Root of Sin — Gradual and Final Redemption.
AMONG- many varying methods of answering the
vital question of the soul, there is one which I
am sincerely desirous of presenting in its best and
truest form, because it is held by multitudes to be
the reply, and the one only reply, found in holy
Scripture. It is to this effect, i Sin is a debt to the
Almighty, which can never be cancelled by man, and
which, after ages of punishment, instead of being les-
sened, will be for ever and ever increasing. But
Christ, by his death on the cross in the room of man,
has paid the debt to the uttermost farthing, — at all
events, has done what is perfectly equivalent, and
answers the same purpose, in the moral government
of the world. Sin is a burden on the soul, which
^ Tlie subject, only cursorily touched here, is fully discussed in
its various bearings in the succeeding chapters.
60 HUMAN SIN.
must for ever weigh it down to perdition. But Christ
has taken that burden on himself ; at all events, has
done what is perfectly equivalent, and answers the
same purpose. Sin deserves, and must bring down,
the penalty of eternal death, eternal exclusion from
God and from all good. The violated law, the
outraged justice of Grod, and the security of moral
government, alike demand it. But Christ has vindi-
cated the moral government of God, magnified the
broken law, satisfied divine justice, and endured the
full penalty of sin ; at all events, has done what is
perfectly equivalent, and answers the same purpose.
And now God, the holy, the just, and the true, in
entire consistency with His own attributes, with all
the interests of the universe, and with the security of
His own government, not only can freely pardon, but
is perfectly willing to pardon, and only waits to wel-
come penitent souls.
The great fact of divine forgiveness is unmistak-
ably proclaimed here ; but it is proclaimed, as some
venture to judge, in a singular form. It seems as
if wrought into an elaborate mosaic, most carefully
designed, compacted, and finished in all its details.
The thought, too, may not unnaturally suggest itself,
that this peculiar method of representing a purely
spiritual transaction is singularly adapted to persons
of methodical habits and tastes, to business men ac-
customed to the calculations and the order of com-
HUMAN SIN. 61
mercial life, and, in general, to the judicial, legal
type of soul. There is yet another consideration:
those to whom the announcements are addressed are
supposed, at the moment, to be possessed with fear,
well-grounded fear. They dread the righteous anger
of Grod, they can plead no excuse for their violations
of His law, and can do nothing for their own escape
from the hands of justice. But here is a plan, laid
out and completed, which perfectly meets everything
which can be urged against them.
This peculiarity is exceedingly marked. A general
assurance of pardon from the lips of God vrould re-
quire, on the part of man, mere trust, simple faith.
But it is not so here. On every side, not only expla-
nation, but most full, minute, and exact explanation
is given. God's procedure is not only vindicated, it
is demonstrated to be correct, politically, judicially,
even commercially correct, in every point, to the very
letter. Hence amazement, almost indignation, is ex-
pressed, when a thing so perfect and so plain is called
in question. " What more can you desire ? it is
asked. Your debt is cancelled; you owe nothing.
Your burden is laid on the shoulders of another ; you
are free. Your punishment has been endured ; you
have nothing to fear. God has provided for every-
thing, and you have only to accept His free grace." It
seems the perfection of intelligibiUty and simplicity.
It fits in at every point to all the exigencies of the
62 HUMAN SIN,
case, like a wax impression to tlie seal by which it is
made. It is so critically balanced and adapted and
dovetailed, that you can discover no redundance and
no defect, no chink and no flaw. Two and two are
four is not more conclusive, more sure. It is all, and
more than aU, that the most scrupulous or the most
exacting could desire, so easily understood, yet so
perfect, meeting all that God can demand, and
answering to the utmost wants and wishes of the
world.
If there be a fault here at all, it must be on the
side of perfection, not of deficiency. Dare we ask,
is it not too perfect, too secure, too. exact, and may
it not be on this very account more human than
divine? Is the suspicion quite inadmissible, that
it may owe more than we sometimes imagine, to
human ideas of construction, and to human modes
of making out and filling up a system? When
the mind is allowed to throw itself fearlessly and
freely over it, as a whole, some possibilities, even
probabilities, amounting to all but certainties, per-
force, suggest themselves. That reigning thought
of compensation, and that judicial, almost busi-
ness-method of dealing with spiritual evil, which
are so prominent, were of all things likely to be
welcomed by a Judaism, itself corrupt and pre-
pared to yield to the infection of surrounding Pa-
ganism. Still further, they could not be distasteful
HUMAN SIN. 63
in the ages which witnessed not only the germs,
but the early blossomings of the futm^e dogmas,
of indulgence, and penance, and satisfaction, when
sins were weighed and measured, and had their
fixed price, in suffering or in money, or in both.
Besides, they met the strong, distinctive taste of the
times of Ambrose and Jerome, the era of holy places,
relics, pilgrimages, of monachism, fastings, scourg-
ings, and all voluntary self -inflictions. They were
in harmony with the entire spirit and genius and
usages of the Papacy, with its greed of outward
material guarantees and symbols, on the one hand,
and its ritual and dogmatic punctiliousness, on the
other hand. They distinctly suited the character-
istic tendencies of individual celebrities in all the
ages, — say, of such a man as Augustin, whether we
look to the peculiar cast of his mind, or to his
early personal history ; or of such a man as An-
selm, the head of fully-developed scholasticism ; or
even of the early reformers, several of whom were
worshippers of Aristotle and masters of logic. Last
of all, in times of deep and wide-spread barbarism,
among the masses of the European people, when
kings, and nobles, and soldiers were utterly un-
taught, but chivalrously honourable and valiant,
according to the code then accepted, it is not hard
to see, that an artificial and very formally perfect
scJieme of salvation, simply as such, but still more
64 HUMAN SIN.
as based on the material idea of compensation and
satisfaction, on the exact adjustment of divine and
human claims, on the maintenance of the untar-
nished honour of the Most High, on the satisfac-
tion of stern justice, and on the palpable ground
of judicial, even commercial proceedings, must have
commended itself with extraordinary force. It did,
and all the earlier, as well as later protesters against
Kome, carried with them much of this distinguish-
ing element of Koman doctrine. Is it unreasonable
to conceive, that it may be owing to kindred influ-
ences that the idea has been so long, and is still most
devoutly retained by good and wise men ?
"A God all mercy were a God unjust." The
Almighty is infinitely righteous, and infinitely
faithful to His character, to His law, and to the
interests of His moral government. But suppose
an individual to be thoroughly satisfied of these
positions, and convinced, besides, that God can
never forgive sin, except in perfect consistency with
His character. His government, and His law, and
yet, at the same time, to be able, on the authority
of Scripture, to trust simply in divine pardon, quite
unaided by any details of explanation. Wherein lies
the difi'erence between him and his fellow-Chris-
tians? Is it not in this mainly — indeed, in this
entirely and only ? that he has not found, as they
profess to have found in the New Testament, an
HUMAN SIN. 65
explanation, and that he does not even think it
becoming or wise to seek an explanation of the
way in which forgiveness is supposed to be proved
consistent with equity and with law — the way in
which, it is alleged, sin is expiated, justice satis-
fied, and the honour of God upheld. He has not
the shadow of a doubt that forgiveness is perfectly
consistent with divine rectitude and divine law,
but he does not see or appreciate the way in which,
it is said, this consistency is exhibited, and he is
convinced that others are mistaken in imagining
that they see this way. The great underlying
truths, divine forgiveness and divine righteousness,
are precisely the same to both. The sole difference
is this, that the one professes to understand the de-
tails of the plan of Heaven, the other does not ; the
one thinks he has discovered the grounds of God's
procedure, the other is ignorant, and content to be
ignorant, of them.
Apart from any knowledge of what is commonly
styled " the way of salvation," it may be humbly but
firmly believed, on the testimony of the Sacred Scrip-
tures, that the infinitely holy and just and wise is
also the forgiving and loving God. By the one true
sacrifice made by God for men, when He incarnated
Himself in His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, by
the unutterable love unveiled in that Incarnation,
and in the whole life, and in the cross of the Incar-
66 HUMAN SIN.
nate, by the words and the acts and the meek
endurances and the outbreathing spirit of Jesus,
and by the secret, inward working of the Holy
Spirit in his heart, a man shall come to place a
simple trust in divine forgiveness, as profound as his
nature is capable of putting forth. He shall see that
the great Father of the soul only seeks its return to
Himself, and only waits to respond to the first look
it casts back, the first relenting thought, the first
stirring of desire towards the home and the heart
above. He asks, he wants no more than this. Any-
thing beyond, which some have professed to discover,
only complicates to him, and confuses, a divine sim-
plicity, darkens his notions of truth and of God, and
throws his mind into the deepest perplexity. The
supposed revelation of a plan, such as has been
imagined, associates itself in his mind invincibly
with what is not only not worthy of God, but is very
dishonouring.
Grace, which is purchased and paid for, must
lose not only its special beauty, but even its
essential worth. There may be exceeding loving-
kindness in the effort to secure the purchase, but
when the price has been duly paid down, and when
what remains is a simple act of justice, we look in
vain for the subduing element of pure love. A cre-
ditor may be at the utmost pains to find a substitute
who shall advance payment of a debt; but if the
HUMAN SIN. 67
debt be fully cancelled, the debtor is free, not by
grace, but by justice. An injured person may in-
terest himself exceedingly in the wrong-doer, and
may labour to find some third party who shall be
willing to bear his punishment ; but if ample com-
pensation for the injury has been made, and if the
fullest satisfaction has been rendered to all the de-
mands of justice and of law, it can be no grace to set
the wrong-doer free, — he is free by right. Is it not
more beautiful, more noble, more honouring to God,
to be conquered by His unveiled love in the Incar-
nation and the cross ; to rely upon it, without a
question, and to trust in pure, mere spontaneous
grace, rather than in grace purchased, explained,
vindicated, and demonstrated to be all consistent.
It is imagined that the forgiveness of sin is a thing
of transcendent difficulty, a difficulty so great that
it almost baffled even God to surmount it. I ven-
ture to assert that there is not a sohtary text which
conveys, or even favours, this idea. If there be
meaning in the New Testament, it is, of all things,
clear and sure that God is infinitely willing to for-
give the wickedest human being that lives. Wher-
ever difficulty may lie, at least it does not lie here.
Thinking so much, as many do, of mere pardon and
its difficulties, they forget that pardon is not salva-
tion : not at all. There is a far sterner obstruction
in the way of the real deliverance of the human
GS HUMAN SIN.
spirit, an obstruction which only God can remove
in His holy love, but which must be removed, if
the soul is to be saved. Were mere pardon of sin
secured, the whole of what constitutes inner salvation
would still remain to be achieved. If all the past
were blotted out from God's remembrance, the man
would be as unredeemed as ever. It is his nature,
and not the facts of his history, that require to be, or
that can be, changed. There is a deadly evil work-
ing within, and it is from this he must be saved, if
he is to be saved at all. A true salvation is not
escape from the consequences of sin present or re-
mote; it is not this at all; it is only and whoUy
deliverance from sin itself, from that deep, internal
cause which entails such consequences, be they what
they may. The root of perdition in the soul must be
struck at and destroyed ; and only in so far as this is
struck, and no farther, is real safety achieved. The
self-will in resistance to the divine will, the false
bias of the spiritual nature, the conscious, voluntary
want of harmony with truth and right and love and
God, this is a true death, if there were none else in
the future. This is eternal death begun. To have
life planted, where this death has reigned, is true
salvation, — nothing else is.
Mere selfish protection is not the chief want of
a genuine soul. The very lowest, the weakest and
the least noble thing we can do, is to beg for escape
HUMAN SIN. G9
from the proper desert of evil. This may not be
vice, but it is still less virtue, and has nothing
great, nothing exalting, nothing purifying in it.
Selfish fear is a contemptible, degrading, and en-
feebling emotion, and by making so much of this
principle, by encouraging and pampering and almost
honouring it, the danger is that we emasculate
religion in its very birth. To an enlightened,
awakened, and thoroughly earnest man, the great
and stern reality is this, that he has deeply wronged
his God, and as deeply wronged his own being.
God endowed him with a spiritual nature, gave it
sacredly into his charge, and he is conscious that
he has neglected and injured it, perhaps irrepar-
ably, injured it by separating it from the one
source of purity and life and joy. He is away from
his God, in thought and in affection, and this wilful
severance, he has come to know, is death to his
higher self. He is all wrong, utterly wrong, wrong
in relation to God and wrong in relation to himself.
What he most needs, is not to be pardoned; that
may be his first, but it ought to be his least con-
cern, respecting which there is no reasonable ground
for fear or doubt ; what he most needs is, not to be
pardoned merely, but to be changed in himself, to
be set really right, his face and his heart turned
towards God, converted to God.
The germ of new divine life in any human mind
70 HUMAN SIN.
is trust, a penitent turning of the heart to God, a
simple, humble faith in God's forgiveness. This is
the early promise and the cause of a profound
change within. This is saving faith; not because
it secures a formal legal acquittal from the Great
Judge, about which we know and can know nothing,
but on a far more intelligible and true ground, be-
cause it really saves our nature, turns it right away
from the death which it was confronting and right
towards God, who is our only life. In the New
Testament faith is called the justifying, that is,
the rectifying, the rightening principle, because it
literally and thoroughly rightens, sets right the
soul, which before was utterly wrong. The humbled,
penitent nature is drawn back, and of itself turns
back, converts — ^to use the very word of inspiration
and in the very sense which inspiration gives it —
to God. "For what law could not do in that it
was weak through the flesh, God" — has done —
" sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh, and for sin has condemned" — doomed, killed
— "sin in the flesh." The flesh, the carnal will
was proof against mere law, mere authority, and
trampled it under foot. The voice of command,
even though it were God's, was powerless, and the
flesh proudly triumphed over it. But the voice of
love is omnipotent. Incarnate, crucified love over-
masters sin in the flesh, condemns it, dooms it to
HUMAN SIN. 71
death, kills it outright. The first stroke of this
divine weapon is mortal, and the final victory,
though won by slow degrees, is infallibly cer-
tain.
The mightiest antagonist of human sin, and its
surest conqueror, is that divine power, a purely
spiritual power, which concentrates itself in the In-
carnation and the cross, that divine influence which
descends, through these, on the hearts of men. In
the ISTew Testament, this power is represented in
manifold forms, but ever with the same essential
meaning. It is light, it is life, it is peace, it is a
guiding star of hope, it is a healing balm ; and in
one exquisitely beautiful and simple passage, it is
described as a cleansing virtue. "If we walk in the
light, as He is in the light, then have we fellowship
one with another " — God with us, and we with God
— " and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son clean-
seth " — is ever cleansing — " us from all sin." " If we
say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves ; " ever and
again we are drawn down into darkness, we fall into
sin, and fellowship with the luminous and the holy
is for the time impossible. But there is a power,
streaming from the cross into the soul, which is
ever washing it afresh ; bidding away the darkness ;
cleansing out the evil ; renewing the holy fellowship ;
and restoring us to God. In a world full of pollu-
tion, and, for human hearts, ever prone to evil, and
HUMAN- SIN.
often actually darkened and defiled, there is one
mysterious and mighty institute of purification. It
is symbolised in the cross. Love, the love of God,
is the spiritual antidote to human sin, but not love
alone, and not even God's love, simply as such, but
self-sacrificing love, incarnate, crucified love, — love
which has wept over men, which has groaned, and
bled, and died for men — love streaming out in the
life-blood of the Loving One. It is a fact, not a
dogma, the fact of profoundest, mental experience,
which lies in these inspired words — " The blood of
Jesus Christ, God's Son, is cleansing us from all
sin." It is, it ever is, cleansing us — a present, in-
vincible virtue goes forth from it to beget in us a
wonderful abhorrence of evil, and a wonderful long-
ing for purity, and to renew the defiled soul to
humble, loving obedience. It was this which first
overmastered the stubborn will, and drew it to the
feet of God; and it is this which, ever and ever,
unveils to spiritual vision the dark atrocity of all sin,
and the nobility and beauty of all goodness. There
is here no nominal, formal acquittal from charges
which, nevertheless, abide just ; there is no imagin-
ary, judicial whitening of a surface which, under-
neath, is as foul as ever. But there is a real, a
thorough, and a deep washing out of sin itself, and
making the heart literally clean and pure. In the
light of this fact of earthly experience, we may
HUMAN SIN. 73
better understand the destined course of the heavenly-
life to come. A divine beauty and an infinite mean-
ing gleam forth to us from the words of the anthem
of eternity — " Unto Him that loved us, and ivaslied
us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made
us kings and priests unto God, even His Father —
unto Him be glory and dominion, for ever and ever.
Amenl"
CHAPTEE III.
SPIRITUAL LAWS.
Their Sphere — Material Laws — Not Eternal and not Necessary —
Ordained by God — Spiritual Laws Immutable — In Harmony
with Will of God — Their Ground — Human Laws — Need Vin-
dication and Support — Self-sustaining Law — Sin and Death
— Holiness and Life — Divine Sacrifice — Destroys Sin — Saves
the SouL
LAW is the expression of will, and has its ground
in authority. Authority, supposing adequate
power, ultimately rests on rectitude and wisdom.
Intelligence demands, and, in union with power,
secures order, not chance ; fixed order, not irregu-
larity and uncertainty ; righteous and wise methods
directed to righteous and wise results. The universe
of matter and of mind is stable, in the reign of
divine laws. Life and light, beautiful and glorious
in themselves, are resplendent in the laws which go to
their production and govern all their phenomena. In
the physical region, no resistance is possible, and law
reigns serenely andr supremely. But in the spiritual
sphere, the created will has run counter to the divine
will, and darkness and death have supplanted light
and life. The spiritual universe has witnessed de-
fiance of law, on the one side, and an intervention
above law, on the other side.
There are two great facts, in all time, Incarnation
and human sin, which, on opposite grounds, stand
out from the sphere of established order. The first
transcends all laws, material and spiritual. It vio-
SPIRITUAL LAWS.
lates none, it crosses the path of none, for it is alone,
in a region of its own, beyond the range of so-called
law. It is a solitary, independent act of the Great
Lawgiver, with which no power or will but His
has a right to intermeddle. Human sin, on the
other hand, has erected itseK within the kingdom,
which is subject to the laws of spirit and of matter.
But it is an anomaly in that kingdom, a foreign and
hostile intrusion ; and, so far as it extends, it aims
to defy established authority, and to disown and cast
off all subjection, and is outside the sphere within
which law reigns. Nothing can ever explain or
account for sin. It is disorganisation, rebellion,
disease. Its radical idea is that it is inexplicable,
because a violation of all rational order and of all
right principles. Incarnation is supernatural ; hu-
man sin is unnatural, or anti-natural. The one
transcends, the other overthrows, law; the one
comes down from above, in the majesty of light
and love, the other comes up out of the nether
darkness, like a fetid vapour, a pestilential breath
from the bottomless pit. But a profound relation
enwraps these two antagonistic powers in its em-
brace, — the transcendental is the subverter, the
divinely-selected subverter of the infernal mystery.
The one fact on which our thoughts are now
to be concentrated is this — that, in spite of what
transcends their range, on the one side, and of what
SPIRITUAL LAWS. 79
seems, but only seems, to trample them down on the
other side, spiritual laws are mighty, are almighty.
They cannot be violated, cannot even be resisted,
that is, with impunity, and without exacting an
incipient and immediate satisfaction. The reign of
law, in all the departments of the material creation,
is proclaimed with extraordinary confidence, by
those who have devoted themselves to the study of
physics. " The order of nature " is the chosen
phrase to denote a fixity which is imagined to be
unlimited in extent and absolutely immovable.
But equal confidence is not felt in the universality
and supremacy of spiritual laws. Very far other-
wise. And yet, if there be a ground of hesitation
at all, it will not be hard to make out, that it
is, at least, stronger on the material, than on the
spiritual side.
The course of nature in the past is ascertainable
within certain limits. So far as observation can reach,
in all the various departments, we are able to discover
invariable sequence ; and it is perfectly reasonable to
presume that what has thus been, will indefinitely con-
tinue to be. That is the presumption, a most legiti-
mate presumption; that is the probability, a high
and strong probability. But to maintain that what
has been must be and cannot but be ; in other words,
to convert a presumption, a probability into a
necessity, the contrary of which would be impossi-
80 SPIRITUAL LAWS.
ble, is a gross error. Manifestly, the premises do
not sustain tlie conclusion, the reasoning is false at
the root. What has been is certain, but it is no
whit less clear, that what shall be, cannot, to us, be
absolutely certain. No amount of experience in the
past can render a divergence from the hitherto ob-
served order, however improbable, either contradic-
tory or impossible — impossible, that is to say, in the
nature of things. That which is neither contradic-
tory nor impossible may take place, and however
strong the presumption against it be, we can never
be rationally certain that a fact directly opposed to
our past experience shall not arise to confound
anticipation, and to overturn, in that instance, the
idea of the inviolable uniformity of nature. Who-
ever beheves, I say, not in an Incarnation, but in a
Creation, has in this realised the vastest departure
possible from antecedent uniformity. Admitting the
greater, it would be in the face of all reason to deny
the possibility, or sufficient evidence being produced,
the reality of the less. Credulity, ignorant, in dis-
criminating reception of what contradicts ordinary
experience, is a culpable weakness, but illogical,
arrogant, almost fanatical devotion to the idea of
necessity in the order of nature is more criminal
still, if not more weak.
The laws of the material universe are infinitely
wise and good, but they are not in themselves
SPIRITUAL LAWS. 81
necessary and immutable, even as they are not
eternal. The consistent Theist, who holds them to
be the very wisest and best possible, is satisfied, at
the same time, that there are ten thousand con-
ceivable arrangements, which might, without any
contradiction, have taken the place of those now
existing. The number, the magnitudes, the dis-
tances of the stars, the size of our globe, its place in
the solar system, the substances of which it is com-
posed, chemical proportions, affinities and combina-
tions and their results, the mineral, vegetable,
irrational, and rational kingdoms, all might have
been other than they are, without any contradiction,
had it so pleased the Creator.
It is far otherwise, it is diametrically the reverse,
with the great laws of the spiritual universe. They
are what they are, of themselves, of necessity. Moral
good and moral evil are immutable, and never were
and never can be other than they are, in the slightest
degree. Veracity, fidelity, rectitude, purity, loving-
ness, are for ever good, and their opposites are for
ever bad. To all rightly constituted moral beings,
everywhere and always, they are unchangeably the
same. Altogether apart from any choice or judg-
ment external to them, these qualities are for ever
good, and their opposites are for ever bad. It lies
in the essential, eternal nature of things that they
are what they are, and could never have been, and
PIRITUAL LAWS.
never can be different. The distinction is as wide
as it is possible to conceive. The laws of nature
are owing solely to the will and the fiat of the
Creator. He ordained them, and had such been
His pleasure they might have been altered in ten
thousand ways. But the laws of the spiritual
universe do not depend even on the highest will.
The Great God did not make them, they are eternal
as He is. The Great God could not repeal them,
they are immutable as He is. In perfect harmony
with the divine will, they are nevertheless indepen-
dent even of it, and as they were not created, so
they cannot be annulled or altered, even by the
Almighty.
Truthfulness is admitted to be a virtue, a spiritual
excellence, a beautiful, exalting, noble characteristic
of a responsible being. Untruthfulness is admitted
to be a vice, a corrupting, degrading, mean quality
in a soul. But let us understand the force of the
admission. Are these things so, because God has
enjoined the virtue and forbidden the vice? By
any opposite utterance, from Creator or creature,
might truthfulness have become vice, and untruth-
fulness virtue? It is impossible to believe that,
to any rightly constituted rational and moral being,
these qualities can be other than they are in them-
selves. Simple, perfect truthfulness is necessarily,
eternally virtue ; untruthfulness is necessarily,
SPIRITUAL LAWS. S3
eternally vice. These qualities are owing to no
arrangement, no command, no will of any creature.
Even the divine w^ill is not their ground. They
rest immovably upon their own foundation, inde-
pendently of all authority or judgment besides.
And this conclusion bears with equal force on all
spiritual excellences whatever and their opposite
vices. Eectitude, purity, lovingness, piety towards
God, reverence, submission, self-surrender, love, are
beautiful and good in themselves; they are beauti-
ful and good, unchangeably, eternally; they have
their ground in the essential constitution of moral
being, and are thus separated by an impassable line
from all material properties and laws, for these are
not in themselves unalterable, not eternal, not neces-
sary, and the God who in wisdom ordained them
might, had it so pleased Him, have instituted a
different code of regulative principles.
Spiritual laws, widely distinguished from material
laws, are separated by a still vaster difference, from
merely human ordinances and arrangements. The
laws of men are different, at different times and in
different countries, are often altered, often repealed.
It is a necessity of their origin, that they must be
more or less unwise and unjust. As the work of
imperfect beings, they must at the best be imper-
fect, and must need to be constantly reviewed and
improved. There is indeed a majesty, a sanctity,
84 SPIRITUAL LAWS.
even in human law, as the collective wisdom and
conscience of a nation and an age. With all its
imperfections, this is among the highest and
sacred(*st of human tilings, and the bulwark of
society against injustice and universal anarchy.
For the sake of the interests of all, it is indispen-'
sable that human laws be respected, and when
broken, be vindicated and avenged. A law set at
nought with impunity, or so inconstantly and feebly
enforced, that the chances of escape or punishment
are nearly equally balanced, becomes a dead letter,
affording no protection to the virtuous, and inspir-
ing the vicious with no salutary terror.
There is another consideration still ; with the
wisest and most righteous of human ordinances,
it will happen that the innocent are punished, and
that the guilty, by one means or another, escape
detection or conviction. At the best, there is an
inevitable uncertainty in them, a doubtfulness and
a degree of untrustworthiness, which tend to shake
confidence and materially to weaken the founda-
tions of authority. On this account, the laws of
men, in all that is manifestly right, need the utmost
possible support. Wherever guilt is clearly estab-
lished human justice must take its course, unless
the dearest interests of society are to be wantonly
sacrificed.
But on no such grounds as these, nor on any
SPIRITUAL LAWS. So
other grounds whatever, do spiritual ordinances
need or admit of either vindication, or protection,
or support from human or divine hands. Defender
or avenger they have none, and they need none.
Without aid from any quarter they avenge them-
selves, and exact, and continue without fail to exact
so long as the evil remains, the amount of penalty
— visible and invisible — to the veriest jot and tittle,
which the deed of violation deserves. Essentially
and perfectly wise and right, they are irresistible,
in the case of the obedient and the rebellious
alike. There is no formal trial of the criminal,
there is no need for investigating the question and
determining the amount of guilt or of innocence.
Without inquiry and without effort each case dis-
covers and exposes itself. No judicial verdict is
pronounced, and no officer of justice is appointed
to carry out the sentence, but at once, punishment
or reward, visible or invisible, or both, dispenses
itself, and in the amount in which either is
merited. Spiritual laws are self-acting ; with all
their penalties and sanctions they are immediately
self-acting, and without the remotest possibility of
failure or mistake.
Sin is death — holiness is life ; these brief sen-
tences, taken out of inspired Scripture, are a con-
densation of the code of the spiritual universe.
They constitute the basis of the reigning principles
86 SPIRITUAL LAWS.
of the divine moral administration, tliey are with-
out limit, without exception, and are absolutely
irresistible. But it must be noted, that they are
not so much sanctions ordained by God, as simple
statements of fact, the statement of an eternal fact,
embodying the literal history of all the past, and
a predictive announcement of all the future, for
ever and ever. Sin is death — holiness is life; the
fact is so, and the law of moral being is promul-
gated in the fact. The forces of the spiritual
universe, like the attributes of the Eternal mind,
are absolutely independent and seK-sufficient. The
Great Being did not elect that this and that per-
fection should enrich His nature ; they did enrich
it from eternity and are coeval with Himself. God
did not elect and ordain that sin should be death,
and that holiness should be life, when, but for this
ordination, they might have been something else.
In itself, sin is death ; in itself, holiness is life —
must be so, cannot be anything else, and must be
this. It is a necessary, eternal fact, independent
of all beings and all things. But in a case of
unutterable importance, where ignorance or mistake
would have been everlastingly fatal, God has been
at pains to set the fact before His rational creatures,
and to invest it with the solemnity of a direct and
repeated message from His throne, and with all
the authority of His express sanction. First of
SPIRITUAL LAWS. 87
all, it is written witliin every soul of man, for the
voice is divine which we hear, in the depths of
our spiritual nature, and it is a divine witness
who makes His appeal to us, in the conscious
effects of evil in ourselves, and its visible con-
sequences on others around and in the general
world. And then, it is a divine authority which
utters itself emphatically and clearly in the holy
volume. The great laws of the moral universe
are there announced in a thousand passages and in
varying Forms, as the substance and the sum, the
meaning and the spirit of all revelation.
Truthfulness, rectitude, purity, lovingness, and
all the virtues, reverence of God, submission, self-
surrender, and love to Him and all godly principles
and affections, constitute the true life of a respon-
sible soul. They not only belong to it, but they
are the essential constituents of its vitality; they
are the life-blood of a created spirit, and to touch
any of them is to affect the very seat and spring
of vitality. The slightest admission of evil — con-
scious, voluntary evil — is a direct assault on soul-
life. It is like impurity, taint in the blood; it
is soul-death begun — a commencing process of dis-
order, pollution, disease, whose only issue, unless
it be stopped, is death. We are accustomed to
think of crime perpetrated, and then, perhaps long
after, of punishment adjudicated and inflicted. But
88 SPIllITUAL LAWS-
moral evil and death, and, equally so, holiness and
life, are perfectly simultaneous. Not that the
punishment of sin is the work of a moment.
There is an entail of moral, it may be even of phy-
sical punishment, which is prolonged so long as
its cause abides, and which can be cut off, not
always even by the extirjDation of the cause. But
in the very act, in the very moment of evil, the real
penalty descends irresistibly, and in the very amount,
which is deserved. The sin ensures, because it is, its
own punishment. The taint enters in it, and, along
with it, into the spirit. The poison is shed the
instant the sting penetrates. The process of disease
and death is begun. The smallest conscious, volun-
tary evil in the human will, the smallest sin is in its
nature, death — moral death. Without doubt, the
assault on soul-life is greater or less, in proportion to
the amount and the kind of evil admitted ; but the
smallest sin is moral death begun, and moral perdi-
tion must be the issue, unless the sin be cast forth.
Death, even in the body, but much more in the
soul, is a process, as well as an event consum-
mated ; rather, so far as concerns the spirit of man,
it is only a process, and never an event consum-
mated. We are led astray by the supposed ana-
logy between animal and spiritual death — an analogy
clear and just within certain limits, but thoroughly
false if extended beyond them. The animal life is
SPIRITUAL LAWS. 89
completely extinguished by deatli, the animal sys-
tem is completely dissolved, the animal economy is
for ever broken up and ended. That power which,
at a precise moment, puts an end to animal life, we
call death. The fact, single and alone, that animal
life is quenched, we call death. And hence, not un-
naturally, but quite untruly, the death of the soul
suggests a thing completed and done with, even as
the death of the body is a fact accomplished — a thing
of the past, to which nothing remains except to be-
come matter of history. But it is far otherwise ; even
in the case of the animal life, though its final extinc-
tion be a fact, the fact of a moment, there is first
of all, a process leading to this last result. Dying
may be a long previous process, continued for
months or years. It is even believed that in the
first moment of life, the seed of ultimate death
is planted, and that through our whole animal
existence, by the side of the process of life, there
is an antagonistic process of death, which in one
form ' or another, and through one aid or another,
at length gains the mastery, and extinguishes
its rival. However this be, death in a human
spirit, that is, moral death, is unquestionably a
process; and, so far as we can judge, only a
process, and never, an event consummated — a pro-
cess going forward, year after year in this life,
which only Almighty mercy can terminate. In
90 SPIRITUAL LAWS.
the case of the finally reprobate, in whom the
direst form of this penalty is realised, it is believed
that spiritual becomes eternal death, that is, an
unending process of dying, to which no termina-
tion or consummation is possible.
It is easy to see that when the process of moral
death is begun in the soul that sinneth — and it
always is inevitably begun — and when that process
is continued — and it always is inevitably continued,
(working out also during its continuance, as it does
and must, varied physical evil,) so long as sin
remains, and to the extent in which it remains —
the spiritual laws of the universe have their full
effect, their proper penalty is borne to the letter,
and each claim which they prefer is met and
honoured as it falls due. They seek and need no
supplementary support from any quarter whatever,
but are perfectly able to sustain themselves at
every moment. All they demand is this, that
wherever and so long as and in the degree in
which sin exists, there also shall be death, tnoral
death, and this is the simple, universal fact.
The favourite human expedient of commutation
can have no place in the spiritual government of
the universe. Even on earth, and in the adminis-
tration of human laws, this is always, essentiall}'-,
an impei'fection and a dishonour. The sentence
of death shall be changed into banishment for life,
SPIRITUAL LAWS. 91
or the banishment shall be only for a limited term,
or a shorter shall be substituted for a longer period,
or banishment shall be changed into imprisonment,
or this again shall be commuted into a fine in
money. But always the reason is simply this,
that the sentence of the law is judged, on one
ground or other, to be too severe, and that its faith-
ful execution would amount to practical injustice.
That Avhich is strictly legal is not always perfectly
equitable. Alleviating circumstances arise which,
though unrecognised by the law, are clearly vaHd
to a certain extent. A discretionary power, there-
fore, within certain limits is wisely allowed. The
undue rigour of human laws is tempered, special
cases are met, and unforeseen circumstances of great
weight are duly recognised. Among men, and
considering what human things are, the expedient
of commutation is, on many accounts, very desir-
able, and even necessary. But the very grounds
which make it becoming in human administration,
render it impossible to the course of spiritual law.
God cannot change His mind, as man does and
ought. God cannot, like man, be now disposed
to severity, and again relent to a more patient
and tender mood. God cannot mistake in the first
instance, as man does ; and cannot, like man, need
to review and correct His sentence. No unforeseen
circumstance can ever arise to justify or require a
92 SPIRITUAL LAWS.
modification of spiritual law; it is based on infin-
ite prevision, and on eternal rectitude and truth;
it contemplates all possible cases, and cannot, with-
out dishonour, admit of the smallest exception.
Among the distinctive imperfections of human
administration, there is another, which, by contrast,
illuminates the righteous government of God. Codes
of law of necessity specify particular offences, and
profess to give an exhaustive enumeration of the cri-
minal acts to which they refer, to ordain the respective
punishments with which these acts shall be visited,
and to determine the duration of such punishments.
When, in any instance, the decreed punishment has
been borne, and when the decreed time has expired,
the ofiender is perfectly free in the eye of the law.
But, in this respect, between divine and human ad-
ministration, there is, instead of analogy, the widest
distinction. No catalogue of ofi'ences is given here,
and no specific penalties for difi'erent kinds of crime
are decreed. The law of God deals not with sins so
much as with sin, not even with acts, so much as with
the one inner spring of action, the one root of all sin
— the evil will, the corrupt, false bias of the nature.
Instead of multiplied and various punishments for
different crimes — arbitrary punishments, inasmuch as
they are fixed by the judgment and the will of human
lawgivers — in the divine law, one unchangeable,
universal penalty, equally applicable to all possible
SPIRITUAL LAWS. 93
crimes, is decreed. Sin is death ! No matter wlio
the culprit be, or what the kind of crime or where
committed, or what the circumstances, if it be sin,
and so far as it is sin, it is death. Any sin, all sin,
according to its degree, and so long as it continues, is
death, moral death — but not unattended with varied
physical penalties in this life. "No term of punish-
ment is fixed, none can be fixed. One thing, and one
thing only, determines the duration of the punish-
ment, and that is the continuance of evil in the soul.
The evil continuing its attendant penalty is a neces-
sity, which even God could not conquer. Sin is
punishment, and punishment lies in the nature of sin.
Led astray by the analogies of human administration,
we imagine that a long and dark array of conscious
or forgotten sins, as yet unpunished, is loudly wit-
nessing against us, and calling for righteous retribu-
tion. And it is true, strictly true, that so long as sin
is within us, it must continue not only to call for
retribution, but to bring down its penalty, as at the
first. But it is equally true, that no sin is, or ever
can be, unpunished a moment, because it ever and
instantly punishes itself. Human law fails to disco-
ver the evil-doer, and wearied with vain searching, it
goes to sleep, and is robbed of its due for years, or for
ever. But spiritual law never slumbers, and is never
defrauded for a moment. That which God calls sin
is never undiscovered, and never for an instant fails to
94 SPIRITUAL LAWS.
meet its desert. The moment of sin is the moment
of death in the soul. God has no unsettled accounts,
no outstanding claims. The process of perdition begins
without fail, and deepens with the duration and the
amount of sin. A terrific future is in reserve, because
now we see only the germ ; hereafter the 'last dread
perfection of development. But the present exacts
all its rights. Spiritual law carries out its sentence
at once and to the letter, and allows no claim for an
instant to be dishonoured.
We are entitled to come to this distinct conclusion,
that the great governing principles of the divine ad-
ministration need no support beyond themselves, and
no vindication. They are for ever equal to their own
maintenance. The idea of exculpating or justifying
the laws of the spiritual universe— above all, of up-
holding their inviolable authority — would be to add
insult to injury, as if they were incapable of defend-
ing and avenging themselves. They do not need
help, they do not admit of it ; the thing is an impos-
sibility. So thoroughly do they insure the infliction
of merited punishment, that any attempt of that na-
ture would be as useless as it would be presumptuous.
It would impute weakness to that which is divinely
strong, and it would suppose and create the suspicion
of a need of help which did not exist. It would im-
peach God himself. All divine laws, material and
spiritual alike, are sufficient for themselves. Only
SPIRITUAL LAWS. 95
human laws need vindication and support. Among
men, where the administration of justice is ever im-
perfect, and where criminals, by one means or other,
contrive to evade and escape from justice, there is the
most urgent necessity for upholding the majesty of
the law, and for vindicating it by impressive exam-
ples, perhaps even by extraordinary expedients. But
there is no evading the dire sanction of spiritual laws,
no possible escape from their retributive awards, and
therefore there is no need in their case of vindication
or defence. Even the laws of the material universe
know nothing of the remotest possibility of resistance
or evasion or escape within their several range. We
are said to resist them, but it is by implicitly yielding
to them. We are said to force them to our will, to
convert them to our purposes, and to render them ser-
viceable to our interests and our aims, instead of being,
as they otherwise would be, hostile and destructive.
But the simple fact is, that all the while a more ex-
tensive familiarity with them only strengthens the
conviction that they must be obeyed to the letter. To
resist them really is impossible, without paying the
full penalty of infraction. Without fail they avenge
themselves, and need no help from us or from any
quarter whatever. What a burlesque it would be,
what insanity to profess to vindicate and uphold the
laws of nature ! And can it be less than an insult to
the great Being to imagine, that what would be folly
96 SPIKITUAL LAWS.
in regard to them is a matter of fact in regard to the
higher laws of spirit, as if they somehow were in
danger, and needed to be vindicated, sustained, and
defended ? Can it be less than an insult to the Great
Being to imagine, that a dishonour and a weakness
which inhere nowhere, except in the imperfect con-
stitutions of human society, must attach to the eter-
nal principles of His universe.
There is ground for very reverent caution, lest in
thinking to honour God we should do Him deep dis-
honour and injustice, — lest in the idea that His laws
are insufficient for themselves, and therefore need
extraneous support and defence, we should strike a
damaging blow at their authority, and undermine
the sacred foundation on which they rest. The ver-
dict of Heaven is this, as unambiguous and deter-
minate as words can express it, " The soul that sin-
neth shall die." It is true ; it must be true. God
cannot speak with a double meaning. What He
declares He must intend, — simply intend, and in the
sense which the words plainly convey. His verdict
against sin, the penalty which He announces it shall
incur, is and must be a literal truth. " The soul
that sinneth shall die," He has declared, and as a
simple matter of fact, the soul that sinneth does die.
To the extent and in the degree in which it sins, it
does die ; to this extent and degree the seat of inner
life is assailed. In sinning, and by sinning, it dies
SPIKITUAL LAWS. 97
inevitably. With sin the seed of death is planted ;
and from that moment, in its noblest part, it is no
more a living, but a dying, soul, unless and until an
antagonist process of recovery be commenced within
it. The veracity of God is unimpeachable, and the
law of the spiritual universe is vindicated, verified,
honoured, to the fullest possible extent, by itself. It
is sufficient for itself, needs no avenger, and stands
erect in its own inviolable majesty. God himself
could not annul the sequence, sin and death ; could
not dissolve this dire connexion, could not shield
from the penalty, except by removing its cause.
There is one, but there is only one, way in which
the tremendous doom of the sinful soul can be
escaped, in consistency with the great laws of the
spiritual universe. If sin were cast out, the death
which issues solely from sin would be effectually pre-
vented. If the internal seat and seed of evil were
crushed and killed, the outgrowth from it would
certainly perish. If the fatal disease itself were
checked and cured, then, but only then, a restorative,
healing process might take the place of an ever-
deepening perdition, for the same law which an-
nounces that sin is death, proclaims also that holi-
ness is life. If sin w^ere extirpated and expelled,
and if love of God and of good were planted in its
stead, then the true redemption of the human spirit
would be secure. There is one salvation for man,
G
98 SPIRITUAL LAWS.
only one ; a salvation not from hell, but from sin ;
not from consequences here or hereafter, but from
the deep cause itself which is secreted within the
nature. The work of God is not so much to pardon
the past as to kill outright an evil which is pre-
sent. The divinest work of God on this earth is
the destroying of evil. By the one true sacrifice of
Christ, an act of divine self-sacrifice, by incarnate,
crucified love, He aims a blow at the root of evil
within man's heart. The subsequent process is end-
lessly diverse, and is tedious and slow, but the issue
is certain, — the death of sin. God touches the deadly
disease at its foul source and heals it. He breaks
the hard heart by the overwhelming pressure of
pure, almighty mercy in our Lord Jesus Christ. He
kindles a new divine life, which is holiness ; the reso-
lute, free, glad choice of truth and of good. Spiritual
law triumphs in the new life, as in the previous
death. God slays the sin, and thus saves the soul.
He destroys death by implanting life.
CHAPTER lY.
ETERNAL JUSTICE.
Opposite Conceptions of Justice — Providence — Inequalities, Real
Equality — Mere Justice — Not in God — A Human Notion —
God always More and Better than Merely Just— Justice and
Mercy — Evil, Not of God — Moral, Physical Evil — Ethical
Nature of God and Man — Mercy Loftier, Holier than Justice
— Inevitable Doom of Sin — Triumph of Mercy.
]]1E0M law to justice, from spiritual laws to
justice in God, the transition is direct and
short. Spiritual laws are grounded in the eternal
rectitude and wisdom, and the ejffect of their opera-
tion is the necessary reign of perfect equity in the
universe. Amidst all the evils that spring out
of human sin, God's ways are ever equal, only
man's ways are unequal. But the most opposite
impressions are awakened in different minds by
the notion of such an attribute as justice in God,
on the one side only repulsive, and on the other
as strongly attractive. The difference is so great
that it has been pronounced original and organic.
Altogether, in the sphere of theology, the confident
position is laid down, that men do not of them-
selves become, but are really born either Calvinists
or Pelagians — using these names loosely and sim-
ply to mark two quite opposite poles of thought.
In a wider yet kindred sense, it is maintained,
that men are born either Aristotelians or Platonists.
Not of choice, but in consequence of a real neces-
sity, occasioned by their individual structure, they
102 ETERNAL JUSTICE.
are materialistic or spiritualistic, logical or philo-
sophical, argumentative or intuitional ; the one and
the other alike being the simple effect of original,
mental conformation. The distinction, diver o:in2:
more or less from its source, can readily be drawn
out, to almost any extent of minuteness. Men
are calculating and sceptical, or they are sympa-
thetic and receptive ; rigid and narrow, or com-
prehensive, catholic, and free ; they are found to
admire the harder, sterner virtues, or they are won
by the nobler, gentler, finer qualities of the soul ;
they limit themselves to the senses and to the
range of the understanding, and to what can be
submitted to its processes and decisions, or they
love to ascend to the region of the supersensual,
and covet intensely the higher revelations of a dis-
ciplined faith. The two orders are ever ranged on
opposite sides, in theology, in philosophy, and in
real life. Kespecting the origin of the universe,
the question of a First Cause, the Being and charac-
ter of God, the introduction of evil into the uni-
verse, the nature of volition, the final destiny of
man, as either the outcome of an unconditional
decree, or simply a result of the use or abuse of
moral liberty, they are always essentially divided,
and in all, are rightly distinguished as positivists
or spiritualists. Explain it how we may, the
distinction is undoubted, and in few directions is
ETERNAL JUSTICE. 103
it more striking than in the opposite manner in
which divine justice is regarded, and in the opposite
sentiments it awakens in different minds.
The etymology and relations of the word "justice,"
entitle us to say that a straight line, an even balance,
may be taken as the exact material symbol of this
spiritual attribute. The slightest deflection from
perfect straightness destroys the line. Justice is per-
fectly rectilineal, and means the rendering to every
one his full desert without stint, but also without
excess, not an iota more or less than his desert.
It must be admitted on all hands that were even
this, however poor and low, as a highest ideal,
realised over the wide earth, were mere exact justice
established as the universal rule of this world,
the result would be a veritable millennium, com-
pared with the existing condition of things. The
deeds of atrocious injustice which are perpetrated
everywhere, in Christian as well as in other lands ;
the horrible wrongs done by men, to the feelings,
the character, the reputation, the property, the
liberty, the persons, the lives, the bodies, and the
souls of their fellow-men, defy computation. But
these and untold enormous evils besides would be
swept clean away, if only mere justice, no more,
rectilineal justice, were to reign supreme. There
would be an eternal end to war, from which gigantic
injustice on one side or other, or both, is inseparable.
104 ETERNAL JUSTICE.
an eternal end to slavery, to rapine, to murder, to
tlieft, and to all the darker crimes which now
desolate and afflict mankind. Justice, mere justice,
is entitled to stand high among the virtues, in the.
convictions of men, though it be dishonoured and
prostrate in fact, as the w^orld goes.
So far as the Great God is concerned, justice is
administered even now on earth, — at the least, jus-
tice, never less than justice, though, often, usually,
much more. Ketribution, in the sense of evil, but
far more, in the sense of good, is not wholly reserved
for a future state of being. The present, it seems
to be thought, is the scene only of preliminary pro-
bation, during which, as a matter of necessity,
endless inequalities and injustices are permitted.
The future, on the other hand, is a state of compen-
sation, in which all that has been incomplete and
defective here shall be filled up, and all that has
seemed irregular or even wrong, shall be remedied
and rectified, and in which the condition of every
being shall righteously answer to his individual
character and desert. But admitting a wide difi'er-
ence between the present and the future, it must not
be imagined that there is not even now a God who
judgeth in the earth. To punish notorious offenders,
to put down evil, to confound oppression and craft
and to shield, and save, and honour the good, the
Most High comes forth, not seldom, out of His place
ETEKNAL JUSTICE. 105
and makes bare His holy arm. There is ground to
believe, that in a wider sense still, and on ordinary
occasions, and in the general, common movements of
earthly providence, there is a very real, though not
palpable adjustment of condition to desert, of actual
life-experience to individual character.
It is not here meant, with manifold, plain facts
before us, the idea is inadmissible that visible, out-
ward, exact retribution is measured out to every
individual, in this life. But it is meant, that with
many seeming exceptions, it is yet marvellously true
that men, even here on earth, get what they work for
and aim at, what they really deserve, both in the
way of punishment and in the way of reward. One
of the memorable sentences of holy Scripture runs
thus, "Be sure, your sin will find you out;'' and
your virtue also, we may add, whatsoever in you has
been genuinely good, will not lose its reward. Few
intelligent and observant persons can have failed to
mark with wonder, to what an extent in later life,
both the good and the evil of other days have re-
turned upon them, most manifestly. The special
early facts had been long past and forgotten, but
they came to life again in an undeniable resurrection,
the book of fate was opened, the long outstanding
account was at last made up, and a mystic finger
pointed to the past date, the page, the very line.
Justice does reign in the movements of providence
106 ETERNAL JUSTICE.
here below — at all events never less than justice, but
also, as we shall have to show, never mere rec-
tilineal justice, neither less nor more.
In the eyes of some good men this virtue in its
exact, even rigorous form, is a noble and right royal
attribute. Nothing so befits and dignifies a gover-
nor, a judge, a king. It is the quality, which of all
others, imparts consistency and firmness to character,
and renders it reliable. There is no danger of con-
tempt or insult to a ruler thus endowed ; he is sure
to be respected and trusted, and his administration
will be a terror to evil-doers and a praise to the good.
There are persons who, with such sentiments, deliber-
ately elect to govern their lives mainly by considera-
tions of exact justice. They admire it in others, and
sedulously cultivate it in themselves. Generosity,
properly so called, anything strictly spontaneous and
impulsive, they rather discourage than cherish. Not
strangers to generous sentiments, and not incapable,
besides, of deeds of daring, of patient endurance and
even of true self-sacrifice, what they appreciate far
more highly in themselves and in others, is the reign
of law, exact obedience, stern justice, neither less nor
more. On a far lower platform, and in ordinary life,
multitudes without the lofty sentiments of the others,
are strenuous for the letter of the law, acting, per-
haps, up to what is outwardly required, but certainly
, not ambitious of a virtue, exceeding the limits of the
ETEKNAL JUSTICE, 107
precept. They are clamorous, in all cases, for law
having its course, and loud in their praise of justice,
inflexible justice, with an evident delight in the idea
of inflexibility, as if to them there were a tone of
majesty and grandeur in the very word. They are
fond of asseverating, that if laws are to be reverenced
and obeyed, they must be inflexibly executed. There
must be no swerving, no flinching from the strict,
stern rule of right, no unrighteous leniency, no
wicked pity, which sets aside the holy claims of law,
and in miserable regard for one, or for a few, cruelly
places before thousands a powerful temptation to
crime. In relation to their very standing before
their Maker, these persons would admit nothing —
they could not even respect God himself, were they
called upon to admit anything, which did not har-
monise with stern, inflexible justice. In the matter
of their own future well-being, they must first see
that the Almighty has, according to their ideas,
sufficiently guarded the authority and the honour of
His law, and has sufficiently met all the demands of
His justice, before they can feel entitled to trust
themselves to divine, redeeming love.
There must be a profound and very serious mis-
apprehension here. Directly, in the face of this
state of mind, it can readily be shown that recti-
lineal justice, in the sense of apportioning exact
desert, neither less nor more, is not an attribute
108 ETEKNAL JUSTICE.
of God at all, and cannot be. So far as the present
world is concerned, there is not a single being who,
at any moment, receives from God his exact desert,
neither less nor more. The Great God is never un-
just — that is impossible. He is never less than
just ; but He is. He always is, more than just.
The Almighty never treats even the wickedest of
His creatures on earth according to exact desert.
Injustice, in the least imaginable taint, under any
pretext, is infinitely far removed from Him; but
mere justice, which limits itself to exact desert, is
not only no attribute of the Most High, but it is
wholly a human notion, — it belongs to men solely,
— and it belongs to them solely because of their
imperfection and their actual wickedness. A human
judge must be influenced neither by clemency nor
by revenge, and must act, in his judicial capacity,
as if he were devoid of human impulses and senti-
ments, devoid even of volitions. He must be guided
by no will of his own, and by no leaning to one side
or another. The ideal is, that he is the mere pas-
sive executor of a law which he did not make,
but must absolutely enforce. It is essential to the
stability and the order of society, that the law be
carried out without favour or fear. On the one
hand, such are the mass of mankind, so ready to
take advantage of vacillation or of sympathy ; and,
on the other hand, so weak and evil are even the
ETERNAL JUSTICE. 109
best of men, so constantly in danger of erring on
the side of mercy, and no less so on the side of
unjust anger and vindictive severity, that they must
not be trusted. The public safety demands tliat
they be either the compulsory victims, or the pas-
sive administrators of inflexible law.
The Great God is under none of these, nor any
other necessities whatsoever. He has no cause to
fear, or to guard against either the wickedness or the
weakness of His creatures. He has no misgivings
as to the immovable authority and the perfect vin-
dication of His law, or as to the absolute stability
of His government. He does not need to be, and
He is not, just, in the human, rectilineal sense at
all. He deals neither with the good nor with the
bad, exactly according to their deserving. " The
Lord is good unto all," — be their character what it
may, — to the vilest wretch, who pollutes the earth
with his tread, and to the holiest saint, whose daily
life is like a breath from heaven. " The Lord is"
— not just, not merely and strictly just, but — " good
unto all; and His tender mercies are over all His
works." "He maketh His sun to rise" — not on
the good only, but — " on the evil and upon the
good, and sendeth rain upon the just and upon the
unjust." " Bless the Lord, my soul who
satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy
youth is renewed like the eagle's. The Lord exe-
110 ETERNAL JUSTICE.
cuteth righteousness and judgment for all that are
oppressed." "The Lord is" — not simply and
merely just, but far more and better than just, He
is — " merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and
plenteous in mercy." " He visitcth the earth "—
though it be laden with sin, and ever meriting
chastisement and rebuke — " and water eth it. He
greatly enricheth it with the river of God, which
is full of water — He prepareth them corn, when
He hath so provided for it — He watereth the ridges
thereof aljundantly — He settleth the furrows thereof
— He maketh it soft with showers — He blesseth the
springing thereof — He crowneth the year with His
goodness, and His paths drop fatness. They drop
upon the pastures of the wilderness, and the little
hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed
with flocks ; the valleys are covered over with corn :
they shout for joy — they also sing." Is this descrip-
tive of One, who is merely just, who carefully acts
up to what law and justice demand, and exactly
measures out to His creatures their desert, but no
more ? It certainly is not. " Love ye your ene-
mies," said our blessed Lord, " and your reward
shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the
Highest, for He is"— not simply just, but — " kind,"
and to whom ? " unto the unthankful and the evil."
"Be ye, therefore" — not simply just, but — "merci-
ful, as your Father also is merciful." Justice, in
ETERNAL JUSTICE. Ill
the human, rectilineal sense, is no attribute of the
God of the Bible. He is always merciful ; and
because He is merciful, He cannot be, and never is,
simply, merely just. Always He is more and better
than merely just, and acts on the ground of pure
mercy. The whole course of the world, from the
creation till now, and the manifest system of divine
providence towards the good and towards the bad,
are right in the face of the idea of rectilineal justice.
There is no such attribute in God.
But the inevitable punishment of moral evil,
always and everywhere, is certain nevertheless.
The justice of the universe, in this sense, is a tre-
mendous fact, an eternal and necessary fact, which
even God could not set aside. There is an irre-
sistible, a real force, springing out of the essential
constitution of things, whereby sin punishes itself.
This is the fixed law of the moral universe, a law
in perfect harmony with the eternal will, and which
never is, and never can be broken. God's mercy
in our Lord Jesus Christ, does not in the slightest
degree set aside this justice ; what it does is, to
remove and -render non-existent the only ground
on which the claim of justice stands. Instead of
arbitrarily withdrawing the criminal from punish-
ment, it destroys in his soul that evil, which is
the only cause and reason of punishment, and
which being removed, punishment ceases of itself.
112 ETERNAL JUSTICE.
The redeemed whom we picture in a future state,
are they, not who have baffled and defeated and
evaded justice, or who by some indirect, side
method have succeeded in quieting its demands,
but they in whom that sin, which justice does
and must punish, has been pierced through and
ultimately destroyed, and cast forth by incarnate
love ; they, in whom the moral disease which was
preying upon their life has been stayed, and in
whom a restorative healing process was begun and
has been consummated.
As for the darker side of future being, it be-
comes us to speak with most reverent reserve. If
the unredeemed shall be, as they shall and must be,
separated from the redeemed, it can only be in
consequence of an evil which no spiritual influences
could conquer. 1 Even the Great God cannot avert
the penalty, except by destroying the sin. While
sin continues to be the choice of the created will,
punishment is inevitable. Divine mercy, having
done its uttermost, to reconcile and subdue and
^ With great deference, I would suggest to the wise and good
men who recoil from the thought that sin is to some extent (to
what extent we know not) irremediable even by God, that there is
an earHer and darker mystery still, namely, that the entrance of
sin was inpreventible. I for one could never believe that the holy
God might have prevented its entrance, but did not. But if it was
inpreventible, it is not hard to conclude that in some of its forms
it may also be irremediable even by infinite love.
ETEKNAL JUSTICE. 113
save, is thenceforth powerless. The doom of the
lost, be it whatever it may, is simply and wholly
their own work. God has had and has no part in
it whatever. It is all from first to last not only
their doing, but their doing in despite of God.
No deprivation and no evil which they suffer can
be traced to Him. All is the simple effect, which
no power in the universe could prevent, of that sin
which they have determinedly made their own.
They might have had life. God mercifully and
long strove with them, in order that they might
be constrained to choose life, and all the influences
of His providence .and of His Spirit were directed
to this end. " But they would not." That is the
sole and the full interpretation of their doom.
There is an eternal justice in harmony with the
highest will, though not dependent upon it. The
law of the universe is truly God's law, but, like Him-
self, the law is eternal and immutable. Wherever
sin is, and so long as it continues, punishment is
inevitable. Nothing can hinder it. When divine
mercy triumphs, as in myriads of instances it has
done and shall do, it is never by trenching on jus-
tice, but only and always by destroying sin. With
profound reverence let it be uttered, that even God
exercises no power of punishing or not, according
to His pleasure, and in what degree it seems good
to Him. Save with a limitation, presently to be
114 ETERNAL JUSTICE.
stated, the God of purity and love has no part in
the punishment of sin — no part in moral, or even in
physical, evil. Both are simply His foes and the
foes of creation. To moral evil,i in its origin, its
nature, its course, and all its aspects. His sole rela-
tion is that of irreconcilable resistance and hatred.
Even physical evil can be only abhorrent to His
nature. Essentially considered and in one form or
other, physical evil is the inevitable effect of moral
evil. God has nothing to do with the production
of this effect, but He reigns supremely, and has
chosen to reign, over all its distributions, its times,
and its modes. Mercifully He . reigns over these,
and directs and shapes that suffering, which, inde-
pendently of Him, was in one form or other
inevitable, so as to act powerfully on the moral
nature of men, and to retrieve, as far as that is
possible, the deeper curse in which all physical
evil originates. But eternal justice, meaning the
inevitable punishment of sin, takes its course re-
sistlessly. God, for merciful and holy ends, deter-
mines the special physical mode in wliich the penalty
shall come forth here on earth. But its real, inner,
necessary infliction is inpreventible. It must come
down. It lies in the essential nature of things that
it must come down. Ever and ever, justice inflicts
1 See " Evil and God," &c., pp. 180-230.
ETEENAL JUSTICE. 115
an inevitable penalty, and exacts the completest
satisfaction.
But without seeking to qualify these statements
in the least degree, it must not be overlooked for a
moment that justice, in the awful sense explained,
is not the only fact in the universe, and not the
divinest, by any means. There may be nothing
more indispensable in its place than justice, but
there are very many things which are morally far
higher and nobler. Even the simple, familiar terms,
"right" and "righteous," convey to the spiritual sense
a grander idea than is conveyed by the word "just/'
The just is always right, but the right may be far
more than is simply just. It is just to give the
exact reward which was contracted for, but it might
be perfectly right and righteous, and the very oppo-
site of unjust, to give much more. It is just to de-
mand full compensation for wrong done, but there
are cases where it might be perfectly right and very
noble to be satisfied with less ; noblest of all, freely
to forgive the wrong, without any compensation.
Less reward and more punishment than is deserved
would be injustice; more reward and less punish-
ment would not be justice, but it might be perfectly
righteous, and most wise and nobly generous. The
Great God is always right and righteous in His
dealings with His creatures, but we have found
116 ETEKNAL JUSTICE.
that He is not just — that is, not merely just. Un-
just He cannot be, but He is always more and better
than just, because He is merciful.
Much stress has been laid^ on what is called
the essentially ethical nature of man and of man's
Maker. It is argued, that unless God would stand
condemned by His own creatures and by the consti-
tution with which He has endowed them. He must,
in His dealings with them, be governed by the rule
of exact justice. The present chapter has been a
virtual, though not formal, reply to such reasoning.
It is not doubted for a moment tliat there is found
in human nature a demand for justice ; we could not
live, society could not be lield together without it.
Its violation, in any case, inflicts a deep injury on
the common weal, and the common nature protests
against it, and demands reparation. Unquestion-
1 "The Atonement: a Satisfaction for the Ethical Nature both
of God and Man," by Prof. Shedd of Andover. Amer. Bib. llepo-
sitory, October 1859. The constant employment in this essay of
the term "ethical" for "moral" — e.g., ethical nature, ethical claims,
ethical feelings, ethical emotions, &c., &c., is unhappy. The
commoner term has precisely the same significance, and to English
readers has greater directness and simplicity. Except that the
one is of Greek and the other of Latin derivation, there is no
difference between them. The essay is ingenious, forcible, and
lucid. For me, it is enough to say, that the sternest justice
is perfectly satisfied in the case of every transgressor, because the
ordained penalty is always inflicted on sin. Moreover, this quality
so much extolled, justice, however ethical, is not the noblest and
not the loftiest principle in the nature of either God or mau.
ETERNAL JUSTICE. 117
ably, tliis is one side of our humanity, but it forms
only half of the truth respecting it ; and, taken for the
whole truth, it becomes a pestilent falsehood. We
demand justice, at the least justice, but wherever
it is possible and consistent, the true soul cries out
vehemently for more than justice, necessary though
it be, and desires with irrepressible intensity the
exercise of mercy, pure, undeserved mercy. We
wrong ourselves grievously, if we forget that there
is not only another, but a far nobler, a diviner
side of our nature than justice, and that man bows
down instinctively, and is formed by his Maker to
bow down with loving reverence, not to what is
merely just, but to what is generous and forgiving,
and disinterested, and self-sacrificing. Mere justice
and no more, rectilineal justice, is neither an exalted
nor an exalting quality in any rational being.
Only to do what mere justice demands, when any-
thing less, or anything else, would be wrong, can
never command more than complacent approval.
We do approve justice, we see it to be good, to be
indispensable, we commend it, our nature demands
it. But there is here no towering majesty of
virtue, no Alpine grandeur of moral stature, no
nobility and sublimity of goodness, nothing to
kindle enthusiasm, to inspire lofty admiration, to
touch and swell the soul with wonder and with
love, and to stir its deepest longings after the
118 ETERNAL JUSTICE.
divine. We do commend and seek justice, it is
essential, but it is very far from being the highest
even among human virtues. Love of truth, un-
swerving devotion to principle, the spirit of sub-
mission and self-sacrifice, lovingness, disinterested
regard for others, above all, mercy to the ill-deserv-
ing and to those who have injured us without
cause — not a mere impulse, not an inconsiderate
and sudden rush of pity, but wise, deliberate,
principled mercy — these, far above mere rectilineal
justice, are among the Grod-like excellences of men ;
these form the best and purest side of our nature ;
these are the qualities which we are formed to
admire, almost to worship ; these are the mountain
heights of human virtue ; justice is only one of the
lower stages, from which we look up to these
grandeurs above ; these are the very divinest things
belonging to us ; and it is here, accordingly, in this
most sacred region of all, that our Maker has
divinely appealed to us.
The instinct of justice in human nature is un-
questionable ; but the instinct of mercy is deeper,
and is never wanting in noble human souls. It
is God-like to forgive, to forgive freely. Man
never rises so near to the divine, as when out
of a pure, free, self-forgetting, irrepressible love, he
forgives causeless wrong done to him. No precept
of Christ has more indubitably the stamp of heaven
ETERNAL JUSTICE. 119
upon it than that gem of all gems, which enriches
the New Testament, and which can be found nowhere
else, " Love ye your enemies." Never did the Saviour
of men breathe out upon the world more of the
deepest spirit of God, than when on the cross he
prayed, " Father, forgive them, they know not what
they do." It is divine, it is the divinest of all
divine things to forgive. We feel it, we are sure
of it, there is no arguing against it, it is an inde-
structible intuition of reason and conscience. God
would not be God to His human creatures, the
object of deepest veneration, and admiration, and
love, if He could not and did not forgive, forgive
freely and for ever.
But eternal justice abides nevertheless, and
wherever sin is, justice brings down its inevitable
doom, in terms of the universal law, " Sin is
death.'' This brief, dark sentence might have
summed up the entire history of man and of earth.
On the ground of mere justice alone, nothing else
. could have transpired. But there is such an
attribute as divine mercy, pure, free, unprompted
mercy. From the beginning, and through many
agencies and influences, mercy has wondrously
interposed, not to defraud justice, but to destroy
sin — to destroy sin, which is death, and to create
holiness, which is life. At last, by one amazing
intervention, God's uttermost was put forth to
120 ETERNAL JUSTICE.
secure the double effect. By love, whose breadth
and length, and depth and height, no mind can
compass, sin in the soul is slain, and the inde-
structible life-germ of holiness is implanted. Justice
receives all its own, for with the death of sin its
claim is at an end, while pure mercy takes forth the
ransomed, to beautify and bless them for ever, in
the world of light, and life, and love.
CHAPTER V.
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
Section First. — Imagined Necessity op Satisfaction.
Section Second.— Satisfaction foe Sin Impossible.
SECTION FIRST.
Imagined Necessity of Satisfaction — 1. Law — But Penalty inflicted
— 2. Justice — Never Defrauded — No Unsettled Claims— 3.
Moral Government— Not Dishonoured or Overthrown — Its
Security, Divine Self-sacrifice.
THE relation of human sin to spiritual law and
to eternal justice is the great question which
has long divided and still divides honest, able, and
pious men. Calm reflection on the dark mystery
of moral evil, its origin, its aspect towards the Great
Being, its action on the spirit of man, and its effects
in the universe, ought at least to restrain us from
irreverent dogmatism, whether on the one side or
the other. It is not likely that any solution, be it
what it may, shall contain all the truth and nothing
but the truth. On such a subject, it is much more
probable, that the varying tendencies and conditions
of different minds shall sway them, both by strong
prepossessions and by as strong prejudices, and that
it shall be far easier to point out, in conflicting
interpretations, what is distinctly wrong, than to
124 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
furnisli what shall commend itself as a true and
final solution.
These two words, "atonement" and "satisfaction,"
are believed to express the method whereby the
forgiveness of human sin can be reconciled with the
rectitude of the universe, and with the authority
of the supreme Lawgiver. And it is conceded most
readily, that very profound conceptions of the awful
nature of moral evil, of the infinite purity of God,
and of the necessity of holiness, have had not a
little to do with the origination and with the con-
tinued prevalence of this belief ; and the moral value
of such conceptions can scarcely be exaggerated,
however we may be obliged to refuse the issue to
which they conduct.
Without entering far at present, as we shall be
compelled to do hereafter, on verbal criticism, one or
two brief statements of a verbal kind seem needful in
this place. The English word " atonement " is of
frequent occurrence in the translation of the Hebrew
Scriptures ; but its use in them can be investigated
with greater advantage when we come to examine
the doctrine of sacrifice in the economy of Moses,
with which that of atonement is essentially connected.
In the New Testament, the word is only once met
with, " By whom we have received the atonement"-
With perfect justice it might have been rendered
1 Eom. V. 11.
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION. 125
" reconciliation," and with greater propriety, because
elsewhere throughout the New Testament, the trans-
lation is "reconcile," not " atone." Three Greek words,
having the same root, are used by the New Testament
writers, AicCKKacTGw, KaTcOCkdaao), and ^ AiroKaraX-
Xdaaco. If there be a difference in their meaning it
amounts simply to this: KaraWdaacOjis, " I reconcile;"
BiaWdaaco, conveys that the reconciliation is mutual ;
and, aTTOKaraWdcraco, is an intensive and emphatic
form of the simpler word. But none of the three can
admit, by any possibility, the scholastic idea of atone-
ment, — that is, expiation. In eleven passages of the
New Testament, besides that quoted above, one or
other of these verbs, or a derivative noun or adjec-
tive, is found, and is always translated " reconcile "
or " reconciliation." " First be reconciled to thy
brother;"! "Much more, being reconciled ;"^ "If
the casting away of them be the reconciling of the
world ; " 3 <' Qod hath reconciled us to himself, . . .
and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;"^
" God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto him-
self, . . . committed unto us the word of reconcilia-
tion;"^ "Might reconcile both (Jews and Gentiles)
in one body .by the cross ;"6 The wife . . . "be
reconciled to her husband ;"7 "By him to reconcile
1 Matt. V. 24. 2 Rom, ^, iq. ^ Rom. xi. 15.
4 2 Cor. V. 18. 5 2 Cor. v. 19. « Eph. ii. 16.
7 1 Cor. vii. 11.
126 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
all things (in earth and heaven) unto himself;"!
*' Yet now both he reconciled.'"^
In one other passage of the New Testament, the
English noun "reconciliation" occurs, " To make re-
conciliation for the sins of the people. "^ But the
original is not one or other of the three words above-
named, but, eh TO IXdcTKeaOao ; and it is not a httle
remarkable that, with only seven exceptions, out of
about sixty or seventy passages in the Old Testament,
where the Hebrew original is translated by atone or
atonement, the Septuagint employs some part or
derivative of this verb, tkdcrKOfiai, or of its compound,
i^lXao-Ko/jLat. It is perhaps more noticeable still,
that in the only passages of the Old Testament, eight
in number, where our translation introduces the word
"reconcile," the Septuagint has invariably, IXda-Ko/juaL,
or its compound. There may be more in this than
meets the casual eye. Perhaps we shall find by and by
a closer approximation in meaning, between the word
" reconcile" and the word " atone," in its true sense.
Satisfaction — satisfaction for sin, satisfaction to
law or to justice, satisfaction to God on account
of sin — is purely a term of artificial theology. It
does not occur at all, either in the Old or in the
New Testament, in this or in any kindred sense.
To satisfy, we understand, is to content a person
aggrieved. In relation to God, as Dr Watts,^ in
1 Col. i. 20. 2 Col. L 21. 8 Heb. ii. 17. * Works, iii. 742.
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION. 127
his temperate, gentle way, says, it is to do some-
thing which shall recompense Him for the affront
which has been put on His authority — others add,
for the injury caused by resistance and rebellion —
something which shall content and appease the
offended majesty of Heaven. " To atone" and '' to
satisfy," in artificial theology, are virtually the same,
with only this difference, that while "to atone" means
to make reparation or amends for wrong done, " to
satisfy " conveys the additional idea that the repara-
tion or amends have been sufficient, and have con-
tented the injured party. The presupposition lies
Underneath both alike, that something in the way
of acknowledgment to God, or expiation, or com-
pensation, something adequate and satisfactory, must
be done before human sin can be pardoned.
There are three principal grounds on which this
necessity of satisfaction is based, and they shall now
be examined in their order, but with great brevity,
because the means of setting them aside have
substantially and at full length been supplied in
the earlier chapters.
I. The law of God, it is alleged, has been dis-
honoured by disobedience, and its authority, trampled
under foot of men, has been fatally damaged. The
dishonour must be wiped out, and the damaged
authority must be reasserted and re-established.
Were the supposed dishonour and damage real,
128 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
the necessity argued for would be imperative. But
are they real ? Is authority really weakened simply
by being resisted, and when it is perfectly able to
overcome and put down the resistance? Is a law
really dishonoured by the simple fact of its being
violated, when it is perfectly able to avenge itself ?
Most persons would be ready to think that the entire
dishonour, in such a case, would fall, along with the
punishment, on the violator, and that the law would
stand uninjured and erect. A law, any law, human
or divine, is honoured up to the highest limit of pos-
sibility, simply when it is maintained in all its force,
in spite of all resistance; when its provisions, in
themselves wise and right and good, are found to be
comprehensive and complete ; and when its penal
sanctions, perfectly adequate and perfectly just, are
carried out invariably, without partiality and without
prejudice. It would be real dishonour to law if there
were any indirect evasion of its terms, or any sup-
plementing or subsidising of its provisions. It would
be real dishonour to law if, for example, a case
should arise, clearly within the range which it was
intended to embrace, which its fixed provisions were
inadequate to meet, a case therefore which necessi-
tated a new enactment, enforced by a new penalty.
This would reveal defect in the original statute, and
want of comprehension and foresight in the lawgiver.
But is there any such inherent imperfection in the
ATOI^EMENT AND SATISFACTION. 129
spiritual laws of the universe, or in the divine Law-
giver ? As a matter of necessity, spiritual laws con-
templated disobedience. Every law does, and must.
When then, in the government of God, disobedience
occurred, was the law found unequal to the occasion,
and were its penalties proved to be insufficient, al-
though the Only Wise and Holy One had ordained
them ? It has already been shown that the divine
penalty, perfect!}'' righteous and perfectly adequate in
the judgment of Grod, is inflicted without exception
and without fail. It has already been shown that
sin, in the human soul, is moral death ; always,
everywhere, without exception, it is moral death,
that is, eternal death begun. Where is dishonour?
On the contrary, the very highest honour possible is
herein done to the divine law and to the divine Law-
giver. Tlie idea of acknowledgment, expiation, re-
paration, compensation from without, would su])pose
defect within, and would be an affront and a disgrace.
Such reparation is not only not needed, but is strictly
incongruous and impossible. The ordained penalty
having been impartially inflicted, the law is verified
and made honourable by itself — unless, indeed, wo
can imagine that God has been at fault and has
adjudged a punishment which is found insufficient
for the offence.
With any subsequent, foreign proceeding, the
law has nothing to do, and neither suggests nor
130 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
ignores such a thing. The rescuing of the trans-
gressor, on whom punishment has descended and
in whom it is working out its dread effect, law
does not provide for, but as little does it forbid.
And it argues no defect and no error, that it re-
cognises and can recognise nothing of this nature,
because it lies wholly outside its province. Beyond
prohibitions and commands, penalties and their
impartial infliction, law has no voice, whether to
encourage or to deter. But no possible dishonour
is done ; on the contrary, a new glory is reflected
back upon it, when, without trenching in the least
on its sacred province, and in quite another region,
over which it has no control, a work of pure mercy
is achieved, in harmony with infinite holiness and
infinite wisdom. " Sing, ye heavens, for the Lord
hath done it : shout, ye lower parts of the earth ;
break forth into singing, yo mountains, forest,
and every tree therein : for the Lord hath redeemed
Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel."
II. Justice demands and must receive satisfaction.
It is argued that were the transgressors of God's law
to escape, claims the most righteous would be set
aside and justice would be publicly dishonoured.
But we have found that the transgressors of God's
law never do and never can escape, that no righteous
claim is or ever can be set aside, and that justice,
instead of being dishonoured, is inflexible and in-
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION. 131
exorable within its proper sphere. It would be a
calamity, the most fatal to the universe of being,
that a shadow of doubt should for a moment rest
on the perfect rectitude of the Great Kuler. But
no such doubt can ever cast its shadow in this
sacred direction. And it has been our work in
the earlier chapters to make good these confi-
dent assertions, which in this place are simply re-
iterated.
Keference has already been made to Professor
Shedd's Essay on the Doctrine of Atonement. i As
the most recent, perhaps among the most ingenious
of the modes of representing this article of faith, it
may be of importance to condense its purport, and
as nearly as possible in its own words. Moral
reason and conscience in man, the Professor argues,
form the highest part of the moral image of his
Maker. This has the closest affinity with the nature
of God, and is a faithful index of what that nature
must be. This is the relic of primitive kindred-
ness with the First Perfect, and furnishes a clue to
the character and the procedure of the Most High.
Justice is the very substratum of the divine essence,
and any method ot pardon must first give plenary
satisfaction to this attribute. God cannot and must
not disturb His own ethical tranquillity, His own
eternal sense of righteousness. In this view, the
^ American Biblical Repository, Oct. 1859.
132 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
doctrine of expiation contains a metaphysique, and
is defensible at the bar of philosophic reason.
" God, by and through a judicial inflection of His
own providing, and His own enduring in the
person of His Son — Himself the Judge, Himself
the Priest, Himself the sacrifice — conciliates His
own holy justice towards the guilty." ' We need
primarily to be saved from the judicial displeasure
of that immaculate Spirit, in whose character and
ethical feeling towards sin the human conscience
itself has its eternal ground and authority." The
atoning sacrifice of the God -man renders pro-
pitious towards the transgressor that particular
side of the divine nature, and that one specific
emotion of the living God, which otherwise and
without it, would be displacent. " God's holy justice
is conciliated to guilty man."
These statements, I venture to think and have
attempted in the foregoing pages to prove, pro-
ceed on a total misapprehension. It is not merely,
that justice in the sense already explained is far
from being, as it is here supposed to be, the highest
attribute in the ethical nature either of God or
of man, but the simple fact is, that be the rank
of this divine attribute what it may, we shdUld
err egregiously in imagining that its rightful claims
ever are, or ever can be, set aside. They cannot
be set aside for a moment, and precisely for this
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION. 133
reason, they never require and never can admit of
a supplementary satisfaction from any quarter
whatever. The righteous verdict of Heaven against
all moral evil is, in every instance, carried out
inexorably. As surely as a soul sins, in that
moment it dies morally, that is, it begins to die,
and in the degree in which it sins it begins to die.
Even where a new divine life has afterwards been
enkindled within it, and has proved itself the
stronger power, so long as sin remains and to the
extent in which it remains, death, moral death,
never ceases to mingle its poison with the breath
of a higher life. There is no possibility of de-
frauding and dishonouring eternal justice, no pos-
sibility of setting aside its unalterable sentence.
As for any method of putting an end to sin, and
thus to the penalty which sin insures, justice has
not a word to utter, either against it or for it. But,
since the claim of justice is founded solely on the
presence of sin in the soul, if sin were expelled, and,
so far as it was expelled, the claim would cease, and
the process of perdition would thus far terminate.
In redeeming and saving men, the Great God
touches not by a hair's-breadth the course of per-
fect rectitude. It is in quite another region, that
of pure grace, without disregarding a single right-
eous claim — it is through the medium of His Al-
mighty love — that God puts sin in the human soul
134 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
to death, or rather, that He originates a process
which issues at last in the destruction of sin. In
the end, mercy triumphs over sin ; but justice, all
the while, is not undermined, but maintained and
glorified. There is no compromise, no ingenious
expedient for meeting an unforeseen emergency, and
for helping out what had proved to be inadequate.
There is no tampering with the letter or the spirit
of a precept, for the sake of indirectly gaining a
purpose, however benignant ; there is no arbitrary
substitution of one kind of punishment for another ;
and no carrying out of a judicial verdict in form,
but evading it in fact. All is clear, real, simple,
direct, founded in rectitude and truth. Eternal
justice, which insures penalty wherever there is sin,
offers and can offer no obstruction to the putting
away of sin, if that be possible. On the contrary,
it distinctly favours this issue, for its deliverance
on the one side, " holiness is life," is as sacred and
as sure as its deliverance on the other side, " sin is
death." Almighty mercy wings its course towards
a result, all-worthy of God, without a murmur, from
the sternest justice, or from the holiest statutes of
Heaven.
III. The moral government of the universe would
be endangered, if sin were simply pardoned, in the
absence of an atonement — an adequate atonement
— such as was made by the sacrifice of Christ on
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION. 135
tlie cross. It is argued, with great truth and force,
that if, in pardoning human sin, God acted on the
mere impulse of mercy, this would have the effect
of a cruel temptation, placed before all intelligent
creatures — a temptation to sin — since they might
sin with such safety. They might then reason, with
perfect accuracy, that evil could not be the atrocious
thing which it is declared to be, and that God's
infinite abhorrence of it must be a fiction. A mere
impulse, however nobly generous, is not a safe ground,
not honourable, and not consistent, on which to
place the remission of sin and of merited punishment.
It is admitted, unqualifiedly, that it would be
fatal to imagine human sin pardoned, in the weak-
ness and fervour of a mere emotion. All must con-
sent that such a thing is impossible to the Supreme
Mind. And hence we have already proved that, in
the divine redemption, sin is not forgiven merely,
but is literally, though gradually, killed in the soul.
It would be strictly true to say that it is always first
struck at, in order that it may be thoroughly de-
stroyed, and that only in so far as it is killed and
cast out of the nature is it ever really done with
and passed by. God's only dealing with sin. His
first and His entire action upon it to the last, evinces
nothing but eternal and unutterable abhorrence.
Instead of mere, soft obliviousness, as if it were a
thing unimportant and easily overlooked, God be-
136 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
gins by aiming a deadly blow at the heart in which
it lies, or rather, at that in the heart which He
hates, and will not, cannot endure. And the means
whereby this blow is aimed, and the weapon which
the Almighty hand wields, are fitted and intended
to produce unmingled awe throughout the universe.
The stupendous mystery of Incarnation looms
solemnly on the farthest verge of the horizon of
human thought. It is verily a symbol of love,
but the love is so unfathomable that we tremble
to gaze down into it. And love is associated with
a wisdom so unsearchable and so vast, and with a
holiness so transcendent and so pure, that the
conception, when it is even distantly approached, is
overwhelming. Did the Great Being who filleth
eternity and immensity vail Himself in the form
of man? Astonishment deepens as we ask. Did
He so pity His earthly children, that to make
them hate the evil which was separating them
from Him, He came down among them as one
of themselves? And did The Incarnate live on
this earth, only to be despised and rejected ? Had
he to bear the contradiction and scorn of the
world, and to suffer on a cross? It was so, in
very truth. Talk of public justice and of the
administration of the universe ! Talk of salutary
terror and of the atrocity of moral evil ! Is it
possible to conceive of any method, any jmnish-
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION. 137
ment of actual transgressors, so omnipotent in its
moral influence, as this blended revelation of love
and power, of holiness and wisdom ? Never was
God in such earnest to guard the foundations of
His moral government, to awaken in His creatures
the profoundest sentiments of fear on the one hand
and of love on the other, to exhibit the enormity
of moral evil, and to prove His irreconcilal)le repug-
nance to it. Never was God in such earnest, to
speak intelHgibly and impressively, to the whole
rational creation, to reach down to the deepest
spring of created intelligence and emotion, to touch
humanity at its innermost centre, to draw back
Ilis erring creatures irresistibly from evil, and to
attach them by a loving allegiance to His govern-
ment and His throne.
God's self-sacrifice in Christ, God's self-sacrifice
for human transgression ! That is the holy region,
around which the Great Being seeks to gather His
lost children ; that is the honourable, the consistent,
the safe ground, on which He forgives, by destroying
human sin. And it is thus, that our Lord Christ not
only has made, but really is, a true atonement — not
in the sense of scholastic theology, the sense of offer-
ing expiation, compensation, reparation to God for
sin, but in the New Testament meaning of the word,
reconciliation. Christ has both effected the recon-
ciliation of men to God, and he is himself the
138 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
point and the source of reconciliation. That
English word " atone" may have one or other of two
distinct derivations, but it must have the one or
the other. It may be to at-one, to bring to one,
to reconcile two conflicting parties. Or it may
be to a-tone, to bring to one tone, to attune, to
harmonise. In either case it is clear that, ety-
mologically, the English " atone " is precisely equi-
valent to reconcile ; and this naturally enough
accounts for the fact already noticed, that the trans-
lators of the New Testament have rendered the
same Greek term, in one instance* " atone," and in
the other instances " reconcile."
SECTION SECOND.
Satisfaction for Sin not Possible— 1. The Fact of Sin ; 2. Its Cri-
minality ; 3. Its Power for Evil Unchangeable — Sin Destroyed
and Forgiven — Divine Anger — How Inappeasable — Anger and
Love in Cross — Destruction of Sin in Soul — This, Salvation.
IF, as Las been shown, spiritual laws need no
satisfaction, and are perfectly satisfied; if
eternal justice needs no satisfaction, and is per-
fectly satisfied; if the moral government of God
needs no satisfaction ; if it has not been damaged,
and is not capable of being damaged; if the bare
suspicion of such a thing be most dishonouring
to the Great Kuler, — we may venture to ask, how
can any atonement, in the scholastic sense, act
upon human sin, or be related to it in any way?
How can it touch human sin at all ? There are at
least three points at which contact or influence is
impossible.
1. The fact of sin is immovable. That it has
been perpetrated, abides true for ever. Be its
time, or its place, or its kind, or its amount, what
140 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION,
they may, it can never be blotted out. True once,
it is true always. The fact must remain as sure
as at the first moment. At any point in the future,
it shall be true, that thousands or myriads of ages
before, in such and such circumstances, I perpetrated
a wicked deed, or formed a wicked purpose, that
conscious evil was in my soul, and that my will
resisted the will of God and chose what I knew to
be wrong. That fact is immortal as my being.
No atonement can ever alter it. Nothing, absolutely
nothing, can touch it in the slightest conceivable
degree.
2. The criminality of sin is unalterable ; what-
ever enormity belonged to it at the moment of its
commission, belongs to it for ever. A thousand
substitutes, bearing a thousand punishments, each
a thousand times heavier than was at the first
merited, could not remove one iota from the cri-
minality of the original transgression. A certain
character and degree of wickedness attached to it
at the time ; it attaches to it through all eternit}^
When myriads of ages have passed away, it shall
remain as true as ever, that such and such, and no
other, was the exact amount of moral turpitude in
the offence.
3. The power for evil, which inheres in sin,
never dies, except with itself. Sin is essentially
self-perpetuative and self-propagative. Evil in a
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION. 141
soul goes forth, like a diseased breath, into another
soul, acts on it insidiously, and begets new sin in
it. The second breathes infection into a third,
and the third into a fourth. In ever-increasing
ratio, the numbers multiply and the evil spreads
indefinitely — eternally. No atonement, (in the
scholastic sense,) no expiation of sin, can touch,
in the slightest degree, this polluting, corrupting
energy, which lies in the essential nature of moral
evil. Wherever sin exists, even God could not
separate this energy from it. Sin and power for
evil are connected unalterably, as cause and effect.
The effect must follow, if the cause be present.
But the cause itself may perish, and herein lies the
only hope of sinful humanity. So long as sin lives
in the soul, the poisonous exhalation, the corrupt-
ing energy, must go forth from it. But sin may
die — may be wounded and finally killed, and cast
forth, and then its power for evil necessarily dies
with it. The fact that it was perpetrated is im-
mortal, the exact amount of criminality which
inhered in it can never be lessened, but the prin-
ciple, the root out of which it grew and in whicli
it lives, the sin itself, may be wounded to death.
And so, in like manner, may the sin which it
begat in another soul, and the sin which that again
begat, and all the sins which issued from one dark
centre: they may all be made to perish and die.
142 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
The germ of evil in the heart may be struck at, a
blow divinely aimed shall be effective, and sin,
pierced through by redeeming love, shall begin to
die, and all its fatal power shall die with it. In-
stead of love of evil, there shall be an ever-deepening
love of good and of truth ; instead of separation,
there shall be nearness of heart to God in Christ ;
and instead of chosen rebelliousness and resistance,
there shall be a new, and reverent, and loving
kindredness with Heaven, and, through all, a new
power within, for good, not evil, shall be created.
Nothing can be done with sin, with conscious, vo-
luntary evil in the heart, except killing it outright.
The process may be gradual, but it must be mortal
from the first. What sin has been, it has been ; what
it has done, it has done, — that is the last that can be
said. No expiation, or compensation, or reparation,
or amends, can touch these standing facts. There
they are, for ever and ever unalterable. The only
thing possible, the only thing which can in the least
avail, is to strike the root itself, out of which evil
springs ; to strike a mortal blow, the sure, though
gradual, effect of which shall be the destruction and
extirpation of sin. And this is what Grod does. Sin
in the soul can be killed ; it has been killed ; the re-
deeming, reconciling God in Christ Jesus is killing
the sin of the world. This is His noblest work
among men, — killing sin and enkindling love, a
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION. 143
godly, manly, holy love, the seed-spark of eternal
life.
But if sin be really inexpiable in the sense already
explained, what place is left for the atonement of
scholastic theology ? What can it do ? Whom can
it affect ? Shall we suppose — and this is the last and
the only other thing that can be supposed — that there
is something in the mind of God, some irritation and
provocation which needs to be soothed and quieted,
some sense of injury, some feeling of wounded and
offended dignity which demands satisfaction ? This
is, in literal truth, supposed, and sanctions itself by
the language of the Scriptures.
In the New Testament, we meet, though seldom,
with such expressions as these : " The wrath to
come," " The day of wrath," " Being saved from
wrath," " The cup of the wrath of God." In the Old
Testament, this kind of phraseology is more frequent,
much stronger, and more vehement : " The fierce
anger of the Lord," " The fierceness of His wrath,"
" The fire," even " the fury of His anger." Such lan-
guage, applicable to one aspect of the divine nature,
does not stand alone, but is only in keeping with the
whole of the representations given in the Old Testa-
ment of the person, the attributes, and the doings of
the Most High. They are often intensely figurative,
do not admit of a literal rendering, but demand a
spiritual and very modified interpretation. " The
144 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
eyes of the Lord," " the hand," " the arm," '' the
feet," " the face," " the mouth of the Lord," are fami-
liar to readers of the Bible, create no difficulty, and
are intelligible and impressive, although literally they
must be altogether untrue. And farther, we have to
bear in mind, that not only anger and wrath and fury,
but other even distinctly weak and bad jmssions are
ascribed to God, — such, for example, as revenge and
jealousy and remorse, at least, repentant regret and
cruel irony and mockery " It repented the Lord
that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved
Him at His heart." i We can have no difficulty in
understanding from such a passage, the reality and
the strength of divine sympathy in human affairs. It
is clear that the Jehovah of the Bible, even in its
earliest revelations, is no " Jupiter Maximus," ada-
mantine and impassive. The fate of the world
touches the divine heart, and awakens in it the most
tender and profound emotions, affects it to such a
degree, that, had it been a human being who was so
moved, he must have given way to regret, remorse,
and griei Such affections in God are impossible, but
we are taught that divine pity is as real and as deep,
as if God were capable of repentance and of grief.
A second and stronger passage will be found in Prov.
i. 24: "Because I have called, and ye refused; I
have stretched out my hands, and no man regarded ,
1 Gen. vi. 6.
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION. 145
but ye have set at nought all mj counsel, and would
none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your cala-
mity ; I will mock when your fear cometh." The
truth conveyed, through this appalling medhim, we
can scarcely fail to perceive , it is the utter hopeless-
ness of those who have often and long, but in vain,
been reproved and warned and complained of and
remonstrated with. Their doom is as inevitable as if
God really rejoiced in what was so richly deserved, as
if He could even make it subject of bitter mockery
and scorn. There is not a passage in the whole
Bible where the literal sense is so tremendously blas-
phemous. The very tone is fearful, but the underly-
ing idea is obvious, and the impression conveyed by
the words, rightly interpreted, is only wholesome and
just.
We are surely justified in adopting a similar
method of interpretation, in the case of all those
passages, whether in the Old or in the New Tes-
tament, which in various forms ascribe fierce
wrath and fury to the Almighty. The literal
sense cannot be entertained for a moment, and so
far as I am aware, no school of theologians or inter-
preters worthy of consideration holds it possible to
accept it. But in rejecting the literal sense, we only
act in accordance with those general principles which
govern all languages, and especially with the known
laws of Eastern writing. When God is represented
K
146 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
as wounded by the sins of men, goaded by the desire
of retaliation, provoked to vehement indignation, and
inflamed with burning wrath, and with an ungovern-
able fury of resentment, the fundamental idea, the
one only idea, must be divine abhorrence of sin. It
is as if sin were a personal assault and affront to
God; it is as if, in His deep abhorrence and His
unslumbering vigilance, God made it His own
proper work to detect and to punish sin ; it is as
if He came into direct and direful collision with
transgressors, and as if all the greater and the
lesser evils which come forth in the evolution of
the vast system of providence were inflicted, and
inflicted with supreme satisfaction, immediately and
directly, by His hand. Nor may it be overlooked,
that the visitations which come down on wicked
men are often such as, if inflicted by a human
being, would evince fierce anger and implacable
revenge. But there is no revenge in God. No
sane man could endure the thought for a moment.
There is, there can be no perturbation in the
Supreme nature, no violence, nothing to which
the name of passion could be given. It is impos-
sible. The idea is fearfully dishonouring to God ;
is wholly and only impious. But it abides so-
lemnly true, nevertheless, that there is anger, lite-
rally and really anger, in God against sin. Let us,
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION. 147
with great reverence and carefulness, try to discrimi-
nate what precisely this statement involves.
That human emotion, to which we give the
name " anger/' contains two, and only two elements ;
a strong feeling of displeasure at wrong done, and
a desire as strong to put down the wrong. This
affection, with perfect truth, is attributed to the
Great Being, but with a necessary and obvious
difference — namely, that the desire leading to effort
to put down sin is rendered needless by the or-
dained course of the universe, for spiritual law
itself necessitates the instant punishment {>f sin.
Anger, therefore, in the divine mind is simply and
only deep, settled displeasure — no more; without
perturbation or passion, without resentment or re-
venge. God's anger against sin is a profound, calm,
pure feeling of unmixed abhorrence, the intensity
and the unalterableness of which it is not possible
to exaggerate. It is this and no more. The Holy
One alone comprehends sin, its entire moral tur-
pitude, the enmity, the defiance to Himself, the
disregard of law, and the despite to conscience and
reason in which it originates and which it involves.
The Holy One alone comprehends the entire course
of sin, through time, into the eternal ages, the
subtle process whereby all good is gradually effaced,
and passion and evil desire and utter self-will be-
148 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
come rampant and tyrannic, the thick darkness in
which the spirit may be wrapped, and the unmiti-
gated vileness which is possible to it, and how that
nature which He formed to be like Himself, may be
damned in misery and infamy. The Holy One
alone comprehends how sin, once introduced, spreads
like a plague, and creates disorder and rebellion
throughout tlie universe, and becomes a fountain
of pollution and of darkness — of crime and of suf-
fering.
Sin is the only thing within the limits of im-
mensity which God hates, infinitely, eternally hates,
hates because of its own hideous and foul nature,
hates because it is the degradation, the curse and
the ruin of the souls He hath made and loves. But
let it be well and deeply pondered, that this holy
divine anger can admit of no atonement. God's
displeasure against sin can never be appeased, never
changed in the slightest degree. Instead of any
possible atonement, sin, in this regard, is neces-
sarily and for ever inexpiable. Divine antipathy to
sin is not a judicial, official emotion, but a genuine,
profound, unalterable abhorrence, springing out of
the essential nature of God, and out of the essential
nature of moral evil. Were moral evil utterly put
away, extirpated and expelled, were the sin which
lies in the soul put to death, the only cause of
divine anger would be removed ; but so long as sin
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION. 149
remains, in . any amount or degree, nothing can
alter the feeling in relation to it, with which the
divine mind is possessed. Ten thousand sacrifices,
each priceless in itself, could not change or modify
in the least, God's infinite hatred of sin. In this
regard, the Holy One can never be placated, never
pacified, never conciliated ; that is to say, sin, exist
where it may, there, where it exists, can never be
anything but God's eternal abhorrence. Nothing can
ever in the slightest degree touch the fact, that sin is
exactly as God sees it to be, and that God sees it to
be exactly what it is and where it is. By no device
can it ever be made to appear to Him other than
it is, or otherwhere than it is. Sin existing, by
no device can God's relation or sentiment towards
it be changed, one iota, for one moment. The
divine thought of sin, the divine feeling, and pre-
cisely on the same grounds, the divine judgment
concerning sin are unchangeable. For ever and
ever, God declares of sin wherever it exists, and
60 far as it exists, "it is the abominable thing
which I hate." For ever and ever God ordains
without exception and without fail, "the soul that
sinneth shall die." This is the simple announce-
ment of an eternal fact.
We have touched one of the deep roots of human
redemption. It is because God hates sin, that He
has determined it shall be and must be put down.
loO ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
But this is only one side of the divine nature.
Love of man is as profound in it, as hatred of
sin, and has as much to do or more, with the
purpose of salvation. The life and the death of
the Incarnate, Nazareth and Jerusalem, Calvary
and the cross, were the token of God's abhorrence
of sin, but they were yet more significantly the
symbol of love to man. There was nothing,
absolutely nothing, consistent and legitimate, wliich
God was not willing to do in order to destroy sin,
but it was, if possible, still more true and more
impressively evinced to be true, that there was
nothing, absolutely nothing, which God was not
willing to do in order to save man. The Father
of souls, in spite of all the provocation of human
sin, was not transformed into a mere judge, still
less into a merciless avenger. Instead of erecting
His throne the higher, and clothing Himself with
terrors, in order to crush a pitiful rebellion, He
humbled Himself to a depth unfathomable, entered
into a new and closer relationship with His sinful
creatures, and came into His own world as a
sorrowing, suffering, and loving man. Instead of
needing to be propitiated, and appeased, and paci-
fied, and conciliated, before He could deal with
men, we behold God acting in pure, unsought,
and unbought grace. " God so loved the world,"
— of Himself, first of all, — *' God so loved the
ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION. 151
world, that He gave His only-begotten Son/' In-
stead of being first moved, or prevailed upon, or
somehow enabled to love the world, by the Incarna-
tion and the death of Christ, the New Testament
teaches us that it was His pure love which origin-
ated that Incarnation and that death. But it was
not love alone. Divine love of man was combined
with divine abhorrence of sin. God was resolved
on saving man, but He must also put an end to
sin. Only through the destruction of sin could
salvation be achieved, and the double end was
gained by one stupendous means. Sin is killed
by love, it could be killed by nothing else. Man
is saved by love, he could be saved by nothing
else. The destruction of sin is the salvation of
man; the two are one, with only a difference in
the mode of statement. It was proclaimed from
heaven in a way more subduing than by words,
that our Father pitied and loved us, though He
abhorred our sins, that He had no pleasure in the
death of His children, but entreated them to come
back to His feet and His heart. " Turn ye, turn
ye, why will ye die." Men would not seek after
God, but lo I God sought after men. Yery God
humbled Himself inconceivably, put Himself before
the world, His purity. His rectitude. His wisdom,
His love. Yery God pleaded in words of tender-
ness and pity for a place in man's heart, expressed
If52 ATONEMENT AND SATISFACTION.
His boundless compassion in human tears, and
blood, and death ; did anything, everything, if only
men might be reconciled to Him. And they
were and they are. The cross, symbol of dis-
honour and weakness, is the mightiest power in
the universe. The hardened, careless, godless
heart is touched and won by this ! The corrupt
nature feels the rush of a holy, divine force,
issuing from this, and the rebellious spirit, the
deep proud self-will spurning the will of God, is
conquered and broken by this ! Through all, the
Eedeeming One finds a satisfaction, worthy of His
nature, a pure divine contentment, not in sacri-
ficial blood and smoking altars and expiring victims,
but in endless good created, in human spirits saved
and made pure, and blessed for ever. There is
one soHtary passage of Scripture, in wliich the
peculiar term of scholastic theology, " satisfaction,"
is in any manner connected with the redemption
of man, and that passage shows beyond all doubt,
that its meaning is not only not the same, but the
very opposite of that, which long usage has un-
happily sanctioned, " He shall see of the travail
of His soul, and shall be satisfied^' — supremely
contented with its glorious results.
CHAPTER VI.
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
Section First. — Meaning op Terms.
Section Second.—Thuths answering to the Terms.
SECTION FIRST.
Meaning of Terms : — Science of Theology and other Sciences —
Essentially Different Ground — Theological Terms — Settled by
Scripture — Words "Justify," &c. — Literal Sense — Righten, Set
Right— Examples— Non-Natural Sense — Spirit of Man, Wrong
— Needs to be Set Right — Proof Passages— Justification — Only
Thrice, Used.
SYSTEMATIC theology, to wliich alone the de-
rO fined terms, justification and imputation, be-
long, has been attended with some evils which
largely counterbalance any amount of good it has
ever efi'ected, or is ever likely to effect. Spiritual
truth, bearing as it does chiefly on the conscience
and the moral nature of man, is among the last
things, on which the terms and the laws of formal
logic can be tried with safety. Even the idea
of constructing a system or science of spiritual
truth is very questionable. A science is not simply
a body of ascertained knowledge, it is knowledge
arranged, accurately classified, and above all, in-
terpreted by its underlying laws. Astronomy, phy-
siology, chemistry, botany, each professes to include
156 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
all the known phenomena which belong to its sphere,
to distribute these into their proper classes, and to
educe the fundamental laws, which account for,
and interpret them. No one of the sciences is
absolutely complete. In each, new facts, and new
orders of facts, and new governing laws, await dis-
covery, in the progress of time. But each, at the
present stage of observation, is exhaustive, and leaves
behind, in its course, no hopeless exceptions,' still
less contradictions ; and having advanced step by
step with entire success, up to the present limit
of discovery, it undertakes, by patient research, to
explain whatever shall yet arise, within the sphere
which it has assumed.
The sphere of theology from its very nature is
incapable of being exhaustively explored, and hence
every theological system leaves, perhaps at its very
centre, many unfilled blanks and gaps, and is forced
to acknowledge phenomena which baffle all human
methods of interpretation, which are, in fact, to
human thought, irreconcilable, although not really
contradictory. The rivalry among the systems has
ever been only this, which should show the largest
area of established truth, with the fewest un-
explained difficulties and contradictions. Theology
starts from primitive truths, which are not the
result of scientific observation, and are not capable,
except in a limited degree, of scientific treatment,
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 157
truths which are strictly transcendental, having their
ground in pure intuition, or in revelation, or in
both. And these truths, instead of occupying a
region apart by themselves, touch at a thousand vital
points, the whole range of spiritual thought, and
are interfused and blended with every question
within that range. It is quite certain that there
must be a real, underlying harmony of spiritual
truth, as there undoubtedly is of scientific truth,
but the ground of this harmony in the spiritual
region has never yet been discovered. Something
like a philosophy of theology, an approximative and
tentative philosophy may be possible, and we may
be able to lay hold of some leading principles which
point in the direction of the ultimate harmony, and
in which we can rest with entire confidence. But a
science or system of theology must be for ever
impossible in this twilight of our being; certainly
all the efforts to construct such a science, heretofore,
have proved on many sides discouraging and disas-
trous.
There is another important distinction. The
exact sciences have each a terminology of its own.
They could not be constructed, and could not serve
the ends of their construction, in the absence of this
indispensable auxiliary. Technical terms in science
answer the purpose of the ordinal numbers in arith-
metic, or of the arbitrary signs in algebraic notation.
158 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
The aritlimetician and the algebraist affix a precise
value to each figure or sign, and are able to conduct
their calculations with perfect accuracy and facility.
In like manner, and with equal authority, the man
of science defines, for his own purposes, the terms he
employs, and arranges under each the facts, or the
classes of facts, which properly belong to it. And
this is not simply a convenience, it is a necessity, for
holding securely what he has gained, and for all
valid progress in his department of the great field of
inquiry. lie has a right to define his terms. The
less arbitrary they are, and the more naturally they
suggest their meaning, the better ; but he has a
right to define his terms, to fix the precise sense in
which he employs them, and to determine the exact
area which they are to cover. Each term shall stand
for a certain range of facts, and shall include them
all, without exception, but no others. As new facts
come to light, either they can be ranged under one
or other of the existing terms, or a new term is
found which shall denote them and all of their order.
It is easy to see that, quite legitimately, the scientific
sense of a word shall be perfectly different from its
popular general sense, and on the same ground that
the meaning of a word in one science shall be per-
fectly different from itg meaning in another science.
All this s understood and admitted, as a necessity
and a manifest benefit.
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 159
It is imagined that theology ought not to be
denied an amount of licence, which in the case of
science is found to be not only harmless, but useful,
and even indispensable. Theology must need its
technical terms as much as science, and on what
ground, it is asked, can it be judged less entitled to
create and employ them ! But this question over-
looks a very essential fact which distinguishes theo-
logy, and separates it toto coelo from every human
science. Theologians are expressly saved the neces-
sity, and peremptorily prohibited the power or the
right, of creating terms, or of affixing to any term
a technical, special meaning of their own. An
authority higher than theirs, a divine authority, as
they fully admit, has beforehand put forth in human
language, — in language meant to be clear to the
ordinary apprehension of common men, — every lead-
ing idea within the sphere of theology. What sense
of a particular word, or form of words, shall best fit
in with a certain system, or shall best stand the tear
and wear of logical controversy, is not the question
at all, although too manifestly this has often been
uppermost with conflicting schools and creeds. But
the real and sole question in every instance is simply
this. What is the natural proper meaning of such
word or foim of words, as employed in the Holy
Scriptures ? The point which we have to discuss in
the present chapter is one which belongs wholly to
160 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
biblical interpretation. In regard to the terms,
"justify" and "justification," as with reference to any
other of the technical words which have been adopted
by artificial theology, we have simply to ask, what
saith the Scripture ? Theologians not only have no
right to impose a meaning of their own, but they
are guilty of a grave offence if they attempt either
to extend or to contract the natural sense. Acting
on this conviction, we shall quote all the passages,
without exception, of the Old and ^ew Testa-
ments, in which the words "justify" or "justifica-
tion " occur, and in which (it is important to bear in
mind) these English terms are employed to translate
some part or derivative of the Hebrew TsdddJc, or
some part or derivative of the Greek AcKaioay.
The word used by our translators, "justify," has
a very unambiguous sense. According to ordinary,
or rather universal, usage, it means to vindicate, to
clear, to right, or righten, or set right a person or a
transaction ; to vindicate, and nothing else, with only
such modifications as are readily and naturally in-
cluded in this term.i You justify or vindicate an
* I have no right to identify the author of the valuable treatise
on Christian Faith with any of the conclusions in this volume. But
in a point of criticism, and in the mode of interpreting the words
"justify," &c., a mode by which, for many years past, I had been
helped in understanding the New Testament, it was to me a singular
gratification to be confirmed by so well known and sound a scholar.
—See " Christian Faith," by Prof. Godwin, p. 156. London : 1862.
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 161
action when you set it right, when you show that its
grounds were good, when you put it in its true light,
clear of the wrong interpretations which had been
given of it. You justify or vindicate an accused
person, a man who is charged with wrong done, or
with duty neglected, when you show that he is blamed
falsely, when you right or righten him, when you set
him right with his fellow-men and before the law of
his country. There is nothing hereby reached as to
his general character, nothing, save in the particular
instance. He may be thoroughly wrong in other re-
spects, but, in this one respect, you are able to right
him, to justify, vindicate, clear liim. For the man
who has been really wrong, who has acted wrongfully
by his neighbour, and harboured wrong feelings
against him, there can be no vindication, except in
an entire change of mind and of conduct. You jus-
tify him, only when you set him really right, when
you induce him to abandon and condemn the wrong,
and to choose and cleave to the right.
It deserves to be specially remarked, that the dis-
puted term is employed by our divine Lord only fom:
times, but not once in the scholastic sense. The
apostle James thrice introduces it, but only in its
ordinary meaning. The apostle Paul makes frequent
use of this word, and it is on his use of it, that theo-
logians found the peculiar sense which they have
attached to it.
162 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
In the following passages of the Old and New
Testaments, the common English sense of the verb,
to justify, either must be adopted, or may most
naturally, and without any difficulty or straining, be
shown to give tlie true meaning, viz. : —
"The innocent and the righteous slay thou not:
for I will not justify the wicked," i — that is, vindicate,
clear, right them.
" The judges shall justify the righteous, and
condemn the wicked," 2 — that is, vindicate, clear,
right them.
" Condemning the wicked, and justifying the
righteous," 2 — vindicating, clearing, showing him to
be right, righting him.
" Mine own mouth would condemn me, if I justify
myself,"^ — that is, vindicate, clear, hold myself to be
right when I am not.
" Should a man full of talk be justified ?"^ — that
is, vindicated, cleared, held to be right, righted.
" I know that I shall be justified," ^ — vindicated,
•cleared, righted at last.
" How then can man be justified with God, or be
clean? "7 — that is, vindicated, cleared of blame, held
to be right, righted.
" God forbid that I should justify you," 8 —
1 Exod. xxiii. 7. ^ Deut. xxv. 1. ^ 1 Kings viii. 32.
-* Job ix. 20. '^ Job xi. 2. « Job xiii. 18.
^ Job xxv. 4. ^ Job xxvii. 5.
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 163
that is, vindicate, clear, right you, when you are
wrong.
" Because he justified himself rather than God,''l
— that is, vindicated, cleared, held himself to be right,
rather than God.
" Speak, for I desire to justify thee,"2 — that is,
vindicate, clear, right thee, if thou art really right.
" In thy sight shall no man living be justified," 3 —
that is, vindicated, cleared of blame, held to be right,
righted.
" He that justifieth the wicked . . . (is) an abo-
mination to the Lord," 4 — that is, vindicates, clears,
rights them when they are wrong.
" Who justify the wicked for reward,"^ — ^that is,
vindicate, clear, make them out to be right, though
they know them to be wrong.
" Bring forth their witnesses, that they may be jus-
tified,''^ — that is, vindicated, cleared, righted.
" Declare thou that thou mayest be justified," 7 —
that is, vindicated, cleared, righted, have justice done
thee.
" In (or by) the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be
justified, and shall glory," 8 — that is, justified in put-
ting their trust in Him, vindicated, righted, seen to
be right, and to have real cause for glorying.
1 Job xxxii. 2. 2 Job xxxiii. 32. ^ Ps. cxliii. 2.
'* Prov. xvii. 15. ^ jg^ y 23. « Isa. xliii. 9.
^ Isa. xliii. 26. 8 j^^^ ^Iv. 25.
164 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
" He is near that justifieth me ; who will contend
with me?"i — that is, righteth me, and will see jus-
tice done.
" By his knowledge shall my righteous servant
justify many ; for he shall bear their iniquities," ^ —
that is, vindicate, clear, right them, and set them right.
" Backsliding Israel hath justified herself,"^ — that
is, vindicated, cleared, made herself out right, v^^
she was wrong.
" Thou hast justified thy sisters, by all thine
abominations,"^ — that is, vindicated them in all their
abominations, by thine, as if they were right.
" Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,''^ (Hebrew,
justified,) — that is, purged from the wrong done
it, be righted and made clean.
These are the whole of the passages of the Old
Testament, in which the word "justify'' occurs.
They are not selected, but taken exactly as they
lie in the sacred books. With the exception of
not more than one solitary instance, their natural,
obvious signification does not admit of a ques-
tion. The following passages are selected from the
New Testament, and they are selected from others
which shall be produced in due time, because in
them the common meaning of the word " to justify"
is the most apposite, as it is the most natural.
1 Isa. 1. 8. 2 isa. Hii. n. 3 j^j.^ ^^ n^
* Ezek. xvi. 51. ^ Dan. viii. 14.
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 165
" Wisdom is justified in her cliildren/i — that
is, vindicated, seen to be what she is, righted in
the eyes of men.
" By thy words thou shalt be justified,''2 — that
is, thy words are a sign of what is in thee,
and will vindicate, clear, right thee, if thou art
right.
" The publicans justified God,"^ — that is, vindi-
cated God in what was done, did Him justice in
their thoughts, cleared, righted Him.
" He willing to justify himself ,"4 — that is, to
vindicate, clear, right himself.
"Ye justify yourselves before men,"^ — that is,
vindicate, clear yourselves, make yom'selves out to
be right.
" This man went down to his house, justified
rather than the other ,"6 — that is, vindicated in what
he had done, cleared, righted, as an honest, sincere,
penitent man before God.
" Not the hearers of the law .... but the doers
of the law are justified, "7 — that is, vindicated, cleared,
righted, seen to be sincere and true.
" That thou might est be justified in thy say-
ings,"^ — that is, vindicated, cleared, righted in the
eyes of men, as uttering only truth.
i Matt. xi. 19. 2 jyiatt. xii. 37. 3 Luke vii. 29.
* Luke X. 29. ^ Luke xvi. 15. ^ Luke xviii. 14.
^ Kom. ii. 13. ^ Eom. iii. 4.
1G6 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
" I know nothing by mj^self, yet am I not here-
by justified /'i — that is, vindicated, cleared, righted,
proved to be right.
" God manifest in the flesh, justified in (or by)
the Spirit ,''2_ that is, vindicated, cleared, righted,
proved to be divine. .
" Was not Abraham justified by works, when he
offered Isaac, his son, on the altar ?"3 — that is, vindi-
cated, cleared, righted ; his professed obedience
was proved to be real.
" By works a man is justified, and not by faith
only,''4 — that is, vindicated, cleared, righted, by the
substantial proof of sincerity.
" Was not Kahab the harlot justified by works ?''^
— that is, vindicated, cleared, righted, seen to be
true to her promise.
Throughout these passages of the New Testament,
as in the previous quotations from the Old Testa-
ment, the idea is that of vindicating, or more
generally of righting, or rightening. You justify
or vindicate, when you show the rights of a case,
when you set it right or righten it. But there
is another, a scholastic and conventional, meaning
of the word, which demands a careful examination.
Theological justification is thus defined by the
Westminster Assembly of Divines, in their Shorter
1 1 Cor. iv. 4. 2 1 Tim. iii. 16. » j^g. ii. 21.
* Jas. ii. 24. ^ Jas. ii. 25.
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 167
Catechism — " An act of God's free grace, wherein
He pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us, as
righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness
of Christ, imputed to us and received by faith
alone." We are taught to think of a court of
justice, God presiding as the judge, man arraigned
as a criminal, and deserving to suffer the penalty
jof the broken law, namely death, eternal death.
Man has no defence to offer, no plea of any kind to
put forward. But Christ Jesus, the incarnate
Saviour interposes, as a Mediator between God
and man, declares that he has siiffered in the
room and stead of man, and therefore claims that
man should be acquitted ; declares besides, that in
his life and by his death, he has wrought out,
in man's name, a perfect obedience, a perfect right-
eousness, which he needed not on his own account,
and therefore claims that this may be imputed to
man, even as man's sin was imputed to him, and
that man should on this ground not only stand
acquitted and pardoned, but should be accepted as
perfectly and spotlessly righteous. When a human
being, by true faith accepts Christ as the Mediator,
trusts in his death for pardon, and in his right-
eousness for acceptance, then the Great Judge pro-
nounces a sentence of acquittal and of irreversible
approval.
It must be obvious at a glance, how perfectly dif-
168 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
ferent all this is, from tlie simple meaning of the
word ''justify" in the Holy Scriptures, so far as we
have yet examined. It can scarcely fail to strike
impartial observers, that this includes so much more
than the word is ordinarily understood to contain,
and is altogether so widely different, that a common
Enghsh reader of the Bible, however well instructed
on general subjects, could never of himself form a
conception of it. Those who have been trained
from infancy in the theological system, not only may
easily read the New Testament in accordance with
it, but may find it nearly impossible, without long
and hard effort, to accept any other interpretation.
This is the too frequent effect of those arbitrary,
technical definitions of Scripture terms which have
been so largely introduced into a region where, of
all others, it is vitally important that the mind
should be preserved perfectly unbiassed. But on
the other hand, as a matter of fact, multitudes of
educated persons, not trained in the theological
system, are perfectly unable to understand the
words "justify" and "justification," as used by theo-
logians, and for the sole, sufficient reason, that the
conventional is entirely different from the natural
meaning. If it be asked by what authority these
distinct ideas — forgiveness of sins and acceptance
before God as righteous, and that on the ground of
a mysterious imputation of sin to the holy, and of
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 169
holiness to the sinful — have been imported into
what we have shown to be the ordinary meaning
of a Hebrew, Greek, and English word ; if it be
asked by what authority a common term has been
weighted with such important additions, — I know of
none which does not rest ultimately for its support
on the exigencies of the theological system. The
system needs forensic imagery and language — needs
judicial forms of procedure, in order to its exact-
ness and logical completeness. But it seems par-
donable to question, whether this can be adopted
as a legitimate and safe canon of biblical interpre-
tation.
Eeturning to more general considerations, it de-
serves to be noted, that the root of that class of
English words with which the verb "justify" stands
connected, is right. We have the adjective and the
noun, right ; the adjective, righteous ; and the noun,
righteousness, which, in its more general form,
rightness, would be an exacter translation. Eight,
righteous, righteousness, or rightness, — but strangely
the verb is "justify," as if it were derived from
another root. This departure in form from the
allied terms is, at least, not happy, and is almost
certain to create a misapprehension in the mind of
the mere English reader. At all events, it hides
from him a fact which might afford some help in
making out the meaning of the sacred text. No
170 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
violence is done, but, on the contrary, a truer ap-
preciation of the original is likely to be created,
if for "justify" we substitute a term cognate to the
words derived from the same root. Thus, — right,
righteous, righteousness, or rightness ; and to righten,
or rectify, or set right.
It will be easy to show how this slight change
of terms bears with beautiful simplicity and force
on the actual, spiritual condition of the world.
At the root of the whole Bible, underneath all
the teachings of the New Testament, there lies
this fundamental idea, that the spirit of man in
relation to God is altogether wrong. It has fallen
from God, has turned away and moves in a direc-
tion quite away from Him, and through all has
done, and is doing itself, as well as God, cruel
wrong. What it most of all and first of all needs
is to be righted or rectified, to be turned back
towards Him from whom it has wickedly revolted.
Instead of indifference, forgetfulness, resistance, and
enmity, what it needs is an earnest, humble, yearn-
ing after God, the waking up within it of lowly,
childlike trust. " I will arise and go to my Father."
Nor let it be forgotten that it is on this issue, on
the production of this inward change, that all the
influences of God's Providence, God's Spirit, and
God's Word, are brought to bear. All the divine
manifestations in Jesus Christ our Lord, manifesta-
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 171
tions of divine purity and wisdom, divine tender-
ness, and patience, and beauty, and sweetness, and
grace, all the mysteries of Incarnation, all the
forces of God's self-sacrificing mercy, incarnate,
crucified mercy, are directed to one grand end,
namely this, that man's soul be rectified, righted,
turned back from its wrong position, and that
humbled and penitent it may seek God, and with
timid trembling faith may begin to trust Him.
This first step — or look — Godward, this incipient
but genuine movement of the child-spirit, is justi-
fication, rectification, the righting, Tightening, set-
ting right of the soul, which before was wholly
wrong. Verily the first is not the last step ; a
hard struggle with evil and with self is before the
lightened spirit, an anxious process of inward
purification, a life-long work of sanctification — to
use the conventional phrase. But this righting
or rectifying is first, before anything real can be
effected. In order to be sanctified, we must first
be justified, righted by faith, turned towards God
in penitence and in trust. "It is God that justi-
fieth," an apostle declares, that righteth, righteneth,
setteth right the spirit of man, that turneth it
back towards Himself. And His method of right-
ing or justifying is by faith, by the sweet awaken-
ing in the soul of simple trust, trust in the revealed
mercy of God in Christ. This gentle, humbled,
172 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
penitent, childlike spirit, at once rightens the
erring soul, and changes its relation to its Father,
sets it towards Him, turns it right round, and
brings it into the attitude of a son, a humble,
subdued, confiding son.
Whether this sense of righting or setting right,
which we have shown belongs strictly to the literal
signification of the disputed word, and is found
fitting in all other cases, be applicable in the pas-
sages now to be quoted, must be left, to individual
judgment to decide.
** All that believe are justified " — cleared, set right
— " from all things, from which ye could not be jus-
tified " — cleared, set right — " by the law of Moses." i
" Being justified " — righted, set right — " freely
by His grace. "2
" We conclude that a man is justified " — righted
—"by faith," &c. 3
*' It is one God who shall justify " — righten —
" the circumcision by faith," &c.4
*' If Abraham were justified " — righted — "by
works, he hath whereof to boast."^
" To him that believeth on Him that justifieth''
— ^righteneth — "the ungodly." ^
" Being justified " — Tightened — "by faith, we
have peace with God." 7
^ Acts xiii. 39. ^ Rom. iii. 24. ^ Rom^ ^[i 28. •* Rom. iiL 30,
* Rom. iv. 2. ^ Rom. iv. 5, ^ Rom. v. 1.
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 173
" Much more, being justified " — lightened — " by
his blood," &c. 1
"Whom He justified" — lightened — "them He
also glorified/' 2
" Ye are justified " — righted — " in the name of
the Lord Jesus." ^
"A man is not justified" — righted — "by the
works of the law . . . even we have believed in
Jesus Christ, that we might be justified '' — righted
— " by the faith of Christ and not by the works
of the law." 4
" The Scripture foreseeing that God would
justify '' — righten — " the heathen by faith." ^
" No man is justified " — righted — "by the
law." 6
" That we might be justified " — righted — " by
faith in Christ." ^
" Whosoever of you is justified " — righted — " by
the law ; ye are fallen from grace." 8
These, with one addition to be introduced here-
after, are the whole of the instances, furnished by
the Old and New Testaments, without a single
exception, so far as I know, in which the English
word "justify," as the translation of the Hebrew
Tsadak, or of the Greek JcKaloco, is found in the
1 Rom. V. 9. 2 ijojQ^ yiii^ 3Q_ 3 i Cor. vi. 11.
* Gal. ii. 16. 5 Qai. jii. g. 6 Qal. iu. 11.
7 Gal. iii. 24. 8 Gal. v. 4.
174 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
Sacred Scriptures. The conclusion to which they
conduct seems indubitable.
The noun "justification" does not require so ex-
tended a criticism as its cognate verb. There are
only three passages in the whole Bible, and these
in the single Epistle to the Komans, a single verse
of one chapter, and two verses of the following
chapter, in which this favourite term of scholastic
theology occurs ; and in these it would demand no
common ingenuity to discover a foundation for the
extensive structure which has been reared upon
them. Two distinct words are used by the apostle
Paul, both translated in our version " justification."
These are ^t/ca/wo-t? and AiKatco/jLa. The analogy
of the language might have led us to judge that
AiKai(0(TL<i meant the act, the mode, or the power
of rightening, and AiKalcoixa the thing righted, or
a sentence, or ordinance, righting something. But
the apostle employs the two words, apparently
without distinction, as if they were quite inter-
changeable.
" He was delivered for our offences, raised again,
ha rrjv hKamcnv rjfjbcov, for the sake of, on account of,
in order to, our justification — our being set rigJit." l
" The free gift, 'xapiaiJLa, is of many offences, eU
BLKalco/jia, unto, in order to, justification, m order to
our being set right" 2
1 Rom. iv. 25. * Rom. v. 16.
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 175
" Even so, Be evb<; BLKaLQ)jiiaTo<;, by the righteous-
ness of one/'i — a translation which is flagrantly
inaccurate, the words admitting of no rendering
but some such as this: By one justification, or by
one rectifying ordinance, the grace came upon all
men, et? htKalwaiv fw%, in order to justification oi
life, in order to a vital riglitening, or a Tightening
of life.
1 Rom. V. 18.
SECTIOIT SECOND.
Truths Answering to Terms of Scripture : — Righteousness Right-
ness — State of Right-en-ed-ness — Rightening-ness — The Power,
Act, Mode of Rightening — Imputation — Rightness Imputed
because Real — Fact Recognised — Thing Reckoned, What it is,
Never, what it is not — Imputation Inevitable — Instinctive —
Figures of Speech — Judicial Imputation, a Crime.
IN close, indeed, essential connexion with tlie
point we have been discussing, there is an-
other term constantly occurring in the Scriptures,
the exact meaning of which it is of the highest
importance to ascertain — ^the term "righteousness,"
AiKaiocrvvTj, The more general word " rightness '' is
unquestionably as literal a translation as right-
eousness, and it is more comprehensive, and covers
a wide area, which cannot be included in the
latter term. Kighteousness, according to ordinary
usage, is equivalent to holiness, piety, virtue,
moral and spiritual goodness. Very frequently in
Scripture this is the proper and entire sense of
the word. Holiness is rightness, rightness in the
highest sense of all, moral rightness, true right-
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 177
ness of soul. But a thing may be perfectly
right without being holy at all. A thing is
right, which is fitting in the circumstances and
altogether worthy of them, which is proper to be
done, which is consistent and wise. That which
is holy is always right, but that which is right
may have nothing in it, of which the quality holy
can be predicated. Kightness is the more accurate
translation of ScKaioawrj, because it includes every
meaning of which the word is susceptible, which
righteousness does not. The narrower, special sense
of righteousness, as ordinarily understood, is quite
taken in by the more general word, but the more
general sense is excluded by the narrower translation.
1 The inward state of those who have been
tightened, set right, by faith, is fitly denoted by
the word hoKaiocrvvrj , it is a state of rightness in
relation to God. Perhaps with greater precision,
^nd in harmony with the forms of the English
tongue, it might be called rightenedness, a state
of rightenedness.
2. As this inward state is that which God seeks
to originate in men, and does originate in fact, it
is fitly distinguished as God's rightness or right-
enedness, not man's, His kind of rightenedness, what
He regards and produces as real rightenedness.
3. God's power and His method of rightening
men are also denoted by the term " rightness,"
M
178 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
hiKaioavvrj rod Oeov. With greater precision to
English ears, and more in accordance with English
idioms, it might be translated, Grod's rightening-
ness, including both His power and His way of
rightening or setting right. At the same time,
while the distinctions thus announced are far from
being unimportant, and deserve to be carried along
with us, the wide term, " Tightness," adapts itself
without much difficulty to these different shades
of meaning, and it might be perplexing to introduce
other terms.
The Tightness of God — either that inward state in
relation to Himself, which He originates in men, or
His power or His method of rightening them through
faith, is in the New Testament constantly contrasted
with law — Tightness, or man's own Tightness, man's
kind of Tightness, and his way of righting himself.
The prevailing Jewish idea was fulfilled in cere-
monial obedience. Instead of the conviction that
their spiritual relation to God was wrong, and re-
quired first of all to be set right, their highest aspi-
ration was ritual faultlessness, the offering up of all
the appointed sacrifices and gifts, submission to all
the ordained penalties, and constant homage to the
letter of the Mosaic institute. They thus thought to
work out a Tightness or rightenedness by law, by
obedience to law, their own kind of rightenedness,
not God's. The Jewish is only a special and con-
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 179
tracted form of the prevailing human idea. Nothing
is more common, and in one sense more natural, than
the avowal that all which can be expected of human
beings is, that they strive to do what is right, and to
live holily and justly, as far as they can, — a perfectly
good and noble aim in itself, and one with wliich
every Christian soul does and must sympathise. But
there is a first thing, prior to all such striving and
efforts which our Father seeks at our hands, it is the
return of our hearts to Him, in penitence and in
trust. Everything must be at fault, because spring-
ing out of a wrong centre, till this first step be taken.
No efforts of ours to do right can avail, till some-
thing of the true child-spirit, which also is the true
divine Spirit, born of the Holy Ghost, be awakened
within us. This is the only spring of genuine
obedience. Hence we read in Komans iii. 20, '' By
the deeds of the law " — by deeds of law, of any kind,
by acts of obedience — " there shall no flesh be justi-
fied" — that is rightened — "in His sight." God's
rightness, God's kind of Tightness, and God's method
of rightening, stand in direct contrast to man's kind
of rightness ; the rightness of law, man's idea of
rightening himself by obedience.
In the passages now to be introduced, we deem it
obvious that SiKacoa-vvrj is employed in the general
sense of rightness, and not in the special sense of
righteousness.
ISO JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
" They being ignorant of God's Tightness " ^ —
God's kind and way of rightening ; it cannot mean
holiness, for this would be obviously inapt and
useless for the writer's present aim — " and going
about to establish their own (kind of) Tightness,
have not submitted themselves to the righteningness
of God," Gods icay of setting them right.
" Christ is the end of the law for (in order to)
Tightness "2 — in order to rightenedness — "to every one,
that believeth." In every one that believeth, Christ
through this simple faith, accomplishes the great end
of all law — the making and keeping men right. Law
failed to accompKsh this end. Hence it is declared,
" What law could not do, in that it was weak through
the flesh, God (has done), sending His own Son in
the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin (He) has
condemned sin (sentenced it, doomed it to death) in
the flesh." (See Kom. viii. 3.)
" If Tightness come by law, then Christ is dead
in vain." 3 Eighteousness meaning holiness does
come by the law, by obedience to the law. The
highest end even of the death of Christ, is to cause
righteousness, in the sense of holiness, to come by
the law- The statement of the verse is false, un-
less we adopt the translation, " rightness," and then
it is as true as it is obvious. If Tightness, if the
rightening of the soul in its relation to God, can
1 Rom. X. 3. 2 RoQi^ X. 4. » q^I. ii. 21.
I
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 181
be effected simply by law, by command, even God's
command, then Christ has died to no purpose.
" By faith, Noah being warned of God of things
not as yet seen, moved with fear, prepared an ark
for the saving of his house ; by the which he con-
demned the world, and became heir of the right-
eousness" — that kind of rightness in relation to
God — " which is by faith. "i That principle of faith,
simple trust in God, which rightened his soul, is
the same which rightens every believing soul, and
is the only medium of true rightness in relation to
the Father.
" The rightness of God " — God's kind of right-
ness and His way of rightening men — " is revealed
from faith to faith." 2 This sentence, as it stands,
is nearly unintelligible. A slight change, which the
original perfectly admits of, will render the mean-
ing more plain : " The rightness of God by " — not
from — " faith" — that kind of rightness which comes
only by believing — "is revealed to faith, revealed
in order to be believed." The clause immediately
following must be noted in its bearing on the point
under discussion. As it is written, " The just shall
live by faith." Equally true to the original, whether
in the Greek or in the Hebrew, from which the
sentence is first of all taken, and more significant
and apposite is the translation, " The just by faith
1 Heb. xi. 7. ^ -^^^^ 1 17^
182 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
shall live." The just, the right, the righted by
faith, shall live. They are the persons who shall
really live, and be secure and blessed. The same
quotation is introduced in the Epistle to the
Galatians.
" That no man is right ened by the law is evident,
for the just [the righted] by faith shall live." " And
the law is not of faith, but" — its announcement is
this — "the man that doeth them shall live by
them."l It knows nothing of faith; what it de-
mands is service.
" The Tightness of God, without law, is mani-
fested, being witnessed by the law and the pro-
phets.'' ^ This cannot be the holiness of God or
of Christ. It is that Tightening of the soul,
through faith, without works of law which God
originates. This divine kind of Tightness, the
apostle declares, *'is now manifested, being wit-
nessed by the law and the prophets," "even the
lightness of God, which through faith in Jesus
Christ is unto all and upon all that beHeve."
" That I may be found in Him, not having mine
own Tightness, which is by the law " — ^by the effort
to obey — " but that which is through faith in Christ,
the Tightness which is of God (which God effects
and effects) through faith." 3
"If Christ be in you the body is dead because
1 Gal. iii. 11. " Rom. iii. 21. ^ -pi.^ ^ 9,
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 183
of sin, but the spirit is life, "because of Tightness,"'^
— hy being rightened.
The Old Testament furnishes some remarkable
illustrations of what we here seek to verify.
*' Jehovah our Tightness " 2 — our righteningness —
Jehovah who rightens us.
" The Lord is well pleased for (on account of)
His rightness-sake," — His righteningness, His work
and way of Tightening ; " He will magnify the law,
and make it honourable," ^ though He does not save
by works of law, but by simple faith. For He hereby
originates a living source, a true spirit of obedience.
*' I bring near my Tightness," — my kind of Tight-
ness, my way of righting the soul ; " it shall not
be far off and my salvation shall not tarry."*
God's salvation is not rescuing from hell, but de-
livering from evil within, really setting the soul
right and free.
" My salvation is near to come and my Tightness
to be revealed. "5 God's salvation is His way of
Tightening men, turning them to Himself.
There is a cluster of passages in which, to the
word " righteousness " or " Tightness," there is added
another of the select terms of scholastic theology, the
term *' impute," that is, reckon, or count. Several
of these passages are connected with a memorable
1 Eom. viii. 10. ^ Jer. xxiii. 6. ^ Isa. xlii. 21.
4 Isa. xlvi. 13. '^ Isa. Ivi. 1.
184 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
incident in the life of the patriarch Abraham,
while he was yet childless. As he gazed up to
the crowding, sparkling stars of a clear Eastern
sky, G-od promised him, " So shall thy seed be."
" And he believed in the Lord, and he counted
[imputed] it to him for (in order to) riglitness : " 1
in order to his being set right. Abraham's faith was
counted, reckoned to be what it was, genuine, and
this state of mind, faith, essentially changed and
Tightened his relation to God, made it a relation
of filial confidence, submission, and obedience.
"Abraham believed God, and it was counted
[imputed] to him " — it was reckoned to be what
it was — " for rightness," 2 — {^ order to his heing set
right.
" To him that worketh not, but belie veth in him
that righteneth the ungodly, his faith is counted
to him for Tightness," ^ — in order to his heing set
right. Faith does for him what no works, no acts
of obedience could do. It sets his soul right to-
wards God.
" Even as David describeth the blessedness of the
man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness" —
whom God counteth right in relation to Himself—
" without works/' ^ God counteth a man right who
is right, though not righteous — whose spirit is right
1 Gen. XV. 6. ^ Rom. iv. 3.
^ Rom. iv. 5. * Rom. iv. 6.
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 185
and rightened in relation to Himself. Out of this
right and rightened spirit will spring — the highest
form of rightness — righteousness, true obedience.
" Abraham received the sign of circumcision, a
seal of the rightnefcs which he had, yet being un-
circumcised," — for his soul was rightened, so soon
as he gave it up, in simple faith to God, and cir-
cumcision was only an outer and later sign of an
inward and earlier state — a state which was real,
independently of this sign, and before it was given,
— " that he might be the Father of all that believe,"
— not of the circumcision only, but of all that
believe, — " though they be not circumcised ; that
rightness might be imputed [counted] to them
also : " 1 even as it was to him, when he was un-
circumcised. That which alone ever rightened and
ever rightens the soul is faith — simple trust towards
God. The circumcised, if they have not faith, are
not rightened in relation to God, and cannot be
reckoned right. The uncircumcised, if they have
faith, are right as Abraham was, and are reckoned
right.
" Abraham believed God, and it was counted
to him for rightness,"^ — in order to his being
set right; he was accounted right, and he was
right.
" Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to
1 Kom. iv. 11. 2 QaL iii. 6.
186 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
him for [in order to] rightness ; and he was called
the Friend of God." i
These passages must impress every mind with
the exceeding graciousness and the transparent
equity and uprightness of the Most High — His
righteous, truthful, open dealing with His sinful
children. He imputes faith to those who have
faith, and rightness to those who are righted and
right. He counts faith to be genuine ; and right-
ness of soul in relation to Himself to be real, simply
because they are so, and for no other reason what-
ever. Among the surest of all verities is this, that
God never can count a thing to be what it is not,
but ever must only and simply count a thing to
bo what it is, and no more. As surely as God
knows and sees everything and every being exactly
as they are, so surely can He never consider, never
think them to be other than they are. And if He
can never think them to be what they are not, far
less can He give out, or in any way create, the im-
pression that He does so think.
Among men, imputation, both as an idea and
as a fact, is very distinctly recognised. Imputed
righteousness and imputed sin, in a certain modi-
fied sense, are not at all foreign to the thought
or to the living experience of the world. A man
shall inherit a dishonoured name, and shall succeed
1 Jas. ii. 23.
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 187
to a life of infamy, and penury, and pain, not
through any fault of his own, but wholly through
the sin of others, with whom he stands connected,
will he or will he not. He suffers by a sort of
imputation. The son of a criminal is first of all
distrusted, and without the slightest fault known
against him personally, the judgment and the feel-
ings of his fellow-creatures towards him are deeply
prejudiced, in consequence merely of his descent.
In effect, it is, as if we imputed to him sins which
are not really his, not his at all, and in spite of
himself he is compelled, to some extent, to bear
the punishment of those sins. The general course
of the world seems to look in the same direction.
The Judge of all the earth has the most perfect
knowledge of each of His intelligent creatures.
There can be no iniquity with Him. On the whole
and in the end, not a human being shall be able to
find, in the treatment he has received, the slightest
violation of equity. But the present is confessedly
not a final but a temporary state, a probationary,
imperfect, and mixed condition, in which no legiti-
mate, comparative conclusion as to individual char-
acter and desert, can be drawn from what is merely
visible and outward. " Suppose ye that those
Galileans (whose blood Pilate mingled with their
sacrifices) were sinners above all the Galileans,
because they suffered such things? I tell you,
188 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
Nay ; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise
perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower
of Siloam fell and slew them, think ye that they
were sinners above all the men w^ho dwelt in Jerusa-
lem? I tell you, Nay; but except ye repent, ye
shall all likewise perish." Amidst the inevitable
complications and confusions of the present state
of being, one event often befalls the good and the
bad indiscriminately. Natural evils, public and
special calamities overtake men, wholly irrespective
of their individual character. Slavery and war,
robbery and murder, wicked legislation, and de-
moralising principles and habits, entail endless evils
on innocent multitudes and on generations unborn.
The sins and faults of men, by a species of imputa-
tion, come down on those who had no share whatever
in originally perpetrating them.
On the other hand, the character which a good
and great man has gained by his personal virtues,
is bequeathed to his children. The world is pre-
pared beforehand to respect and trust the son, for
the father's sake, and to put to his account ex-
cellences not really his at all. Certain races and
lines of descent possess a kind of imputed worth
altogether apart from their individual qualities. A
nation shall be exalted in the reputation which
belongs only to a single man in it. Because that
man was born, and lived, and died in the land,
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 189
the whole people of it shall have a glory reflected on
them, to which, on personal grounds, they have no
claim whatever.
There is strong reason in all this. It is a patent
fact, make of it what we may, but it is a fact
very sufficiently based in truth and justice. It is
only right to cherish and to express respect for
genuine excellence, wherever it is found. It is
only right to keep alive in ourselves and others
the memory of such excellence ; and when the good
man has passed away, it would be a crime not to
guard his name with tender jealousy, and not to
deal lovingly, for his sake, with those whom he
leaves behind. On the other hand, it is only
right to visit crime with reprobation, to maintain
a salutary dread of coming into contact with it,
and to avoid those who may be conc^eived to have
inherited its taint. But all the while, it is never
to be forgotten, as an unassailable principle, that
real moral worth and real moral demerit are not,
and cannot be in any sense or in any degree,
transferable or imputable. No rightly constituted
mind imagines for a moment that they are ; the
idea is not only false, but impossible and absurd.
If there be, as we have seen there is, an inevitable
imputation, whereby men are often involved indis-
criminately in the same external good or evil ; and
if there be, besides, an instinctive imputation of
190 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
good and of evil from father to son, which on
some grounds is honourable to our nature and is
also not without its uses in fostering virtue, and
in punishing vice ; in both cases alike, it is only
by a figure of speech, that the word " imputation" is
employed at all. It is not supposed to be a reality.
We do not reckon or count, no one reckons a man
to be either good or bad, because his father was
the one or the other. He is really good or bad
in himself, and on no other account whatever, and
is neither better personally, nor worse personally,
from the mere fact that his father was an eminent
saint, or a notorious criminal.
In a case of law, when one man pays the debt
of another, and thus saves him from punishment,
it is never reckoned or counted, never by any
species of legal fiction considered, that the first
owed the debt. The debt is not imputed to him.
It is thoroughly understood that he is not the
debtor. The second is the debtor, and cannot,
without falsehood, be reckoned or counted to be not
the debtor. In the highest imaginable case, if a
friend were to suffer imprisonment or death, in
order to save a criminal who had been convicted
and sentenced, it could never be thought by any
sane man, could never be reckoned or judged, that
the crime was transferred to the friend, or could
possibly be transferred, and that the criminal in
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 191
consequence of this transference or imputation was
innocent. But in simple fact, it is more than
questionable whether such a case as is supposed
has ever been historically verified. If it have, it
must unhesitatingly be pronounced not an honour
but a disgrace, and a crime in human law. It
may often be wise and right to forgive an evil-doer,
or to modify his punishment, but to take away life
which has not been forfeited, or even liberty, is an
atrocious offence against the plainest obligations of
equity. However willing a man may be to sacrifice
himself for another, at least human law can never
sanction, cannot even tolerate such enormity, without
stepping altogether out of its sphere, and incurring
unmitigated reprobation.
The reference of divine procedure to the analogies
of human law has been misleading and disastrous.
It is most true that God is the supreme judge of
His creatures, and is very often so distinguished
in the Holy Scriptures. He judges every rational
being, good or bad — unerringly, righteously, merci-
fully. He judges. At every instant, the judgment
of the Holy One, in reference to every human soul,
is fixed, because at every instant, the Holy One sees
every human soul exactly as it is. It is most right
and wise to keep firm hold of this grand truth, and
it may be lawful besides to allow the imagination to
body it forth, by the aid of whatever analogies and
192 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
accessories it can create. It may be quite lawful
to picture a court of justice, a judgment seat, God
enthroned as judge, and man arraigned before Him.
It may be quite lawful to picture a suit conducted
with all the usual forms of law, the charge made on
the one side, and admitted or denied on the other
side, and the prisoner at the bar asked to show
cause why sentence against him should not go forth.
Such a picture, besides, it is quite possible might be
so drawn, as to produce a deep impression on certain
minds, and to lead to very salutary results. The
obvious cause is this, that underneath the selected
imagery, there is a real and great spiritual truth, of
which the mind may take" hold and into which it
may gain a profounder insight — the truth of God's
perfect, certain, and instant knowledge of our actual
state and desert. But we deal falsely with men
and with sacred things, unless we make known that
this is all which is meant to be conveyed, and that
the picture containing this truth is a picture and
nothing more — our creation, not God's. T« treat
the picture as a reality, and to found religious
doctrine on its separate details, details which mere
human fancy has wrought into shape, is surely
wrong, and must be very dangerous. The under-
lying truth that God sees at every moment the very
state of every human soul, is of all others most
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 193
momentous and most sure. But all beyond this is
wholly unreal, is mere pure imagination.
It is highly probable that the idea of this de-
ceptive, spiritual scene-painting has been taken
from the doctrine of a judgment-day, at the final
consummation, when ages beyond reckoning shall
have passed away. But the two differ in the most
essential respects. The supposed picture is of a
present experience, during the earthly life, and it is
in every point the mere baseless fabric of a dream.
There is no court of justice, no judgment-seat, no
trial, no process of charge and defence, no verdict
and no condemnation. The simple fact is, that
human sin is discovered, is perfectly seen, and is
judged, condemned, and punished in the instant
it is committed. All its consequences, especially all
its physical consequences, are not at once realised,
but essentially, inwardly, its penal effect is immediate.
When it is committed, no opportunity of explaining
it is offered, no defence, no palliation is asked for,
would be listened to, or is possible, just because the
exact amount of demerit which belongs to it is
seen at once without the possibility of mistake.
In regard to the spiritual government of God, and
to the spiritual laws of the universe, sin and punish-
ment are inseparable and simultaneous. Without
trial, or judge, or judgment, sin instantaneously
N
194 JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION.
punishes itself in the soul. It may, indeed, and
does prepare for itself, in the evolutions of earthly
providence, palpable, material penalties, which are
not yet endured, but the reallest punishment de-
scends on the instant, and comes out of the very
nature of sin itself. No possibility, legal, judicial,
or otherwise, of escape exists, save by the expulsion
and destruction of the dire root of evil. Hence
justification is not a process of law at all, nor the
mere formal act of a judge ; it is a real, inward,
entire change. The man is really rightened, not
legally acquitted ; that which was wrong in him in
relation to God is set right — is begun to be set
right. He is turned to God, instead of being turned
away from Him. Beholding God in Christ, he no
longer resists the divine appeal, but yields at last
with his whole heart to a loving, forgiving, much
enduring, self-sacrificing Father.
The simplicity, the beauty, and the power of
Christ's own gospel, are irresistible. No uncouth,
hard terms meet us here, no nice, legal definitions,
no endless, fretting distinctions, and no guarded,
inflexible forms, barring the way on this hand and
on that — nothing but pure love, immaculate, infinite,
self-sacrificing, holy love. The simple short tale
has often been rehearsed, but it is overpowering,
and warm, and fresh still. The Great God loves
the soul He hath made, and would save it. But
JUSTIFICATION AND IMPUTATION. 195
even He cannot save it, except by setting it right.
Away from Him, it is away from life. The life
must come near, must come down, must come into
man, and must find a way to the sacred depths of his
spiritual nature. God must make man's heart His
own, must draw and turn it to Himself, by the pure
omnipotence of love. And He does. " The Life,"
the Living One "was manifested," was embodied,
was incarnated. Through Christ, through the living
Christ, highest of all through the dying Christ, as
the chosen medium,i (Mediator,) very God comes
near to man, and man turns to draw near to God.
The divine Spirit touches the human spirit, and
the touch is almighty. Divine life breathes on
human death ; divine light dawns on human dark-
ness. "The Life," "The Living One" is the
Light of men. And "the True Light is the Life
of men."
^ See note, p. 27.
CHAPTEE VII.
SACRIFICE.
Is God Essentially Self-sacrificing ? — Lesson to Universe — Sacrificial
Rite, Universal — Esthetic Gradation — Contrary to Facts —
Animal Sacrifice — Earliest Form of Offering — Taking of
Animal Life, Revolting — In Name and by Command of God
— 1. Provision for Human Sustenance — 2. Merciful Protection
to Animal Creation — Sacredness of Life — Worship of Life-
giver — Surrender back of His own — Virtual Self-surrender —
3. Silent Confession of Life Forfeited and of Sin— Early
Revolting Corruptions of Sacrificial Rite,
IT is an old idea, that the Creation is grounded in
sacrifice, divine self-sacrifice, and that the uni-
versal fabric of nature is based and built up on this
mysterious fact. Creation began, it is thought, in
an act of self abandonment ; after it had fallen into
evil, it was redeemed through the humiliation and
suffering of the Incarnate, and it shall be perpetuated
for ever in blessedness and purity by the holy spirit
of self-surrender and love. It was a sacrifice on the
part of God to create at all, for in the very act
of creating, He brought Himself into relation with
inferior being, — conditioned, limited, sacrificed Him-
self. And, in human conception, the world, as it
now is, peopled by creatures endowed with will, and
capable of resisting their Maker, and of introducing,
as they have in fact introduced, immense evil, can be
only a burden, if not a grief.
The universe at its birth was a joy to its Creator,
and it may yet become, in an immeasurably higher
sense, an eternal, divine joy ; but, like other births,
this also, it is conceived, was accomplished through
humiliation and sacrifice. The literal cross of the
200 SACRIFICK
divine man of Nazareth was the late outward sym-
bol of an earlier, an unseen cross, which had been
serenely borne by the Infinite Father, ever since the
beginning of the ages. Not on Calvary, for the first
time, did God sacrifice Himself for the sake of His
creatures. He only proclaimed there, in an impres-
sive and awful form, what, since the first moment of
time, had been a universal, underlying, all-embrac-
ing truth.
It might be unwise either wholly to accept, or
wholly to reject, these peculiar speculations. That
they have at least some foundation of reality it is
impossible to deny, and they may have a bearing,
more important than is at first discerned, on the
spiritual discipline and on the ultimate destiny of
the intelligent universe. Beyond question, for all
time and all temporal beings, sacrifice lies at the
root of real good. True nobility, true greatness, and
all highest spiritual excellence, grow only out of this
strong subsoil. Universally, at least for men, a
cross is the way to a crown. The hard-won victory
over self and sin, which issues in the free, entire,
and eternal yielding up of our will to the good will
of God, can only be the fruit of sore conflict and of
stern self-sacrifice.
But a truth so vital as this, and one which is,
besides, on many accounts, so repellant, both de-
served and needed to be impressed on the universe
SACRIFICE. 201
by extraordinary methods. Hence it is conceived
that the Loving Father, from the first, stooped to
teach His creatures by His own example, and ex-
hibited Himself, as the grand instance and pattern
of self-sacrifice. The lesson, early taught, was there-
after wrought into the very texture of the entire web
of finite existence, comes up, ever and again, in
broad and strong outlines, on the lengthening woof
of time, and at last was enstamped in colours that
shall never fade, whose hue is caught from the
mingled shades of Bethlehem and Nazareth, Geth-
semane and Jerusalem. Far ofi*, in the distant
past, where the awful line divides time from eter-
nity, in the moment and the act of creation, as on
a lofty summit, to be seen by all the ages and the
races following, the Great Being imprinted and
lifted up a divine cross. Ever onward through
the generations He drew the world's eye to the
awful symbol ; and at last, by the anguish and
the shame of Calvary, He appealed, and continues
to appeal, to the heart of the universe, that it may
open wide to the lesson of suffering and of sacrifice.
The universality of the sacrificial rite among all
nations, as well in modern as in ancient times, is not
unrelated to this train of thought — is perhaps best
interpreted by it. And closely connected with the
universality of the rite is the question of its origin,
whether divine or human. The early Christian
202 SACRIFICE.
fathers, with few exceptions, and along with them
many ancient and eminent Jewish Kabbis, main-
tained the purely human origin of sacrifice. It was
recognised and expressly sanctioned by God, but it
was first of all the thought and the act of man.
Were it possible to ascertain with certainty what
the earliest form of sacred offering was, whether
strictly sacrificial or consisting only of the fruits
of the earth, this would, in a great degree, deter-
mine the question of their divine or human origin.
But the point is one of great difficulty, and is the
subject of a very wide diversity of opinion. Besides,
the field of inquiry is by no means perfectly open.
One is not at liberty, in such a region, to indulge
freely in speculation and in fancy, and to form out,
as it shall strike his imagination, an artistic and
aesthetic theory of the origin and the early form of
religious worship. Were it otherwise, there would
be no difficulty in picturing, as many have actually
done, a state of comparative innocence and inex-
;perience, the juvenile, almost infantile, state of the
human race, in which very childish and rude notions
of God prevailed. In such a state, we could imagine
that natural taste, and the sense of propriety, and
of common gratitude, might suggest the presentation
to God of some visible token of reverence and of
homage. First of all, the most simple and beautiful
objects in nature would be selected; wild flowers
SACKIFICE. 203
would be laid upon the altar, as an acknowledgment
of the All-beautiful and the All-good. In the pro-
gress of the religious idea, fruits, as more valuable,
would be added to flowers. Thereafter, as more
valuable still, the produce of the fields — corn, and
oil, and wine — would express the thankfulness of
the creature to the Creator. Last of all, and still
increasing in material value, and therefore more
expressive of the respect and submission of the
worshipper, the firstlings of the flock and of the
herd would be presented to God, and be either
wholly offered up in His honour, or so partially
surrendered as to make the whole, in a high sense,
sacred.
Such in fact, it has been conceived, is the natural
history and the gradual development of the rite of
sacrifice — in the first instance a merely human idea,
extending itseh, by degrees, with the progress of
knowledge and of material cultivation, and perhaps,
also, with the deepening consciousness of evil. But
it is legitimate to ask, in all simplicity, is not this
pure fancy, a dream, a beautiful dream indeed, but
nothing more than a mere dream of the imagina-
tion ? Where is the evidence of this fancied, natu-
ral gradation, in sacred ofierings, from flowers to
animal sacrifice ? It exists not. Where are those
innocent forefathers of our race who, in their juve-
nile, grateful, unsuspicious sentiments towards God,
204 SACRIFICE.
laid flowers on His altar, in token of their beautiful,
simple faith? They are not to be found. The
solitary thing favouring this idea at all has not long
ago been put forward by some students of Hindoo
mythology. From the most ancient of the sacred
books of Asia, they are disposed to infer that the
produce of the garden and the field must have been
presented to the gods before animal life was sacri-
ficed. But in this region, investigation is yet com-
paratively immature, and the inference, which is
but an inference, is one which it is far from unlikely
more thorough research may set aside. In all other
regions, the evidence is distinctly to this effect, that
flowers and fruits, instead of preceding sacrifices,
were added to them as a matter of taste, and for
the sake of embellishment. As we search back into
the remote past, under the guidance of authentic
history, or even of popular tradition, we find not
simple, but very gross and dishonouring, conceptions
of the divine nature, and not beautiful, but very
barbarous and revolting, modes of religious worship.
The civilisations of the early world were truly mar-
vellous, but they were wholly material, not spiritual
at all. Majestic temples were reared, and gorgeous
ceremonies were observed, but we look in vain for
an influence descending from them to exalt and
ennoble the objects of worship, or to simplify and
purify the forms of sacred service.
SACRIFICE. 205
The ancient Phoenicians, Assyrians, Egyptians,
Persians, Indians, Grreeks, and Komans, supply no
evidence of a supposed progressive development from
simple to bloody rites, and no illustration of the com-
parative innocence and childlike spirit of early faith.
The very reverse of this is the solemn, sad truth.
Animal sacrifices, numerous and revolting, are among
the earliest things which meet us in the history of
ancient nations. Among the Greeks and Komans,
whose annals are best known, animal sacrifice, from
the very earliest period, was identified with divine
worship. It is almost decisive of the whole question ;
that in that holy volume i — whose introductory por-
tions, in spite of German and British critics, can be
proved, as we ventm-e to judge, not on presumptive or
conjectural ground, but on what competent scholars
regard as strong historical evidence, to be the earliest
authentic writings in the world — and in the first no-
tice given of divine worship there,2 animal sacrifice,
^ I do not for a moment presume to determine for others such a
question as the date of the Mosaic writings. But it is no presump-
tion to form a judgment for one's-self respecting conflicting evidences
which are put forward. By all means, let the question be left open
to discussion and criticism on all sides. But it is not conducive to
a wise, final determination to assume, as is too often done by one
class of writers, and not very modestly, that the matter is settled for
all time, and that those who attach weight to the very strong evi-
dence on the other side, and believe in the early date of the Penta-
teuch, must be either ignorant or prejudiced. This is not the mode
in which the spirit of truth reveals or vindicates itself.
2 Gen. iv. 3, 4.
206 SACKIFICE.
as well as the fruit of tlie ground, is specially men-
tioned. The only other instances afterwards named
in Holy Scripture, up to the time of Moses, those of
Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are precisely to
the same effect. And in the Mosaic economy, its
prominent, distinguishing feature, from its com-
mencement to its close, may be left to speak for itself.
On the whole, in the present stage of inquiry, the
preponderance (at the least) of reliable evidence is in
favour of the conclusion, that animal sacrifices were
the earliest form of religious worship.
The question is, In what can animal sacrifices have
originated ? Shall we say, in the unprompted, un-
aided reason and conscience of man, or in a divine
intimation and command? The individual convic-
tion is here expressed, that not man, but God must
have been the author of the sacrificial rite. The very
idea of acknowledgment to God at all, of outward
material acknowledgment to God, not in the form of
sacrifice, but even in the presentation of flowers and
fruits, could never have been spontaneously adopted,
far less originated by the human mind. We, with
our churches, and chancels, and altars, and vestments,
and vessels, and flowers, and ornaments, forget that
we have grown up, through a long process, and by
the slow teaching of ages, into the later thoughts
which are conceived to demand or to justify these
things. But man in his original condition had
SACRIFICE. 207
the very first step in this long process to learn. In
his untaught, inexperienced simplicity and natural-
ness, would it not occur to him at once to ask, and
would it not disabuse his mind of all idea of material
acknowledgment to God, when he asked himself,
" What can such presentations be, or do, to an un-
seen, spiritual Being ? how can they aifect or influ-
ence Him in any way ? " We can readily conceive that
men in the primitive ages might be natively predis-
posed, and prepared to believe that their Creator was
not indifferent to the state of their minds, and was
not ignorant of their joy or their sorrow, their thank-
fulness or their penitence. We can readily conceive
that they might spontaneously utter and express these
affections in the way that natural instinct dictates,
and that penitence and sorrow would reveal them-
selves in the sadness of the countenance, in flowing
tears, and in sounds and words of lamentation. We
can readily conceive that, in the warm gratitude and
the gushing joy of their hearts, they might deck
themselves with flowers, and sing and make merry
and feast together on the fruits and the produce of
God's earth. But to offer anything to Him, to make
a present of anything to Grod, who possesses all things !
how could this be ? What meaning could it have,
which was not either palpably absurd or deeply in-
sulting ? IIow vast is the leap from what is natural
and credible to what seems contradictory and foolish !
208 SACKIFICE.
Where were men to place their flowers and fruits,
that they might be nearer to God, or more under His
eye, than if they were left where they grew ? And
place them wherever they might, the offerers would
see that there, where they placed them, they lay, un-
touched, unnoticed, till they wasted, decayed, and
perished. There is a deep, wide gulf between reli-
gious sentiments and affections and any outward,
material offering to an unseen and spiritual Being,
— a gulf across which man himself could never have
thrown a pathway. We conclude that the idea of
outward, material offering to God must have been a
divine suggestion, not an unprompted, spontaneous
birth of the human mind.
Whatever truth there be in the course of thought
we have pursued, it bears with tenfold force upon the
fact that animal sacrifices were, as we judge, the
earliest form of sacred offering. All must admit that
in itself, sacrifice is a coarse and cruel rite. The
question is. Could man of himself merely, by any
natural process of thought or feeling combined, have
come to think and believe that such a rite stood in
close relation, in most holy relation, to the blessed
God ? Could he ever have come to regard it, as not
only innocent and not only praiseworthy, but most
sacred, a solemn act of piety ? We are so habitu-
ated to the idea, and the word, sacrifice, so trained
in the notion of the connexion of sacrifice with sin
SACRIFICE. 209
and with divine forgiveness, that it is only by a
severe effort we are able to conceive of it naturally
and impartially, and in itself merely. But suppose
the entire absence of all our training and associations
and modes of thinking, — suppose primitive man,
with only his mere judgment and conscience, his
natural mode and power of looking at things, and
his personal experience to guide him, — the question
is, could he, in this case, of himself have come to
believe that the death of a beast could in any way
influence or bear any possible relation to, the mind of
his God ? Suppose the sense of sin in his soul ever
so deep, suppose his fear of punishment and his
dread of divine anger ever so overwhelming, could
he of himself have imagined that God would be
appeased towards him, and would find satisfaction in
the sufferings of an innocent and helpless animal?
It seems impossible to think so. What dictate of
natural conscience, what principle of common equity,
what law of the understanding, what process of fair
reasoning could have led him to such a conclusion ?
Not one. From what premises could he argue, on
what grounds could he rest his belief ? There were
none. Even supposing that his notions of God were
of the grossest kind, supposing that he imagined
God to be altogether such an one as himself, or
worse than himself, an imj)lacable, revengeful Being,
who delighted in blood and death and revelled in the
210 SACRIFICE.
agonies of His creatures, this of itself would be
enough to convince him that such a Being could
never be contented with the sufferings of a mere
animal, substituted for the far acuter and deeper
sufferings of a rational man. A divine suggestion to
the human soul, but only this, solves all the diffi-
culties and perfectly meets all the circumstances of
the case. It seems reasonable to think that it must
have been in obedience to God, as it certainly was in
solemn acknowledgment of God, that, first of all,
irrational animals were slain. But the rite once
ordained, the act once familiar, the notion once
planted in the mind, all thereafter is comparatively
plain. The sacrifice of animal life w^ould become
a part of the understood, accepted, common know-
ledge of mankind, would be preserved and extended,
as a tradition, where the fact of its origin was
unknown, and would gather around itself, in the
progress of time, all manner of ideas, false and true,
according to the character and tendencies of indivi-
duals, nations, and ages.
The first mention of sacrifice in the Holy Scrip-
tures almost compels the belief, that it was by no
means the first time that such a thing had taken
place. " Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock,
and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect
unto Abel and to liis offering." No special atten-
tion is drawn to the fact, as if it were altogether
SACRIFICE. 211
novel and extraordinary. It is simply named as
a thing quite understood and perfectly usual. So
far as the testimony of the Hebrew Scriptures goes,
animal sacrifice certainly dates not long after the
creation of man. There is a kind of traditionary,
hereditary notion, widely prevalent, to the effect
that the food of primitive man was vegetable, and
that after the apostasy for the first time animal
food was used. Let no undue weight be attached
to this notion. It may have no authority at all.
But quite apart from this, it is in itself highly pro-
bable, we venture to think it all but certain, that
it was by divine suggestion, first of all, that animal
life was taken, in order that animal substance
might be used for human food. It needed such a
suggestion, first, to justify man in destroying animal
life, and, second, to prompt him to this act. The
taking of life, in any case, on any ground, is revolt-
ing and abhorrent to nature. We shrink from it,
we shudder at the sight of it. If it be a necessity,
it is a barbarous and brutal necessity, and no
ordinary force is required to overcome that deep
repugnance to it, with which all but very coarse
natures are possessed. It is quite true that our
instincts and our structure, beyond doubt, place us
in the order of carnivorous animals. But let us
carefully mark how much this involves. "We are
formed by nature to be flesh-eaters ; but whose flesh
212 SACRIFICE.
— wLetlier that of oiir own race, or tliat of inferior
creatures — is a point wholly undetermined by our
structure. So far as structure is concerned, we have
precisely the same right, neither less nor more, to
feed upon one another as to take the life of any
animal, in order to appease our fleshly instincts.
Might is not right, and all our appetites must be
under law to reason and to God. Hence we argue
that the Being who formed our nature. Himself im-
pelled to the legitimate method of preserving it, and
appointed for our needs the death of the inferior
tribes. At the same time, we cannot doubt that a
deeper lesson, in harmony with the great facts of
the creation, the redemption and the ultimate per-
fection of the universe, was involved — a lesson reach-
ing to the inner, spiritual nature, and suggesting
that life is sustained only by the sacrifice of life.
All life, vegetable as well as animal, lives only hy the
death of other forms of being. Truest of all, the
higher life thrives by the sacrifice of the lower outer
life. Man rises to God, only out of the depths of
conflict and sufl'ering. By wholly giving himself up,
he gains himself. By simply but absolutely sur-
rendering his will to the good will of God, he be-
comes a freeman and a conqueror. By crucifying
the flesh, the spirit is crowned with true glory. By
dying he lives.
The rite of sacrifice was, first of all, merely the
SACRIFICE. 213
divine provision for human sustenance. But in
connexion with this, there is an additional fact to
be noted — a manifest and merciful protection was
thrown around the lower creation. Animal life was
exalted into a sacred thing, and the taking it away
was hallowed as a solemn act of religion. From
the first, God taught His rational offspring that a
deed in itself strange and revolting must not be ven-
tured heedlessly or wantonly — must be transacted
under a distinct sense of His presence and His
rights, and must in fact be nothing less than a sur-
render back to Him of that which was wholly His —
a true act of worship. In this connexion, it is re-
markable that through the whole duration of the
Mosaic dispensation, the persons, save in exceptional
instances, who slew the animals used for food by the
Israelites were the priests. In Leviticus xvii. 3, 4,
the Israelites are expressly prohibited from killing
any animal for food without first offering it to the
Lord, and having it slain by the priest, before the
door of, the tabernacle. To this day, we believe,
among the scattered descendants of Abraham sacred
oflS.cers have to do with every animal which is used
for food. It is even yet more remarkable and more
decisive that, in killing animals to be used for food,
Mohammedans, who entirely abjure the rite of sac-
rifice, up to this hour invariably, as the knife de-
scends to cut the throat of the creature, utter the
214 SACRIFICE.
words, " Bismillah," — " In the name of God." No
good Mussulman will eat the flesh of an animal
which has not in this way, as they judge, been made
sacred to God. The false and corrupt religious
ideas, too often associated with the rite of sacrifice,
render it hard, if not impossible, to reconcile it with
just conceptions of the Great Being. But so far as
we have gone in these hints as to its primitive
meaning and design, it is impossible not to regard
it as a provision altogether worthy of God — most
merciful and most wise — unspeakably more merciful
and more wise than the very best of our existing
Christian civilisations are able to exhibit.
It has been suggested that the notion of man and
God eating together, in token of reconciliation, was
involved in the primitive institution of sacrifice.
The form of the altar, literally a raised table, and
the fact that the priests (and the offerers at their
own homes) partook of the animals sacrificed, are
not without weight. The mode in which federal
treaties or compacts were made and confirmed in
ancient times has, perhaps, greater force still. "When
a disagreement had been made up, or when a com-
pact or covenant was entered into, the transaction
was hallowed by sacrifice. An animal was slain,
and divided into two portions; and the contracting
parties passed between the divided sacrifice, as much
as to say, " Let us no more henceforth be divided ;"
SACRIFICE. 215
or, " So be it done to us, if we violate this covenant."
Thereafter they sat down together, and feasted on
the sacrifice. No unprejudiced inquirer can fail to
learn here, that the taking of animal life was held to
be a sacred thing, and to make sacred, to some ex-
tent, whatever was connected with it. It is plain,
also, that the God to whom life belongs was here in-
voked to witness and to sanction what was transacted.
But beyond this, all is unreal and contradictory. It
was not true that God did eat with men, and took
His place along with them at the altar. There is
nothing to show that they entertained this notion;
and if they did, it was not only a mere fancy, but a
gross and coarse, a degrading and dishonouring fancy.
The natural and rational analysis of the primitive
meaning of sacrifice guides us to one other, but only
to one other fact, in addition to the two already pro-
duced — the fact of human sin. Man had forfeited
his life. Every being who sins forfeits his right to
live. In the very act of sin he inflicts a death upon
himself, and strikes a mortal blow at his spiritual
nature. It was not unworthy of God, but most
worthy, to furnish, in the very mode in which even
the outer life of his rational creatures was preserved,
a perpetual, material symbol of the deeper evil which
they had brought upon themselves, and to extort
from them a silent, but significant confession of sin.
The teaching of the slain animal from the first, and,
216
SACRIFICE,
later still, of the altar, was that human life was for-
feited life, life forfeited by transgression.
Few things are now less thought of, because so
common, than the death of animals, for the purposes
^of daily subsistence. But it was not so from the
beginning. That deed, which, in token of disgust,
we call butchery, had at first a very hallowed mean-
ing. It was done in the name and by the command
of God, and was understood to be a solemn act
of acknowledgment and of reverent worship. It
taught the sacredness of all life, and was a surrender
back to God of what was supremely His — a virtual
self-surrender on the part of the offerer. Last of all,
it distinctly involved a silent confession of depend-
ence and of sin. In itself, merely, the act had no
sacredness, it became sacred because it was the
ordained symbol of that spiritual acknowledgment
which God required from His rational creatures.
But the material act was far easier than this mental
exercise. One of the deepest tendencies of men, in
the sphere of religion, is to substitute the outward
for the inw^ard, to put religious rites in the place of
religious convictions and feelings. Too often, the
abundant care and pains bestowed on outward forms,
are only the sure sign how utterly we have lost the
inward spirit of worship to which alone God looks.
It is not hard to conceive how men learned to count
the mere rite of sacrifice, apart from its inward
SACRIFICE. 217
meaning, a thing good and holy in itself and pleas-
ing to God, and how they laboured, in their own
perverse way, to render the rite more imposing and
more awful. It is not wonderful that in successive
ages, utterly false ideas were so crowded around it,
as to bury out of sight the divine simplicity. As the
degeneration of the human races deepened, and as
men's thoughts of God became more dishonouring
and more gross, we have no difficulty in imagining
how they descended lower and ever lower still, until
at last they believed that the more numerous and the
more revolting the sacrifices which they brought to
the altar, the more likely they were to please the
Great Being. Even in the age of the patriarch
Abraham, the inhabitants of Canaan had sunk into
the most fearful debasement, and entertained the
most revolting notions of the Supreme. He was
transformed in their conceptions into a monster of
cruelty, whose anger could be appeased only by a
horrible and hideous worship, and to whose implac-
able revenge they must offer up not animal only but
human life, and even the life of their own offspring. i
We turn from the abuses and corruptions of a
sacred ordinance to its solemn restoration and re-
enactment by its divine Author.
1 The reasonings in the chapter following are quite apart from
the view of sacrifice presented in this chapter, and rest, as will be
perceived, on their own independent grounds.
CHAPTER VIII.
MOSAIC ECONOMY.
Section First. — Its Chief Characteristic.
Section Second.— Its True Meaning and Interpretation.
SECTION FIRST — CHIEF CHARACTERISTIC OF THE
MOSAIC ECONOMY.
Religion of Blood — Endless Sacrifices — Rite Simplified and Purified
— Appeal through Senses to Soul — Two Ideas — Human Sus-
tenance and Divine Worship — Paschal Lamb, a Supper — Also,
Act of Worship — No Idea of Expiation — How Blood, Atone-
ment for Soul — Blood and Fat, God's Portion — Rest for Food
— Kaphar, iXdcr/co/iai, Atonement — Not Expiation — Proof
THEKE is a painful recoil in many minds, from
more than one aspect of the Jewish institutions,
and of the entire dispensation founded upon them.
The chief cause of offence is the place to which the
rite of sacrifice is exalted, being not simply or
occasionally recognised along with other and more
spiritual acts of worship, but constituting the
grand, pervading, and perpetual characteristic of the
economy. Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, on innu-
merable special occasions, and for innumerable
personal, domestic, social, private, and" national
causes, innocent animals were slain on the altar of
Jehovah. No ordinary arithmetic could compute
MOSAIC ECONOMY.
the sacrifices, of all kinds, which were offered up, in
whole or in part, in the tabernacle first and after-
wards in the temple. Such a narrative as that of
the first dedication of the temple in Jerusalem, when
Solomon and all Israel with him off'ered sacrifice
before the Lord, 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep,
bears no distant affinity, it is maintained, in this
particular feature to a Pagan festival.
It were easy, were it here needful, to exhibit the
widest distinction between Judaism and all the forms
of ancient idolatry. None of the revolting impurities
of Gentile worship, and none of the abominations of
human sacrifice, find a place in the law of Moses.
And then, instead of sacrifices to many gods, the
many sacrifices were all offered to the One only God,
the true object of worship. Even the number, the
modes, and the exact times of holy offerings were
fitted to act with beneficial power, on an undis-
ciplined multitude, to train them to habits of order
and of thoughtful care, and to inspire them with
the idea of the constancy, the awe, and the un-
feigned consecration which were demanded in divine
worship. But when all this and much more has
been advanced, the question is unanswered, " How
can we .connect the living God with a religion of
blood ? " for hour by hour of every day, the altar of
Jehovah streamed and reeked with blood.
It is not favourable to modern ideas, that some
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 223
of the wisest and most admired of the early Chris-
tian fathers vindicated the Mosaic institutions, by-
reference to the religious rites of Egypt and other
ancient nations. Had they, in that day, sympathised
with the later scholastic mode of interpreting the
rite of sacrifice, their course must have been the
very opposite. After the manner of more modern
apologists, they had only to show that Moses was
a, type of Christ, that the Jewish was a prefiguration
of the latter Christian dispensation, and that the
legal sacrifices were meant to prepare the world for
the true sacrifice of Christ. This would very readily
and legitimately have accounted for whatever seems
repulsive in the ancient ritual. But not a word to
this effect, do these primitive disciples of our Lord
utter. Instead of any such reasoning, they point
to the condition of the whole Gentile world, and
especially to the bloody altars of Egypt, with which
the Israelites had long been familiar, and in services
like to which they had long been trained. Hence
they argued that the institution of sacrifice by Moses
was an inevitable necessity, and that had it not been
sanctioned, as it was, by God, and placed under
special and exact laws, it would certainly have been
introduced by the Israelites themselves, indepen-
dently of divine sanction. It is strange but true.
The ancient. Christian argument involved this most
dishonouring conception — that God was obliged to
224 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
succumb to a necessity, and was able only to regulate
and modify what it was impossible for Him to prevent.
The original meaning of the rite of sacrifice, if we
have correctly interpreted it, conducts us without
recoil, and by an obvious and easy process of
thought, to all the distinguishing services of Juda-
ism. That rite was first of all the divine provision
for human sustenance ; but it was a sacred rite from
the beginning, and was ordained and understood
to be a true act of worship — a distinct acknowledg-
ment of God, and a virtual self-surrender to Him.
It was the primitive, universal form of divine wor-
ship — the divinely-appointed mode in which men
expressed outwardly their reverent recognition of
the Great Creator. So far from yielding to a ne-
cessity, and sanctioning what He had never or-
dained, but only winked at, God, in the dispensation
of Moses, simply restored and re-enacted, with great
solemnity. His own significant ordinance. Away
from all which the ignorance, and the errors, and
the fears of men had originated. He reconnected
the taking of animal life with the presence and the
rights of the unseen Life-giver, and reclaimed, in this
significant act, the homage and the love of the
human soul.
It is important to bear in mind that the entire
ancient economy was an appeal directed, first of all,
to the senses of the Israelites, ultimately to their
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 225
judgment and conscience ; but first, through the
medium of strong impressions made on their animal
nature. The reason is manifest ; it was not possible,
by any other means, to have addressed an effective
appeal to such a people, as the Israelites were, at
this period of their history, a nation of slaves,
emasculated and ground down by two centuries of
the most galling bondage — a savage, ignorant, and
unintelligent multitude. The barbaric gorgeousness
of the tabernacle, with its coverings, and ornaments,
and colourings ; the outer court ; the holy place and
the holy of holies ; the dresses of the priest and of
the high priest ; the altars of sacrifice and of incense ;
the gold and silver vessels of the sanctuary ; the
numberless holy days and festivals ; the minute,
punctilious, rigorous details ; the washings, and
cleansings, and changings of robes ; the times, the
modes, and all the petty arrangements of cere-
monies and services, and the never-ending offerings
on all sorts of occasions and for all sorts of purposes,
— had one manifest design, to affect the senses of
the people, and through their senses to convey to
their minds, with extraordinary impressiveness, the
thought of God — a God ever near to them, ever
observant of them, and whose watchfulness was un-
ceasing and minute.
But if the rite of sacrifice, like the entire dispen-
sation to which it belonged, addressed the outward
226 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
senses, that rite had in itself a wonderful simplicity
and directness of meaning, such as the humblest
might at once comprehend. And this simplicity
and directness were restored, preserved, and even
intensified by the peculiar institutions of the ritual
law of Moses. The sacrificial ordinance — cleared
from all the pagan ideas which had been imported
into it, and from all the pagan abominations which
had been associated with it — was made once more,
what it had been at the first, simply the outward
mode, whereby men gave token of their reverence
and their homage, whilst at the same time and by
the same act, God mercifully provided for them the
means of subsistence.
The first mention of sacrifice in the history of the
Jews, as a people, furnishes a significant, almost
startling, confirmation of this view. The Paschal
lamb formed the supper of that night when they
were driven out of Egypt. It was eaten with bread
hastily and imperfectly prepared, and with bitter
herbs, and amidst other signs of the perilous crisis
they had reached. But it was eaten, and it supplied
a meal of animal food very needful and strengthen-
ing for the anxious journey they were about to un-
dertake. At the same time, the slaying of the
lamb, as in all cases, was in the name and by the
command of God — it was essentially a sacred rite,
an act of homage and submission to the unseen
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 227
Jehovali, under whose protection they were to go
forth from Egypt, and who, on that memorable
night, was to shield them from the dire calamity
soon to come down on the inhabitants of the land.
It is only reasonable to conjecture that the religious
system afterwards established by divine command
may possibly be found to be in strict harmony with
this original fact. The two ideas at the first con-
joined — human sustenance and divine worship —
were certainly embodied in the sacrifices under the
law of Moses. The whole burnt-offering, symbolic
of extraordinary and entire consecration to God,
had its fitting place in that law ; but usually, gener-
ally, whilst in every proper sacrifice, a certain part
was consumed on the altar, in token of surrender to
God, the remainder was the food either of the
priests or of the ofi'erers themselves. On this prin-
ciple, a consistent and honourable interpretation is
supplied of the fact already referred to in connexion
with the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem, when
22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep were sacrificed. It
was no outburst of brutal savageism, and no mere
cruel and wicked waste of animal life. The occasion
was one of extraordinary thanksgiving and rejoicing
— of solemn worship, indeed, but also of feasting and
of national exhilaration. "While God was reverently
acknowledged, and whilst the rich celebrated a joy-
ous holiday, hundreds and thousands of the poorer^
228 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
Israelites, who had no sacrifice to olFer, were fur-
nished with the means both of worship and of feast-
ing — the means of adoring their God, and of making
glad in the joy of their country.
The sacred side of the rite of sacrifice, apart from
its secular uses, was unambiguous and intelligible —
reverent acknowledgment of God, and return and
self-surrender to Him. But was this the entire sig-
nificance of so strange a rite ? That is the question
which deserves an extended and explicit reply. The
fact must not be concealed, that long before the
time of Moses, among the Gentile peoples around, as
in heathen nations at this hour, a larger and very
different conception was entertained. Urged by their
fears, and judging by a human standard, and by
human experiences, men early dreamed of propitiat-
ing divine favour, and appeasing divine anger, and
of prevailing on the gods either to avert evil, or
to bestow some desired benefit. To them Baal or
Ammon or Moloch or Jupiter were monster exag-
gerations of human passions and vices ; and hence,
in the worship of such deities, they shed blood in
torrents, perpetrated horrible cruelties, cut them-
selves with knives and sacrificed their fellow-crea-
tures, and even their own children, on the altar. Their
idea was to make up, somehow, for the wrongs they
had done, to glut and satiate the revenge, of which
they supposed themselves to be the objects, or to
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 229
work upon the stern and cruel nature of their gods,
so as to secure some coveted favour. But it would
require more than common evidence to sustain the
belief that these Pagan ideas in any degree tainted
the divine economy of the Old Testament. It is
not, indeed, impossible, or even improbable, that
among the Jewish people something of the pagan
element may have found its way. That element, as
is shown in its early and wide development, must
have much in it which is congenial with the ignor-
ance and the gross ideas, and, especially, the fears
of the human soul. Men are slow to believe that
God's thoughts are immeasurably high above their
thoughts, and His ways immeasurably high above
their wa^^ s, slow to believe that His mercy reacheth
to the clouds, and that He delighteth to pardon.
But they do naturally, though most perversely, judge
of the Most High by themselves, and by themselves
even in their worst aspects — as furious, revengeful,
and implacable. They do imagine that, like them-
selves. He also must hunger for satisfaction, must
thirst for blood, must burn to wreak His vengeance.
It is possible — though any distinct evidence of such
a thing is altogether wanting — that this Pagan con-
dition of thought and of heart may have more or
less infected the Jewish people. But that it was
ever sanctioned, or even indirectly countenanced, by
their religious institutions, must be resolutely denied.
230 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
When the Jew brought his sacrifice to the altar, two
distinct ideas were presented to his mind. On the
one hand, here was a merciful divine provision for
his animal life; on the other hand, the God, who
had made this provision, was here laying claim to
the reverence and the love of his heart, and demand-
ing his willing return and self-surrender. Every
fresh offering was meant to be a fresh response to
the divine claims, a new and sacred acknowledgment
on his part, a new return and self-surrender to his
God. The occasions of sacrifice were endless; but
throughout them all, in every instance, the one mean-
ing was simply this, renewed and reverent acknow-
ledgment of God. He was taught that the grand
reality, to be recognised in every change of circum-
stances, and with every passing hour, was God. The
transparent purpose of the institution under which
he lived was to encompass him with a holy rcA^erence
of God, to keep alive in him a constant sense of God's
presence and God's rights, and to convince him that
he could be happy and safe and right only in God,
in a cordial return and surrender to Him.
But the question is repeated, Was there no more
than this involved in so extraordinary a rite ? Are
we not compelled to think that there must have
been much more than this ? How, for example, are
we to account for the frequent mention of sacrificial
blood in the Old Testament, and for the constant
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 231
and reverent use which was made of it? The
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews states the simple
fact when he says that " almost all things were by
the law purged with blood." " And that without
shedding of blood is no remission." The sprinkling
of blood was one of the most sacred of all the rites
connected with sacrifice. It was performed always
towards the mercy-seat, sometimes in the outer court,
sometimes in the holy place, sometimes in both,
and once a year in the holy of holies. Blood was
sprinkled on the person, on the garments, and on the
dwelling. The sacred vessels and furniture of the
tabernacle were purified with blood. When the
throat of the sacrifice was cut, the blood was caught
in a vessel, and with his fingers the priest touched
with blood the horns and sometimes the sides of the
altar, the rest being poured out at the bottom of the
altar, from which, through two openings, it was con-
ducted into the brook Kedron. On the great day of
atonement, the high priest with unusual solemnity
carried the blood of the sacrifice into the holy of
holies, and sprinkled it reverently before the mercy-
seat and on the mercy-seat.
A peculiar significance is added to all these facts,
by the divine announcement in Lev. xvii. 10, 11.
"Whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or
of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth
any manner of blood; I wiU even set my face against
232 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from
among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the
blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar, to
make an atonement for your souls (lives) ; for it
is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul,"
(life.) Physiological and sanitary reasons were
doubtless combined with others of a purely sacred
kind, in this promulgation of the mind of God ; but
the sacred ground is emphatic and distinct : "it
is the blood that maketh an atonement for the
soul," (life.) Without determining at present the
exact sense of the word " atonement," this much is
evident, that whatever value, whatever acknowledg-
ment of God there was in the sacrifice proper, was
owing simply and wholly to the life-blood being
shed. There was no sacrifice in the highest sense
without this, and a strong confirmation is here
incidentally furnished of the interpretation which has
been given of the sacrificial rite, in its primitive and
natural meaning. We found that it was animal life
in that rite, which was made a sacred thing by God,
and it was the taking and offering up of the life, not
the wounding or maiming of an animal, but the
taking of the life, in which consisted the act of
worship. The acknowledgment of God in the
slaying of an animal was the acknowledgment of
the Life-giver, and the act of worship was recogni-
tion of His rights and surrender back to Him of that
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 233
which was supremely His, involving as it did a
virtual self -surrender on the part of the offerer.
The presentation and sprinkling of the blood were
thus indispensable ; and as the symbol of life taken,
and of life surrendered, to the Life-giver, the blood
had a meaning which did not belong to anything
else, whilst, in itself merely, it was no more sacred
than any other part of the sacrifice, and had no
more efficacy or power. To set our minds com-
pletely at rest on this head, we have only to turn
to another passage in the book of Leviticus, chap,
vii. 23, 25 — " Speak unto the children of Israel,
saying, Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or
of sheep, or of goat. For whosoever eateth the fat
of the beast, of which men offer an offering made
by fire unto the Lord, even the soul that eateth it
shall be cut off from his people." The plain fact
is this, in every proper sacrifice, two things were
reserved sacred to God, the blood and the fat, but
the one no more than the other — the blood being
sprinkled and poured out. and the fat being con-
sumed on the altar. The same solemn prohibition
against eating applied to both alike, and the same
penalty of death was attached to the violation of
the prohibition, in the one case, and in the other
alike. There were very strong sanitary reasons
for such a law in that climate, and in the circum-
stances of the Israelites, but we have here simply
234 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
to understand that the blood and the fat were God's
portion in every sacrifice: all the rest, that is, all
which was really wholesome, being used for food.
Among the causes which have operated in identi-
fying the Jewish law with pagan worship one of
the most powerful lies in that word " atonement." It
is met with repeatedly, especially in the Pentateuch,
creates, it is imagined, a most formidable diffi-
culty, and involves thoroughly Pagan notions of
the rite of sacrifice.i The original Hebrew term
(Kaphar) affords no assistance to the inquirer. It
simply means to cover, to conceal, to put aside. A
little help is gained from the Scptuagint, the oldest
translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, a translation
by Jews of their native tongue into a foreign lan-
guage, which, however, they were in the constant
habit of using, and with which they were thoroughly
familiar. Two or three different words are employed
in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew, (Kaphar.)
We have, in several instances, dyid^co, I sanctify, con-
secrate, set apart; or, KaOapl^o}^ KaOalpco^ I purify,
cleanse, and their derivations; but in by far the
greater number we find IXdcrKOfiai, or its compound,
e^ikdaKOjjLai. There can be no question that, ac-
^ I have sought to examine, with all the care possible to me, the
whole of the passages of the Old Testament, in number between
sixty and seventy, in which the word "atonement" occurs, and have
given, in the succeeding pages, the result of this examination.
MOSAIC ECOI^OMY. 235
cording to ordinary Greek usage, the two latter verbs
convey distinctly the idea of propitiating or appeas-
ing, and are constantly employed by Greek writers
to express the supposed effect of sacrifices in avert-
ing the anger of the gods. But because the Sep-
tuagint translators applied a common, Pagan, sacri-
ficial word to the Mosaic offerings, are we obliged to
conclude that therefore they applied it, in the Pagan
sense ? It by no means necessarily follows ; and
there are strong reasons against such a conclusion.
For example, of^iaCjua and Ka9ap[t,(o are sometimes
used indifferently, in the Septuagint, with IXdaKoixat
and i^lXdaKOfiai, as if they were convertible terms,
though the two former certainly contain no such
sense as expiation or propitiation. In the account
of the most solemn of all the Jewish festivals, the
great day of atonement, given Exod. xxx. 10, we
read, *' Aaron shall make an atonement upon the
horns of it, i^lXdaerai eir dvro, (shall expiate upon
it,) once a year with the blood of the sin offer-
ings of atonement, tov KaOaptcr/jboVy (of cleansing:)
once in the year shall he make atonement upon it,
Kd6apiei, (cleanse upon it.)" Again, we read in
Lev. xii. 20, " When he hath made an end of re-
conciling (atoning) the holy place, and the taber-
nacle of the congregation, and the altar," &c. The
Hebrew is Kaphar, and IXdcrKOfiaL is the verb used
in the Septuagint. But whatever be the meaning
236 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
of the Hebrew or of the Greek word elsewhere, in
sacred or in profane writing, at least in this passage,
atoning, as that word is understood in scholastic
theology, propitiating, or appeasing, is utterly inad-
missible. The holy place, the tabernacle, and the
altar could commit no sin, and could awaken no
divine anger which needed to be appeased. Nothing
can be more clear than that the word "atone" cannot,
in this instance, contain the idea of expiation.
It is worth while to note, in passing, that the text
just quoted is not the only one in which our English
translators have rendered the Hebrew Kdplidr by
"reconcile" instead of "atone." In at least five
other instances, Lev. vi. 30 and viii. 15, Ezek. xlv.
15 and 18, and Dan. ix. 24, this rendering occurs.
And it will be remembered that in the New Tes-
tament we found i that "reconcile" and "reconcili-
ation," in twelve out of thirteen cases, are the trans-
lation of a Greek term which undeniably can have
no reference to expiation, or satisfaction, in the schol-
astic sense. The impression is not unreasonable,
that " reconcile" and " reconciliation" may possibly
convey all that is essential in atone and atonement,
as occurring in the Old Testament. A more ex-
tended examination of passages, as we judge, will
strengthen this impression, and convert it into a con-
viction, based on no slender ground.
1 See chap, v., p. 125.
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 237
We read in Excel, xxix. 36-37, " Thou shalt offer
every day a bullock for a sin-offering of atonement :
and thou shalt cleanse the altar, when thou hast
made an atonement for it, and thou shalt anoint it,
to sanctify it : . . . and it shall be an altar most holy ;
whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be holy." The
altar was holy, not morally, but ceremonially ; holy,
in the sense of sacred ; sanctified, in the sense of
being consecrated; separated, set apart to the service
of God. So sacred was it, that whatsoever touched
it partook of its sanctity, and only sacred j)ersons,
specially separated to this end, durst touch it. But
we are taught, that it became thus sacred, became a
sanctified, hallowed, atoned thing, through sacrifice,
— seven days of sacrifice ; and the question is. How
could this be ? We have only to recollect, in answer
to this question, that sacrifice was among the sacredest
of human acts, the sacredest of all the outward forms
of religious worship, and of all the outward modes of
acknowledging the presence and the rights of God.
In order to consecrate anything, to take it out of the
circle of common things, and to set it apart for God,
the directest method was to connect it with sacrifice.
As for any idea of atonement for sin, as we speak, in
the case of the altar, a piece of inanimate matter ; as
for any idea of expiation or propitiation or satisfac-
tion to divine justice, it is simply and wholly unin-
telligible. Nor will it avail to suggest that the sins
238 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
of the Israelites, whose offerings were laid upon the
altar, rendered it unclean. Formally, ritually, it
might be so, indeed it certainly was so, even as he
who touched, or was touched, by anything ceremoni-
ally impure, was held to be ceremonially impure,
(though he had contracted no real, moral defilement,)
until by certain observances he was again formally
cleansed. Accordingly, we are expressly told that
the altar needed to be, and was, hallowed, atoned,
once a year " from the uncleanness of the children of
Israel.'' But sin, real impurity, moral evil, could
not insert itself into the wood or clay or stone of
which the altar was made, could not inhere or adhere
to it, could not touch it, could not affect it in any con-
ceivable way, or in tlie slightest degree. Atonement,
in the sense of expiation of sin, for the altar, was
impossible ; the thing was either unmeaning or most
impious. At the same time, it is easy to see that
the very sacred and extended ceremonies by which
the altar, and, in like manner, the sanctuary, and the
tabernacle of the congregation were atoned, which in
this place can signify only restored and reconciled to
their holy uses, had an important meaning and an
exalted purpose. In harmony with the entire spirit
of a dispensation which was all addressed to the
senses of an uncultivated people, an impression of
profound awe was made on the Israelites. Their
God was a holy and a jealous Grod, and would toler-
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 239
ate no oversight ; His service was most sacred, and
everything used in it must be held to be most sacred,
and must be jealously kept perfectly free from spot
or taint. But such atonement is not expiation.
A strong confirmation of this course of thought is
found in Lev. xiv. 48-53. The passage refers to the
plague of leprosy, in the walls of a house, which is
most minutely described, by its various indications.
The priest is, first of all, to make a careful inspection
of the place, and to order certain steps to be taken by
the inmates. These attended to, " if the priest shall
come in, and look upon it, and, behold, the plague
hath not spread in the house : then the priest shall
pronounce the house clean, because the plague is
healed. And he shall take to cleanse the house, two
birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop : and
he shall kill one of the birds in an earthen vessel over
running water: and he shall take the cedar wood,
and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living bird,
and dip them in the blood of the slain bird, and in
the running water, and sprinkle the house seven
times : and he shall cleanse the house with the blood
of the bird, and with the running water, and with
the living bird, and with the cedar wood, and with
the hyssop, and with the scarlet : and he shall let go
the living bird out of the city into the open fields,
and make an atonement for the house : and it shall
be clean." The meaning of the word "atonement" is
240 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
the subject of our inquiry. It is no presumption to
assert, with entire confidence, that here that meaning
cannot, on any possible ground, contain the idea of
expiation, propitiation, satisfaction to divine justice.
And for a reason which is altogether invincible, the
walls of the house had committed no sin, and were
incapable of moral impurity. But wherefore, then,
is it asked such ceremonies as are described in detail ?
Simply because such a house was an offence among a
people, who, in a sense different from all others on
the face of the earth, had been separated to God, and
who, not in their religious rites only, but in their
dwellings, their garments, their food, and everything
belonging to them, were to keep themselves with
jealous care from all that was noxious or unclean.
Lev. xiv. 1-20, contains the law relating to a man
afilicted with the disease of leprosy — no sin, but a
merely physical calamity. When the disease was
cured, he had an atonement made for him by sacri-
fice. After other details of observances, we read, in
verses 19, 20, " the priest shall offer the sin-ofiering,
and make an atonement for him that is to be cleansed
from his uncleanness; and afterwards he shall kill
the burnt- offering: and the priest shall offer the
burnt-offering and the meat offering upon the altar :
and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and
he shall be clean," — that is, he shall be reinstated
again in his place among the holy people as one of
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 241
them, one consecrated and separated to God like tlie
rest, reconciled and restored to his position and his
privileges. To the same effect, the man who had a
running issue in his flesh, when the disease was cured,
was atoned by sacrifice. " The priest shall make an
atonement for him before the Lord for his issue." l
A mother after child-birth, and a woman during her
separation, were ceremonially unclean, and were
atoned by sacrifice. 2 Bodily uncleannesses of many
different kinds are minutely described in the books
of Moses ; sins of ignorance also, which were not
moral offences at all, are set down, and were all
atoned by sacrifice. To such minuteness did the
law descend, that if a Jew but touched any unclean
thing, such as the carcass of an unclean beast, the
priest must make atonement for him by sacrifice. 3
It would be idle to argue that in all these and
similar passages — very numerous as they are, and
comprising a large proportion of all the instances in
which the term under discussion occurs — there can
be no possible reference to expiation, as that word is
now understood. Where no sin had been committed,
atonement for sin, in the scholastic sense, was impos-
sible. But the word is used, and this proves, if any-
thing can prove, that the word does not necessarily
involve this idea. The various ordinances, all the
while, show on their surface their own significant
^ Lev, XV. 15. 2 Lev. xii. 7, and xv. 30. ^ Lev. v. 6.
Q
242 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
interpretation. The Israelites were a consecrated, a
separated people. God acknowledged tliem as His,
and admitted them to His worship ; but they must
be taught in the only effectual way in which such a
j)eople could be taught, that it was no light thing to
draw near to Him. They must be taught that no
negligence, and not the slightest defect, could escape
His eye for a moment, and that the least defilement
affecting their persons, their dress, their food, their
houses, or anything connected with them, would unfit
them for His service, and exclude them for the time
from His house and His worship. But so soon as
the outward cause of exclusion was removed, their
God was ready to welcome them again, and it was
their part to return to Him, and in a way prescribed
by Himself, to reconcile and restore themselves to
His service. Sacrifice was thus the significant ex-
pression of their desire to acknowledge and return to
God, the outward symbol of their restoration to His
house and their re-union with His people. The rite
did nothing to God, appeased no anger, expiated no
sin, but it spoke much, and was meant to speak much,
for the offerers. It testified their humble acknow-
ledgment and their reverent surrender to God ; but
that was all.
SECTION SECOND — ITS TRUE MEANING AND INTEEPEE-
TATION.
Visible Punishments and Eewards in Old Testament — Atonement
for Life, not Soul — System of Discipline and of Worship — Not
Scheme of Salvation — Training of Israelite! — Old Testament,
Record of Spiritual Truth — Special Privileges — Salvation
always Common to World — Sacrifices never Ground of Pardon
— "Purifying of Flesh" — No More— Anticipation of Death of
Christ Impossible — " I, even I, am He that Blotteth out/' &c.
IT is very needful to pause here for a moment, and
to reflect on the weighty conclusion which we
have reached. Some of the wisest and best of men
have accepted the doctrine of Atonement — meaning
expiation and satisfaction to justice — because the
terms of Scripture, as they judged, expressly con-
tained it. Undoubtedly the Pagan sacrifices, by those
who offered them, were held to be expiatory ; as
undoubtedly the very terms, such as Ixda-Kofiai and
t.\d(7fjLo^, which ordinary Greek writers constantly
employed to express the expiatory character of their
sacrificial rites, are applied by the Septuagint writers
of the Old Testament, and by the inspired writers of
244 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
the New Testament, to the Mosaic sacrifices, or to
the death of Christ on the cross. But notwithstand-
ing this, it has been distinctly proved, by several de-
cisive examples, (and the fact will be confirmed pre-
sently by additional proofs,) that the Hebrew Kaphar,
the Greek IXdaKOfiai,, and the English atone, do not,
and cannot, in the cases cited, involve the idea of
expiation. The sacred writers employ the common.
Pagan, sacrificial term — it would have been difficult,
if not impossible, for them to have done anything
else ; but they distinctly do not employ it to express
the Pagan idea, but one essentially and totally differ-
ent from it. The use of Kaphar, IXdaKo/jLaL, and
i\d(T/jLo<;, is not proof of the doctrine of expiation and
satisfaction ; is immeasurably fa;* from this.
There is another consideration which must be taken
into account in interpreting the Mosaic system. That
system was distinctively one of visible punishments
and rewards. Bodily health and outward prosperity
were promised to obedience; outward calamity and
death were threatened to disobedience. It is start-
ling, how often, as the penalty of mere ceremonial
offences, we read " that soul shall be cut off from his
people." It will be remembered that among the pas-
sages a little while ago referred to, we found that the
eating of blood or of fat was punishable with death.
In like manner it is recorded that the man who was
found gathering sticks on the Sabbath-day was put
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 245
to death. And for all presumptuous sins — that is,
deliberate, conscious violation or neglect of ceremonial
ordinances — the punishment was death. This fact
will readily explain to us a phraseology not infre-
quent in the Old Testament, which by itself would
be hopelessly perplexing. The sacrifices are re-
peatedly said to be an atonement for the soul. The
people are commanded to sacrifice, that they may
make an atonement for their souls. But the Hebrew
word for soul means, not always, or even often, what
we distinguish as soul, but simply life. In most,
perhaps all, of the passages where the word is found,
the true rendering would be life, not soul, in the pre-
sent accepted sense. It was hteraUy true, under the
Mosaic dispensation, that the health and life — the
soul — of the people depended on their faithful ob-
servance of the outward rites of their religion. They
were bound even, for health's sake and for life's sake,
to worship the Life-giver, and to do so exactly in
the prescribed form — to express their acknowledg-
ment and their felt dependence, and formally yield
themselves up to Him.
A passage in illustration may be here quoted,i con-
taining an ordinance which dates from the very com-
mencement of the dispensation, and the teaching of
which is very unambiguous. It relates to the num-
bering of the people at stated times. " They shall
1 Exod. XXX. 11-16.
246 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
give every man a ransom for his soul (his life) unto
the Lord, when thou numberest them." Half a
shekel was the sum to be given by rich and poor
alike, neither more nor less, " an offering unto the
Lord." It is added, " to make an atonement for
your souls (lives.) And thou shalt take the atone-
ment money of the children of Israel, and shall
appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of the
congregation, that it may be a memorial unto the
children of Israel before the Lord, to make an atone-
ment for your souls" (lives.) In this passage that
efficacy which is conceived to belong exclusively to
bloody sacrifices, is connected with a payment in
money. Unquestionably there was no expiatory, pro-
pitiatory offering here, no satisfaction to divine jus-
tice, as we speak; but there was, it is explicitly
declared, a real atonement ; showing, if language has
a meaning, that the word " atonement" in the Old
Testament cannot in this instance signify what we
have supposed it must always signify, but must mean,
simply, reverent acknowledgment of God — an expres-
sion of submission, of self-surrender, and of cordial
reconciliation to Him.
A passage very similar to the last, and as decisive
in its teaching, will be found in Num. xxxi. 50-54.
There had been war with Midian, immense spoil had
been taken, and not one of the Israelitish warriors
had fallen. At the command of God, a certain
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 247
portion of the spoil was given to the Levites, and for
the service of the tabernacle. But we read that the
officers of the army came near to Moses and said,
" We have brought an oblation for the Lord, what
every man hath gotten of jewels, of gold, chains and
bracelets, rings and ear-rings, and tablets, to make
an atonement (obviously meaning grateful acknow-
ledgment) for our souls (lives) before the Lord/^
This passage may be left to speak for itself.
The examination, somewhat extended, which we
have sought to conduct, brings us to the fixed con-
clusion, so far as we have yet gone, that atonement
in the sense of expiation for sin, has no place what-
ever in the Mosaic ordinances. The sin to which
alone these ordinances refer throughout, is wholly
ceremonial, ritual, not moral, that is, not real sin at
all. And not only so, for it has been proved very
distinctly, that the sacrifices even for ceremonial
offences were in no sense meant to be expiatory, but
were simply the ordained and significant mode in
which the people expressed their desire to reconcile
and restore themselves to God. Additional and
striking evidence of this fact is still to be adduced.
In the meantime, we turn to a passage which inci-
dentally and from the negative side, supplies singular
evidence. When Moses was in the mount with God
receiving the tables of the law, the Israelites, wearied
out with his long absence, and still retaining much of
248 MOSAIC EC0N03IY.
tlie spirit of Egyptian idolatry, formed a molten calf,
and bowed down before it, saying, '^ These be thy
gods, Israel/^ The crime was punished awfully ;
a vast multitude of the idolaters, to the number of
about three thousand, fell by the sword of the
Levites. After the infliction of this terrible punish-
ment, Moses gathered the congregation together on
the morrow and said to them, for they were all
implicated in the crime, " Ye have sinned a great
sin,"— no mere ceremonial offence, but a real, moral
transgression, a transgression heinous and aggravated
above measure, against the nature and the law and
the honour of Jehovah — " Ye have sinned a great
sin, and now I will go up unto the Lord, peradventure
I shall make an atonement for your sin." i
Let us well mark and ponder how the man of God
conducted this perilous case. Of course, we should
naturally have anticipated that the very first thing to
which his convictions and his hopes as a Jew must
have impelled him, would be sacrifice. If, according
to modern conceptions, sacrifice was the appointed
method of expiating sin and propitiating the favour
of God, now, of all others, was the very moment
for proving the efficacy of the rite. Moses certainly
understood the doctrines and the laws of Judaism,
and had an undoubted faith in them ; but strange
to say, he ofi'ers no sacrifice. Indisputably, he did
^ Exod. xxxii. 30.
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 24:9
not believe in the expiation of real sin by sacrifice;
indisputably, he did not believe that God would be
propitiated by blood, else he would certainly have
offered up a victim. Instead of all this, in the
face of all this, he adopts the old, the primitive,
the unchanging, the only and ever availing method,
that of simple, humble confession and prayer.
The people had awfully separated themselves from
their God ; they must be brought back, recon-
ciled, atoned to Him. Moses in their name throws
himself at the feet of God, in their name con-
fesses the sin and its greatness, and in their name
begs forgiveness from the pure, free grace of the
divine bosom. And it was granted. The revela-
tion of the forgiving mercy of the holy God, in
which Moses trusted thousands of years ago, and
on which he cast a guilty nation, dates from the first
moment of sin. This was the true and the only
ground of faith to all the good, from the creation, on
through succeeding ages, till the advent of Christ.
In the reconciling, redeeming love of the Incarnate
One, we now have evidences and influences, such as
earlier generations never knew, but substantially and
virtually the ground of faith is, and has been ever
the same — the revealed, forgiving mercy of the holy
God. The Jewish economy did not touch this
common heritage of man at all, except that it ex-
pressly contained and exhibited it. This was not
250 MOSAI€ ECONOMY.
Jewish, but human, the hope of man, wherever there
was a soul that struggled after God and besought
His mercy.
But without undervaluing in the least this im-
portant fact, most precious to man and to all ages,
it is not to be forgotten that the Great Father,
who pities and loves all souls, had high and special
purposes to accomplish through the agency of tlie
descendants of Abraham. The Incarnate Kedeemer
of men, as concerning the flesh, was to spring from
this race, and a line of dim prophetic twilight was to
be coincident with the course of Jewish history, till
it merged and melted in the dawn of Bethle-
hem, in the mysterious glories of Calvary, and in
the sunshiue of the Christian revelation. God had
more to accomplish for the world through their
means than through means of other nations, and
therefore spoke to them and through them, as He
could not speak in the case of others. Simply because
of the merciful, universal purpose, which in the vast
complications of Providence was to be served by them,
the Jews were in certain respects nearer to the foun-
tain of truth than others ; but they were not therefore
and never were more beloved than others.
It is impossible to interpret the profound historic
interest which to this hour attaches to the Jewish
nation, except on the ground of a special and grand
destiny in the purposes of Almighty Providence.
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 251
Four thousand years ago the Jews were a nation, and
they constitute a distinctly recognised nation at this
day, though without a country and without political
organisation. For two thousand years they have
been dispersed over all quarters of the globe, Europe,
Asia, Africa, and America, amongst all nations,
Pagan, Mohammedan, and Christian, Koman Catholic
and Protestant, and have many times been pursued
with most merciless hostility. But they have not
yet perished, not melted away, have not been
swallowed up by surrounding and aggressive popu-
lations, not been slowly fused down and rendered
indistinguishable from the masses on every side.
After four thousand years of existence and two
thousand years of dispersion and persecution, they
remain a distinct, recognised people, having preserved
their language, their laws, their worship, and even
their physiognomy, to this day. What does, what
can it mean? The fact is perfectly alone in all
history. Not another such example, nor anything
approaching to it, can be pointed out in the entire
annals of the world. It is not the sacred books of
the Jews, nor even their religion, to which we need
to appeal. Their very existence, were there nothing
else, is a standing proof of a marvellous purpose of
Providence, somehow connected with their preserva-
tion and isolation.
The key to the interpretation of all the peculiarities
252 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
of ancient Judaism, lies here, as we venture to judge.
An ignorant and barbarous people were to be dis-
ciplined for a lofty and godlike mission, of the real
nature of which, its mystery, its vastness, its gran-
deur, they were to the last almost as unaware as
others. By means of a stringent and all embracing
form of worship, which affected every hour of the
day, and every element and aspect of their life, they
were brought into peculiar and constant relation with
the one true Jehovah, and taught to believe and feel
that they were His people. By a succession of never-
ending sacred rites, every one of which, even at the
peril of their lives, they had to observe scrupulously,
to the veriest jot and tittle, they were not only
habituated to the thought of God but inspired with
profound awe of Him, and educated in the conviction
of His constant presence, His unerring observation,
and the perpetual reverence which He demanded.
From age to age, heroic souls were born among them
to govern, deliver, rebuke, or punish them, and to
reform their institutions and their manners. Gifted
sages were raised up to inspire them with exalted
and pure conceptions of Jehovah. Holy men of
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,
and historians, and psalmists, and prophets, and
seers, uttered their divine messages through the
length and breadth of the land. To the Jews, as
to no other people under heaven, were committed
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 253
the oracles of God. Without philosophy, without
science, without literature, except of a sacred kind,
the writings of their inspired men contain for the
world, the largest amount anywhere to be found, of
what the world to this day acknowledges to be best
and truest in divine religion. Objections, some of
them of great weight, and all of them meriting im-
partial examination, have often been taken to in-
dividual portions of the Old Testament, to some of
its facts, its moral precepts, its doctrines, its spirit.
But it is seldom understood, that were the whole of
the portions objected to taken out, the Old Testament
would be diminished to no considerable extent, and
it would still be a repository of essential and highest
truth for man, a tithe of which all the sacred books
in the world besides put together could not supply.
During the present century, and increasingly as
the century has advanced, enlightened research has
been laboriously directed to the Yedas, and Puranas,
and Shasters of India, and to the Avesta and Zend-
Avesta of Persia. 1 Thank God, for divine passages
in these ancient writings ! Thank God, for many
beautiful, and pure, and true sayings ! But impartial
1 Altogether unacquainted with the Sanscrit and Persian lan-
guages, I have no knowledge of the sacred books of the East, be-
yond what may be gathered from such portions of them as have
appeared in an English dress. But these have not been inconsider-
able, and may be supposed to convey a tolerably faithful impression
of the general character of the writings.
254 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
scliolars will not dispute that these are few and short,
and are found in the midst of a mass of what can
be called by no fitter name than Pagan rubbish.
Scarcely have we been touched by some sentence of
elevated and holy thought, than we are dragged down
to coarse, gross polytheism, to stupid, childish,
legendary tales, or to what is as corrupt as it is
puerile ; and these form the staple and the substance
of the sacred books. The Jewish Scriptures, on the
other hand, are not only more simple and more clear,
but their teaching is persistent and uniform. With
a constant voice they proclaim, sometimes in simple
terms, but often in language of surpassing magnifi-
cence and sublimity, the eternity, the omnipresence,
the omniscience, the spirituality, the holiness, and the
wisdom, of the one true Jehovah. And, above all,
in passages without number, and in forms the most
tender and the most touching, they consistently pro-
claim the forgiving mercy of the holy God.
But this last, it is needful to recollect, was not
specially a Jewish revelation, but was common to the
whole world from the beginning, and remained with
the world, so far as the world chose to retain and
preserve it faithfully. Ever and everywhere, there
was a loving Spirit of God, striving with man, as in
the long ages before the flood. The blessed God
never abandoned the souls He had made, darkened
and sinful though they were. The blessed God never
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 255
limited His influences or even His light to one little
spot of earth, though for obvious reasons the light
which fell there was more abundant and more clear
than could shine elsewhere. To Jews and Gentiles
in common, to the whole world, the primitive, uni-
versal ground of faith in the mercy of a holy God
had been revealed from the first. And we shall
certainly misconceive the economy of Moses, if we
suppose for a moment that it was intended to super-
sede the primitive revelation of mercy, and to reveal
a new and peculiar method, for the forgiveness of
sins. One thing is plain ; if this had been the case,
few except Jews could ever have known it, and the
whole world besides would simply have been left to
perish. But on the ground of all that has been
advanced in this section, we maintain that that
economy was only and wholly a system of discipline
and of worship — a system wisely adapted to the con-
dition and to the special and select destinies of the
Israelitish people. Nowhere and never by God's
authority was forgiveness of real sins connected with
ritual observances of any kind, and above all, never
was it connected with the taking of animal life.
The example of Moses on the mount, pleading for
Israel, when they had sinned a great sin, teaches,
without the possibility of mistake, that forgiveness
of sins was to be obtained, not at all by offering sacri-
fice, but wholly and solely as the pure, free gift of
2dG mosaic economy.
God's grace. If anything were wanting to fortify
this conclusion, it is abundantly supplied by the
unequivocal judgment which is pronounced by the
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. x. 4.
"It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of
goats should take away sin." The sin, therefore,
to which alone the ancient sacrifices referred and
which they are said to cover, (Kaphar,) was cere-
monial, not moral. And this is actually declared in
so many words by the same inspired writer in another
passage of the same Epistle. He is proving the
superior efficacy of the blood of Christ, " how much
more shall the blood of Christ purge your con-
sciences,'' &c. And the ground on which he thus
argues is this, " if the bl'X)d of bulls and of goats,
and the ashes of an heifer, sanctify to the purifying
of the flesh," &c. He admits that these had a
certain effect, according to the appointment of God,
but it was merely an outward effect, they could not
take away real sin, not at all ; if they sanctified, that
is, set apart, separated, distinguished, it was only
externally, the efi'ect reached no farther than the
outer relations, and the social and ecclesiastical stand-
ing. That was literally all, in the judgment of an
inspired apostle when announcing formally the
meaning and the highest efficacy of the ancient
economy. It was not, according to this authority, a
scheme of forgiveness, a plan for the salvation of the
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 257
soul. It was simply a system of worship and of
discipline. It reached to "the purifying of the
flesh," but nothing more.
We come to this : the Israelites, for high and
special reasons, were brought into relation with the
living God, and admitted to His temple and His
worship. But a thousand causes, every day some
outward defilement, some neglect, or some violation
of ceremonial rites and forms, of which they might
even be unaware, might interrupt the relation and
render them unworthy. They needed, and were
taught that they needed, perpetual cleansing from
personal, outward unworthiness, needed to renew
their acknowledgments, their submission, their sur-
render to God, as a peculiar and separate people, and
to reconcile and restore themselves to His service,
by the means which He had ordained. Hence, and
only hence, originated not only the daily and more
ordinary re-consecrations by sacrifice, but also the
grand, solemn, annual purgation from all the ritual
delinquencies of a lengthened period ; hence the new
beginning of the ceremonial year, and their reinstate-
ment in all the privileges and rights of a holy and
chosen people. Under the guidance of the inspired
apostle, whose decisive words have been quoted, we
look back on the entire Jewish economy, on the
tabernacle and the temple, on the burnt-ofierings
and the sin-offerings, and the trespass-offerings, and
258 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
the peace-offerings, and the wave-offerings, and the
meat-offerings, and the drink-offerings on the daily-
morning and evening sacrifices, the special services
for Sabbath days and for new moons, on the three
great festivals, and especially on the most solemn of
them all, the feast of atonement, and we learn with-
out misgiving, that these all sanctified only to the
purifying of the flesh, but nothing more. They did
not touch real sin, and they were never intended to
touch real sin. Ceremonial reconciliation to God,
outward restoration to His worship, they could and
did secure, but real forgiveness, forgiveness of real
sin, then, as now and always, was dispensed only to
humble, simple faith in the pure, free mercy of the
holy God.
Eeligion in the human soul, — veneration of the
living God, trust in His holy mercy and love of Him,
of what He is and of what He loves — must be essen-
tially the same everywhere, and for all ages. The
outward modes of expressing this inward condition,
like the many tongues of men, the visible symbols of
it, that is to say, the forms and rites of religious
service, may vary endlessly, but the invisible real
constituents of religion are unalterable. Genuine
piety and goodness in a Jew thirty centuries ago,
and in a Christian at this hour, cannot differ in any
really essential element. It is a patent fact, that the
Jewish psalms chanted three thousand years ago in
MOSAIC ECONOMy. 259
the temple of Jerusalem, speak now, to myriads of
human hearts in Europe, Asia, America, and Africa,
with a subduing power which is irresistible, and are
as fresh and as true to the mental states of the
good, to their sins, their conflicts, their doubts, their
fears, their depressions, their joys, their faith and
their hope, as if they had been written yesterday.
Christians can find no fitter or happier words in
which to utter their holiest feelings and their pro-
foundest experiences, than those of the old shepherd-
king of Israel — and why ? Because religion in the soul
is and must be the same for all times and for all lands.
The extraordinary attention which has been be-
stowed on the mere ritual of Judaism has proved
most misleading, and a morbid fancy has busied
itself in detecting latent spiritual meanings in it,
which it certainly never contained. It was ordained
in the divine wisdom and goodness, and we cannot
doubt that it was found a help to piety and a fitting
medium for that age and people, through which the
emotions of the soul might be uttered forth. But
pious emotions and experiences, though capable of
being expressed in many different modes, are apart
from them all, and have another and a far deeper
origin than any outward ritual. All that was real
in the soul of the old Jew had its root, just as at this
hour, in holy truth, perceived and loved and chosen
by his will, and in the agency of that Divine Spirit,
260 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
who works independently of tabernacle or temple or
altar. We have so reasoned respecting the symbols
and forms of Jewish worship, as if they were essential
to salvation, and as if they constituted to the Israel-
ites the very method of their spiritual acceptance
with God. But it must be an entire mistake. Exact
obedience to the Mosaic law was indispensable on
many grounds. It was certainly indispensable to
their national salvation, and was the one condition
on which they retained their peculiar relation to God,
and their position and their privileges as a separated
people ; but it did not, and could not, in the least
determine the presence within them or the absence
of real religious life. An Israelite might observe in
the exactest form all the sacrifices and services of
the temple, and be entitled to be held, in this regard,
perfectly faultless and sinless, who was nevertheless
really impenitent and ungodly. Then, as now, what
a human soul really was depended entirely on the
irxward convictions and principles and reigning spirit,
and was determined not at all by what was specially
Jewish, but by what was generic and human, or
rather divine. An Israelite long ago struggling after
God, oppressed with the consciousness of inward evil,
and longing to throw off the burden and return to
the Father against whom he had sinned, was in
nothing essentially different from true penitents at
this day, and had no refuge but the old, the pri-
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 261
mitive, the universal revelation given to the whole
world in common — the forgiving mercy of the holy-
God. Trusting simply in this, he was at peace, re-
conciled and restored, pardoned and saved, not on
the ground of any sacrifice or expiation, but in the
mere, pure, free mercy of the Most High.
But take the opposite alternative. Let it be sup-
posed that a Jew had adopted what indeed was the
universal Pagan notion, that of appeasing divine
anger, and propitiating divine favour. Let it be
supposed that, having offered sacrifice according to
the law, he looked, on this ground, for forgiveness
from God for his real sin. What then? In this
case it must be maintained, not as a mere matter of
individual opinion, but on the clear authority of the
New Testament, that he trusted in an unmitigated
imtruth. "It is not possible " — it never was or
couhl be possible — "that the blood of bulls or of
goats should take away sins.'' On this subject, very
strong and gross language is ventured by good men,
even up to the present day. Kurtz, on the sacrificial
language of the Old Testament, thus writes : — " The
soul of the sacrificed animal made expiation for the
sinful soul sacrificing, and procured the forgiveness
of sins." Again, " The sinless soul of the animal was
the medium of expiation to the sinful and guilty soul
of the man.'' Again, " The laying on of hands was
the transfer of sin and guilt from the man to the
262 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
beast." 1 We meet all such statements with a short
but invincible reply. Unless the apostle Paul be at
fault in his reasoning, they must be altogether un-
true. " It is not possible that the blood of bulls and
of goats should take away sins." And if this ever
was and is impossible, shall we on any ground ima-
gine that God nevertheless intended the Jews to
believe it? Did He, by any utterance or arrange-
ment of His, create this delusion ? or did He tacitly
allow it, or countenance or favour it in any way ? It
cannot be ; the suspicion is blasphemy.
It is argued that the great sacrifice to be ofifered
by the Messiah in the end of the ages, and not the
actual animal sacrifices, which, on the contrary, were
simply prefigurative and typical, was that alone on
which the faith of the pious Israelite rested for sal-
vation. But if evidence of the existence of this anti-
cipative, substitutionary faith be required, it cannot
be produced. There was a universal and confident
hope in Judea of a coming Messiah ; but the notion
of a sacrifice to be endured by the Messiah, if it was
ever entertained, has at least never found expression
in the Old Testament, and exists only in the devout
imagination of Christians. That the ancient Jews
could form no possible preconception of the life and
death of Jesus Christ seems indisputable. To say
nothing of incarnation, and supposing them able to
1 Clark, Edinburgh, pp. 75, 80, and 86.
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 263
preconceive a God in human form, could they by any
possibility imagine this Incarnate Deity humbled
before His creatures, despised, rejected, publicly con-
demned, and at last ignominiously cut off and cast
away from the face of the earth? Is it forgotten
that these very things, when they occurred, caused
all but the entire Jewish nation to reject the Christ of
God when he actually appeared ? Is it forgotten that
these are the very things which for two thousand years
have kept, as they continue to keep, the entire Jewish
nation at an almost hopeless distance from the Mes-
siah ? And can it be believed that these things so
incredible and so hateful when they were realised
— that these, or anything like these, could be
preconceived centuries before they happened, and
preconceived through the aid of bleeding victims on
the altar ; and not only thus preconceived, but wel-
comed, so as to be the ground of an intelligent and
happy faith ? It seems the merest impossibility, and
it is destitute of the slightest evidence.
There is not a single instance, so far as we are
aware, in which any Old Testament writer represents
the legal sacrifices as types or prefigurations of a
nobler sacrifice to be offered up, once for all, in the
future ages. And not only so, there is not a single
instance, so far as we are aware, in which it is indi-
cated that the legal sacrifices, whether as present or
as anticipative and prefigurative acts, were the ground
264 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
of tlie pardon of real sin ; there is not a single passage
of the Old Testament in which, either by God or
man, the offering of sacrifice is connected with the
salvation of the soul. It ought to be pondered with
profound seriousness by all, that the Jehovah of the
Bible never declares, " lay your sacrifices on mine
altar, and your souls shall be saved," and that no Old
Testament saint is ever heard using the plea with his
God, " pardon mine iniquity, for I have offered up
all the appointed sacrifices." It is altogether and
uniformly the reverse.
David the king fell before a shameful and horrible
temptation, and committed a double and atrocious
crime. Did he hasten to the altar to make expiation
and atonement ? No. " Thou desirest not sacri-
fice," he says, " else would I give it." This was no
case for sacrifice, it was real, not ritual transgression,
and sacrifice of another kind, true, inward, spiritual
self-sacrifice alone could avail here. " Thou desirest
not sacrifice, else would I give it." " The sacrifices
of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite
heart, God, thou wilt not despise." David finds
refuge in the primitive, divine sanctuary — free, for-
giving mercy — and betakes himself to the old, only
way of humble confession and prayer. " Have mercy
upon me, God," he cried — because I have offered
the appointed sacrifices? no — *' according to thy
loving-kindness : according imto the multitude of thy
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 265
tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash
me throughly from mine iniquities, and cleanse me
from my sin. Create in me a clean heart, God ;
and renew a right spirit within me."l
At the dedication of the temple, after innume-
rable sacrifices had been offered up, Solomon con-
secrated the house of God by prayer, and here
are some of the sentences of the memorable in-
vocation. " When thy people Israel be smitten
down before the enemy, because they have sinned
against thee, and shall turn again to thee, and
confess thy name, and" — offer sacrifice and ex-
piation? no — "pray, and make supplication unto
thee in this house : then hear thou in heaven, and
forgive the sin of thy people Israel." " What
prayer and supplication soever be made by any man,
or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every
man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth
his hands towards this house: then hear thou in
heaven thy dwelling-place, and forgive," &c. &c. " If
they shall bethink themselves in the land whither
they were carried captives, saying, we have sinned,
and done perversely, we have committed wickedness :
and so return unto thee with all their hearts, and
pray unto thee towards the land, which thou gavest
unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen,
and this house which I have built for thy name;
1 Ps. li. 1, 2, 10, 16, 17.
266 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
then hear thou their prayer and their supplication
in heaven thy dwelling-place, and maintain their
cause," &C.1 There is not a single hint here of
sacrifice as the medium of pardon and reconcilia-
tion. The one method is confession, prayer, and
trust in the primitive revelation of free, forgiving
mercy.
But strange to say, even the Old Testament con-
tains very direct and unambiguous teachings on this
subject, and to the same effect. " Hath the Lord as
great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in
obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey is
better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of
rams." 2 '« I desired mercy and not sacrifice, and
the knowledge of God more than burnt-offering." ^
" Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow
myself before the High God ? Shall I come before
Him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old ?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or
wdth ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my
first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body
for the sin of my soul ?" The patent design of these
questions is to expose the perfect worthlessness of all
sacrifices, however costly, as a means of putting away
sin. But the answer to the questions is more signifi-
cant and decisive still, — " He hath showed thee,
1 1 Kings viii. 33, 34, 38, 39, 47-49. = 1 Sam. xv. 22.
^ Hosea vi. 5.
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 267
man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require
of thee " — sacrifices ? thousands of the costliest offer-
ings ? No — '' but to do justly, to love mercy, and to
walk humbly with thy God/' ^ If this be legalism,
as has been often said — if this be salvation, not by
faith but by works, at the least it does not belong
only to the Old Testament. The same thing, vir-
tually, only in a more thoroughly legal dress, is found
in the New Testament. " Pure religion and unde-
filed before God, even the Father, is this, to visit the
fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep
himself unspotted from the world." 2 The eye of God
discerns the spirit which is in a man, and which alone
determines what he is. Sacrifices, ritual conformity,
outward acts of worship, have their meaning, without
doubt, but the inner, reigning law of a man's soul
and life is the supreme, the sole test. We ask, with
the old prophet, is he reverent and lowly before God ?
is he upright and true ? is he merciful as his Father
in heaven is merciful ? We ask, with the apostle
James, is he pure in heart ? is he self-denying and
devoted to the good of others ?
The sacrifices under the law of Moses were of
importance on many obvious accounts, and they
were imperatively binding, — for the highest of all
reasons, the command of God. But they had no
spiritual worth, except arising from the principles
1 Micah vi. 7, 8. = James i. 27.
268 MOSAIC ECONOMY.
and the state of the hjsart ; and in the matter of
the forgiveness of sin and reconciliation to God,
they had no worth or power at all. The Being
who in His wisdom ordained them, denounces them,
however outwardly and ritually faultless, when
the inward state of those who offered them was
vicious or godless. " To what purpose is the multi-
tude of your sacrifices unto me ? saith the Lord : I
am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of
fed beasts ; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks,
or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to ap-
pear before me, who hath required this at your hand,
to tread my courts ? Bring no more vain oblations ;
incense is an abomination unto me ; the new-moons
and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away
with ; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your
new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth:
they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear
them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will
hide mine eyes from you : yea, when ye make many
prayers, I will not hear : your hands are full of blood.
Wash you, make you clean ; put away the evil of
your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil ;
learn to do well ; seek judgment ; relieve the op-
pressed ; judge the fatherless ; plead for the widow." l
To what do all these marvellous words evidently
point ? There is something immeasurably more im-
1 Isa. i. 11-17.
MOSAIC ECONOMY. 269
portant than sacrifices, however ceremonially perfect ;
and that something is the state of the heart, — the in-
ward principles and laws of the soul. But what be-
comes of such sinners as God in this strong passage
rebukes and condemns? Having denounced their
wickedness and declared His demands, does He forth-
with leave them to themselves ? Or is He prepared
still to deal with them, and if so, on what ground ?
If sacrifice had been His own appointed medium of
expiation and salvation, God must have directed
them, though in a totally new spirit, to offer sacrifice.
But not a word is uttered respecting that rite, as if it
had anything to do with pardon. Instead of this,
here is the divine method following at once, without a
break, the exposure and denunciation of sin. — " Come
now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord:
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white
as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they shall
be as wool." i It is Heaven's simple, glorious, unen-
cumbered plan, — forgiveness, the pure, free gift of
God's grace. "I, even I, am he that blotteth out
thy transgressions,'' — on the ground of sacrifice, of
adequate atonement and satisfaction ? no, — " for
mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." 2
1 Isa. i. 18. 2 Isa, xliii. 25,
CHAPTER IX.
SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.
Voluntary — "I lay down My Life" — Issue Foreseen and Encoun-
tered Willingly — Escape without Dishonour, Impossible — ^Men,
Sole Agents in Crucifixion — Determinate Fore-knowledge of
God — Natural Course of Events — Wholly, a Human Crime —
Ko Sacrifice by Men to God — No Divine, Judicial Arrange-
ment — Two Gods — Tri-unity Destroyed — Substitution, its
Meaning — Figure, not Reality — Mere Human Notions, trans-
ferred to Mind of God — Natural Sense of Scripture — Fictions
taken for Facts— Perfect Love, in Death of Christ — Human
Self-sacrifice — Noble and Ennobling — Ray from Heaven —
Eternal Fountain of Pure Generosity — God's Sacrifice for Men
— Conquers SouL
A PHYSICAL miracle, amidst the wilds of Sinai,
is supjjosed to prefigure the spiritual mystery
which long afterwards was unveiled outside the gate
of Jerusalem. The bush that burned with fire and
yet was not consumed, is held to be a symbol of
the awful death of Jesus of Nazareth. And it needs
no extravagant fancy, but only reverent and calm
thought, to perceive points of analogy between the
two facts. On a holier mountain than Horeb, a
greater spectacle than the burning bush is set before
the eyes of men, " Behold the Lamb of God, who is
taking away the sins of the world ! " It is simply
true, besides, as of old, that only in the far-ofP desert,
with the awful stillness around, and the vast skies
overhead, only in the deep solitude and silence of the
soul, in moments of intense, lowly, and rapt spiritual
vision, we can gaze on this transcendent spectacle, so
as to reach even the outermost fringe of its mysteri-
ous significance. There is here an unearthly struggle
between darkness and light, the light lurid and
terrible from the darkness which envelopes and
threatens to quench it, the darkness ever more visible
274 SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.
from the flashing light which darts across it. A
dread conflict is waging, a conflict of life with death,
death trampling down and crushing out the vital
flame, life flickering, and sinking, and seeming to
expire, hut enkindling again and glowing anew, and
flaming up into a hlaze of triumph, in which death
itself, at last, shall he consumed. " death, where
is thy sting ? grave, where is thy victory ? The
sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the
law ; hut thanks he unto God, who giveth us the
victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Not man
hut God is here, amidst the struggle and conflict,
God in man, God teaching the world by a stupendous
example, and Himself making a mysterious sacrifice
for His erring children. It is proclaimed from the
cross to the wide universe, that there is life in death,
gain in loss, dignity in self-abasement, blessedness in
suffering, and glory in shame. It is taught, as
nowhere else and never before or since was possible,
that the vilest and worst of deaths may be sublimed
by the soul of the dying, which death cannot touch,
and that a love which sacrifices itself for others and
gives up all to God, is the last crown of spiritual
excellence.
Jesus Christ our Lord was sacrificed — that at least
is not questioned, and cannot be questioned ; his life
was violently and cruelly taken away. It is admitted,
besides, by all who bear his name, that he was sacri-
SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 275
ficed for the sake of men, and in order to secure the
highest good of the human race. We change only
the form, not the reality of this idea, when we say
that he was sacrificed for sin, on account of sin, to
put away sin ; because sin ever was and is the prime
obstruction to the well-being of the world. Had
there been no sin, men had needed no redemption.
So that in the strictest sense, Jesus died wholly on
account of sin, and in order that this radical curse
might be utterly and for ever extirpated.
Whatever more than this be true, there is, at least,
this one thing additional perfectly certain, if the his-
toric records be accepted; that Jesus, of himself,
voluntarily and freely sacrificed his own life. " I
lay down my life for the sheep. Therefore doth my
Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I
might take it again. No man taketh it from me,
but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it
down, and I have power to take it up again." It
would be wholly false to think that anything was
ever done by the holy Saviour to tempt or provoke,
or in any way influence men to compass his death.
On the contrary, all that he did was calculated to
render this issue impossible. But he must pursue
his course of truth, and purity, and love, in spite of
everything. It was a necessity — the highest moral
necessity — in him to be faithful to himself, to God,
and to man, without regard to consequences, or to
276 SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.
the prejudices, the wishes, or the judgments, of
people, or rulers, or priests. Being what he was,
Christ's death, in that age and nation, was inevitable,
and he knew that it was. The issue was not an
accident — not an unforeseen and unhappy upshot of
circumstances, to which, in spite of himself, he was
forced to surrender. On the contrary, it was dis-
tinctly contemplated from the first— as distinctly
contemplated as any part of his self-determined
course. But if, owing to the ignorance and the false
views and the wicked passions of men, this issue was
inevitable, he was resolved that it should not move
him for an instant from his integrity and fidelity.
With his eyes open, of his own free will and pur-
pose, he encountered the agony, the terror, and the
shame of crucifixion. " He was led as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb,
so he opened not his mouth."
It was indispensable to the success of the mission
of divine love that the Incarnate should accept all
hazards, be they what they might. Had he once
yielded to fear, or to the instinct of self-preservation,
or to the sense of shame, or to disappointed hope, or
to disgust and anger at the baseness of men, — had he,
on any ground, stopped short, and only retired from
a course which seemed to be fruitless, this had been
a confession of defeat, and a palpable distrust of God,
the living energy of reconciling, redeeming power
SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 277
had been lost, and divine love had been shorn of its
last overwhelming expression. But if death could
not be escaped without dishonour, the Infinitely
Mighty and Wise determined to convert even death
into life — to extract the noblest good out of essential
evil, and to make the very wrath of men to praise
Him. Leaving the perverse human will to take its
way. He who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in
^working was able to defeat His creatures by their
very success, and to convert their crime and their
curse into a blessing, wide as the world, and lasting
as eternity. Hence said the apostle Peter on the
day of Pentecost, " Him being delivered" — given up,
surrendered — " in the determinate counsel and fore-
knowledge of God, ye have taken, and with wicked
hands have crucified and slain." His betrayal and
capture and murder, like all the guilty outbreaks of
the human will, however opposed to truth, and right,
and God, were not left out in the vast system of pro-
vidence, but distinctly reckoned and provided against,
as wisdom and love should ordain. Hence wrote the
prophet long before Messiah's advent, " It pleased the
Lord to bruise (crush) him ; He hath put him to
grief.'' That which comes out in God's providence
is often in Scripture so put as if it were the direct
doing of God, though most manifestly it neither is
nor can be. " The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart,"
it is said, when all that God did had a manifest ten-
278 SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.
dency to subdue and reclaim rather than to harden.
But because the actual effect was to render the King
of Egypt only more obdurate than before, that effect
is ascribed, though it can be so only in the most
secondary and indirect sense, to the divine agency.
Most certainly God did not crush the Messiah, or put
him to grief. Most certainly the fact of his being
crushed and grieved in itself was abhorrent, not
pleasing, to God. But, forasmuch as the love which
bore the agonies and the shame of crucifixion was
evinced to be unconquerable, and was eventually to
effect the redemption of a lost world, these agonies
and that shame became, and truly were, an infinite,
divine satisfaction.
Jesus died ! in harmony with the thought and the
will of the Father, he died ; and since fidelity to his
divine mission demanded that he should brave all
consequences, he freely offered himself up a sacrifice
to God, in that cause which was God's no less than
man's. Even the outward surrender was noble, the
noblest which it is possible for humanity to yield.
It was a beautiful sacrifice which was cheerfully laid
upon the altar of God, a young, fresh, human life,
full of active goodness, wise and meek and patient,
— a pure, spotless, loving, tender life. And this was
but the symbol of a higher sacrifice still, for Jesus
offered up his soul to God. " I and my Father are
one," is his own marvellous testimony. At the least
SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 279
it must mean, at one, perfectly at one. The soul of
Jesus ever moved in unbroken, filial harmony with
the mind of God. Divine thoughts, divine purposes,
divine sympathies, divine love of man, the divine
idea of redeeming and reconciling man and of estab-
lishing the reign of purity and truth and love and
peace on earth, found a medium and a home in him.
And when, at the last, either the mission of mercy
must be abandoned, or the earthly life must be sur-
rendered, his choice was immovable, his free, entire
will was fixed, and love had its perfect work. Love
of God and love of man serenely asserted their supre-
macy. " Even so. Father." " Thy will be done."
" Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,"
and he bowed his head and gave up the ghost, a true
and holy and proper sacrifice to God. " For Christ
hath loved us," saith the apostle, " and hath given
himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God of a
sweet smelling savour."
All the while, men were the visible and the only
direct agents in the crucifixion. So far as appeared,
the event, however abhorrent to justice, occurred
perfectly naturally, and according to the ordinary
course of things. Satan might enter into the heart
of Judas Iscariot, as indeed he is believed to do
wherever a wicked purpose is harboured in any
human soul, and the spirit of all evil might be
equally busy with the less conspicuous parties con-
280 SACRIFICE OF CHEIST.
cerned in tlie horrible transaction. But temptation
is not compulsion, and the perpetrators of this mur-
der simply obeyed the command of their own vile
wilL The holy God who sees the end from the
beginning, foreknew this result, as He foreknows
every crime, and determined in this, as in countless
instances besides, to bring glory and good out of
human wickedness ; but this must not be suffered to
conceal from us the independent fact, that that which
He foreknew was wholly and only the unprompted,
native, free choice of men. Had the dread result
been preordained by God, it had then been, on every
just principle, the act of God, and what criminality
it involved had been lifted off from the visible instru-
ments and righteously charged against the invisible
originator. But the death of Jesus was the act of
men, wholly and solely the act of men, and of none
else, and the actors Avere governed, not by an invin-
cible decree of God, and not by a resistless Satanic
influence, but simply by their own views of the
character of their victim, by what they imagined was
demanded for the safety of their religion and their
country, and by strong feelings of revenge and of
malice. The undoubted fact was this, some of the
Jewish rulers and people hated Jesus intensely, and
urged by their passions and their fears, they hurried
their country into the murder of the Holy One and
the Just. Without question, Jesus fell a sacrifice to
SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 281
jealousy and rage ; and without question, the offerers
of the sacrifice — the only offerers — were the Jews.
It is pertinent, indeed incumbent, to note, in this
place, that whatever the Jews might mean, they
certainly did not mean, in this instance, to offer
sacrifice to Grod for their sins ; they certainly did not
mean hereby to make atonement and to render satis-
faction to divine justice. Not a solitary individual
in the whole Jewish nation at the time, not a solitary
individual among the Koman officials and soldiers,
not a solitary individual on the face of the whole
earth, had, or could have had, the remotest concej)-
tion of such a thing. We do not need here to
discuss the meaning of an expiatory, propitiatory
sacrifice, in the scholastic sense, for that is well
understood and admitted on all sides. Such a
sacrifice supposes that an individual, or a number
of individuals, have come before God to confess their
sins, and to implore His forgiveness ; and that in
order to move Him to clemency, and to appease His
righteous anger, they have taken a certain method
of expressing what they feel they deserve, and have
laid an innocent animal on the altar, and put it to
death, and poured out its life-blood. Not the merest
shred of such a meaning as this can be found in the
death of Jesus. Where was the temple, the taber-
nacle, or the altar, where were the persons solemnly
presenting themselves before God, where was their
282 SACKIFICE OF CHRIST.
confession of sin, their prayer for forgiveness, tlieir
offering of sacrifice to God? They are not, nor
anything that can be construed into the remotest
approach to them. The Jews simply hated Christ,
and thought him a criminal, dangerous to their
country and their religion, and only worthy of
death, and they crucified him.
Was it ever heard of, that an expiatory sacrifice
was offered up to God, without the consent of the
offerer and even without his knowledge ? Was it
ever heard of that a certain act of such a supposed
offerer, amounted to a sacrifice to God, when not only
he did not know it, but when his mind, all the while,
was thoroughly possessed with perfectly opposite con-
ceptions of the whole transaction? Was it ever
heard of, that on the ground of this so-called sacri-
fice totally unknown to him, a man could be assured
that his sins were atoned, that God's justice was
satisfied, that God's anger was turned away, and that
eternal salvation was obtained for him ? It seems to
throw into utter confusion all consistent ideas of
sacrifice, view it how we may, and still more, all
consistent ideas of God, in relation to man. The
Jews sacrificed Christ, sacrificed him to their vile
passions ; but as certainly, they offered no sacrifice to
God, and never dreamed of such a thing ; as certainly
they did not mean to atone for their sins, or to render
satisfaction to divine justice.
SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 283
Without questioning what has just been advanced,
it is maintained that there is something beyond,
which is no less true, and which furnishes a con-
sistent and lofty interpretation of the facts. Man
had no sacrifice sufficiently valuable to offer to God,
even had he been ever so much disposed to do so.
He was doomed to perdition, and was utterly incap-
able of making the slightest reparation for the past,
or of doing anything to appease the righteous anger
of God, and to rescue himself from deserved punish-
ment. In these circumstances, God himself finds
and offers up a sacrifice to Himself, without the con-
sent or even the knowledge of any creature, and
thereafter tells the world that its sin is expiated, that
divine justice is satisfied, and that divine anger is
appeased. That is to say, the Being, who was sup-
posed to be angry, but who could not have really
been so, takes it upon Himself to cool down His own
wrath ; the Being who had been deeply wronged, and
who, it is supposed, had demanded extraordinary re-
paration from the wrong-doers, when the demand is
refused, thereafter Himself makes amends to Himself,
while His creatures are not only uninterested in the
transaction, but perfectly ignorant of it. The Pagan
sacrificial rites were fundamentally false, but they had
a meaning, nevertheless, a very intelligible meaning.
The sacrifices, actually, did something, it was ima-
gined, and something significant, with a view to avert
284 SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.
the anger of the gods and to obtain their favour. But
in the death of Christ, the acting parties not only did
not mean to offer sacrifice to God, but did not know
that, anyhow, or in any sense, sacrifice to God was
offered. What they did was neither more nor less
than this, to perpetrate a horrible crime, a judicial
murder. The incongruity, not to use a stronger
term, is not to be measured, of God being the real,
while men were the visible agents in the crucifixion,
of God being Himself at once the offerer up of a
sacrifice to Himself, and the acceptor of it when
offered, of God acting wholly on Himself and for
Himself, appeasing His own anger and satisfying His
own justice — His agency all the while being utterly
unknown to a single creature, and wholly undiscover-
able from the outward circumstances, and, as we
judge, irreconcilable with them.
In the scholastic idea of Christ's sacrifice, there
seems inevitably involved the conception of two dif-
ferent Gods, however blasphemous the conception be.
There is God in Christ and there is God out of
Christ, and these two, in the dogma we are examin-
ing, are certainly not one God, for they act different
parts and gain two different purposes. The one God
wills to uphold the authority, and majesty, and purity
of the Godhead ; the other God, not in opposition to
the first, but acting quite separately, wills to redeem
men and to render their redemption consistent with
SACEIFICE OF CHRIST. 285
divine authority, and majesty, and purity. In spite
of ourselves, Ave are compelled to conceive two Beings,
the one, with an aspect overwhelming and awful, the
other benignant, subduing, and tender. When we
bow with adoring reverence before the eternal, essen-
tial unity, it is not hard to think of distinct aspects
blending mysteriously and harmoniously in one Being,
or of distinct agencies and influences springing out of
one source ; but this forces us to separate the Divine
nature into two parts, to place the severed unity in
tvfo different regions, at the same moment, and to
imagine two agents moving, if not in hostile, in quite
separate directions. There is more than this, ne-
cessitating, not the sublime Tri-unity of Scripture,
the Eternal, threefold distinction in the one uncreated
essence, but virtually two Gods. The one God is
represented as angry with the other God, and the
incarnate God is represented as bearing the wrath of
the first — and this with a view to strike awe into the
moral universe, and to prove the divine abhorrence of
sin, and the impossibility of pardon without adequate
satisfaction to justice. It would be painful to pursue
illustration in this line ; but he who wdll piously and
humbly follow it out for himself, will find that we
have touched only the outer verge of a circle of im-
possibilities and contradictions.
Jesus the Incarnate was the substitute of men,
and acted and suffered in their room. But plain as
2S6 SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.
these terms seem, it is yet a question unsettled what
they actually convey. By one school of theologians
some very beautiful but purely fanciful illusions have
been founded on this apparently simple statement.
Christ becomes not a man, but man, the ideal man,
humanity in its normal and total development, such
as the Great Father could look upon with satisfac-
tion, and in which He could find a faithful embodi-
ment of His own primitive eternal conception. God
sought to behold, and would have men behold, in a
living form that which, till the Incarnation, had ex-
isted only in idea. Christ was humanity imperson-
ated, and what he did and suffered and achieved,
man did and suffered and achieved. Christ was a
type of the idea and the destiny of the race, and in
him God recognised not an individual but a totality —
man, humanity, the race — the race contending against
privation, and grief, and pain, and rising above them,
struggling with temptation and conquering it, bear-
ing all the direful consequences of sin, in a sinful
world, but recovering from them, — going down to
death, but bursting away from its grasp, and rising
into life again, redeemed, regenerated, and disen-
thralled for ever. For the satisfaction and the joy
of the Divine mind, and for the ultimate salvation of
the world, Jesus our Lord personated and repre-
sented the human race, and was to God the earnest
and first fruits of the final harvest of all time.
SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 287
Whatever beauty, and whatever blending of truth,
the imaginative and mystical soul may find here, to
the plain understanding of common men, it is funda-
mentally and wholly fictitious ; too ingenious, too re-
condite, and too far-fetched to be true. Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, the man Jesus, was a single unit of the
human race, like any other individual man. It is
indispensable to the reality, and simplicity, and pur-
port of the divine intervention, that he should be
this and no more than this. He had an individual
human mother, was born in a particular spot, and
at a precise date, stood in personal, individual rela-
tionship with kindred, with neighbours, with asso-
ciates and friends, with general, Jewish society, and
lived, and died, and filled out, with his individual
being and doing, a definite span, and no more, in the
outstretching course of time. Jesus was not human-
ity, but a man ; his own individual self, and no
more. Jesus was not the ideal man, and could not
be. With profound reverence, we venture to think
that the Divine idea, that which lay at the root of the
Incarnation itself, was something totally difi'erentj
and far higher and brighter. God's ideal, if we dare
conceive it, was not man, in a world of pain and sin,
not man sorrowing, suffering, struggling with evil,
though rising above it and confronting death, though
conquering it ; not this at all, but man in immortal
life, man set free from sorrow, and pain, and tempta-
288 SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.
tion, and sin, man for ever ascending in intelligence,
and wisdom, and purity, and love, and sweetness, and
beauty, unfolding his entire God-given nature, and
speeding his way onward in an interminable course,
opening out, without end, into new regions of eternal
life and light. Can we wonder that, for the realisa-
tion of an idea so grand and so blessed, even the
Great God should contemplate a sacrifice which only
He could make, and should adopt a method all-divine,
of transcendent mystery, but of illimitable efficiency ?
It was even so in very truth, for " God spared not
His own Son, but delivered him up for us all."
It comes out of all this, that there is a sense — a
natural and intelligible sense — in which Jesus the
Incarnate was the substitute of men, and acted and
suffered in their room. But the language is strictly
figurative, and we must not forget that a figure can
never be so exact and so perfect that it shall convey
the whole spiritual reality, and nothing but the spiri-
tual reality. In certain points it will prove a safe
help and guide to thought, but in others it will be
found inapplicable and untrue. The life of Jesus
was wholly a vicarious, a substituted life ; his hu-
manity was not a natural, but a preternatural huma-
nity, and was called into being, not for itself 's sake,
but wholly for man's sake, and, except on this ac-
count, it had never existed at all. Certainly, Jesus
appeared in the world in the room of man, to do for
SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 289
man what man could not do, or would not do, for
liimself , and to reconcile and restore the sinful human
soul to its God. But we shall only destroy a grand
and just idea, and turn it into confusion and falsity, if,
forgetting that the language in which it is conveyed
is largely figurative, we cast it into the form of a
hard, logical proposition.
Christ was not the substitute of men in all, or
even in many, of the senses in which these words
admit of being understood. For example, he was
not selected by men to live and act in their name ;
the generations of men were never consulted on
the subject, and certainly never signified their con-
currence in such a selection. Not a single gene-
ration, not a single individual in any of the gene-
rations, had ever dreamed of such a selection. But
it is supposed that God, in perfect harmony with
the human will of Jesus, arranged this substitution,
without the consent or the knowledge of His crea-
tures. Men, being simply criminals before God —
criminals lying under a sentence of death, which it
was impossible for them, themselves, to escape, it
was ordained that Jesus should take their place, and
suffer the penalty of their crimes, and thus set them
free. But if we demand proof of this divine ordina-
tion, not a shred of proof can be produced. Secret
things belong to God, and of all secret things, the
most secret and awful must be His eternal purposes.
T
290 SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.
There is something appalling in the thought of a hu-
man being professing to have access to an ordination
of God. Inferences, drawn from obscure and ambigu-
ous ancient oracles ; conclusions, based on isolated
phrases and terms, must be abjured, as wholly im-
pious. In such a case, nothing can satisfy a truly
reverent soul but a clear and express revelation of a
secret decree, which had lain from eternity in the
Divine mind. But we look in vain for such a revela-
tion, or anything in the least approaching it. There
may be texts in the Old Testament which it is possible
so to interpret, that they shall not be wholly subver-
sive of the notion of a divine decree of substitution
and vicarious punishment, but there is not a single
text of Scripture in which this notion or anything
approaching it is directly expressed, or in which even
it is natural, far less necessary, to presuppose it.
Logicians, in their pious ingenuity and subtlety,
have striven to systematise and harmonise revealed
truth, to trace ah initio, or rather ah eterno, the steps
of God's procedure, to find out the secret grounds on
which each step was taken, and could be justified in
rectitude and wisdom, to discover the everlasting
underlying principles of human redemption, and, by
means of the dogma of substitution, to unravel the
clue to all the winding intricacies of spiritual provi-
dence. But they have simply dwelt so long and so
fondly on their own thoughts, that they have at last
SACRIFICE OP CHRIST. 291
believed them to be divine, and, transforming their
own poor contrivances into plans of God, and the
speculations of time into the decrees of eternity, they
have gone to the Scriptures to see the delusion con-
firmed by tlie highest authority. After the abundant
and perplexing experience of the last thousand years,
it is not surprising, but very easy of belief that they
have found, at least have persuaded themselves that
they have found, what they sought, and that with
perfect honesty, and much ingenuity and skill, they
have been able to make the phrases and terms of the
New Testament consort w^ith their cherished dogma
of vicarious sin and punishment. ^
In a beautiful passage of ancient prophecy which
has been already quoted and ex2)lained, we read,
" He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,
he was wounded for our transgressions," — ^wholly on
account of our transgressions, certainly not on account
of his own, — "and bruised for our iniquities; the
chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with
his stripes we are healed." As the words lie before
us, in their obvious and natural meaning, every one
^ Few, who have not actually experienced it, can have any proper
idea of the almost insuperable difi&culty of overcoming the effect of
a systematic, scientific, theological training. Certain dogmas from
the first are fixed in the mind of the student as of divine authority,
and hardly any amount of evidence is able afterwards to persuade
him, that instead of sacred truths, these are only human, and not
wise, and not just modes of interpreting truth.
292 SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.
feels that they are simply and toiichingly true ; but
who, except in the overmastering desire to maintain
a foregone conclusion, and to carry out a one-sided
scheme of thought, could have imagined that this or
any similar passage contained the strange and re-
volting idea, that God imputed the sins of men to
Jesus the Messiah, laid them upon him and put
them to his account, and that, on this ground, Jesus,
as the substitute of sinners, was chargeable with the
entire amount of human sins, from the beginning to
the end of time. It is easy to utter or to write down
this language, but have we ever calmly put before
our minds what it really involves. To impute sin to
any being, must mean one or other or both of two
things, either that he is considered, judged to be
actually guilty of the sin imputed to him, or that he
is to be dealt with as if he were actually guilty of it.
Jesus Christ was perfectly holy and was justly
chargeable with no sin whatever, against God or
man. That is an admitted fact ; and of all beings in
the universe, the Omniscient best knew the fact. To
say that God nevertheless imputed sin to Jesus, that
is, considered, judged, thought him to be guilty of
sin, is direct blasphemy. The thing was impossible,
because it was not true, in no sense true, and God, of
all beings, knew that it was not true.
Sin has a very distinct and unambiguous meaning,
it is the conscious resistance of the human to the
SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 293
divine will ; or, more accurately still, it is tlie
conscious resistance of the human will to what
is known to be true, and right, and good. From
its very nature it can lie nowhere but in the mind,
it is the conscious act of the mind, and nothing
but this ; it is the mind desiring, choosing, purposing
in the face of reason and conscience. To be justly
imputed or reckoned to any being, sin must be the
act of the being. It cannot be deposited within him,
like some material substance, in a chamber or a
cellar, and it cannot be put on him or affixed to him
like an adhesion on his person or his dress. If it be
the act of his soul, it is justly imputed to him; if it be
not, then to impute it to him, to hold that he is
guilty when he is not, is an atrocious crime, it is an
utter falsity and clear unrighteousness. The idea of
putting the sins of a being who is guilty on or in
another being who is innocent, of making the innocent
chargeable with them and putting them to his ac-
count, would be gross injustice if it were possible ;
but it is not possible, the thing is a pure, sheer
absurdity.
In the sphere of pure imagination, very wide
licence is permitted with safety. We can fancy a
tree to be a living being, and can readily picture it
to ourselves as such, with its head, and feet, and
heart, and trunk, and arms, and limbs. We can
fancy it endowed with the power of speech, and
294 SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.
rehearsing to the night-winds the tale of its
growth, its lost companions, the storms that have
swept over it, and the springs, and summers, and
winters it has seen. But in the sphere of reality
there can be no licence, one single step beyond truth
and fact. Whatever we may fancy, we can never
think, never, in sane mind, judge that a man is a
beast of the forest or an eagle of the sky. And were
it even possible in some moment of wild aberration
to form such a thought, there would be something
more frenzied, and more outrageous stiU, in building
up a long succession and a complicated system of
ideas, on the absurd basis that a man was a four-
footed beast or a bird of the air. To all such repre-
sentations, as that God thought, judged, reckoned
Jesus to be chargeable with the sins of men, or that
Jesus had the sins of men laid on him, or imputed to
him, the decisive reply must be, they cannot be true,
the thing they assert is utterly impossible and
absurd.
The question is asked, ^dth much confidence, ma}
not a responsible agent, without being considered,
judged to be guilty of sin, be, nevertheless, for the
sake of others in whom he is interested, dealt with,
treated, as if he were guilty — especially, may he not
be so treated, when his own free and full consent
has been given to the arrangement ? God did not
and could not judge, consider that Jesus was charge-
SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 295
able with the sins of men ; but did He not treat him,
and act towards him, as if he were chargeable with
them ? It is quite true, and a common enough ex-
perience in our world, that one man shall become
surety for another, and shall make himself respon-
sible for the payment of a sum of money, or for the
performance of certain services. It is quite true,
also, that, failing the principal, his surety is bound
in law to pay the money, and to secure the perform-
ance of the stipulated services. But even in this
event the security is never charged with any crime,
never considered or reckoned, guilty, because the
principal has been guilty. The security must bear,
as he has engaged to do, the consequences of the
principal's default, but that is all. And besides, it
must be borne in mind that there are clear and well-
understood limits even to this vicarious responsibility.
If an individual were to offer, to suffer imprisonment
or banishment or death, in the room of a criminal
who had been sentenced to any of these punishments,
human law, and every righteous human judge, would
simply and instantly reject the offer. Such a thing
could not be tolerated for a moment ; it is abhorrent
to all equity and all justice. Law pronounces that
the transgressor shall be punished, but it does not
recognise, and cannot permit, that another, innocent
of crime, shall be punished in his stead. Is it pos-
sible to conceive that God has done what is abhorrent
296 SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.
even to human law, and still more to the natural
conscience of man? Is it possible to conceive that
God should treat the innocent Saviour, and should
act towards him as if he had been guilty of sin, when
he had not ?
We are told that the dying agony of Jesus was
not owing to his bodily sufferings ; nor yet to the
anguish which pierced him, when he thought of the
sin of the world, which was even then exhibiting
itself in so revolting a form ; nor to the sense of
misappreciation and of ingratitude on the part of
the beings whom he loved ; but to a cause far more
mysterious and awful, to the secret anger of God the
Father. God, acting in His official, judicial char-
acter, regarded Jesus as the substitute of sinners,
and poured out on his soul, without measure, the
vials of divine wrath. In all simplicity and earnest-
ness, and with deep reverence, we ask, is it possible
for any devout soul to put this idea, in all its naked
horror, before itself, even for an instant ? Can the
conception be endured that the Great God was
angry, was even displeased, in any sense, on any
ground, with Jesus on the cross ? That moment
which needed, above all others, infinite sympathy and
yearning love, was it the chosen moment for the out-
pouring of cruel and unmerited wrath ? It is impos-
sible. Facts, not fancies or fictions, must be dealt
with here. All are agreed, that when Jesus hung on
SACRIFICE OF CHEIST. 297
the cross, lie was perfectly blameless and spotless,
suffering, but suffering unjustly. He was then ac-
tually giving the last proof of unconquerable fidelity
and love to God and to man ; and what is still more,
he was then actually achieving that which the Father
was to convert into the mightiest instrument for
touching and subduing the heart of man, and for
reconciling and redeeming the world to Himself.
These are the facts beyond dispute. Is it possible
to conceive that, instead of these, God saw only a
mere fiction of law, and acted towards Jesus as if he
were a guilty being — the guiltiest of all the guilty ?
Who can believe it ? If there was an instant in the
whole life of Jesus, when God must have been in-
finitely well pleased in His beloved Son, it must have
been then, when he was bearing the unmerited,
illegal, and most merciless indignities and agonies
of crucifixion. At any and every period of Christ's
earthly life, anger towards him on the part of God
must have been impossible, because there never was,
or could be, the smallest cause for such a sentiment ;
but on the cross, when he was offering himself to
God, a willing and a holy sacrifice, there was not
only no cause for anger, but infinite cause for divine
satisfaction and joy.
As for official, judicial anger, what does it mean ?
and who can attach even the shadow of an idea to it,
without darkening the purity and the honour of the
298 SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.
Almighty ? Are we to imagine that He was really
pleased, but officially angry, and that His face wore
the hypocrite's mask — a frown put on, but concealing
a true delight ? It is inexpressibly revolting to think
that the Great God made-believe that He was wroth
with a being with whom He was altogether satisfied,
and made-believe that He saw sin in him, who He
knew was perfectly sinless. But even this is not all,
and not the most abhorrent. Turning to the other side
of the scholastic dogma, are we prepared to credit the
involved assertion, that God makes-believe that men
are sinless, whose own hearts tell them that they are
very sinful; and makes-believe that men are perfectly
righteous, who He knows all the while are yet unright-
eous ? It cannot be. That which rests not on plain
fact, but on legal fictions — that which necessitates
impossible make -beliefs, and which brings no evi-
dence, but only gratuitous assumptions, cannot be of
God, but must be wholly of man.
Substitution, not in a fictitious, but in a beautiful
and noble and free and wide sense, is not unknown
even in a selfish and sinful world. Human nature
furnishes marvellous instances of self-sacrifice for
others, by the aid of which we are able to conceive
the higher Divine mystery. The mother who watches
day and night by the bed of her child, smitten with
a deadly plague, who lives only so long as to see the
dying one restored, and then catches the mortal in-
SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 299
fection and dies ! The father clinging to the prodigal,
whom all besides have abandoned, descending with
him, without partaking his guilt, as he sinks to beg-
gary and crime, pursuing him year after year with
tender counsels, or with silent grief, and with loving
prayers and tears and looks, and who dies of a broken
heart, without knowing the holy change, which his
death at last produced ! The youth plunging into the
deep to save a drowning brother, and who, after incre-
dible exertions, reaches him, seizes him, is able only to
hold him up till other help arrives, and then himself
sinks and perishes ! The physician, knowing certainly
that the attempt must be fatal, but would as certainly
be the means of saving life to the community, delibe-
rately going alone into the room where lay a dead
body which contained the secret of a then unknown
and terrific disease, opening the body, discovering
the seat and nature of the disease, writing what he
had discovered, affixing the writing to the dead body^
that it might be found at once by the first who en-
tered the room, and who then simi)ly laid him down
and died !
These are among the known examples, not indeed
of vicarious sin, for that is for ever, absolutely im-
possible, but of vicarious suffering. These are glow-
irtg flashes of love from heaven in a dark and cold
world. There must be an Eternal sun of love, out
from which these are scattered and imperfect radia-
300 SACRIFICE OP CHRIST.
tions ; there must be a parent fountain of pure, infinite
generosity, an original form and type of moral no-
bility. God is perfect love, God must be essentially,
eternally, self-sacrificing. His rational creatures, His
children, the souls He hath made, are unutterably
dear to Him, and within the limits of truth and right,
there is nothing which He is not willing to do for
them. Their true blessedness, the perfect salvation
and the progressive development of their entire nature
as He first fashioned it, is the end and the joy of the
infinite Father.
Amidst the reign of eternal laws, which never are
or can be violated ; under the sway of eternal justice,
which proclaims and secures that sin is death, and
that only holiness is life, it abides for ever true that
God is love, self-sacrificing love ; and the last and
highest utterance of God's love is Christ — the
spoken, articulated Word, (Logos,) within which lies
the sublime idea, God.
It is quite true that the human in our great Ee-
deemer was not a mere passive instrument, but a
perfectly voluntary agent. The human will, not
passively, but freely and gladly harmonised with the
Divine, and when death was inevitable Jesus volun-
tarily and wholly gave himself up to God, for the
accomplishment of God's purposes, an offering and a
sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour. But it abides
none the less true, that in the highest sense the
SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 301
sacrifice for men was made by God. Christ was
God's, Christ was God, God in the form of man, God
expressed and pronounced, so far as it was possible
for a created medium to give forth the uncreated
reality. The infinite Father, in boundless pity, looked
down on His undutiful children, and yearned to rescue
them, by regaining their hearts, and drawing them
back to allegiance and to peace. With God-like
mercy, He unveiled all which was possible of Divine
purity, and truth, and beauty, and sweetness, and
lovingness, and compassion — He humbled Himself,
descended to the level of His creatures, walked among
them, spoke with them face to face, and appealed as
He still continues to appeal to their hearts, through
the gentleness, the tenderness, the wisdom, the meek-
ness, the patience, the sufferings, the tears, the blood,
and the death of Jesus Christ.
The distinction here is radical and fundamental.^
The sacrifice was not offered up by men at all, or by
a substitute in their room, and it was not required to
appease God's anger, or to satisfy His justice, or to
^ In a work of great beauty and truth, and the fruit of much
spiritual experience, Mr Campbell adheres to the central idea of the
scholastic atonement. He fancies that in Christ's awful sense of
human sin, and his vicarious repentance on account of it, God found
that satisfaction which His justice demanded, and on the ground of
which He could righteously forgive. With great respect, I am un-
able to look on this, as any other than a beautiful and pious illusion,
but an illusion, a mere illusion.
See "Nature of the Atonement," Macmillan, London, 1856.
302 SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.
render Him propitious. The sacrifice was not offered
by men to God, but was made by God for men,
wholly and solely made by God for men, and for sin,
in order that sin might be for ever put down, and
rooted out of human nature. This stupendous act of
Divine sacrifice was God's instrument of reconciliation
and redemption, God's method of conquering the
human heart, and of subduing a revolted world and
attaching it to His throne — pure love, self-sacrificing
love, crucified, dying love ! " For God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son, that who-
soever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life."
CHAPTER X.
SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS IN THE NEW
TESTAMENT.
Section First.— The Epistles.
Section Second. — Acts of the Apostles.
Section Thiud.— The Gospei^.
SECTION FIRST — THE EPISTLES. ^
WriUen by Jews — Addressed, First, to Jews — Jewish Phraseology
and Imagery, Inevitable — Exposition of Passages — Beautiful,
Natural Sense — Christ's Death, and Ancient Sacrifices — Epistle
to Hebrews — Typical Language — Use and Abuse — Apostolic
Gospel.
IT would have been unnatural, if not really impos-
sible, for the first teachers of Christianity, in
their spoken or written utterances respecting the new
kingdom of God, to have avoided frequent reference
to the earlier dispensation of Moses. They were
Jews, all, without exception, Jews, and this single
fact throws light on several of the peculiarities of the
New Testament. The heavenly truth uttered by the
^ In order to the faithful discussion of the subject of this chap-
ter, I have specially gone over the whole of the New Testament,
and have endeavoured to note every passage in which Christ's death
for sin is mentioned or alluded to. One or more passages may
have been overlooked, but I am not aware of any omission, and
must think it at least not probable. Necessarily only a few out of
very many passages are quoted ; but I believe that all the texts,
without exception, which are usually supposed to bear most strongly
in favour of artificial theology, will be found in the succeeding
jmges.
U
30G SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
Kedeemer fell into minds necessarily influenced very
strongly by the associations, the ideas, and the spirit
of Judaism. The thoughts of the first apostles and
|)rGachers respecting Christ's gospel, like all new
thoughts in any mind, connected themselves, of ne-
cessity, with their earlier experiences and knowledge,
and were modified by them to a large extent. In
attempting to conceive fresh truth, we are forced to
relate it, by one means or another, to the previous
contents of our minds, and to attach it, as closely as
possible, to familiar associations, images, phrases, and
terms. These images and terms, in their new rela-
tions, may mean more than they at first contained,
they may even mean something quite diff'erent ; but
the old speech, wisely accommodated and adapted, is
the happiest, as it is the readiest, which we can use in
order to present to our own minds, or to others, intel-
ligently and interestingly, a new meaning, which we
have come to apprehend. The apostles would have
acted unnaturally if, in speaking of Christ, they had
not often gone back to the temple, and the altar, and
the sacrifices, and the blood.
Another thing must be borne in mind, that the
first Christian preachers and writers, themselves
Jews, addressed Jews ; at the least, first of all, they
addressed Jews. And there was certainly no way in
which they could approach their kinsmen according
to the flesh, with such marked advantage, as on the
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 307
side of Judaism. Comparisons or contrasts between
the earlier and the later truth, references to ancient
facts and types, the frequent use of words and phrases
which had been consecrated in Judea for ages, were
inevitable, without doing violence to nature, and to
all the laws of human thought and speech. We are
compelled to think that the fresh, glad tidings of
Heaven's mercy could not possibly have been given
forth, first of all, save in Jewish phrase and form,
and that, first of all, Christ must, of necessity, have
been preached through the voice, and the institutions,
and the spirit of Moses.
It is easy to see that a certain amount of dis-
advantage, and of danger, was inseparable from
this fact. In the application, however skilfully, of
old language to new thoughts, there was a risk
that to some, perhaps to many minds, the old
and not the new ideas might be suggested. And
then, in the use, however wise, of imagery, and me-
taphor, and type, there was the further risk, that
what was meant for figure might be taken for fact,
and that what was announced as the antitype of an
ancient symbol, might be conceived to be a mere
repetition of that symbol, instead of a totally differ-
ent, and higher, and purer reality. It is very ob-
vious that the kind of danger here supposed must be
enhanced a thousandfold, when a piece of writing is
placed, as the New Testament is, before men, all
308 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
whose associations, and experiences, and modes of
thinking, and actual knowledge, are wholly different
from those, as well as of the writers of the piece, as
of the persons to whom it was originally addressed.
Hence the necessity, in all cases, for discriminating,
temperate, cautious, and modest criticism of the New
Testament, in the absence of which the gravest errors,
and the wildest extravagance of interpretation, may
be pronounced inevitable.
We turn to some of the more familiar terms and
phrases of the New Testament wliich are imagined
to involve the idea of satisfaction. '' His name shall
be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from
their sins.'' He came " to seek and to save that
which was lost." " He is able to save to the utter-
most." " He died for us." " He loved us, and gave
himself for us." " He was delivered for our offences."
*' Christ died for the imgodly." "While we were
yet sinners Christ died for us." " He died for our
sins, according to the Scriptures." " Christ loved
the Church, and gave himself for it." " He came
into the world to save sinners, even the chief." '' He
put away sin, by the sacrifice of himself." " We are
redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a
lamb without blemish and without spot." "We have
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,
according to the riches of his grace." " He bare our
sins in his own body on the tree." " Christ hath
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 309
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us ; for it is written, Cursed is every one
that hangeth on a tree." " Christ also suffered for
sins, the just for the unjust." All these, and other
similar forms of expression, bear a beautiful and
direct meaning, quite apart from the idea of satis-
faction to justice — which, on the contrary, would
entirely change and ruin their own simple and touch-
ing sense. The entire life of Christ on earth, we
have seen, was sacrificial, substitutionary, and vica-
rious; its deep and sole ground was love of man,
based on the fact of mans sin, which created the
need of redemption. All in all, Christ was a mere,
pure sacrifice, and nothing but a sacrifice — a sacrifice
to God ; but more truly still, and in the highest sense
of all, a sacrifice made by God for men. Christ
lived, emphatically he died, wholly and solely for
men and for sin ; to put away sin, to redeem the
human soul from sin — not so much from punish-
ment, which was only a secondary result, but from
sin. The texts quoted above express, in varying
form, these imperishable thoughts. And nothing
but an acquired and artificial scheme and habit of
thought prevents this from being perceived at once.
We have been so trained to associate a peculiar
sacrcdness with certain scholastic distinctions and
divisions, that when we open the New Testament, it
is almost impossible for us not to force into its terms
310 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
what they could never of themselves have suggested,
what indeed is entirely destructive of their natural
meaning. It is like an introduction to a new world,
like breathing a pure, divine air, when we break
through the imprisonment and the fetters of a merely
human system, and stand beneath the free light of
heaven, and look with our own eyes on the glorious,
spiritual revelations spread out before us by the Only
Wise and True.
There are three passages in the New Testament
in which we find a word of much greater force than
in any of those already brought forward. " Whom
God hath set forth, a propitiation, ikaaTrjpLov,
through faith in his blood." i "He is the propiti-
ation, ikaaixo^, for our sins."2 " God sent His Son
to be the propitiation, iXaafi6<;, for our sins." 3 It is
unnecessary to notice the distinction between the two
words here employed, which have the same root, and
amount to the same sense. The Pagan meaning of
/XacryLto? is undoubted ; the word was constantly used
by Pagan writers to mark the supposed effect of
sacrifices, in propitiating the gods to whom they
were offered. But we have to recall the fact, that
the Jewish translators ^ of the Hebrew Scriptures
into Greek, in rendering the distinctive word Kaphar,
employed the term IXaafxh^, while at the same time
^ Rom. iii. tiS. ^ 1 John ii. 2.
^ 1 John iv. 10. 4 gee p^ 234.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 311
it was proved, by several undoubted examples, that
this common Pagan sacrificial term was not used by
them at all in the Pagan sense, but in a sense most
widely dififerent. Precisely on the same grounds, we
argue that while the inspired writers of the New
Testament used the accepted, sacrificial word tkaa-
/io9, this is no proof that they used it in the accepted
meaning. That meaning, as accepted by the Pagan
world, was throughout an utter falsity. They were
no gods to whom the Pagan sacrifices were offered ;
the anger which it was sought to appease, by means
of these sacrifices, was all unreal, and the appeasing
efi'ect was mere 4elusion. But the apostles of Chris-
tianity had something real and true and great to
announce, in the room of the falsities and fancies of
Paganism. There was a real God, a real hatred of
sin, but at the same time a real and infinite love of
the human soul. There was also a real propitiation,
but immeasurably far away from that which the be-
wildered and distorted Pagan mind had pictured.
Instead of the fiction of an incensed Jupiter or Pluto,
there was seen on earth the image of the brightness
of the God of love. Christ came not to appease
anger, for it was owing solely to the unprompted
and unbounded mercy of the Father, that he ever
lived, and that at last he died on a cross, but to be
the wondrous medium of reconciling and restoring
human hearts to Him from whom they had revolted.
312 SACRIFICIAL TEEMS AND ALLUSIONS
Incarnate love, — bleeding, dying love, is the power
whereby God is recovering the world to Himself.
The inspired writers of the New Testament liken
the death of Christ on the cross to the animal sacri-
fices under the law of Moses, and compare and con-
trast the two in manifold forms. There is no
evidence, that any such similitude was ever imagined
during the course of the Jewish dispensation itself.
The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah and the twenty-
second Psalm, certainly, and in the strongest form,
do noio suggest the idea of a suffering, as well as of
a conquering King, and we, with the gospels in our
hands, have no difficulty in applying these holy
oracles to our blessed Lord, and can only marvel at
their touching beauty and their exact truth. But
whatever meaning the seer and the singer of old may
have attached at the time to their own words, and
however piously they may have searched " what,
or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which
was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand
the sufferings of Christ, and the glory which should
follow," it must have been impossible for them, as
has already been shown, to have formed the faintest
conception of anything like a Messiah offered up in
sacrifice, as animals were anciently offered up and
slain on the altar. If any ancient Jew succeeded in
reaching such a preconception, and was able to regard
his bloody offerings as typical of a more bloody offering
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 313
still, to be laid on some future altar in the distant ages
to come, this at least is certain, that no record of the
fact can be found, from which there is ground further
to conclude, that a fact of the kind never existed.
Even the words of Jesus to his disciples, after the
resurrection, confirm this conclusion. " fools, and
slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have
spoken! Ought not (the) Christ to have suffered
these things, and to enter into his glory ? And be-
ginning at Moses, and all the prophets, he expounded
to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning
himself." Looking back on the ancient Scriptures,
in the light which the life and death of Jesus throw
on them, the blindness to us is unaccountable which
failed to perceive that the Messiah must needs suffer,
and we do not wonder at the implied rebuke uttered
by the Saviour. But we must not forget, at the
same time, how incongruous and seemingly blas-
phemous the idea was to the Jewish mind. Perhaps
of all men in Judea, or elsewhere in that age, the
disciples, pre-eminently, were placed in circumstances
the most likely to remove the deep repugnance to
this idea, and to reveal its truth. But even they
were utterly blind to the last, foolish and sottish,
as all their fathers had been.
It was marvellously different, when the higher
illumination of the Holy Ghost had fallen on their
minds. We open the New Testament, and there we
314 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
cannot fail to see that Christ's death is often and
closely associated in the minds of the writers with
the altar and its offerings. " Christ, our passover, is
sacrificed for us." " We have an altar." " He was
once offered to bear the sins of many." " He gave
himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time."
Nothing could be more thoroughly natural in the cir-
cumstances, and nothing more inevitable, than such
language, conveying, however, a very different and a
far higher truth, though at the same time, one which
bore a striking analogy in some obvious points to the
ancient symbols. But in addition to these scattered
and occasional phrases, one entire epistle, not a short
one, specially and significantly addressed to Hebrews,
is occupied with an extended and minute compari-
son between Judaism and Christianity, pointing out,
wherever it is possible, their points of resemblance ;
but also, and not less faithfully, their points of con-
trast. Christ is compared with Moses, with Mel-
chisedec, with Aaron, and w^ith the Jewish priesthood
as a Divine Institute: the ancient temple, with its
compartments, and its utensils, and its officers of
various orders, and its endless ceremonies and rites
are graphically described, and largely made use of
for the purposes of illustration. The epistle is of
necessity intensely Jewish. It is a Jew specially and
formally addressing Jews, in language, and through
associations and experiences which to both were most
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 315
endeared and most sacred. It is a Jew seeking to
introduce Christian truth into Jewish minds, through
Jewish channels, and in many forms Christ's death is
brought into relation with ancient sacrifices. " Once
in the end of the world hath he appeared to put
away sin by the sacrifice of himself.'' " This man,
after he had offered one sacrifice for sin, for ever sat
down on the right hand of God." " By one offering
he hath for ever perfected all them that are sancti-
fied." " Jesus, that he might sanctify the people
with his own blood, suffered without the gate."
The words of John Baptist, though out of their
proper order in this place, may be noted as convey-
ing perhaps the most expressive statement in this
relation, to be found in the New Testament, more
expressive and significant by far, than those just
quoted from the Epistle to the Hebrews. "Be-
hold the Lamb of God, wdio is taking aw^ay the
sin of the w^orld." It is the natural, instinctive,
fervent utterance of a pious Jew, on first beholding
him whom he knew to be the promised Messiah.
This was God's Lamb, God's sacrifice, though how
and in what sense or in what form, John could not
know, for there was no apparent similarity between
the type and the antitype. Here w^as no literal lamb,
no beast but a rational man ; here was no doomed
sacrifice on the altar awaiting the sacrificial knife, but
a youthful, hopeful, vigorous life, just entering on a
316 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
wondrous course of active service. It would be most
gratuitous to fancy, that John foresaw the tragical
close of our Lord's life. There is not a word or even
a distant hint to favour such an idea, and there is
nothing in the circumstances to lead us to suppose it.
But John certainly did believe, for the words can
mean nothing else, that this living man was God's
Lamb, somehow, — the true and only spiritual antitype
of the sacrifices under the law of Moses. What is
yet more, John afhrmed that this divine Lamb, at the
moment when he spoke, was taking away, and was
destined to take away, the sin of the world. Never
had lamb or sacrifice of any kind effected such a pur-
pose. In this respect, as we have already shown, the
ancient sacrifices were as dark, as vague, and as
empty of meaning as a very shadow is of substance.
But this divine Lamb, unlike the ancient victims, was
no shadow, but a substance, a glorious spiritual
reality, and was to secure an end which sacrifices not
only never could have efi'ected, but were never meant
to effect. Christ came not nominally, or formally, or
judicially, but really, literally, and for ever to take
away the sin of the world — to root it out of the world's
heart, out of the world's life — to kill by his life and
his death the evil which was killing the soul — to
cleanse and revivify humanity — to send through it a
healthful pulse of love and purity, and to mature it
for an immortal and blessed life in the eternal ages.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 317
The language of the Epistle to the Hebrews
is throughout intensely typical, and the subject
of Scripture-types is pre-eminently one which de-
mands delicate and cautious treatment, such as, un-
happily, it has not always received. In the nature
of the study itself, there is strong temptation to
indulge a prurient ingenuity and a licentious ima-
gination ; and some of the most extravagant, and
wdld, and even ludicrous examples of so-called re-
ligious writing are supplied by students of this
branch of sacred literature. Even the severest theo-
logians are apt to stray when they venture on this
dangerous ground. A vast science of typology has
been constructed on what might have been judged
a very slender basis. We have typical individuals
and typical classes of persons, typical facts, typi-
cal purifications, and typical seasons ; and with
laborious ingenuity an ample codex has been drawn
up of rules or canons of typical interpretation. It
is remarkable that in the Scriptures themselves,
no special attention is drawn to types, as if they had
some profound, mystical, spiritual meaning, and as if
God spoke through them with the desire of awaken-
ing a peculiar reverence. The New Testament writers,
on the contrary, often refer to the whole of the
ancient institutions in a tone by no means indicating
either affection or respect. " Stand fast in the liberty
wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not en-
318 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
tangled again with tlie yoke of bondage." i Judaism,
in the thought of inspired men, was a yoke of bond-
age; a most galling yoke, also, it appears; for even
the apostle Peter, who was not the least Judaistic of
the twelve, besought the assembled church of Jeru-
salem " not to tempt God, and not to put a yoke on
the neck of the (Gentile) disciples, which neither our
fathers nor we were able to bear." 2 «' Let no man
therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect
of an holiday, or of the new-moon, or of the Sabbath-
days ; which are a shadow of things to come ; but
the body (substance) is of Christ." ^ The law had a
" shadow of good things to come, and not the very
image of the things." ^ A shadow is the most dim,
vague, superficial, unlifelike, unreal representation
which can be given of a substance, showing only the
mere outline, and even that, generally, in a distorted
and untrustworthy form. No one in his senses would
seek the shadow, in order to correct and complete his
idea of a substance which was before him.
The peculiar word " type," which is deemed so
sacred, and which has been guarded by exact and
nice definitions and canons, is used in the New Testa-
ment in the most general and free manner possible,
certainly without any precision, or sanctity of mean-
ing. "Brethren, be followers together of me, and
1 Gal. V. 1. « Acts XV. 10,
3 Col. ii. 16. * Heb. X. 1.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 319
mark them who walk so, as ye have us for an
example," (type.)i " So that ye were examples
(types) to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia/'^
" Not because we have not power, but to make
ourselves an example (type) unto you to follow us/'^
"Be thou an example (type) of the believers, in
word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith,
in purity."* " Neither as being lords over God's
heritage, but being examples (types) to the flock."^
" Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be
ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the
cloud, and all passed through the sea ; and were all
baptized unto Moses, in the cloud and in the sea ; and
did all eat the same spiritual meat" — referring to
the manna, a spiritual, that is a preternatural gift
from Heaven — " and did all drink the same spiritual
drink " — 'referring to the water supernaturally struck
out of the rock — '' for they drank of that spiritual
Kock that followed them ; and that Eock was Christ.
.... Now these things were our examples, (types,)
to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as
they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were
some of them Neither let us commit forni-
cation, as some of them committed Neither
murmur ye, as some of them also murmured
Now all these things happened unto them for
1 Phil. iv. 17. 2 1 rriiess. i. 7. » 2 Thess. iii. 9.
* 1 Tim. iv. 12. « 1 Peter v. 3.
320 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
examples/' (types. )i To show beyond doubt the true
and sole intent of these, and of all tj^pes, the apostle
immediately adds, "and they are written for our
admonition, on whom the ends of the world (the last
of the ages) have come." It is precisely the thought,
almost in the very words, expressed by the same
writer in another passage, only with a mucli more
extended application. " Whatsoever things were
written aforetime, were written for our learning;
that we, through patience and admonition of the
Scriptures, might have hope."^ That is to say, the
recorded facts of the Israelitish history, their national
annals and their religious experiences, and worship,
and faith, and not these only, but all the ancient
Scriptures, in all their various parts, are designed to
convey to future times instruction, and guidance, and
encouragement, and warning. It can hardly fail to
occur to us that ordinary human history, in its
measure, serves the same great purpose. History
hands down to succeeding ages a series of types of
humanity, it forms a permanent fund of precious
instruction, it is an extended foreshadowing of human
character, ever repeating itself, and of human experi-
ences, and of human destinies.
But while all sacred Scripture and all wise secular
writing are profitable for our learning, it deserves to
be noted, besides, that the facts of daily life, and the
1 1 Cor. X. 1-11. 2 p^ojjj_ ^^^ 4^
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 321
objects and operations of nature, are a medium of
what may legitimately be called typical teaching.
Providence and nature are full of similitudes, simili-
tudes of beautiful and profound meaning to the
purified vision. There is a marvellous, universal
homogeneity in creation, throughout all its depart-
ments of brute matter, and of vegetable, animal,
rational, moral, and spiritual life, and even the dullest
eye cannot fail to detect some of its patent analogies
and images. The beauty of poetry is the revelation
of a hidden and higher meaning in common things.
It is a rare gift of God to some peculiar souls, an
enviable and much envied faculty, which " finds
tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, ser-
mons in stones, and good in everything." But this
faculty is prone to be impatient of the obtuseness
and blindness of common men, and to frown con-
temptuously on human reason, and especially on
human judgment, with its cautious and slow processes,
most galling to the quicker force of insight. One
man shall see at a glance the wealth of Peru in a
mine, which to another is only dull clay, or worthless
stone or sand, though, perhaps, were the mine
actually worked, it might eventually turn out that
all was not really gold which once glittered to the
imagination. Specially gifted mindg, not without
some counterbalance, find their own reward, a rich
one, in iJiemselves. In relation to Scripture, and the
322 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
sphere of spiritual religion, they have moments of
exquisite delight, and see, or think they see, and
certainly feel what the unendowed never know.
They find, as others cannot, the images and types of
Scripture, of Providence, and of nature, helpful to
their higher well-heing, and they supply to commoner,
duller souls, materials of holy enjoyment, and even
an invigorating stimulus to their God-ward desires.
Let no interdict he laid on the mystic fancy, save
what right reason and religion impose ; let it discover
in the ancient Scriptures, what foreshadowings, and
similitudes, and types it may : they may be beautiful,
even legitimate, and healthful, and helpful. But we
have herein reached the farthest limit of freedom;
they cannot rightfully and they must not be pro-
nounced divine. Because we think we perceive in
any ancient statement, or symbol, or fact, an image
of a future spiritual truth, we are not entitled on this
ground alone to affirm that the similitude was pur-
posed by God. This introduces a totally new element,
which, if true, must rest on other and better evidence.
Undoubtedly, all the possible similitudes and issues
of all things must be for ever present in the eternal
glance ; but to pronounce that any similitude which
we perceive, or think we perceive, was pre-ordained
and purposed, must be the highest presumption,
unless, indeed, the Divine purpose be revealed.
One thing is certain, that the perception of a typi-
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 323
cal meaning in any symbol, and the interpretation of
that meaning, must be almost as various as there are
individuals, and must inevitably depend, not only on
the extent and the kind of a man's knowledge, but
on the character of his judging faculty and on the
strength and culture of his imagination. He can
only liken the type to what he already knows ; he can
only judge of it, according to his capacity, whatever
that may be ; and the result can only take its form
according as his fancy is poor, and coarse, or dis-
ciplined, vigorous and chaste. A Christian man may
act not wisely, who does not allow a reverent and
subdued imagination to range the sphere of his
spiritual contemplations, but he is more unwise still,
who exalts the play of his fancy, how^ever legitimate
in its own sphere, into divine thought and divine
ordination.
Neither the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews
nor any of the writers of the New Testament ever
assert that the similitudes which they introduce were
ordained as such by God. In announcing the
heavenly truth which they were commissioned to
teach, they drew, as it was impossible for them not
to have done, on their previous associations, and
knowledge, and sphere of thought, and so much the
more, as these were all common to them with those
whom they addressed and were as sacredly dear to
both. They had no difficulty in finding many points
324 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
of likeness, as well as of direct contrast, between the
new and the old dispensation. No difficulty in turn-
ing to the best account ancient statements, ancient
facts, ancient persons, and ancient institutions, and
no difficulty in illustrating the new by the old and
giving a peculiar interest to the new, especially in
the minds of Jews, from its pictured relation to the
old. Frequently and freely they compared and con-
trasted Christ's death with the legal sacrifices. But
they never intimated that the legal sacrifices were
ordained by God to be typical and explanatory of the
death of Christ ; no, not once. The two were quite
capable of being compared ; and such points of com-
parison as naturally suggested themselves to their
minds, the sacred writers pointed out, but that was
all. The inspired statements as they lie before us in
the New Testament are perfectly natural and intelli-
gible ; they picture a relation now of resemblance and
again of difference, a relation which was real, as it
was striking. But the more real it is, so much the
surer , is the conclusion, that if, as was proved, the
ancient sacrifices involved no expiation or satisfac-
tion, it must be wholly fallacious to attach this idea
to the death of our blessed Lord. What the ancient
sacrifices did not themselves contain they could not
surely be employed to teach.
Whatever be the relation between type and anti-
type, this at least seems certain, and confirmed by
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 325
invariable usage, that the antit}^e is something
higher than the type, something further removed
from the circle of common things. One or two
familiar examples will exhibit more distinctly what
is here intended. "As Jonas' was three days and
three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of
man be three days and three nights in the heart of
the earth." ^ We do not imagine a repetition of the
ancient phenomenon, another rebellious prophet flee-
ing from the service of his God, another monster of
the deep, and another marvellous swallowing and
disgorging. The second is not a fac-simile of the
first, but something greater, and better, and truer to
nature and to spirit. " Destroy this temple, and in
three days I will raise it up. He spake of the temple
of his body." 2 We do not imagine the demolition of
huge masses of stone and mortar, and again the noise
of axes, and hammers, and of busy workmen rearing
a fallen structure. Instead of this, there is the
silent revivification, by the invisible power of God, of
a body that had sunk in death. " I am the vine, ye
are the branches." 3 We do not imagine another
vine-like trunk, with other spreading branches on
either side. The reality corresponding to the na-
tural image is a relation immeasurably higher, not
material at all, but purely spiritual. We under-
stand that a wondrous soul has united other souls to
' Matt. xii. 40. « John iL 19, 21. ^ JoI^q ^v. 5.
326 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
itself by common tlioughts, common sympathies ; and
a profound, common love has so imparted itself to
them, and so attracted them into its very depths,
that living and luminous and sanctifying influences
flow from it into them, and an indissoluble union is
generated. " I am the living bread which came
down from heaven. Whoso eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood, hath eternal life.^l Here is
intensely typical language ; but must the reality
answering to it be as material and as gross as the
words suggest ? On the contrary, the antitype is
wholly, intensely, and exquisitely spiritual. We
understand that there is such a vivid apprehension of
the Saviour, such a welcoming of him and of what
he is to us, and can do in us, and for us, that he
becomes the very life of our life, the stay, and staff
and joy, and glory of our inner being.
With the aid of these illustrations which bear
directly on the interpretation of almost every verse in
the Epistle to the Hebrews, we turn to the altar of
sacrifice and behold upon it an innocent lamb. The
offerer comes to acknowledge and adore God, the life-
giver, to surrender back to Him that which is wholly
His, and to express, in the way divinely commanded.
His prayer to be restored to or continued in the
separated nation, with all its privileges. The lamb
is slain. A deep gash is made in its throat and we
^ John vi. 51, 54.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 327
see it quivering and struggling, and slowly bleeding
to death. If now we pass to the scene on Mount
Calvary, it occurs at once to thought, that there is
no offerer here, either to acknowledge, or adore, or
surrender, or express his desire or prayer to God —
no priest and no altar. But there is a sacrifice, a
manifest and most costly sacrifice, of life. Must we
imagine it to be a mere repetition, in all the disgust-
ing and coarse features, of the ancient ofifering? —
nay, more, must we imagine it to be not only not of
a higher character than the Mosaic rite, but im-
measurably lower and worse, (for here is not a beast,
but a man, a spotless, holy being,) more revolting,
more inhuman, more horrible ? There are points of
resemblance, it is true, which we cannot fail to mark.
The broad, dark fact stands out common to both —
death, a violently cruel death. The shedding of the
life-blood is characteristic of both, but profound and
wide contrasts are numerous as they are obvious.
Animal life, on the one hand, human life, on the
other hand, is sacrificed. The one is wholly an un-
conscious act ; the other is conscious and deliberate.
The one is enforced endurance ; the other is volun-
tary surrender to God and to man. The one affects
only ceremonial offences ; the other deals with real,
human sins, as a wrong against God and the moral
universe. The one secures outward reconciliation
and restoration to divine worship, and to the separ-
328 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
ated people ; the other effects the real restoration of the
human soul to God, to purity, and love, and heaven.
Incarnate, crucified love kills sin in the heart — that
is the simple fact of all Christian experience.
It is astounding, but it is simply true, that this
very Epistle to the Hebrews, with its highly-coloured
figures of a priest, a sanctuary, a most holy place,
an altar, a sacrifice, and a blood of sprinkling — all
which, instead of mere figures, often very forced and
mixed, have been taken for actual literal facts — this
epistle, on which so much has been built — this
Epistle to the Hebrews, intensely Hebrew as it is,
contains the very distinctest and most emphatic de-
clarations of the purely ceremonial character of the
ancient rites and of the immeasurably higher and
wholly spiritual nature of the sacrifice of Christ. It
is from the Epistle to the Hebrews we learn that
" it is not possible" — ^never was, and never could be,
possible — " that the blood of bulls and of goats should
take away sins " i — ^real sins. It is in the Epistle to
the Hebrews we find it declared, wdth such emphasis
and such clearness, that the blood of Christ, the sym-
bol of divine, reconciling love, acts not on the past of
a man's history, but on the inmiediate present— not
on his outward relations, but on his inward being,
and without touching the facts of his history, wholly
changes, and cleanses, and sanctifies his nature. " If
1 Heb. X. 4.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 329
the blood of bulls and of goats, and tlie aslies of an
heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purify-
ing of the flesh ; how much more shall the blood of
Christ, who, (wholly possessed and moved) by the
Eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot unto God,
purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the
Living God/'"^ The antithesis is put with beautiful
clearness and with irresistible force. The one mem-
ber of the contrast touches only the flesh ; the other
reaches the soul, the depths of the soul, the con-
science. The one takes away surface defilement ; the
other washes out real evil from the heart, and does so
by creating love of God, who so loved us. There is
power, not conventional, factitious power, but real,
spiritual power in this — a power redeeming us from
dead works, (works which carry death within them,
and have death as their proper and necessary fruit,
for the wages of sin is death ;) power which trans-
lates us from death to life, from deathful works to
a living God, and a living, holy service. The pur-
pose of the blood of Christ, of Incarnate, dying love,
according to this inspired writer, the end which it
contemplates, and which it efiects, is real, inward
purification, neither more nor less. The blood of
Christ is only and wholly a moral influence, not
the ground of any imagined, legal acquittal, but
the deep cause of a spiritual renewal, and of a pu-
1 Heb. ix. 13, 14.
330 SACKIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
rity which springs from humble trust in God's free
grace.
Passing now from the Epistle to the Hebrews, one
of the most extended and clear and simple accounts
to be found in the apostolic letters of what we should
now call the nature of the gospel, of the mission in-
trusted to the apostles of Christianity, and of the
message which they were empowered to announce to
the world, is given in 2 Cor. v. 14-21. The question
may be supposed to be put. Who were these apostles
who traversed the world, preaching and labouring
and suffering and dying? What did they mean?
what was their aim? and what was the influence
under which they were acting ? The question is an-
swered with great distinctness. " Love of Christ "-^
not love of glory, or of wealth, or of personal aggran-
disement of any kind, but pure love of Christ —
" constraineth us ; because we thus judge, that if one
died for all, then were all dead" — doomed to death.
A constraining, overpowering force of gratitude had
laid hold of these men, generated by the faith that
God had so loved them, and that, in the love of God,
Christ had lived and died for them. " And that he
died for all, that they who live " — who have through
this means been raised and restored to a new life —
"should not henceforth live unto themselves, but
unto him who died for them, and rose again." And
this profound sense of the dying love of Christ, and
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 331
of the love of God in Christ, had laid open to them
a totally new world, and revealed and generated a
totally new centre of being, a new aim and end.
Hitherto they had been in the flesh, saw with their
fleshly eyes, and thought and felt under the influence
of common outward interests, ambitions, and rela-
tions. But now they were in the Spirit, the holy
Spirit of God, of Christ ; and the consequence was,
that a totally new mode of thinking and feeling and
looking at everything possessed them. Jewish ideas
and prepossessions and prejudices were in great mea-
sure gone ; a wide, quickening, humanising, divine
influence reigned in them , and men and things were
no longer to them as they had before been. " Where-
fore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh."
The distinction between Jew and Gentile, country-
men, kinsmen, and strangers, bond and free, was no
more recognised, but a higher, broader, an all-em-
bracing love took its place. " Yea, though we have
known Christ after the flesh" — known him and
boasted of him as a Jew, the son of David, one of
the holy nation — " yet now henceforth know we him
no more." He is to us the symbol, not of glory to
the Jew, but of God's unspeakable love to the world.
" Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature: old things are passed away; behold, all
things are become new."
At this point the question may be supposed to be
332 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
put, Whence, and how has this great spiritual re-
volution originated? Is it human, or divine? — a
thought of these apostles themselves, an effort, an
achievement of theirs, or purely and solely a divine
work ? Again the question is answered with great
distinctness ; and we are taught that the work and
the thought are wholly divine, wholly springing out
of divine, reconciling love. " And all things are of
God, who hath reconciled us to himself by (or in)
Jesus Christ/' Not a word or hint is there here of
reconciling Himself to us, appeasing His anger, satis-
fying His justice, or expiating our sin. If Paul had
anything of this kind in his thoughts, at least he has
left no record of the fact. The great, we are entitled
to assume, the sole idea in his mind, as he recalled
his own experience of Christianity, and reflected on
what he knew of the experience of others, was this,
God hath reconciled us, won us back, to Himself by
Jesus Christ, " And hath given to us the ministry of
reconciliation." But what is the ministry of recon-
ciliation ? "To wit, that God was in (or by) Christ,
reconciling the world to himself" — not adopting a
strange expedient whereby to reconcile Himself to
men, and render it consistent and honourable and
safe in Him, as a just God, and the Moral Governor
of the universe, to pardon them ; not this, not this at
all, but exactly the reverse, " Keconciling (gaining
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 333
back, recovering) the world to himself" — " not im-
puting their trespasses unto them."
Ought we not to pause with great seriousness, and
ponder this singularly simple and clear and unen-
cumbered deliverance of holy Scripture ? The God
in whom Paul trusted was not a Being who needed
first of all to be propitiated and appeased, and who
must first of all have sin atoned for, and justice satis-
fied, and law honoured by sacrificial suffering ; but
One who loved the world with an infinite love, who
was infinitely in earnest that it should turn to Him
and live, and who had adopted the most overwhelm-
ing method of expressing His love, and of laying
open to His creatures the very depths of His heart.
The God in whom Paul trusted was not a Being who
waited in silent anger till men came to His feet, and
either themselves, or through a substitute, did some-
thing which should render it consistent and dignified
in Him to forgive them ; but One who came forth to
seek and to save the lost, and to tell men that He
wanted nothing, but that they should turn to Him
and live, proclaiming it with His own voice, " Turn
ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?" That is the
gospel which apostles were commissioned to announce
to the world, and which was mighty, through God,
in the regeneration of myriads I
One question now remains, of very obvious prac-
334 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
tical importance, How did the apostles acquit them-
selves of their sacred trust, if such it was, as these
sentences convey? What did they imagine that
faithfulness to their trust required of them in deal-
ing with men ? A modern teacher or preacher would
probably feel, that his first duty, in fulfilling a sacred
ministry, was to show the necessity of atonement for
sin, and satisfaction to justice, before God could
pardon ; to explain how this necessity had been com-
pletely met by the obedience and sufferings of Christ
in the room of sinners ; and to urge men to seek for
pardon on this ground. But Paul has forgotten, at
all events he distinctly omits, this, as many judge,
corner-stone of the Christian faith. Perhaps in the
hurry and fervour of speaking it escaped him, though
so vitally and essentially important. We cannot
make this excuse. He is not speaking, but writing,
dictating to an amanuensis, who shall read over again
to him what has been put down. He is writing a
very important letter to the Corinthian church,
leisurely, collectedly, carefully. He is dealing with
the most central and the most vital truths of Chris-
tianity ; and he omits altogether that which is sup-
posed to be the truest and highest of them all. He
had shown what he had conceived to be the gospel,
the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God, by
Jesus Christ, was subduing the heart of the world,
and reconciling it to Himself. It follows imme-
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 335
diately, " Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ,
as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you
in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." This is
all, in Paul's judgment, which God asks ; this is the
one aim and end of all God has done — " be ye recon-
ciled to God." And now clothing His thoughts in
Jewish imagery and phrase, he adds, " for He hath
made him to be sin (a sin-offering) for us, who knew
no sin." But the apostle brings out a far nobler, a
diviner, meaning than the old language and the old
worship ever expressed. Christ, he suggests, was the
true sin-offering, the only true sin-offering, the world
ever saw, or ever will or can see. He did what no
Jewish sacrifice was ever intended to do, what no
sacrifice, Jewdsh or Pagan, ever could do, he actually,
really took away sin, took it, and takes it, out of the
heart, by his sacrifice and death. God hath made
him to be a sin-offering for us, who knew no sin,
" that we might be made the righteousness (right-
nes3 or rightenedness) of God by him" — that we
might be divinely Tightened by him.
In the same simple, beautiful, and subduing tone
and spirit, far, far away from all ideas of expiation
and satisfaction, the apostle closes his message, as an
ambassador of Heaven, " We then, as workers toge-
ther with God, beseech you also, that ye receive not
the (this) grace of God in vain."
SECTION SECOND — ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
Early History of Christianity — First Christian Sermon — Peter's
Gospel — Martyr Stephen — Ethiopian Eunuch — Cornelius —
Saul of Tarsus, His Conversion, His Ministry — Antioch,
Athens, Miletus, Philippi — "Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."
THE early history of Christianity is invaluable as
a key, the only one which we possess, to that
which was uppermost in the thought and in the heart
of the first disciples, in the years immediately suc-
ceeding the death of their Master. It needs no
reasoning to prove that they knew thoroughly well
what Christ's gospel really was. The personal friends
and companions of Jesus, who had been most inti-
mately and affectionately associated with him for
three years, and during that period had been con-
stantly under the influence of his deeply marked
character, and of his special and singular spirit, of
his public teaching, and of his most retired and sacred
utterances; who had witnessed his death, and had
seen him, and had intercourse with him after his
SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS, ETC. 337
resurrection ; who, after his departure, had, at his
command, waited in solemn prayer to God, during
seven days, for that Holy Ghost whom he had pro-
mised to send forth, and on whose souls at last an
extraordinary divine . power had descended, — they
certainly must have known what their Master in-
tended should be preached, as his gospel, and above
all, must have known that which was most essential
and divine in it. And when, only seven weeks after
his death, on the day of Pentecost, they assembled in
Jerusalem, it is impossible to doubt that their minds
and their hearts must have been full of Christ, of his
teaching, his thoughts, his spirit, and his very words.
They must have burned to speak of him, and to pro-
claim in the fullest, clearest, and broadest terms, that
in him which they had found to be life for them-
selves, and which they knew was meant to be life to
the world and to all times.
A noble occasion of disburdening their full hearts
was presented. Jerusalem was crowded with multi-
tudes from all quarters of the known world ; a mighty
audience was prepared, and they w^ere not only ex-
pected, but invited to speak. And they did speak.
Thoroughly instructed as they were in the life, and
death, and doctrine of their Lord, glowing with love
of Christ, and love of their yet blinded countrymen,
specially intrusted with the message of salvation,
and specially endowed to proclaim it, they did speak,
338 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
and with great freedom, and fervour, and fulness.
But their theme, what was it? The expiation of
human sin, and satisfaction to divine justice, by the
sacrifice and sufferings of Jesus on the cross. Pardon
obtained from God, through means of that sacrifice
and these sufferings. If ever there was an occasion,
whether we look to the speakers or to the hearers, or
to the circumstances, when these announcements, sup-
posing them to be fundamental and vital, must have
been made, this was that occasion. But they were
not made, and nothing like them was once uttered.
Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost to the
crowding, eager multitudes of Jerusalem, the first
Christian sermon ever preached in this world, con-
tains from beginning to end nothing of this kind.
The preacher begins by accounting for the unex-
ampled enthusiasm and excitement which the people
had witnessed in him and his fellow disciples, on the
ground of an influence from above, such as is dis-
tinctly foretold in ancient prophecy. He connects
this extraordinary divine influence with the power of
the risen Jesus, and he declares him to be the true
son of David, the Messiah promised to the fathers.
He tells of his life, his death, his resurrection, and
his ascension; he solemnly adjures all the house of
Israel now to know assuredly that God had made
this Jesus, . both Lord and Christ ; and, finally, he
charges home on his countrymen the crime of put-
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 339
ing to death God's Anointed. That is the sermon,
the whole sermon — surely not given to the world
with so serious a fault, as the omission of that which
was most essential and most vital for all coming ages
to know.
But certain memorable consequences followed this
address, in the record of which, perhaps, we may find
this great defect supplied. Let us see. The sermon
produced a marvellous effect. " Now when they
heard this they were pricked in their hearts, and
said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men
and brethren, what shall we do ? Then Peter said
unto them, Kepent, /jLeravorjaare, and be baptized
every one of you in (into) the name of Jesus Christ
for (in order to) the remission of sins, and ye shall
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." i That very
important word, "repent," is ill understood by mere
English readers of the New Testament. It does not
mean, be sorry for sin ; it does not mean this at all,
though sorrow for sin is one of the effects included in
the far more comprehensive idea which the word
expresses. Kepent is, simply, change your mind —
no more ; and repentance is not sorrow for sin, but
simply, change of mind — no more. Peter's counsel
to the conscience-stricken people of Jerusalem is
this, " change your mind." Your mode of thinking
has been entirely wrong, your conception of God,
1 Acts ii. 37, 38.
340 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
of tlie Messiah, of yourselves, and of sin, has been
founded in error. Change your mind : see in Jesus,
Gods Messiah ! see God himself in His Anointed !
above all, see God's love to you in him ! Turn to
this loving God with all your heart — repent — change
your mind ; and in token of this change, and of your
genuine self-surrender, " be baptized every one of you
into the name of Jesus, in order to the remission
of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost."
The second Christian sermon ever preached, like
the first, fell from the lips of Peter. A vast crowd
had collected, on the rumour of the marvellous cure
of a lame man, at the gate of the temple, and Peter
addressed them. First of all, he again extols Christ
his Lord, and ascribes the miracle to his power.
Again, he tells of Christ's life, and death, and resur-
rection, charges them with his murder, and by refer-
ence to Moses and all the prophets, is at pains to
prove his true Messiahship — his very sufferings and
death themselves, long ago foreshown, being among
the strongest evidences of the fact. Once more his
counsel is, " Kepenf' — change your mind — " and be
converted," — turn to God, — " that your sins may be
blotted out." Encouraging and urging them in-
stantly to this course, ho closes with these words,
" Unto you first God, having raised up his Son
Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 341
one of you from his iniquities." l This is the holy
work intrusted to the Kedeemer, not to appease
God's anger, but to be the highest utterance of
God's love, — not to satisfy God's justice, but to be
God's messenger to bless mankind, — not to make
expiation for sin, but to turn men away from sin,
and to fill their hearts with abhorrence of it.
To the same effect, when brought before the coun-
cil on account of this miracle of healing, Peter's aim
is still to exalt his Lord, as the source of that power
by which the impotent man was cured, and as the
true Messiah, — a stone once rejected, as foretold by
the prophet, but now become the head of the corner.
The Jewish rulers and people dreamed of another
Messiah, by another name than that of Jesus, who
was yet to appear for the salvation of Israel. The
apostle denounces the visionary hope, " Neither is
there salvation in any other, for there is none other
name under heaven given among men, whereby we
must be saved. "2 At a later period, when once more
brought before the Sanhedrim and commanded to
cease preaching in the name of Christ, the apostles
replied, " We ought to obey God rather than men,"
and then fell back on the ground which they at first
had taken, and reiterated what to them was the
highest truth, involving every other, " The God of
our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and
1 Acts iii. 19, 2G. 2 ^^ts iv. 11, 12.
342 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with His
right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to
give repentance" — an entire change of mind — "to
Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are his wit-
nesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost,
whom God hath given to them that obey Him."^
Of the course of the gospel during the next ten or
twelve years which succeeded the death of Jesus,
our knowledge is exceedingly limited. But so far as
the scanty materials of information go, there is not
a word or hint of sacrificial, expiatory sufferings, of
pardon from God procured by these, or of imputation
or satisfaction. In the first fervours of Christianity,
when, if ever, the true message of the cross, and its
supreme significance, must have been proclaimed
unweariedly, the subject of apostolic teaching, the
chief, almost the sole subject of apostolic teaching,
was Christ, the Messiah of God, but rejected and
crucified by men, — Christ, the hope of Israel and of
the world, — Christ, in whose name was preached to
all men the forgiveness of sins.
The first Christian martyr, Stephen, was endowed
with uncommon gifts, and had been selected by his
fellow-disciples, as the first of seven, who, next to
the apostles, v/ere charged with the oversight of the
newly- formed church. His extraordinary powers
drew down on him the vengeance of the elders and
1 Acts V. 29-S2.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 343
scribes, and he was summoned before the Sanhedrim,
and charged with a capital offence. In such circum-
stances, one baptized, as he was, with the spirit of
Christ and of Christianity, in earnest, both to defend
his own convictions, and to reach the blinded and
hardened consciences before him, could not have kept
back the most essential truth of his adopted faith.
He certainly did not ; but he considered the most
essential truth to be this, that God's Messiah, who
came to save from sin, and who was actually saving,
as he and thousands of others knew in themselves,
had been wickedly scorned and crucified. His long
address is a recapitulation of Israelitish history lead-
ing to this point, that through all the ages God's
prophets had been persecuted and slain, and that, at
last, the Anointed himself had been basely put to
death. He was listened to till he directly charged
those before him, in these tremendous words: your
fathers " have slain them which showed before the
coming of the Just One, of whom ye have been now
the betrayers and the murderers : who have received
the law by the disposition of angels, and have not
kept it." Then they stoned Stephen — a noble
exemplar to all times, how most Christianly death
may be encountered, be the circumstances what they
may. "They stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and
saying. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Following
his blessed Lord, the first martyr be(][ueathed to the
344: SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
world a testimony such as only the religion of the cross
ever inspired, and only the religion of the cross ever
received. " And 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." "••
The narrative of the Ethiopian eunuch meeting
with the evangelist Pliihp, carries us into a region
of faith and hope, of which but few glimpses are
afforded. A Gentile, belonging to a remote country,
had come to know the God of Israel, and was some-
how possessed of a portion of the Jewish Scriptures. 2
He was reading Isaiah liii. when Philip encountered
him, and he at once eagerly sought an interpretation
of the passage. We are told that " Philip opened his
mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached
unto him Jesus.'' The sermon is not given, but we
can imagine how, from such a text, he would unfold
the character and the work of the Messiah, and pre-
sent the simple, touching sense of the prophecy. We
can imagine that he would point out how naturally
and literally the ancient oracle fulfilled itseK in Jesus
of Nazareth ; how innocent and patient and meek he
was, amidst all his cruel sufferings ; how he died for
sins, but not his own — died, to take away sin out of
the hearts of men ; how love, divine love, was ex-
pressed in his life, and in his cross ; and how, through
all, he was proved to be the very Messiah of God.
i Acts vii. 52, 53, 59, 60. ^ j^g^s viii. 28, 35, 37.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 3-i5
The effect of the sermon we know, and its effect
reveals plainly what itself must have been. It
brought the eunuch to this conclusion: — " I believe
that Jesus is the Son of God'' — another name for
Messiah, the Anointed of God, who came to save
his people from their sins. And on this profession
he was baptized.
Closely connected with the story of the Ethiopian
eunuch, and, like it, throwing some light into the
darkness of ancient heathendom, is the conversion
of the Koman centurion, Cornelius. The narrative
teems with interest on all skies. The apostle Peter
himself, divinely taught, made a marvellous advance
on this occasion into the clearer, fuller, broader light
of heavenly truth. For the first time, so far as
appears, his mind, intensely Jewish before, opened
itself wide to the true character of God, as the lovins:
Father of all His children on earth, and not the par-
tial guardian of a single favourite tribe. How these
noble words of the newly -illuminated and inspired
man shatter to pieces and scatter to the winds all
our scientific theologies : " Of a truth I perceive that
God is no respecter of persons : but in every nation
he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is
accepted with him." ^
But we are specially interested to ascertain the man-
ner in which Peter acquitted himself of his apostolic
1 Acts X. 34-43.
346 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
trust. Cornelius and his people were proselytes to Ju-
daism, liad heard something of the new truth which
had shone on Judea, and were profoundly anxious to
know what it really was. They were preternaturally
assured that Peter was commissioned and endowed by
Heaven to instruct them ; and with great earnestness,
Cornelius says to him, " We are all here present before
God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of
God." In such circumstances, it is very certain that
Peter, whatever else he proclaimed, would not omit
the things most essential to salvation. The sermon is
before us. It tells of the life and death and resurrec-
tion of Jesus, and especially, that he was ordained of
God, the Judge of the living and the dead, as else-
where he is declared to be set for the fall and the
rising again of many in Israel — the touchstone and
test, whereby it should be shown whether they would
hear, or whether they would forbear. But the sum
and the grand aim of Peter's words are contained in
this sentence : " Christ is Lord of all." He is the
Messiah whom God hath sent to bless men in turn-
ing them away from their iniquities. " To him,"
says Peter, on this memorable occasion, " give all the
prophets witness, that, through his name, whosoever
belie veth in him shall receive remission of sins."
Trust in God's Messiah, trust in a loving, reconciling
God in Christ, is the germ of spiritual salvation.
The conversion of Saul of Tarsus marks a great
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 347
crisis in the early history of our religion. We have
three accounts of this wonderful event — one by the
historian of the Acts, another, reported in the words
of Paul himself when he addressed the tumultuous
assemblage in Jerusalem, and a third, also reported
in Paul's own words when he appeared before Agrip-
pa. The accounts, more or less full, are consistent
and harmonious. But whether we turni to the
words of Jesus to the persecutor of his church, as he
travelled on his murderous mission to Damascus, or
to the words of Ananias, who was commanded to
instruct and direct the penitent, we mark the total
absence of everything which bears even the most dis-
tant approach to what in these days is called, by way
of eminence, the gospel. Saul himself, even in the
first impetuous warmth of Christian faith and zeal,
does not preach this gospel at all, to the perishing
sinners of Damascus. But he does preach ; at once,
and wdth all the characteristic ardour of his nature,
now fired with a deeper and diviner love than he had
ever known, he throws himself into the holy service
of his Lord. But his theme is certainly not the gos-
pel, as now conventionally understood. We read,
" he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is
the Son of God," — the Messiah. His hearers, re-
ferring to his past life, were amazed. " But Saul
increased the more in strength, and confounded the
1 Acts ix. 5, 17.
348 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is
very Christ." i That is all which has come down to
us of his earliest ministry as an apostle. His subject
is the Messiahship ; Jesus, God's Messiah, but always
at the same time, Jesus the Saviour of Jew and
Gentile, Jesus who came forth from God with this
sole purpose, to save from sin, and to publish forgive-
ness of sins, as the pure, mere gift of God's grace.
The first Christian sermon by the apostle Paul, of
which we have any detailed record, was preached in
the synagogue of Antioch. It begins with early
Israelitish history up to the time of David, proclaims
Jesus to be the son of David, and the Saviour of
Israel, shows how John, Messiah's forerunner, pointed
out Jesus as he that should come after him, relates
how he was rejected, condemned, and crucified, but
raised again by the power of God, and concludes
with these words : " Be it known unto you, therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man is preached
unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that
believe are justified (set right, rectified) from all
things, from which ye could not be justified (set
right, rectified) by the law of Moses." 2 At Lystra
Paul and Barnabas were honoured at first exceed-
ingly, and were imagined to be gods in human form.
The people, with the priest of Jupiter at their head,
brought oxen and garlands, and were ready to do
^ AciiS ix. 20, 22. 2 ^^ts xiii. 16-39.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 349
sacrifice to them. Here, surely, was not only a
legitimate occasion offered, but a positive necessity
created for proclaiming the one only expiatory sacri-
fice for sin, if this had been the truth, and above all,
the highest truth of Christianity. But not a whisper
of this kind fell from the lips of God's ambassadors.
They only rushed in among the people in conster-
nation, and strove to put a stop to the impiety.
" Sirs, why do ye these things ? We also are men
of like passions with you, and preach unto you that
ye turn from these vanities unto the living God.'' i
At Athens, the centre of ancient civilisation, but
the stronghold also of ancient idolatry, Paul pro-
claims 2 the One true God, to them unknown, a
Spirit, and the Father of spirits ; proclaims the
living, loving Father, and all souls His offspring,
a God not distant, but very near to every one of us ;
not indifferent, but observant, and ever holding His
rational children responsible to Himself. " He hath
appointed a day in the which He will judge the
world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath
ordained, whereof He hath given assurance unto all
men, in that He hath raised him from the dead."
This day of judgment some able expositors have
suggested — and the idea adapts itself with remark-
able fitness to Paul's audience, and to the circum-
stances — is the whole course of the Christian dis-
1 Acts xiv. 15. ^ Acts xvii. 31.
350 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
pensation on earth, from its beginning to its close,
during which the world is tried and proved by Christ,
the Incarnate, Crucified One, and the last test is ap-
plied whereby it shall be discovered, whether men
will yield, or not yield, to the claims of God, ap-
pealing to them in their strongest and most subdu-
ing form.
At Miletus Paul addressed the elders of Ephesus,
where he had long laboured, and in a single sentence
expressed the whole aim and meaning of the work of
his life — " testifying both to the Jews and also to the
Greeks, repentance (an entire change of mind) toward
God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." l
When Felix the governor, with his wife Priscilla,
a Jewess, sent for Paul to hear from him concerning
the faith of Christ, we cannot doubt that the apostle
was true to the Master he loved, and was in earnest
to reveal the very soul of the new doctrine. But the
gospel, for that day and that audience, took this form
in his hands: "he reasoned of righteousness, temper-
ance, and judgment to come," till Felix trembled and
said, " Go thy way for this time, when I have a con-
venient season I will call for thee."2 Before Agrippa
the king, in like manner, nothing falls from the lips
of Paul which approaches the standard of scholastic
theology. After relating his own conversion to
Christianity, and the change of his whole life con-
1 Acts XX. 21. 2 ^cts xxiv. 24, 25.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 351
sequent upon it, he maintains Christ's Messiahship
and shows Jesus to be none other " than that which
the prophets and Moses did say should come ; " and
with such effect did he thus exalt his Lord, that
Agrippa said, " Almost thou persuadest me to be a
Christian."!
We turn back to the only passage in the Acts
bearing on the subject of discussion, which has been
omitted in this rapid survey. That passage has been
reserved to the last, because it seems to be the most
distinct and explicit of all that are found in this book.
It is in chapter xvi., verses 30, 31. The scene is
Philippi, and the public jail of the city ; the time is
midnight. We say nothing of the prayers of Paul
and his companion, or of their hymn of praise, rising
with strange, mysterious effect at that silent hour,
and in a place used to far other sounds ; we say
nothing of the earthquake, the opening of the prison
doors, or of the terror of the jailor when he imagined
that his prisoners had fled. But when Paul called
out, " Do thyself no harm, for we are all here,'' it was
not the sudden escape from a great peril^though had
the prisoners fled his life would certainly have been
taken— it was not this only, or chiefly which affected
the jailor ; but the eager kindness of a man whom
he had treated with brutal cruelty, produced in him a
revulsion of feeling, thoroughly overpowering. '*' He
1 Acts xxvi. 22, 28.
352 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
called for a liglit, and sprang in, and came trembling^
and fell down before Paul and Silas." As in the
flash of a moment, his whole life was revealed to him,
his savage nature, and all his crimes, and he cried,
" Sirs, what must I do to be saved ? And they said.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved, and thy house."
There are two radical mistakes, easily and often
made in the interpretation of these simple, glorious
words. They are true, true always, everywhere, and
for every human being. To trust in incarnate, re-
deeming love is salvation. But on the one hand, it
is imagined that this believing is the act of a moment
or of an hour, a completed act ; repeated indeed, but
completed at the time. On the other hand, it is
imagined that the salvation resulting is also a com-
pleted act, an act of God, done at once, and for ever,
in the moment of believing. You shall say to a
sinful, impenitent human being, God has made a
perfect atonement in the sacrifice of Christ, for all
your sins, past, present, and to come, and He requires
nothing more than that you simply believe this fact.
Believe it, and in that moment you are perfectly and
for ever pardoned, and accepted as perfectly righteous
in the sight of God, because he counts all j^our sins
as laid upon Christ, and Christ's perfect righteousness
as laid upon you and covering you. We are not
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 353
now to argue this point, which has been done already
in the earlier chapters, but we seek to place beside
this involved and complex exposition of the inspired
words, another sense, which seems more natural and
more true to the facts of Christian experience.
In general, let it be stated that the believing on
the part of man, and the saving on the part of God,
are not, and never are, merely acts, but processes, —
always processes, and never completed till the last
moment of life. There is a beginning of believing,
a first act of believing, if you will, — a very feeble,
very imperfect act of a mind that sees and knows
very little, and has yet great ignorance, great preju-
dice, great error to overcome ; many struggles, many
fears, and much bitter experience to pass through, —
but the first genuine act carries in its bosom the seed
of its necessary perpetuation and aftergrowth, so that it
is essentially of the nature of a process — a constantly
cumulative and corrective process. There is also a
beginning of salvation, — a very small beginning it
always is, and must be. Evil in the soul is deep and
strongly rooted. The root is struck, but it will not
die soon or easily. The soul has to endure a long
conflict, and only with the last cruel wrench of life
shall it be delivered. But the salvation is begun,
and the beginning of believing is the beginning of
salvation. The first trustful look towards God in
z
354 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
Christ, towards God reconciling us to Himself by
Christ Jesus, is a mortal blow to sin in the heart.
And the more intense, the more fixed, and the more
loving that look becomes, ever the more saving, the
more redemptive, because the more destructive of sin,
is the eflPect. That rude and ignorant jailor whom
Paul addressed, was suddenly convinced ; connecting
what he had before heard or seen of his prisoners with
what he had himself experienced, he was convinced
that Paul and Silas were men of God somehow, and
must be able, if any on earth were, to guide him to
truth, and peace, and salvation. " Believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ," said Paul ; " He is the way and
the truth and the life.'' God is in him reconciling
men to Himself, and he, in God's name, proclaims
a free forgiveness of sins, and we, as His ambassa-
dors, proclaim it to you, — be not afraid, only believe
the love which God has to you, and you shall be
saved. You will find, with the first movement of
simple trust, a new power, a living power in your
nature, putting sin to death, and shedding a holy,
sanctifying peace within, such as you never knew.
We close this hasty review with Paul's own mem-
orable sentence, which reveals both the secret of his
experience and the spirit of all his teaching, — " This
is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 355
of whom I am tlie chief. Howbeit, for this cause I
obtained mercy, that in me especially Jesus Christ
might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern to
them who should hereafter believe in him to life
everlasting."
SECTION THIRD— THE GOSPELS.
Hostile Criticism — Its Unsound Basis — Sayings and Discourses of
Jesus — How Preserved and Transmitted — Christ's Soul, their
Fountain — Immeasurable Superiority — To Early Christian
Writings — To Noblest Heathen Utterances — Exposition of
Passages — No Expiation or Satisfaction — Must have been, if
True — Lord's Prayer — Last Supper— Calvary — After Resurrec-
tion — Olivet — Christ's Teaching Opposed to Satisfaction —
Pharisee and Publican — Prodigal,
THE most precious portion of the New Testament
writings, it will hardly be questioned, lies within
the four Gospels, and they arc also the very portion
against which the attacks of hostile criticism have
been mainly directed. This is not the place, even if
we had the power, to discuss the authenticity or the
genuineness of these sacred narratives, but wo ven-
ture to express the conviction that the mode in which
Baar, Strauss, Schwegler, and the school to which
they belong, argue respecting the Gospels, is most
vicious in principle, and most arbitrary in applica-
tion. To theorise on the Petrine, Pauline, Ebionitish,
Platonic, Gnostic, or Montanistic elements of belief,
SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS, ETC. 357
floating in Judea, Egypt, or any part of the Eoman
world in the first and second Christian centuries, and
thence, according as these ancient documents are im-
agined to harmonise with this or that speculative
tendency or school of opinion, to determine their
authorship and their date, may give scope for the
display of great learning and great ingenuity, but is
radically unsatisfactory and unsound. The Gospels
do not date themselves, and within certain limits their
date is an open question, but it is one which cannot
be reached by scholarly conjectures, or by ingenious
theories, but must rest entirely on historical evidence.
Either it is a matter of fact, substantiated or rendered
most probable by sufficient testimony, that the Gospels
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are genuine and
authentic, and were in existence at such and such a
date, or it is not. Obviously, that is the first point
before all others to be settled, on its proper grounds.
So far as the historical evidence goes, it will appear
that about the middle of the second century, four
Gospels, and only four, were recognised by the Chris-
tian community, as containing authentic accounts of
the sayings and the acts, the life and the death, of our
blessed Lord. If any one can believe that before this
date, that is within a century from the death of Christ,
a Gospel professing to be written by an apostle or a
disciple, but actually not so written, could be palmed
upon the whole Christian people, then a vast multi-
358 SACRIFICIAL TEEMS AND ALLUSIONS
tude, and accepted by them as genuine, let him believe.
After this date such a thing was surely impossible.
The critics of Tiibingen are keen-sighted and
laborious, in searching out what they deem imper-
fections, discrepancies, inaccuracies, even contradic-
tions in the Gospels. Their labours certainly tend to
disparage in every possible way the only record we
possess of a heavenly life on earth, and to silence the
only echo of heavenly utterances that yet lingers
among men. It may not be — it would be most un-
just to assert that it was — with intent, but at least in
effect, they foul at its spring-head, that stream, which
is life and salvation to the world. The bitter conser-
vatism — the crushing bondage, with the utter loss of
free speech, in the region of politics and of civil insti-
tutions, under which Germany has so long groaned,
has wrought out too heavy a retribution in the only
fields which remained open to the galled soul of the
nation, those of pliilosophy and theology. Unright-
eous repression in one direction has punished and
avenged itself in another, by an extravagance and a
wild licence of speculation unsurpassed elsewhere.
That German critics in assailing the Gospels are per-
fectly honest and sincere, we do not for a moment
question, and that they have brought to their task
unusual learning and laboriousness is palpable
enough. But it is hardly less clear that, however
upright in intention, they are thoroughly partial and
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 359
one-sided in fact. From the first they set out with a
preconceived theory — the naturalistic, the mythic,
or the philosophic — and their labour is to adjust the
Gospels and make them fit in with their favourite
theory, dismissing so much as spurious, and discredit-
ing this as a blunder, and that as an interpolation,
with the most lawless freedom and the most cool
assurance. All the while, most manifestly, a fore-
gone conclusion is in their minds. Honestly they
investigate and toil, but it is to mass up real or fancied
grounds, on which this foregone conclusion may
stand, and they either do not see or laboriously
explain away whatever tends to a contrary issue.
Dispassionate critics, perfectly open on all sides, they
certainly are not, but prepossessed, and, therefore, not
impartial. At the same time, it can hardly be ques-
tioned that the school even of Paulus, and still more
of Baur, has done real and much-needed service. It
has contributed to break down, we trust for ever, the
old reliance on tradition and ecclesiastical authority,
and to reveal the only true ground of an intelligent
faith. Let such criticism do its best and its worst,
without hindrance. A free press is sufficient for
itself to correct its own errors, sufficient also for the
protection of all the interests of righteousness and
truth, without vehement anathemas, ecclesiastical,
civil, or social.
It falls not within our province here to show how
360 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
far the findings of hostile criticism have either been
set aside or largely modified; but let it be under-
stood, that the sayings and discourses of Jesus are
imagined to be the least reliable portion of the Gos-
pels, and that, of these, the least reliable of all are
the lengthened discussions and addresses in the Gos-
pel of John. The latter are, with great confidence,
asserted to be the product either of John himself, in
harmony with what he knew to be the sentiments of
his master, or more probably still, of some later dis-
ciple of John, familiar with the Ebionitish, Platonic,
and Gnostic ideas afloat in the Koman world at the
time. The impossibility of any human memory
being able to retain, after the lapse of very many
years, long successions of thought, and exact state-
ments in words, is appealed to as invincible proof on
this point. Of course, anything like supernatural
influence is utterly ignored. But we must maintain,
even on very general and very palpable grounds, that
it is not reason, but unreason, which ignores the
inspiration of the Gospels. To take only a humble
position, can it be deemed unworthy of God, in a
case which involved the highest interests of all
future generations, and when, for good or for evil,
so much might be done or left undone, — can it be
deemed unworthy of God, by His own living Spirit
of truth and love, to have presided over the sacredest
work to which human hands were ever put, and to
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 361
have thus secured, that the result should be such as
He deemed wisest and best? To take even lower
ground still, the lowest of all, and admitting the
faithlessness and feebleness of human memory, it
is not hard to conceive how, with perfect natural-
ness, a trustworthy account of the very utterances
of Jesus may have descended to this day.
After the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension
of their Lord, when the truth at length revealed itself
to their minds, that he was no other than God mani-
fest in the flesh, the first and deepest desire of the
disciples must have been to recall and preserve all
that had fallen from his lips. The great events and
acts of his life would not need this care so much ; they
were prominent and striking, and would not easily
or soon be forgotten. But his words, which had im-
pressed and laid hold of them even at the time, and
which now were a thousandfold more precious than
ever, might escape their memory, and must by all
means be secured and treasured up. We can ima-
gine how they would go back in thought to that
living, loving voice, to which they had so often
listened, and how each would repeat and repeat to
himself many divine sentences, and would strive,
time after time, to recall more and yet more, until
he was able to reproduce much which he had heard,
in the very form in which it had come from the lips
of the Master. During that seven days of waiting,
362 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
which closed with the wonders of Pentecost, it is
quite within the range of high probability, that part
of the time would be occupied in repeating to one
another, so much as each remembered of Christ's
sayings, and in carefully comparing and bringing to-
gether their several recollections. For some time
after the crucifixion, many a meeting of the dis-
ciples may have been held for the very purpose of
refreshing one another with the words of Jesus,
and of extending and amending their various con-
tributions, until at last they could feel morally
certain that they were able to present nearly, if not
quite in their original form, all, or nearly all, the
most important of the divine utterances. And when
they went forth to preach in Christ's name could they
fail to rehearse what had once touched their own
souls so deeply, and on their fellow-disciples not
privileged as they had been, and on their converts,
what richer boon could they confer, than to repeat a
conversation or a discourse of the Master.
It is even perfectly conceivable, and it is natural to
think, that long before the Gospels of Matthew, Mark,
Luke, or John were issued, several of the first disciples
for their own use, may have committed to writing
their recollections of Christ, and that in this way
many Christian converts may have been long familiar
with the substance, and even the form of what we now
possess under the name of Gospels. One step further
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 363
we advance. In later years, when the necessities not
only of a wide-spread and vast Christian community,
but of a whole world, to which the glad tidings were
commanded to be proclaimed, cried loudly for a faith-
ful testimony, to the life, and death, and work of the
Kedeemer, and when four evangelists were raised up
to meet these necessities, shall it be smiled at as im-
becility, or denounced as fanaticism, to believe that
these four men in such circumstances, raised up and
for such a purpose, each preserving and acting out
his own individuality, his own distinctive, intellectual,
and moral capabilities and tendencies, were neverthe-
less all aided, directed, and controlled by a special
influence from above. Such imbecility and such
fanaticism be ever ours !
Not Jesus but John, they tell us, is the author of
the addresses and discourses in the fourth Gospel.
But what had John which he had not received ? He
was, what communion with the mind and spirit of
Jesus had made him — no more I at best a reflection
and a faint reflection of "The light of men." It
seems infatuated and suicidal. They cannot bring
themselves to believe that the Master uttered the
words imputed to Him, but they are able to believe
that the disciple conceived and put into form ideas,
the like of which all heathen and Christian antiquity
cannot produce. "Who was this John ? A divinely-
taught man without doubt, and singularly privileged
364 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
by intimate and endeared fellowsliip with the Lord.
But was he connected with any of the famed schools
of philosophy that he should be deemed half Platonist;
half Gnostic, with very much of the Ebionite in his
nature ? Was he at all likely to have known much of
ancient speculation, or indirectly to have imbibed its
influences ? He was a humble fisherman of Galilee
first, and afterwards a despised, hard working, sufi'er-
ing apostle of Christianity; but he was a singular and
a noble specimen of manhood, nevertheless ; and his
beautiful idiosyncrasy was most marked. Originally
of vehement, passionate nature, he became the apostle
of love, and the most gracious human pattern of the
divine type. John was the best beloved of all the
disciples, and that must mean that his nature had
more and deeper points of sympathy with Jesus than
any of the others. An impressionable, mystical,
etherial spirit, he was drawn more powerfully and
nearer than the rest, to the mysterious Saviour of
men, and drank in more deeply of his spiritual in-
fluence. Hence, the acts and events of Christ's
ministry we have in the other evangelists, but the
soul of Christ is revealed chiefly by John.
In a very high sense the Gospels are their own
evidence, and of all parts of the Gospels, the con-
versations, discourses, and sayings of Jesus bear
emphatic testimony to themselves. Who could have
uttered the heavenly words, if they fell not from the
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 365
lips of Jesus ? Whence could tlie thoughts, the
affections, the soul-experiences, the upward breath-
ings set forth in the Gospels, have come, if not from
the soul of Jesus ? Where in heathen literature, or
in early Christian wi'itings, shall we find a parallel
to the sayings and discourses of Christ, for uniform
and continuous and sustained simplicity, purity, lofti-
ness, and serene decisiveness, as of a master mind,
who was ever above the truth he uttered, not the
truth above him. If these be not divine, there is
no divine thing in this world, — so profound, so far
reaching, so just, so true, so pure, so high, so illumi-
nating and so sanctifying. They touch the soul at
its vital centre, and compel it to feel and own the
divine. There are no graces of speech, no ingenious
turns, no fire of fancy, no richness of imagery, and
no wealth of learning, but only genuine, heavenly
truth, out of the eternal fountain, flowing gently and
unpretentiously from lips of grace, a river clear as
crystal, a pure river of water of life, for the healing
of the nations.
Take the sermon on the mount, the conversation
with the woman of Samaria, the story of the death
of Lazarus, the parable of the good Samaritan, or of
the Pharisee and the publican, or of the prodigal
son, or take the discourses and the prayer at the last
Supper ! Place these by the side of the best Chris-
tian writings of the first and second centuries, those
366 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
of the so-called apostolic fathers, the epistles of Cle-
mens Komanus, of Polycarp, of Barnabus, and of
Ignatius ! How poor, with whatever merit they
possess, how weak, how manifestly undivine are we
not obliged to feel these are in comparison ! Place
them again by the side of the noblest remains of
ancient heathen religious and moral speculation !
Take the sayings of Socrates, the ethics of Seneca,
and the meditations of Marcus AureKus, certainly
the simplest, the purest, and the truest of heathen
utterances anywhere to be found ! It is no candour,
but only mere honesty, to admit that there are mar-
vellous beauties, genuine truth, and lofty virtue in
these writings, many divine conjectures and antici-
pations, a cleaving of the darkness sometimes, and a
sudden glow of light through the cleft, — all which
can be explained only on the ground of a divine
teaching. These men, amidst darkness, and falsi-
ties, and vices, were surely taught of God. The
Holy Ghost was with them, in their measure, and
according to their possibility of receiving his influ-
ence. It would be small honour to Judaism, or to
Christianity, to imagine that the Spirit of God had
for thousands of years deserted the whole world,
except an insignificant fraction of it. The earlier
Christian disciples were nobly open and generous in
their sentiments on this question. Justin Martyr
freely and joyously recognised the divine throughout
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 367
the better portions of heathen writings, and of hea-
then life. Augustin ^ refers especially to Seneca as
most wise and just in his expressed sentiments,
though in practice he conformed to the established
worship. Lactantius^ is more than free, almost im-
passioned in his admiration of Seneca. " How many-
other things does this heathen speak of God, like
one of us." *' What could a Christian have spoken
more to the purpose in this case than this divine
Pagan."
Place by the side of Socrates, and Seneca, and
Marcus Aurelius, the young carpenter of Galilee —
and be it remembered that this at least is no myth ;
his youth and his social position have no possible
relation to Jewish preconceptions and Messianic ideas ;
quite the reverse ; — place this youth, thirty years of
age, uneducated, (in the formal sense of the word,)
untravelled, unpatronised, unprivileged, by the side
of Socrates, and Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius ; place
this Jesus, as he stood on the mount, or at the grave
of Lazarus, or as he sat wearied and faint by the
well of Samaria, or oppressed with an agony of sad-
ness at the last Supper ! I feel as if it were impious
to name comparison. What a blending is here of
human with divine sympathy, tenderness, and wis-
dom. What clear, pure utterances ! What quiet,
1 De Civit. Dei, lib. vL, cap. 10.
* Div. Instit., lib. vi., cap. 1 and 14.
368 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
meek, yet dignified decision in dealing with minds
and with the truth which they most needed to know !
What simple, elevated, and elevating ideas are sug-
gested to the soul, as he speaks ! We are lifted up
unawares into a region of rare and holy thought, such
as even Socrates never ascended, we wonder as the
divine atmosphere silently envelopes and enwraps us,
and we breathe the air, and feel the light, and hear
the soft, deep, eternal symphonies of heaven !
Gospel is a marvellously fitting name. Good
tidings, God's-spell, the divine story ! " Behold, I
bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be
unto all people." " And suddenly there was with the
angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God,
and saying. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace, goodwill towards men." In a new, a more
divine, and a more subduing form. Heaven was now
to communicate with earth. From the first, the re-
velation of mercy had been given to the whole world,
but it had been buried deep under the Polytheism
and the revolting rites of Pagan nations ; and when
for a time and for the highest purposes, it was com-
mitted as a special trust to the custody of one people,
even then it had been barely preserved through
means of the isolation, and the inspirations, and the
worship of Judea. Once more, therefore, in :iew
circumstances it was to be proclaimed unto all
nations, and God was to be seen reconciling]: men to
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 369
Himself by the mightiest, the divinest of means. A
Being, such as never trod the earth before, was to
announce, and by his life, his humiliation, and his
death, was to express and to embody God's love to
men, and to be the herald of a free, an unconditional
and a universal amnesty.
" Thou, child," said Zacharias, of his son John
Baptist, " shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest,
to go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people, m the
remission of their sins." ^ One essential part of the
work of the apostles was to publish over the wide
earth, in Christ's name, the forgiveness of sins, by a
loving though a holy God. Immediately before
leaving the earth for his throne in the heavens, the
Lord declared to his followers : " Thus it is written,
and thus it behoved the Christ to suffer and to rise
from the dead the third day, and that repentance
(change of mind) and remission of sins should be
preached in his name, among all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem." 2 But that which was to be pro-
claimed so freely had to be gained at immense cost.
In a very memorable instance, rebuking the selfish-
ness and ambition of his disciples, Jesus reminded
them, " The Son of man came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for
many." 3 Simply, but touchingly, the profound and
1 Luke i. 76, 77. = Luke xxiv. 46, 47. =* Matt. xx. 28.
2a
370 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
mysterious fact was thus early announced, that human
redemption was to cost him his life. Divine wisdom
and love found no other means of extirpating sin,
and of reconciling and regenerating man's heart,
than incarnation, humiliation, and death. This was
literally the cost of salvation, the ransom-money paid
down for it.
In harmony with this simple, common figure,
there lies a beautiful sense in the words of Jesus
at the last Supper : '* This is my blood of the new
covenant, which is shed for many, for (in order
to) the remission of sins." i In like manner, using
an ancient and familiar type, the Lord thus sym-
bolises his own death on the cross : "As Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son
of man be lifted up, that whosoever beUeveth on him
should not perish, but have everlasting life."^ There
was no sacrifice offered to God by the lifting up of
the brazen serpent, neither have we to imagine in
our Lord a mere repetition of the old symbol ; another
brazen figure, another serpent, and another pole.
The obvious, and the only points of similitude are the
exposure to universal observation, and the healing
effect that followed. In direct terms, on another
occasion, the same idea is conveyed, " I, if I be lifted
up, will draw all men unto me. "3 The Crucified
One draws, resistlessly attracts, the hearts of men by
1 Matt. xxvi. 28. 2 JoI^q m 14 15, 3 john xii. 32.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 371
an invisible power. The force treasured up in his
cross is purely a moral, a spiritual force, the force of
love, of pure, self-sacrificing love. Hence, immedi-
ately after the reference to the serpent in the wilder-
ness, these words follow : " For God so loved the
world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but
have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son
into the world to condemn the world ; but that the
world through him might be saved."i Love, mere
pure love, God's love of a sinful world, is the reigning,
the sole idea ; but a love at the same time, by which
as is uniformly shown, the soul of Christ, in mysteri-
ous harmony with the Divine Mind, was wholly
possessed and ruled.
" I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth
his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and
not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth
the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth ;
and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.
.... I am the good shepherd, .... and I lay down
my life for the sheep. "2 The sole idea is love, generous,
self-sacrificing love. On the mount of transfiguration,
Moses and Elias appeared in glory and " spake of the
decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.''^
We may supplement, if we wdll, this simple state-
ment, and imagine that the heavenly visitants dis-
1 John iii. 16, 17. 2 John x. 11, 12, 14, 15. ^ L^ke ix. 31.
Ot'Z SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
coursed of satisfaction to divine justice ; but it is
fancy, mere fancy, without a shadow of foundation in
fact. And it would be at the least as natural, and
certainly more in unison with the tone of that world,
to which these glorified beings belonged, to conceive
that the decease at Jerusalem was to them the over-
whelming expression of divine, redeeming love. On
the last night of his life amidst darkness and sorrow,
the Lord with a tender hand touched the deep
principle of his whole work on earth, and said to his
disciples, " greater love hath no man than this, that a
man lay down his life for his friends."^ We venture to
add an inspired apostle's commentary, "For scarcely
for a righteous man will one die ; yet peradventure
for a good man some would even dare to die. But
God commendeth His love toward us, in that while
we were yet sinners, (enemies,) Christ died for us."2
It is still love, only love, which is the sole idea.
The positive evidence to be found in the Gospels,
as to the meaning of the death of Christ, is literally
exhausted in these quotations, and every passage, we
believe, which bears directly, in the most distant de-
gree, on the subject, has been noticed. The doctrine
of expiation, or satisfaction, has no place whatever in
the words of Christ, or in the statements of the evan-
gelists. But the negative proof, if we may so speak,
is yet stronger still, and more abundant.
1 John XV. 13. 2 ^Q^^ ^ 7^ 3^
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 373
However we may attempt to account for the ab-
sence of any direct statement in the Gospels, there is
one ground on which it cannot be put, namely, that
Jesus avoided allusion to his own death at all, for this is
conspicuously not true. On three separate occasions,
at least, it appears that he distinctly intimated to his
disciples the certainty of his death, its not distant
occurrence, and some of its special circumstances.
Immediately after Peter's avowal of his faith in the
Messiahship of his Lord, we read, " from that time
forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how
that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many
things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and
be killed, and be raised again the third day/'^ "And
while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them,
The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of
men : and they shall kill him, and the third day he
shall be raised again. And they were exceeding
sorry." 2 " And Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took
the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto
them. Behold, we go up unto Jerusalem ; and the
Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests,
and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to
death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles, to mock,
and to scourge, and to crucify him : and the third
day he shall rise again." ^ Let us now suppose that
the grand purpose of the death which was thus fore-
1 Matt. xvi. 21. 2 i^iatt. xvii. 22. ^ jy^^tt. xx. 17-19.
374 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
told, the one fact which, gave it all its meaning, and
all its glory, was this, that by means of it Jesus was
to make expiation for human sins, and to purchase
with this price, from God a free forgiveness for men.
For what reason was this not distinctly stated ? nay
more, why was it wholly concealed ? Had it been
really true, on what ground of wisdom, of upright
dealing, or of mere kindness to the disciples, could it
have been kept secret ? But it was kept secret ; and
we are compelled to judge that it cannot have been
true. All that these confiding followers learned from
their Master was this, that he was doomed to death,
to crucifixion, and that with his eyes open, deliber-
ately and voluntarily, he was about to sacrifice his life
in Jerusalem, and on a cross.
The place which expiatory sacrifice holds in
scholastic theology must be fairly understood. It is
not simply one of many truths, all equally important,
it is the one essential, vital truth, which makes the
gospel the gospel, and to believe which is salvation,
and to disbelieve which is condemnation. A human
being in darkness and trouble is taught to look to
Christ, to Christ alone, for salvation. It is well,
thoroughly well ; but the meaning of the language,
as thus employed, requires to be examined. The
man is in fear of the anger of God, in fear of an
eternal hell, which he sees before him. He deserves
God's wrath and curse ; and how shall he escape ?
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 375
In this way, and only in this way, according to
scholastic theology. There are two distinct points ;
first of all, Christ, by his death on the cross, has
borne the whole punishment of human sin ; secondly,
the man who believes the revealed fact, and lays hold
of Christ as his surety and substitute, is infallibly
pardoned and accepted by God, on this ground, but
on this ground alone, and no other. If he do not
believe that Christ, by his death on the cross, has
satisfied all the claims which justice and law have
upon him, and has reconciled a holy God to men,
sinful as they are, there can be no salvation. Were
he on his deathbed, the question would still be, on
what ground do you look for pardon from God ? Is
it because Christ has satisfied divine justice, and
made a full expiation for sin, and on this ground
alone, or is it not ? If not, there could be no scrip-
tural warrant for hope. The man, in this case, mis-
conceives and dishonours the character of God, and
is certainly unsaved. We venture to declare, with
confidence, that no such teaching as this, nor even
the faintest semblance of it, w^as ever heard by a
single human being from the lips of the Kedeemer.
This doctrine must either not be essential and not
even important, or the great Saviour, knowdng it to be
essential, or at the least important, for some inscrutable
reasons concealed it, and suffered the multitudes whom
he addressed to perish in complete ignorance of it.
376 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
The doctrine of reserve and of gradual progress in
divine revelation, true anl just within certain limits,
we shall find singularly incapable of application in
this instance. The tree reveals a long and slow his-
tory of growth. The seed does not start in a night
into the form and verdure and beauty of the flower
or the plant. The star was once a nebulous speck,
and only by successive attractions and accretions,
through a thousand cycles, has reached its consis-
tency, magnitude, and figure. The sun, at its rising,
does not rush forthwith to the summit of the sky.
There is a day-star, a dawn, a gradual ascent, till
the meridian is reached, and the full flood of light is
poured down on the earth. A wise teacher begins
with the simplest elements of knowledge, and only as
the mind of the disciple opens, and his powers are
strengthened by exercise, he advances by slow degrees
to impart higher, and still higher truth. No one
doubts that, in divine revelation, there are an in-
creasing clearness and fulness as the ages rolled on,
and as one piece after another of inspired writing was
given to the world. The New Testament is an im-
mense advance on the Old Testament. But there
was the plainest reason, indeed, an absolute neces-
sity, in this. It was not that God loved to keep
back His truth — to reveal so much at one time, and
so much more at another — loved this method for
itself. No, never, in any wise. The condition and the
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 377
capabilities of mankind, and the highest interests of
truth itself, formed always the ground of limitation.
As the world was able to bear and to appreciate the
light of Heaven, it was shed down, in the divine
wisdom and goodness. As the world was prepared
for its reception, truth was announced, and in such
wise as should best promote its final and universal
diffusion. There was never reserve for mere reserve's
sake.
The advance from the Old Testament to the New
is manifest and great ; but the advance in the ISTew
Testament itself, from one portion to another, it
would not be easy to discover. One main fact seems
to 1)0 overlooked, on which the best authorities are
agreed, namely, that of the four Gospels, one was
probably the very last, and the others at least among
the last, pieces of inspiration given to the world.
The Gospels, as parts of written revelation, were not
earlier, but later, than the Epistles, and, according to
the doctrine of progress, they ought to contain the
more ample disclosures. Perhaps they do. They
are remarkable, not for reticence, but for trans-
parency and breadth of statement. Our blessed
Lord showed no reserve in dealing with the age in
which he appeared, and with its most honoured
names, their hypocrisy, their cruelty, their vices ; no
reserve as to the Fatherhood and the infinite perfec-
tions of God, as to the human soul, the future state,
378 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
true religion in the heart, true worship, or as to the
free forgiveness of sins. Not to his own discijoles
only, but to others, individuals and assemblies, to
scribes and Pharisees and rulers, he announced his own
Incarnation in the freest language. " Before Abra-
ham was, I am.'' And from his disciples at least, he
did not conceal even his death and his cross. But
not a word did he utter of satisfaction to divine
justice.
It is alleged that until Christ had actually died,
and until the sacrifice for sin had actually been
ofi'ered up to God, salvation, on this ground, could
not properly have been published, and that therefore
it was left to the apostles to unfold what the peculiar
circumstances rendered it unsafe and unwise to an-
nounce at an earlier period. It is very difficult to
imagine, though the thing is so often and so confi-
dently declared, in what way a want of wisdom could
have been shown by an earlier announcement, or
what possible danger could have been created by it.
Our Lord announced his death, why not its purpop^*.
if it had such a purpose ? "Why not tell of pardon
through a sacrifice yet to be offered up ? If, as is
believed by many, the ancient sacrifices were in any
sense expiatory, or if, though not themselves expia-
tory, they were meant to teach expiation, and even
designed to prefigure and point to one great expia-
tory sacrifice for gins, at the fulness of the times,
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 379
where had been the hazard in our Lord connectino;
this existing belief, in plain terms, with his own life
and death ? On the contrary, what could have been
more simple, more easy, more natural, than for him
to have stated the fact? Had it been true, what
could have been more inevitable than that he must
have stated it again and again ? But he never did.
There is more than this. If salvation depend upon
our understanding and believing the judicial ground
of forgiveness ; if, without this, we dishonour God
and endanger our souls, then, in omitting this from
his personal teaching, Jesus was risking the eternal
life of those whom he addressed, and leaving them
to perish. But he does omit it, uniformly, invariably
he omits it. There is not only not one clear, full state-
ment of it from his lips, but it is not even hinted at.
In his more pubhc addresses, in his more private
interviews with his disciples, or with single indi-
viduals, it is not once hinted at, not hinted at even
on certain marked occasions by and by to be noticed,
when, had it been true, it must have been announced
unmistakably, and with all the solemn earnestness of
a holy and loving nature.
The beginning of Christ's earthly ministry is thus
described, " Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the
gospel (the good tidings) of the kingdom (the
reign) of God, and saying. The time is fulfilled, and
the kingdom (reign) of God is at hand : repent ye,
380 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
(cliange your mind,) and believe the gospel," i (the
good tidings.) More briefly still, another evangelist
writes, "From that time Jesus began to preach, and to
say. Repent : for the kingdom of God is at hand"^ —
change your mind, for the reign of God is at hand.
A state of things of which they had as yet no idea,
which indeed was in the face of all their preconcep-
tions, was about to commence ; not an outward king-
dom at all, but an inward reign, a reign of God, that
is, a reign of righteousness and purity and truth and
love in the soul. Far other views, other sentiments,
and another spirit than now possessed them, must
rule their hearts, if that reign were to be set up
within them. Repent ye, change your minds.
The scene of the first public and formal exercise
of Christ's ministry was a mountain in Galilee. A
vast multitude was before him, and in the hearing of
thousands he uttered that sermon whose divine com-
prehensiveness, spirituality, simplicity, and heavenly,
holy tone it were vain to attempt to characterise. 3
Some of its short sentences few can hear without a
sudden rising of the heart, in which veneration and
wonder blend with a subduing thankfulness and joy.
" Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the
kingdom of God. Blessed are they that mourn :
for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the
meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed
1 Mark i. 14, ] 5. ^ jj^^^tt. iv. 17. '^ Matt. v. 3, and onwards.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 381
are tlie pure in heart : for they shall see God." But
in this divine sermon, from beginning to end, there
is not a word, not a hint, not a breath of what in
those dsivs would alone be called the gospel. Our
Master either did not believe in satisfaction to justice
for the sins of men, or he certainly lost one of the
grandest opportunities ever presented to him of pro-
claiming it.
Not long after the commencement of his personal
ministry, Jesus sent out the twelve disciples and at
a later period the seventy, two and two together,
to traverse Judea, and to announce everywhere the
coming reign of God. In the lengthened and minute
and faithful instructions which he addressed to them
before they entered on their mission, there is not even
a passing allusion to expiation, as the ground of
divine forgiveness. And they, when in obedience to
his command they went forth on their heavenly
errand, what did they announce ? Here is the brief
record, "they went out and preached that men
should repent " ^ — should change their minds. We
may connect this early trust committed to the dis-
ciples, with the last charge given to them by their
Master, immediately before his departure from this
world, and when they were thenceforth left to repre-
sent and interpret his thoughts and purposes towards
men. *' Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,
1 Mark vi. 12.
382 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you : and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end
of the world." "^ Not a word even here at the iinal
parting between Master and disciples, of expiation,
as if this were the one embodiment of redeeming love.
On two occasions at least, Jesus assumed in the
presence of men the highest prerogative of God.
Once, announcing the pure, free mercy of Heaven, he
said to the sick of the palsy, " Son, thy sins be for-
given thee ; " and when the scribes charged him with
blasphemy, saying, Who can forgive sins but God
only ? he replied by a question, " Whether is it easier
to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven
thee ; or to say, Arise, take up thy bed, and walk ?
But that ye may know that the Son of man hath
power on earth to forgive sins, he saith to the sick of
the palsy, I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed,
and go thy way into thine own house." ^ On another
occasion, in the case of the woman who was a sinner,
Jesus assumed the place and the rights of very God.
Addressing Simon the Pharisee, at whose table he
sat, and pointing to the Magdalene, he said, *' Her
sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved
much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same
loveth little. And he said unto her," — purely out of
1 Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. « j^ark ii. 5, 7, 9, 11.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 383
that loving heart of his, which ere long bled on the
cross, and because he saw in her that self-abasement
and dependence which God ever blesses — " thy sins
are forgiven." i
These are not the only instances in which w^e learn
that it is the reigning spirit within a man which tests
and proves his real state before God. The redeeming
mercy of Heaven, the dying love of the Saviour,
touches and changes the heart, strikes in order at
last to kill the evil that is in it, and creates in
its stead a humble, unfeigned, and loving spirit.
Divine mercy is first, and is the cause of spiritual
change, not the change the cause and ground of
mercy. But the effect follows necessarily from the
cause. If there be no effect, we infer the absence of
the cause, and conclude that the relation of the human
soul to God must be yet unaltered. Hence we read,
"If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you ; but if ye forgive not
men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly
Father forgive your trespasses." 2 The unforgiving
soul proves itself to be the unforgiven soul. Pardon
is not an arbitrary, capricious favour forced on men,
will they or will they not ; it is ours only if we truly
seek it, and that true seeking is incipient faith in the
Loving One, it is the child-spirit, the first real return
of the heart to God. This truth is revealed with won-
1 Luke vii. 47, 48. 2 ^att. vi. 14, 15.
384 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
derful clearness in our Lord's representation of the
final judgment.^ A line of sej)aration is supposed to
be drawn between the good and the bad. On the
one side of that line then, are we to find those who
have understood how to reconcile divine government,
and justice, and law, with divine forgiveness — those
who have pled for, and might indeed have demanded
acquittal, because Christ had borne the full penalty
of their sins, and set them perfectly free from all
claims whatever ? And on the other side of that
line, are we to find those who have either not known
or not been able to discover in the New Testament
this imagined imputation ? Not- at all. Not
the faintest indication is given of any sueh thing.
Men are tried before God, and their real state is
proved by the spirit which is in them, and nothing
else. If the holy mercy of Grod, if redeeming love in
Christ, has really touched their nature, and begun to
assimilate them to itself, so that in the spirit of un-
feigned loving-kindness, it has been in their hearts,
even though not in their power, to feed the hungry,
and to clothe the naked, and to do only good to all ;
then, but only then, shall the Great Judge say to
them, " Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world/'
In strict harmony with these principles of judg-
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 385
ment is the mode in which Jesus tested certain indi-
vidual characters, who, along with not a little which
was good, were nevertheless radically wanting and
wrong. Wliat, of all things he looked to, in any
case, was the spirit, the pervading, reigning spirit of
a man's soul. "Whosoever shall not receive the
kingdom of God as a little child shall in nowise enter
therein." A humble, docile, trustful, childlike state of
mind is everything in religion — the spring of all the
highest good. *' And a certain ruler asked him say-
ing, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal
life ? " 1 This was an example of a religious inquirer,
as we should speak ; and now, if ever, the very truth,
and above all the most essential truth, would certainly
be announced by him who was emphatically sent
forth to bear witness to truth. But not a reference
is made, even in such a case as this, to what is now
proclaimed as the essence of Christianity. Jesus
perceived that there was a radical want, a radical
evil in the character of this young ruler. Instead of
self-surrender and submission to God, he was cherish-
ing at the moment a conscious reserve on one point,
and a deep resistance to the highest claims, which
was fatal to the whole of his imagined religion.
*' Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." Our Lord
touches the root of bitterness, reveals this deceived
1 Luke xviii. 17, 18.
2b
386 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
heart to itself, and leaves the revelation to work
within with silent force. Perhaps the ruler yielded
to the light thus shed on his nature, and to the
teaching and striving of God's Spirit within him.
We know not ; but there can he no salvation without
unreserved and entire seK-surrender.
On another occasion we read, " A certain lawyer
stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall
I do to inherit eternal life ? " i It was a momentous
question, though the questioner might be, and pro-
bably was, dead to its profound meaning. He little
merited a reply, but Jesus was not one, at any time,
who if asked for bread would offer a stone. This
lawyer had an immortal nature to be saved or lost —
that was enough. He had, besides, himself created
the occasion for close spiritual dealing, and had ex-
pressly invited instruction respecting the method of
salvation. Was, then, this singular and precious
opportunity lost ? lost by one who loved the souls of
men, and died for them ? It certainly was. If we,
in these days, are right in our ideas of the gospel,
our Master was certainly wrong. For how does he
proceed? Again, as in the former example, he
touches the core of this man's spirit, and makes it
naked to itself. The nature of moral excellence —
love of God and love of man — is unfolded, and then
follows the parable of the good Samaritan, teaching
» Luke X. 25-37.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 387
that, apart from descent, or outward privilege, or
creed, it is only when the soul has been divinely
reached and assimilated — only when the nature has
been subdued to humble, pure, loving-kindness —
that it is safe before God, eternally safe. " Go, and
do thou likewise," was the command, — not only
copying the act, but filled with the spirit of the good
Samaritan.
On another occasion still, and under different
circumstances, we arrive at the same idea of our
Lord's teaching. The case was that of a Koman
centurion,^ — a soldier, a Gentile, a Pagan. That
he must have seen and heard Jesus, perhaps re-
peatedly, before this, seems evident, for another
than the spirit of Paganism had already largely
entered into his soul, and he was possessed with
the settled conviction that Jesus was from above,
a messenger of the true God. And when he came,
beseeching that his servant might be healed, and
when the Master said, " I will come and heal him,"
he replied, " Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst
come under my roof, but speak the word only and my
servant shall be healed/' In these words, and in the
tone and look of the man, it was shown beyond doubt
that his spirit was deeply reverent, and humble, and
trustful. The core of his nature was all right before
God, Jesus himself pronounced it all right, and said,
1 Matt, viii. 7-8, 10-11.
388 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
" I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel,"
and immediately added these inspiring words, " I say
unto you, that many shall come from the east, and
from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven."
The woman of Samaria ^ was not a Pagan-born,
like Cornelius, but, half Jew, half Gentile, her con-
dition was little above that of a heathen. To her,
surely, Jesus would at least convey what was essential
to salvation. In a lengthened interview, as it seems
to have been, there was abundant opportunity of ad-
dressing her conscience and her heart, and of so pre-
senting the grounds of pardon, as we speak, that her
soul might be saved. Did our Lord embrace the
opportunity ? Undoubtedly he did not, if the pre-
vailing ideas of the method of salvation be just.
Never, perhaps, with more sublime simplicity did
the Great Teacher discourse of the very loftiest
truths — the nature of God, the nature of worship,
and the nature of religion in the human soul — than
on this very humble occasion, in a lonely place, as
he sat wearied and faint by the well of Jacob, and
spoke to a single auditor, a poor Samaritan woman.
But the astounding fact is, that all the while not a
word of, what would now be called by many, the
gospel, was uttered — notliing of expiation of sin, and
nothing of pardon grounded in expiation. Explain
^ John iv. 7-42.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 389
it how we may, this is the fact, and either we on this
point are altogether wrong, or our Master is. It must
be noted, besides, that when, on the report of the
woman, the people of the town came to see and hear
for themselves, and were not less affected by the
divine words and the divine spirit of Jesus than she
had been, they, too, had learned no gospel, no such
method of salvation, as is now so widely honoured. All
they said was this, " We have heard him ourselves,
and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour
of the world." Neither in this nor in any single in-
stance on record, do we find that any human being
having heard the words of Jesus, left him declaring
that he had learned the doctrine of forgiveness
through the expiation of sin.
The Lord's Prayer i is justly regarded with great
reverence by those who love the New Testament.
All acknowledge readily, however far they be from
acting on the acknowledgment, that it is the model
of true Christian prayer. That Jesus selected words,
either wholly or in part, which were already in use
among the Jews in their worship, does not affect the
case in the least. The prayer is invested with all
his authority, and the words are such as he thought
fittest and best, as much so, as if they had been
uttered for the first time, and by his lips alone.
Short as it is, no one who reverences its Author
1 Matt. vi. 9, 13.
390 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
will believe that anything essential can have been
omitted from it. It is provided for the use, not
of one nation, or one age, or one class, but of all
men, of all classes, and of all times. Any sinful
human being, in any part of the earth, has a
right to utter it, in order to express his desires
to God, and in uttering it, under the guidance
of the holy, and wise, and loving Kedeemer, he is
surely at the least secured against the possibility of
leaving out what it is most essential for him, in such
an act, to address to the God against whom he has
sinned. What, then, does Jesus authorise, encour-
age, command us to say, when we kneel before God ?
The question is a very vital one. Are we taught to
ask forgiveness, on the ground of expiation, and to
think of God as a righteous Judge, whose anger has
been appeased by sacrifice, and who will do, for the
sake of one who has acted the part of man's friend,
what He would not, or could not do for His own blessed
sake, and out of the pure, free love of His own na-
ture ? No, by no means. Nothing like this is sug-
gested, or by any possibility involved. The prayer
contains a distinct reference to sin ; but it is to this
effect, and no more, " Forgive us our debts as we
forgive our debtors." Two short additional sentences
bring the prayer to its amen; and then immediately
follow the words, which have been already quoted and
explained, — " For if ye forgive men their trespasses,
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. '691
your heavenly Father will also forgive you; hut
if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will
your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses." The
reigning spirit within a man is everything. The
unforgiving is the unforgiven. But if divine, redeem-
ing love has gained an entrance into the soul, and
has hegun to assimilate and conquer it, this means
that the nature is restored to God, once and for ever.
" In that day thou shalt say, Lord, I will praise
thee : though thou wast angry, thine anger is turned
away, and thou comfortest me." i
We pass to the closing scenes of our Lord's life on
earth, to the night on which he was betrayed, when
his disciples were gathered around him at the Last
Supper, and he addressed them in the divinest words
ever heard by men. That short section of John's
Gospel, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth chap-
ters inclusive, contains inspirations so intensely spi-
ritual, so lofty and so pure, as, if they had stood quite
alone in the New Testament, would have rendered
it priceless to- all generations. Who can worthily
represent the simple, marvellous openings into regions
of heavenly truth, as rare as they are ineffably glori-
ous ; or the assuring promises of another Teacher and
Comforter, when his own visible presence was with-
drawn ; or his holy, and far-reaching counsels ; or his
kindly but faithful warnings of persecution and of
^ Isa. xii. 1.
392 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
coming evil ; or his words of courage and comfort ;
or his gentle, mournful hints of his own departure ;
or the tender expressions of his sympathy and love ?
But surely now, at last, if before there had ever been
reserve on the most pressing of all subjects, Jesus, by
the force of affection, and by the urgency of the cir-
cumstances, would be compelled to break through it,
and to state plainly and fully the meaning of his own
death. But, with the cross close at hand, and full in
view, nothing is said, literally nothing, to those whom
he tenderly loved, and from whom he was now to be
torn away, of that which is supposed to be its true
meaning and its chief glory. The supposition must
be an entire misapprehension, unless we would charge
our Lord with a want of common honesty, and with
a disregard of the duties of ordinary friendship.
Even in the institution of the holy Supper, when the
occasion was literally thrust upon him, to speak with
perfect plainness, we can find no reference to expia-
tion of sin by sacrifice. " This is my body, which
is given for you: this do in remembrance of me."
" This cup is the new testament in my blood, which
is shed for you." i In the Gospel of Matthew already
quoted, we read — "This is my blood of the new
testament which is shed for many, for (in order to)
the remission of sins." These words announce
1 Luke xxii. 19, 20.
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 393
simple facts, which were soon to stand forth in all
their dark significance. Very shortly thereafter, his
body was literally given, and his blood was literally
shed, for men — literally for men's sins, literally in
order to the remission of sins. His death, like his
life, was meant for nothing else than to take away
sins, not in a legal, fictitious sense, but literally and
actually. He died to make a real end of sin. Of all
powers on earth, his cross has proved itself the
mightiest, in expelling sin out of the heart of man,
and out of the world. Hence, in that prayer, which
stands forth a glory by itself, even in this highest
heaven of inspirations, Jesus, addressing the Father,
says — " This is life eternal, that they might know
thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent." i To know God — to know God in
Jesus Clirist; to see Him, out of His mere, pure
love, surrendering His Son — giving his body to be
broken, and his blood to be shed ; to know God as
thus drawing and reconciling men to Himself by
Christ : this is the destruction of sin in the heart —
this is salvation — this is life, eternal Hfe.
Follow the Kedeemer to the garden of Geth-
semane, thence to the Sanhedrim, with Caiaphas
at its head, thence to the judgment hall of Pilate,
the Eoman governor, and thence to Calvary and
1 John xvii. 3.
394 SACKIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
the cross 1 Surely, if it had been in the least de-
gree true that he was making expiation for sin,
and satisfying divine justice, some hint, some allu-
sion, which, at the least, might be intelligible to
his disciples, would now drop from his lips. We
pass to his resurrection, and to his interview with
his disciples after that event. Surely all reserve
must, at least, then have been laid aside. His death
had been accomplished, expiation for sin, as is sup-
posed, had been made, and there could now be no
possible cause for concealment or hesitation. He
cannot have left his disciples, during these resurrec-
tion days, in ignorance of that which was to be the
burden of their message to the world. At all events,
on the Mount of Olives, when he looked on them for
the last time before he ascended to his glory, and
they were to be left alone in the world intrusted
with his Grospel, some clear, decisive words would
be spoken respecting what is imagined to be the
central truth of salvation. But no ; if expiation for
sin and satisfaction to justice be a doctrine of the
New Testament, at least it was never heard by any
human being from the lips of our Lord, from the
beginning to the close of his ministry on earth.
This is not all. The direct teachings of the gos-
pel are not only wanting in the supposed doctrine —
they are diametrically opposed to it. With the ex-
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 395
amination of only two out of many passages, in
support of this position, we close this rapid survey
of the Gospels. The parable of the Pharisee and
the Publican 1 is a simple picture of ritual and of
real religion, the religion of outward observance,
and the religion of the soul. The Pharisee uses
the language — we need not suppose insincerely —
of gratitude to God for what he was, and for what
he was conscious of having done, but there is no
symptom in him either of a sense of sin, or of any
need of pardon. Such imperfections and faults as
he was conscious of did not trouble or burden him,
— at all events, they did not draw him to the foot-
stool of God to beg forgiveness.
On the other hand, the class of publicans were
most hateful to the Jews, perhaps often deservedly
so, and this publican may have been no better than
most of his order. But whatever he may have been
formerly, he is so presented to us here, that we are
able to judge satisfactorily of what he now was.
'' Standing afar off, he would not lift up so much as
his eyes towards heaven, but smote upon his breast
saying, God be merciful to me a sinner." Not his
words only but his look, his tone, his attitude, and
his very significant action, all prove that he was in the
deepest earnestness, and that he found refuge nowhere
^ Luke xviii. 10.
396 SACRIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS
but in the pure, free mercy of God. Very humbly
very timidly, he trusts in mercy, God's mercy. But
he trusts, and this is the very state of mind which
a true sense of mercy always creates, which, above all,
Incarnate, dying love creates, and is meant to create.
Kevealing as it does, a pitying, forgiving God, by
this very means it exposes the horrible nature of sin,
and generates a profound self-abhorrence. This
publican has no plea to put forward, no idea of his
sins having been expiated, or of its being possible to
expiate them, and no ground whatever, on which to
plead for pardon except pure, free mercy ; but he does
trust in this, tremblingly he trusts in this. It is
enough. " I tell you this man went down to his
house, justified rather than the other.'' Justified ?
we ask — without satisfaction to justice? Without
the full execution of the threatened penalty ? With-
out an imputed righteousness to cover his polluted
soul ? Yes, verily so. Our blessed Lord says,
"justified,'' that is, rightened, his inner nature set
right — " rather than the other." The other was only
wrong, all wrong; his spirit, satisfied in itself, was
just therefore quite away from God. But the pub-
lican was really rightened, his nature was turned
right towards God, the fountain of mercy, of pardon,
and of all blessing. Wherever a human being truly
feels the burden of inward evil, and is penetrated
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 397
and subdued by the thought of divine love, and trusts
in pure, mere mercy, he is justified, Tightened before
God, and the very highest purpose of the cross, and
of the bleeding Lamb that hung upon it, is to create
and secure this result.
More touching, more simple, more divine still, is
the parable of the Prodigal Son. Where in this
heavenly story, is there any single shred or shadow
of the complicated, logical plan of justification?
Nowhere, absolutely nowhere. The prodigal does
nothing, can do nothing, urges no plea grounded on
anything in himself, or done, or merited by another ;
he only feels the baseness, and the folly of his course,
and turns his eye homewards and says, " I will arise
and go to my father. "i The old man, grieved and
crushed, had waited long, and long in vain, but he
waited still, and was only eager to welcome the lost
one home, and to love him as tenderly as when the
child sat on his knee or played at his feet. At last,
when he caught sight of his son, in a moment all
the father stirred within him, and he ran and fell
on the prodigal's neck and kissed him. Such is the
tale. But there is a divine reality answering to it
more marvellously touching. Our Father in heaven
waits and longs for the return of his lost children.
The one only thing He asks, is our return. His
^ Luke XV. 18.
398 SACEIFICIAL TERMS AND ALLUSIONS, ETC.
supreme joy is our return : " This my son was dead
and is alive again, was lost and is found." " There
is joy in heaven among the angels of God, over one
sinner that repentetli," that changeth his mind, re-
tm-neth to God. This may not be a gospel accord-
ing to human creeds, but it is certainly the gospel
according to Christ our Lord and Master.
CHAPTEK XL
, ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE DOCTRINE OF
SATISFACTION.
Section First. — From the Apostolic Age to that of Anselm.
Section Second. — From the Age of Anselm to the Present
Time.
SECTION riEST — FROM THE APOSTOLIC AGE TO THAT
OF ANSELM.
Foundation in Human Nature — Ignorance and Fears — Early Chris-
tian Writings — Repeat Language of New Testament — No Inde-
pendent Statement — Proof Passages — Dr Shedd's Admissions
— First Idea, Satisfaction to Satan — Irenseus — Origen — Abuse
of Figures, the Original Root of Error — First Explicit State-
ment — Athanasius — Augustin — Anselm. ^
THE idea of satisfaction to divine justice unques-
tionably has its root in human nature, but it is
in the ignorance, the false views and the false fears of
human nature. That idea could never have been
originated, or if originated, could never have been so
universally and thoroughly adopted had there not
been first of all some deep common ground for it in
ihe soul itself. The universal sense of sin is obviously
^ See Shedd's " History of Christian Doctrine," Clark, Edinburgh,
1865; " Lehrbuch der Dogmen Geschichte," Hagenbtcch, Leipsic,
1857 ; " Die Christliche Lehre von der Versohnung," Baur, Tubin-
gen, 1838; and "Christian' Literature and Doctrine," Donaldson,
London, 1864; a work which, if succeeding volumes maintain the
same high character as the first, will be no common treasure to
many besides theologians.
402 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
the chief element, lying at the very base of the notion^
The fancy that eternal like human justice may be
defrauded, and must receive its full satisfaction by
one means or other, forms an additional element.
There is besides the idea, that God is subject as men
are to the passion of anger, and last of all there is
the thought, that if God's anger is to be appeased
and His justice satisfied, it must be in some such
way as human passion is quieted and gratified,
namely, by punishment — the more effective in pro-
portion as it is severe. It is singularly seldom that
any phrases, at all suggestive of this strictly Pagan
idea, or which could even harmonise with it, are to
be found in the New Testament. The following pas-
sages stand all but alone: — "We are saved from
wrath through him." i " Jesus who delivered us
from the wrath to come.'^ 2 " (^od hath not appointed
us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord
Jesus Christ."^ "Thou treasurest up unto thyself
wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the
righteous judgment of God." ^ And these passages
refer to a literal fact of the most solemn import.
The penalty which sin insures, and insures necessarily,
is a standing proof of the abhorrence with which God
regards it, and that penalty, if sin abide in the nature,
is not limited to the present existence, but certainly
1 Rom. V. 9. 2 1 Thess. i. 10.
3 1 Thess. V. 9. * Rom. ii. 5.
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 403
extends to the life beyond the grave. There is wrath
to come, and on one side, the salvation which is
through Christ, is deliverance from the wrath to
come. We need to know it, and to feel deeply all the
awakening force of the fact.
But the constant, the pervading representations
of the New Testament are quite of another character.
The writers dwell on the love of God in the death of
Christ, and nothing else.' " Hereby perceive we the
love of God, because he laid down his life for us.'' i
" Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He
loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for
our sins." 2 "Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be
called the sons of God." ^ " We love him because
he first loved us." * " Herein God commendeth His
love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us." ^ " God so loved the world, that
He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever be-
lieveth on him should not perish, but have everlast-
ing life." 6 What we learn from the New Testa-
ment with very unusual distinctness is this, that
God's love to men, and His holy purpose to destroy
evil within them, were such that He incarnated
Himself in the holy Saviour, and that the Incarnate,
in perfect harmony with the divine thought, was ready
1 John iii. 16. ^1 John iv. 10. ^1 John iii. 1.
* 1 John iv. 19. ^ Kom. v. 8. 'John iii. 16.
404 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OP
to do and to endure anything and everything in-
volved in his earthly mission, in order to instruct,
convince, subdue, and conquer the obdurate heart of
man. " He loved us and gave himself for us."
Such was the divine method. But the darkened,
guilty, and terror-stricken mind longs for something
more definite, more exact, more judicially, commer-
cially final, something more like the satisfaction
which an angry and outraged fellow-creature would
demand. This is human nature, but it is human
nature imagining God to be like itself, and only
capable of being influenced as itself is ipfluenced ; it
is human nature in its blindness, in its dishonouring
and low conceptions of the Most High, and in its
degrading fears. And this, it is quite conceivable,
though unsupported by any ascertained facts, might,
more or less, diffuse itself, during the course of the
Mosaic economy. And it is at least quite as much
within the range of probability and quite as natural,
that after the death of Christ, and when the language
and the symbols of Judaism were applied to the
cross, there might be a latent tendency from the first
among the Pagan and even the Jewish converts, to
adulterate the simplicity and the pure graciousness
and love of the gospel. It had been nothing wonder-
ful, but only in accordance with very common experi-
ence, if almost in the life-time of the apostles, or
very soon after their death, the infection of Pagan
THE DOCTKINE OF SATISFACTION. 405
tliouglit and Pagan feeling had begun to corrupt the
divine redemption. We can only marvel that it did
not, and that it took several centuries before the cor-
ruption at all established itself.
The early Christian writings following those of the
New Testament, up to about the middle of the third
century, are comparatively few. The shepherd of
HermaSji the epistles of Clemens Komanus,! of Bar-
nabas,^ of Polycarp,! and of Ignatius,^ the five books of
Irena3us,2 the epistle to Diognetus,^ and the pieces of
Athenagoras,4 Theophilus,^ Justin Martyr ,6 Tatian,7
Tertullian,8 and Minucius Felix,^ make up nearly all
the extant Christian literature, within the period in-
dicated. It is beyond our sphere to pronounce on
either the correct date of the writings, or their true
authorship. Both are, in several instances, matters
of uncertainty, and cannot be determined here. Not
rigid chronology, but pertinence to our subject, guides
the arrangement of the quotations introduced.
The testimony of those who immediately followed
the apostles of our Lord, and had received the Chris-
^ Patrum Apostolicorum Opera : Dressel, Leipsic, 1857.
2 S. S. Irenaei, libri quinque : Harvey, Carabridge, 1857.
3 Der Brief an Dognet : Hollenberg, 1853.
^ Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum : Otto, Jena, 1857.
^ Theopbili, Libri tres : Humphrey, Cambridge, 1852.
6 S. Justin, Opera: Otto, Jena, 1842-3.
7 Tatian : Otto, 1852.
8 Patrologiae Cursus Completus : Migne, Paris, 1844.
* Minucius Felix: Holden, Cambridge, 1853.
406 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
tian doctrine from their lips, and again the testi-
mony of their direct successors for a hundred years
onward, would be invaluable, could it be taken simply
as it is, and with perfect impartiality and simplicity.
It is vain to imagine this possible, for even the most
upright could not, with their utmost efforts, divest
themselves of some pre-judgment, prejudice, or bias
on one side or other. But thus far all are agreed,
that the references to what is now understood as the
gospel,^ by early Christian writers, are surprisingly
few, and all but always merely in the words of the
New Testament, without comment of any kind. So
near to the cross as they were, with a perishing
world (as we speak) around them, and with a new^
and precious experience which had entirely changed
their Jewish or Pagan life, we should have expected
something verj different, if the now accepted views
of Christ's death had been true. But it is indisput-
able, that they rarely touch what our modern theo-
logy pronounces to be the very core of saving truth.
Perhaps the most pious and spiritual of the pri-
mitive Christian remains, and the most apostolic in
phraseology and in form, are the epistles of Clemens
Komanus, of Barnabas, of Polycarp, and of Ignatius.
The first epistle of Clemens especially reads, in some
portions, like an extract from the New Testament,
but with this exception, not excluding even Ignatius,
^ Meaning chiefly the doctrine of satisfaction to justice.
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 407
there is often a sense of feebleness, almost of insipi-
dity, created in the reading of these letters, which it
is difficult to resist. The letter of Clemens to the
Corinthian Church is an exception, and is full of
wise and holy counsels, of warnings against pride and
vain-glory and the spirit of emulation, and of lamen-
tations over the miserable schism which was tearing
them in pieces. In order to crush out their bitter
jealousies and heart-burnings one against another,
and to create a loving mutual forbearance, and a
generous yielding to each other's wishes and views,
he appeals to the Divine pattern of love and of pure
self-sacrifice. *' Without love, nothing is well- pleas-
ing to God Through the love which he bore
to us, Christ our Lord gave his blood for us, by the
will of God, and his flesh for our flesh, and his soul
for our souls,"! — in which passage let those who can,
imagine expiation of sin or satisfaction to justice,
but assuredly it is in them, not in it. The self-
sacrifice of pure love is there, nothing else. Again
we read, " Let us steadfastly look to the blood of
Christ and see how precious it is to God his Father,
because being shed for our salvation, it bore [pain-
fully yielded] to the whole world the favour of change
^ At'xa dydTTTjs oiidh ivdpearov r^J OeQ . . . 5tct ttj'^ dydTrrju ijv icrx'^v
Trpbs i]fids rb atfia airov iduKcv iirkp ijfiwp 'Irja-ovs Xpicrrbs 6 Kijpios
Tjfiuv, ev deX-qfJiaTi Qeov, Kal ttjv cdpna virkp ttjs aapKbs tj/xQv, Kal tijv
\}^vxi]v vTrkp tQiv rpvxCov rifxCov. — Patrum Apostolicorum Opera, Leipsic,
1857; Clem., i.c. 46.
408 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
of mind. Let us go back to all past generations and
learn that, from age to age, the Lord hath afforded
place for change of mind to those who wished to
turn to Him." l One other quotation we introduce,
and expressly for the purpose of showing how little
dependence ought to be placed on the wisest and
best of these early Christian writers, especially in
matters of interpretation and of criticism. This
same Clemens, probably the companion and disciple
of Paul, gives his name to a far-fetched and con-
temptible conceit. It relates to Kaliab the harlot : —
" Moreover, they gave to her a sign that she should
hang out of her house a scarlet thread, showing
thereby that by the blood of the Lord there should
be redemption to all who believe and ho-pe in God.''^
Strange to say, even this is surpassed in fancifulness
and in absurdity, by a later and a deservedly-ad-
mired father. Irenaeus says, " So also the harlot
Kahab, while condemning herself as a Gentile, guilty
of all kinds of sin, did yet receive the three spies
^ ' A.T€vl(j03}iev eh rb atfia rod XpiaroO, /cat tdicfiev, ws 'icrriv ri/unov t(3
0ey, iraTpi avrov on dia ttjv TjfieT^pav acorrjpiav eKxvQ^v iravrl tc^
KbafiQi fieravoias x^P'-^ VTyveyKCP. ' ApiXOcofiev els ras yei/eas irdaas kuI
KaTafMddui/xep 6ti iv yevea Kalyeveq. pLeravoias tottov ^duKev'o Aeairdrris
Toh ^Qv\op.evoi.s iTn(rTpa(p7]uai iir avrbv. — Patrum Apostolicorum
Opera, Leipsic, 1857 ; Clem., i. c. 7.
^ Kal TrpocredivTO avrg dovvai crip.e'LOV Sttws Kpepidari ck tov oikov
aiTTJs k6kklvov irpbhrfKov Troiovvres on Slcl tov aip-aTos tov Kvpiou
X^rpuais ^aTai Tract rots iriGTevov (Xlv Kal ^\irl^ov<nv iirl tov Qeou. —
Idem., c. 7.
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 409
who were searching the land, and hid them in her
house, — to wit, the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost." i- It would not be easy to excel this state-
ment in extravagance or impiety.
The letters ascribed to Barnabas, the companion
of Paul, and to Polycarp, the disciple of John, pious
in sentiment and in spirit, would attract, and are
worthy of little consideration, but for the names
which they bear. Even the seven epistles ascribed
to Ignatius, the fellow-disciple of Polycarp, though
often spiritual and fervid, and, like Clement, apostolical
in language and in form, possess no solid value, and
are almost devoid of interest, except for their vener-
able antiquity, and as the utterance of warm affec-
tion and of earnest piety. In many parts, besides,
they are painfully inflated, fulsomely complimentary
to the churches and their bishops, even offensively
self-glorifying, and above all, poisoned with a strange
ambition, expressing very often a morbid and proud
desire on the part of this saint to suffer martyrdom,
which he did ere long, with unshaken faith and a
true heroism.
Of the shepherd of Hermas, the most singularly
^ Sic autera et Rahab fornica, semetipsam quidem condemnans,
quoniam esset gentilis, omnium peccatorum rea, suscepit autem
tres speculatores, qui speculabantur universam terram et apud se
abscondit, Patrem, scilicet et Filium cum Spiritu Sancto. — S. Ire-
Baei, libros quinque, edidit W. W. Harney, S. T. B., Cambridge,
1857, ii. 224.
410 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
opposite judgments have been pronounced. To many
it seems poor and feeble from beginning to end, often
very questionable in taste, even in moral taste, and
with hardly a redeeming quality. Certainly the
world would not have lost much had the visions, and
commands, and similitudes of Hermas never been
heard of.
In the epistle to Diognetus, ascribed to Justin
Martyr, but whose authorship and exact age are
doubtful, though its very early date is not disputed,
we meet with a passage, the very strongest in ex-
pression and in tone of any to be found in the post-
apostolic writings. " But when the measure of our
unrighteousness was filled up, and it had been fully
shown that punishment and death awaited us as its
reward, and the time had come which God had fore-
ordained to show forth His own goodness and power,
of what surpassing benevolence was the love of God
to man ! He did not hate us or cast us off, or re-
member the evil against us. But He bore long with
us, and gave up His own Son as a ransom for us, the
holy for transgressors, him who was without evil for
sinners, the just for the unjust, the imperishable for
perishing man, the immortal for mortals. For what
else but his righteousness could have been a covering
for our sins ? By whom could we, sinners and un-
godly, have been justified, but by the Son of God
alone ? Oh, the sweet exchange ! oh, the unsearuh-
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 411
able dispensation ! oh, the unlooked-for benefits !
To cover the transgressions of many through one
righteous man, and by the righteousness of one to
justify many sinners I"^ The rhetorical, almost
rhapsodical, character of these sentences is obvious.
The author is writing manifestly from a glowing
and grateful heart, and from a kindled and excited
imagination. Warm with the ravishing thought of
Divine love, he repeats, and repeats, and still repeats
one idea. Laying hold of a sacred figure, he does
what all do in dealing with figures, he extends and
expands it, and conveys by this means a true im-
pression of his feelings, but in words which, if rigidly
taken, would suggest what was not true in his
thoughts.
From the remaining early Christian writers, we
have addresses of various kinds, to individuals, to
^ 'Ettci 5^ ireirX-Zipuro fiiv i) rjixeripa ddiKia Kal reXetcos ireipavipuTO
6'Tt 6 /MLcrdbs avTTJs KdXaais Kal ddvaros TrpoaedoKdro, ^Xde 8^ 6 Kuipbs 8p
Qebs irpoedero Xonrbu (pavepQcrat t7]v eavroO x/)?7(rT6T77Ta /cat dijva/xiv — ws
T^s virep^aXXo^arjs (ptXavdpuTrias (ila aydirrj rod Qeov — ovk i/JLiarjaev
■}]fias 6v5e dirwaaro 6v5k i/JLvaaiKaKijcrev dXXd i/j,aKpod6fX7]aev dvrbs rbv
X^LOv vibv diredoTO XOrpov virep rjixdv rbv dyiov virkp tGjv dv6fxojv, rbv
&KaKov virkp tCjv KaKdv rbv SiKatov virkp rdv ddcKCov, rbv dcpOaprbu
virkp tQ)v (pdaprQu rbv dddvarbv virkp rQv OvijrQv. Tt yap dXXo rds
afxaprias TjfxQv rjduvrjdr] KaXv\}/aL ^ iKcivov dLKatoaiJvr] iv rlvi diKaiodTJvai.
dvvarbv roi>s dvofiovs 7]/xds Kal dffe^elt i} iv fxbvcp t<^ vi(^ rov Qeov.
a rrjs yXvKeias dvraXXayrjs, & t^s dve^ixvlacrrov dTjjxiovpyias, & rdv
dirpoaSoKrjrCov ivepyeaiuv. "Ii'a dvofiia [xkv iroXXQv ivdiKatcp evl Kpv^rj,
diKaioavvT] 8k evbs, iroXXoi/s dv6fjt.ovs Si/caiwcr?;. — Der Brief an Disquet-
Hollenberg, Berlin, 1853; c. 9., s. 17.
412 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OP
churches, and to emperors or governors, apologies
for Christianity, defences of Christians, short trea-
tises or essays, some of them very effective, but
seldom or never accompanied with anything which
could now be called the gospel The address of
Tatian l to the men of Greece, explaining his con-
version to Christianity, is an exposition of the folly
of idolatry, of the character of the Pagan gods, and
of the absurdity of the doctrine of fate, but no gos-
pel. Athenagoras ^ has an essay on the resurrection
of the dead body, which would compare not unfavour-
ably with many a modern treatise on the same sub-
ject, but no gospel. Theophilus 3 of Antioch writes at
great length to Autolycus, a Pagan, argues ably for the
being of one God over all, exposes the folly of poly-
theism and idolatry, discourses loftily of the nature
and attributes of the One God, enters largely into
questions of antiquity and chronology, and then pre-
sents a compendium of the Mosaic account of the
creation, the deluge, and the early history of the
world; but there is no gospel. Athenagoras,* ad-
» Oratio ad Graecos: I. C. T. Otto, Jena, 1852.
2 Corpus Apol, Christian : I. C. T. Otto, Jena, 1857.
3 Theophili, libri tres : G. G. Humphrey, S. T. B., Cambridge,
1853.
■* "0 Tov 5^ rod iravrbs Arjfxiovpybs Kal irarTjp ov de^rai aifxaros ov5^
Kviaar]$ ovd^ ttjs airo tCov d.vdC}v Kal dv/jnajxaTuv euwSt'as* . . . 'AWd
Bvcla avTip fieyiarr) &v yivdjaKU/xef , - . Srav ^xoires tou Arj/niovpybu
Oeov avv^xovra Kal iiroineijoPTa iTncmfjfjLrj Kal t^x^V i^^^ V^ ^7^' '^^^
irdPTa kiraiptjoixev baias x^^pas aury Trotas eVi Xfidav iKaTbfi^Tjs ^x^t.
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 413
dressing " Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Lucius
Aurelius Commodus, the conquerors of Armenia,
and, what is greatest of all, philosophers," executes
an elaborate defence of the Christians, from the
principal charges which were then brought against
them. One of these charges was to this effect, that
the followers of Jesus did not, like all other nations
of the then known world, offer sacrifice, as an act
of worship. If ever there was a fair opportunity,
almost a clear necessity, it was now, for proclaiming
the expiation of sin, (had it been true,) by the one
sacrifice of Christ on the cross. But no such idea is
once expressed or hinted at. Something widely dif-
ferent is advanced, and that which is now supposed
to be the essence of Christian truth is thoroughly
ignored. " The Father and Creator of the universe
wants not blood nor savour [of victims,] nor sweet
scent from flowers and from incimse But the
best sacrifice to Him is that we should acknowledge
Him When, having before our minds God,
the Creator, sustaining and inspecting all things, in
the knowledge and skill with which He rules them,
we lift up holy hands to Him, what need is there of
other hecatombs? Why must we offer holocausts,
Ti de fioi oKoKavTibaecou dv /XT] Setrat 6 Qeos' 'Kalroi. irpocrcpipeLV deov
duai/xaKTOV dvalav Kal r-qu XoyiKTjv irpoab^yeiv Xarpeiav. — Corpus
Apologetarum Cbristianorum, I. C. T. Otto, Jena, 1857, pp.
59, 60.
414 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OP
since God wants them not ? We must offer an un-
bloody sacrifice, and bring to Him a reasonable ser-
vice." Minucius Felix, a much later writer than any
yet named, a Koman lawyer, is the author of an
imaginary dialogue between Octavius a Christian,
and Cecilius a Pagan. The Pagan fairly represents
the philosophical and the popular arguments against
Christianity, deals with some of the special Christian
tenets, arraigns the ignorance and presumption of
Christians, and reprobates the flagitious crimes of
which they were commonly accused. Octavius re-
pels the accusation, however common, and shows its
improbability and falsehood, explains some of the
Christian tenets, but chiefly insists — with the aid of
arguments drawn from the old philosophy itself — on
the unity of God and the doctrine of providence.
The work has some prominent faults, an occasional
puerility and triviality, as in its reference to the sign
of the cross, to the agency of demons, and to the gods
of the heathen ; but as a whole, it is one of the least
objectionable and most excellent of the ancient writ-
ings. It is simple and beautiful in conception, inge-
nious, subtle, and cogent in argument, and most
graceful and elegant in execution. But there is no
gospel.
Justin Martyr holds a most honourable place in
the list of primitive apologists. His writings, ex-
cluding several which are supposed by the best
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 415
authorities to be spurious, are mucli more extended,
if we exce|)t TertuUian, tlian those of any of the post
apostolic fathers, and more valuable as the utterance
of primitive thought and piety. One is startled, even
in them, by puerile and absurd notions, which, how-
ever, were shared, more or less, by most of the marked
names of that age which have come down to us.
Justin shocks modern ideas by his opinions respect-
ing evil spirits, their power over men, and men's
power over them, respecting the virtue of the sign of
the cross, respecting the transmigration of human
souls, and respecting baptism, in which last, how-
ever, he is far surpassed by TertuUian in mystical
and misleading language. But, as a whole, Justin's
writings are intrinsically valuable, pervaded by a
deep spirit of piety, and manifestly drawn forth out
of a genuine and profound religious experience. His
two apologues contrast favourably with that of Ter-
tuUian, as forcible and as just, but far more temper-
ate and Christian in spirit. For our purpose, it is
enough to say, that — except quotations from Scrip-
ture, and chiefly from the 53d chapter of Isaiah —
there is nothing in them bearing on satisfaction to
justice — certainly no independent statement, or even
allusion to the idea. We have a most interesting
detail of the forms of early Christian worship — the
reading, the discourse, the prayers, the eucharist of
the bread and of the cup, the duty of the deacons to
416 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OP
reserve a portion of tlie sacred feast for those who
were absent, the collection for the widows, the father-
less, and the poor. But even here, though it would
have been so natural, (had it been true,) and so
necessary and fitting, when addressing a heathen
emperor and a heathen senate, not a hint escapes
that the Christian assembly, which he had described,
believed in the expiation of human sin by the death
of Christ.
The longest and ablest of- Justin's works is his
imaginary dialogue with Trypho a Jew. It is an
extended argument, in which the once-heathen philo-
sopher proves to the Jew the Messiahship and the
Divinity of Jesus Christ ; and, as was to be expected,
it abounds with quotations from the Old Testament,
and especially from the book of Isaiah. There is,
among other things, a long and lucid explanation of
the sufferings of Christ as real, in opposition to the
Docetae, and as perfectly compatible with his essen-
tial divinity. But even here not a hint is given that
these sufferings were expiatory and judicial. The
following quotations, the strongest in expression
which the w^ork contains, must suffice to convey as
faithful and complete an impression, as can be ga-
thered, of the tone and the form of the convictions
of this accomplished and devout Christian saint : —
" Wherefore, if they repent, all who wish can obtain
mercy from God, and the Scripture pronounces them
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 417
blessed, saying, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord
will not impute sin, — that is, that having repented
of his sins, he may obtain remission of them from
God, but not as you, and some others who resemble
you in this particular, deceive yourselves, and say
that even if they be sinners, and know God, the Lord
will not impute sin to them." ^ Trypho having asked
if unbelieving Jews, who directed their lives by the
law of Moses, would be saved, Justin answers, that
whatever is naturally good, holy, and just, is com-
manded by Moses ; and then adds, " Since they who
did such things as are by nature universally and
eternally good, are well pleasing to God, they, through
this Christ of ours, shall be saved in the resurrec-
tion, equally with their righteous forefathers, Noah,
Enoch, Jacob, and others, together with those who
acknowledge Christ as the Son of God." 2 Again,
" God has, beforehand, declared that all who, through
this name, make those sacrifices which Jesus, who
^ (icrre iav fierapo'^crucri, Trdures ^ovKdfievoi rvx'^'i-v tov irapa rod
Qeov eX^os dvvaprai, koX //.aKaptovs avroi/s 6 Xoyos irpokiyeL eLirdov, Ma-
KapLos y ou fiT) XoyiarjTai K^pios a/Maprlav. ToOto di iarcv us fMera-
voriaas irrl rois rifiapTTj/xacrt rdv TjfiapTrj/jidTwv iraph rod Qeov \d^rj
dcpecriv aXX' 01;% ws vfjiels dTrarare eauroCs Kal fiXXot rivh v/xiv Sfxoiot.
Karai, toOto, ot X^yovaiv 8ti nhv afxapruXol &(ri Qebv d^ yipdicrKOvaiv, 6v
fiT] XoylarjTai. ai/rois Kvpios afxaprLav. — Cap. 141, p. 460.
2 'ETrel ot TO. KadbXov Kal (pva-ei kuI aldovia KaXa kirolovv evapecrroi
elci T($ 0e<p Kal dla tov xpi^CTOv To{rrov iu rrj dvaardaei 6/xouos rots Trpo-
yevo/xevoLi dvTuv diKalois, Nwe. '^vbx, 'Ia\'u)/3, Kal ei tipcs &XXol yeyo-
vaai, aud-qaovTai aiiv roh iinyvovai. tov xpi-CTbv tovtop tov Qeov vXov.
— Ibid., c. 45, p. 144.
2b
418 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OP
is the Christ, commanded, — ^that is to say, in the
eucharist of the bread and of the cup" — certainly no
expiatory sacrifice, but a pure act of loving remem-
brance, of thanksgiving, and of self - surrender —
" which are offered in every part of the world by us
Christians, are well pleasing to Him. But those
sacrifices which are offered by you, and through
those priests of yours. He wholly rejects, saying, I
will not accept joxir offerings at your hands." i
Again, " That prayers and thanksgivings, offered
up by the worthy, are the only sacrifices which are
perfect and acceptable to God, is what I myself also
affirm ; for these alone the Christians have been
taught to offer." 2 Again, " The mystery of the
lamb, which God commanded you to sacrifice as a
passover, was a type of Christ, with whose blood,
according to the measure of their faith in him, they
who believe anoint their houses, — that is, them-
selves." ^ Again, Justin places real against ritual
^ Hduras odv ot 5la rod dvSfiaTos roirov, dvalas &5 TapiduKcu 'IricroOs
6 Xpicrds ybecdai tovt iariv iTrl ry evxapicrria rod aprov kuI toO
iroriipLov, rb.^ iu iravrl rSircp ttjs yrjs yLVop.has virb twv xP^a-riavuv,
irpoka^div 6 Qebs fiaprvpel evap^arovs iirdpxeiv aurcp. Tas 6^ V(p v/itov
Kal 8i iK elv<av vficav tQu lepeuv yivo/xivas, iiravlerat \iy(av, rd? dvaias
iffiuv oi -irposSi^ofxai iK tup xf'pwj' v/xcav. — Ibid., c. 117, p. 387.
* "On fih ovv Kal eir^al Kal e^x'^P'-^T^^'- ^"""^ "^^^ d^lwv yivSp-evai riXeiai
p.6vai. Kal eiiapearoi dai T(p 6e<f> dvaiai Kal atrros (prjfii. Tavra yhp
(ibva Kal xpt'O'Tiavol irapfKa^ov iroielv. — Ibid., c. 117, p. 388.
^ T6 fivaTTjpiov rod irpo^aTov 6 t6 irdax'^ dijeiv ivriTaXrai 8 9e6s
Ti/TTos ^p Tov XpicTTod od T(p al'/iart /caret rbp \6yov ttjs els avrop tIct-
THE DOCTEINE OF SATISFACTION. 419
cleansing, and shows that nothing but thorough,
personal abandonment of evil can avail. It was
not surely to the bath, he says, that Isaiah sent you,
to wash away sins ; but, he adds, " as one would
think, there was of old that very washing of salva-
tion which is for those who repent, and who are no
longer purified by the blood of goats and sheep, or
by the ashes of an heifer, hut hy faith^ through the
blood and death of Christ, who died for this very
purpose." "• Again, " Through the baptism of repent-
ance, and the knowledge of God, which, as Isaiah says,
was instituted for the sins of the people, we have
believed and know that the same baptism, which
is alone able to cleanse penitents, is the water of
life." 2
Tertullian is one of the most voluminous of all
the early Christian writers, and the least satisfactory.
With no little argumentative power, philosophic cul-
ture, and natural eloquence, he is intemperate and
rews xP^ovrai roi/s otKovs iavrup, tovt i(XTiP iavroh, ol TriareiiovTes els
aMv.—Ibid., c. 40, p. 130.
^ 'AWd (is ek6s irdXat tovto iKecPO rb ffUT'^piov \ovTphv ^v 8 Ziire rb
Toh fieTayiP(I}(TKOv<n Kal firjKiTi difiaai rpdycav Kal irpo^drcov 17, ctttoScD
5a/j,d\eus Kadapi^ofiivoLs, dWb. iriarTeL 5la rod aifiaros toO Xpiarov Kal
ToO davdrov airrov 6s dla tovto diridavev. — Ibid., c. 13, p. 44.
^ Atd Tov XovTpoO o^v TT]S fieTavolas Kal ttjs yvdiiaeus tov QeoO 6 vTrhp
TTJs dvofxias tCov Xauv tov Qeov yivovev &s 'Hcat'as ^od ijfMeis eincTeTj-
(xafiev Kal yvupi^o/iep, 8Tt tovt iKeivo 8 Tporjydpeve t6 ^dirTiajxa, rb
p,bvQv Kadaplaai Toi/s p-eTavorjaavTas dvvap,evop tovt6 iffTi t6 (JSoj/) ttjs
^u)7]s.—Ibid., c. 14, p. 48.
420 OHIGIN AND GROWTH OF
unguarded, and is wanting in that pervading spirit of
piety, which so beautifully distinguishes Justin Martyr.
His later writings, when he had embraced the heresy
of Montanus, and his polemical pieces, are extrava-
gant in sentiment, and violent in spirit. The titles
of some of the former are enough : — " De Yelandis
Yirginibus, de Pudicitia, de Monogamia, Exhortatio
Castitatis," &c. We refer here solely to his earlier
and better productions, the " Apologeticus adversus
Gentes, ad Martyres, ad Scapulam, ad Uxorem II.,
de Testimonio Animas, de Spectaculis, de Idolatria, de
Oratione, de Baptismo, de Pcenitentia, de Patientia,
de Corona Militis," and " De Pr^escriptionibus ad-
versus Hereticos." Throughout these writings, it is
enough to say that no express statement of the doc-
trine of satisfaction can be found, and there is less of
Scriptural phraseology and quotation, than in any
other of the fathers. In the " Apologeticus," one of
TertuUian's best productions, and fullest of quotation
from the Scriptures, we have a mystical and obscure
exposition of the Incarnation, and thereafter of the
life and death, and resurrection and ascension of
Jesus, but not a word or hint, even here, though it
lay so directly in his way (had it been true) of satis-
faction for sin. One passage only from the writings
of TertuUian we extract, as furnishing some clue to
his guiding thoughts. It occurs in the " De Oratione,''
a commentary on our Lord's prayer. On the petition
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 421
for forgiveness of sin, Tertullian says,i " Prayer for
forgiveness is confession, for he that asketh forgive-
ness confesseth sin. Thus, also, is repentance mani-
fested, acceptable to God, because He willeth this
rather than the death of the sinner. But a debt is in
the Scriptures a figure for a sin, because payment is,
in like manner, by just sentence due, and by the same
demanded, nor can it evade the justice of the demand,
unless the demand be remitted, as the Lord forgave
that servant the debt. For the example of the whole
parable looketh this way. For whereas the same
servant, when loosed by his Lord, doth not in like
manner spare his own debtor, and being on that
account brought before his Lord, is delivered to the
tormentor, till he should pay the uttermost farthing,
that is, the very least sin, so with this agreeth that
we also profess to forgive our debtors."
We have finished our condensed account of the
early Christian writings, up to a few years beyond
^ Exomologesis est petitio veniae, quia qui petit veniam, delictum
confitetur. Sic et penitentia demonstratur acceptabilis Deo, quia
vult eum quam mortem peccaturis. Debitum autem in scriptura,
delicti figura est quod perinde judicio debeatur, et ab eo exigatur
nee evadet justitiam exactionis, nisi donetur exactio, sicut illi servo
Dominus debitum remisit. Hue enim spectat exemplura parabolae
totius. Nam et quod idem servus, a Domino liberatus, non perinde
parcit debitors suo, ac propterea delatus, penes dominum, torturi
delegatur ad solvendum novissimum quadrantem, id est, modicum
usque debitum, eo competit, quod remittere, nos quoque profitemur
debitoribus nostris. — " Patrologise cursus completus." Migne, Paris,
1844. I. 1162, 3.
4:22 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
the beginning of the third century. Injustice will
certainly be done to them, unless it be understood
that most of them make use, though not frequently, of
the New Testament language in reference to the death
of the Eedeemer, and also that in some instances they
apply passages of the Old Testament, such as the 53d
chapter of Isaiah and the 22d Psalm, to that death.
But with this exception, and an occasional expansion
or extension of a scriptural figure or image, there is
nothing to indicate the doctrine of satisfaction to
Divine justice for sin, as not only an article of Chris-
tian faith, but the fundamental and essential article.
At the same time, it is fully admitted that the ulti-
mate and real question, after all, goes back to the
meaning of the New Testament itself. No one could
fairly dispute that if the doctrine of satisfaction be
there, it is also in the post-apostolic writings. But
if it be wanting there, as we have sought to show
that it is, then unquestionably it has no place in
them.
It must here be remembered how much, quite
away from the disputed doctrine, is taught by those
passages in the New Testament which refer to the
cross, to human salvation, and to the work of the
Eedeemer. From these passages, as has been al-
ready made out, we learn most assuredly and dis-
tinctly : 1st, That the death and the entire earthly
course of Jesus originated in love to men, Grod's love
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 423
to men, and tliat they form the most mysterious ex-
hibition of perfectly pure and unprompted gracious-
ness. 2d, That the death and the life of Jesus were
literally for sin, on account of sin, and nothing but sin,
and were God's last and best means of taking away sin,
and rooting it out of the heart of the world. 3d, That
the death and the life of Jesus were truly sacrificial
— ^he freely sacrificing himself to the will of God and
to the good of men, and God sacrificing His Incarnate
Son, in order to conquer the obdurate heart of man.
And 4th, That the death and the life of Jesus were,
properly, vicarious ; that is to say, were owing not to
any personal, individual causes whatever, but to pure
regard for others ; the death was suffered, and the
life was lived, wholly and only for men, just as if
that death and that life had been a ransom given, a
price paid, for human salvation. But the gulf is
measureless, between all this and expiation of sin, or
satisfaction to justice. We then pass into a totally
opposite region, and we have then to import into
beautiful and simple words ideas which are not only
inconsistent with their natural meaning, but really
destructive of it. Imputation ! which no mind can
possibly conceive as real, but which every mind is
forced to represent as wholly fictitious. Judicial
anger ! though what that can be, as different from
real anger, it is impossible to understand. The pro-
pitiating and atoning of a Being in whose pure love
424 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
alone, it is admitted, all that has been done origi-
nated ! The idea that eternal justice is defrauded,
though by the necessity of the moral constitution of
things every sin at once inevitably punishes itself!
The farther idea that justice, robbed in one quarter,
avenges and satisfies itself in another ! These are
some of the fictions of law — such, however, as no
human law could suffer — which receive no sanction
from the New Testament, but are at variance with
every section of it, and most decidedly of all at vari-
ance with every word that fell from our blessed Lord
himself. To speak of the sacrificial, the vicarious,
the atoning, that is, reconciling and redeeming, (be-
cause love-originated and love-originating,) sufferings
of Jesus is one thing, but to imagine that these suf-
ferings are in any sense expiatory — that is, that they
make amends for sin, appease anger, or satisfy jus-
tice — is another and a totally opposite thing, which
has no sanction from God's Word, and rests wholly
on human authority.
Few can be more convinced than the writer is, that
the representation given in these pages of the early
Christian literature in its relation to the great truths
of Christianity, is likely to be more or less one-sided
and influenced, even unconsciously, by pre-judgment
or prejudice. But, happily, we are able to con-
firm to a certain extent, and more than confirm, that
representation by the unequivocal judgment of one
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 425
who entertains convictions in reference to expiation,
diametrically opposed to those upheld in this volume,
and who is the latest, as he is certainly one of the
ahlest and most ingenious, defenders of the schol-
astic theology, Dr Shedd of Andover.i Dr Shedd
entertains, no doubt, that the early Christian writ-
ings involve the received doctrine, and are entirely
consistent with it. He even affirms that " the idea
of vicarious satisfaction is distinctly enunciated by
them," 2 though we entirely deny that, apart from
the language of the New Testament, he produces
one example of such distinct enunciation. Else-
where he admits, again and again, in the most
explicit terms, that this idea is scarcely expressed
at all, and if expressed, it is so only, and always,
in the very phraseology of the Scriptures. " The
apostolic fathers merely repeated the Scripture
phraseology which contained the truth, which was
warm and vital in their Christian experience, but
did not enunciate it in the exact and guarded state-
ments of a scientific formula."^ " Taken as a whole,
the body of Patristic theology exhibits but an im-
perfect theoretic comprehension of the most funda-
mental truth in the Christian system."* " Examin-
1 "A History of Christian Doctrine," by W. G. T. Shedd, D.D.
Clark, Edinburgh, 1865.
2 Ibid., vol. ii., p. 207. * Ibid., p. 265.
* Ibid., p. 212.
426 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
ing them (the apostolic fathers) we find chiefly the
repetition of Scripture phraseology, without further
attempt at an explanatory, doctrinal statement.
There is no scientific • construction of the doctrine
of atonement in the writings of these devout dis-
ciples of Paul and John."i ''All true, scientific
development of the doctrine of the atonement, it is
very evident, must take its departure from the idea
of divine justice, .... In proportion as the mind
of the Church obtained a distinct and philoso-
phic conception of this great attribute, as an ab-
solute and necessary principle in the divine nature
and in human nature, was it enabled to specify, with
distinctness, the real meaning and purport of the
Kedeemer's passion, and to exhibit the rational and
necessary grounds for it." 2 " They (the apostolic
fathers) recognised the doctrine of atonement for
sin, by the death of the Kedeemer, as one taught
in the Scriptures, and, especially, in the writings of
the two great apostles, Paul and John, at whose feet
they had been brought up. They did not, however,
venture beyond the phraseology of Scripture, and
they attempted no rationale of the doctrine
The evangelical tenet was heartily and cordially
held in their religious experience, but it was not
drawn forth from this, its warm and glowing home,
into the cool and clear light of the intellect and of
1 Shedd, vo]. ii., p. 207. ^ /j^-^,^ pp^ 2I6, 217.
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 427
theological science. The relations of this sacrificial
death to the justice of God, on the one hand, and to
the conscience of man, on the other — the judicial
reasons and grounds of this death of the most ex-
alted of personages — were left to be investigated and
exhibited in later ages, and by other generations of
theologians." 1 "Taking the term 'atonement,' in
its technical signification, to denote the satisfaction of
divine justice for the sin of man, by the substituted
penal sufierings of the Son of God, we shall find
a slower scientific unfolding of this great cardinal
doctrine than of any other of the principal truths
of Christianity. Our investigations in this branch
of inquiry will disclose the fact, that it was re-
served for the Protestant Church and the modern
theological mind to bring the doctrines of Soteriology
to a correspondent degree of expansion." 2
I venture to emphasise this closing statement,
because I hold it to be incontestably true, and
because, if it be true, it is then past all belief
that that which took fifteen centuries thoroughly
to interpret and unfold, can have lain, all along,
as a Divine revelation in the simple language of
the New Testament. Still farther, Dr Shedd al-
lows, without qualification, that the doctrine of
satisfaction to Divine justice cannot be found in
the writings of Origen; and, almost as freely, that
1 Shedd, vol. ii., pp. 211, 212. = Ibid., p. 204.
428 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OP
it is also wanting, with anything like precision,
even in those of Augustin. Of Origen, at least,
he expressly asserts that his leading opinions are
'' incompatible with the doctrine of a satisfaction
of Divine justice ;''i and adds, "that only a very
defective and erroneous conception of this cardinal
truth of Christianity is to be found in the Alex-
andrian Soteriology."2 During the first three cen-
turies, Dr Shedd imagines an effort on the part
of the Church, but an unsuccessful effort, to exhibit
the truth in a speculative and accurate form. But
the success, he thinks, was greater as the ages
advanced. " The historical development of the doc-
trine evinces, as we follow it down the centuries,
that a gradual progress, in acquiring a scientific
understanding of the Scripture representation, is
going on." 3 "We find, for example, Gregory
Nazianzen expressing doubts, and raising inquiries,
which indicate that the theological mind was sinking
— (what! after 400 years?) — more profoundly into
the substance of revelation, and drawing nearer to a
correct logical construction of the great doctrine," ^ —
that is to say, the doctrine of satisfaction, as now
understood, had certainly not attained its deve-
lopment, towards the end of the fourth Christian
century, and was then only drawing nearer to it,
1 Shedd, vol. ii., p. 236. = Ibid., p. 237.
3 lUd., p. 244. * Ibid., p. 245.
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 429
than at any previous period. And this we hold to
be simply true, though very startling and irrepres-
sibly suggestive.
Dr Shedd has a perfect right to utter his honest
impression, that the doctrine of satisfaction was
" warm and vital in the Christian experience" of
the early writers to whom he refers, and was " re-
cognised by them as one taught in the Scriptures,"
was "heartily and cordially held in their religious
experience," and had " its warm and glowing home"
there. But this is an individual impression, and no
more — one, too, not unlikely to be created uncon-
sciously by a strong predisposition. Another reader
shall rise from a minute and careful and honest
examination of the whole of the Christian literature
of the first two centuries, with as deep an impression,
but directly the opposite — and this, too, in a great
degree, owing to a directly opposite mental bias.
But apart from mere impressions, however upright,
the fact admitted by Dr Shedd is this, that except
in the use of Scriptural phraseology, there is not
within the range of the early Christian writings, a
single expHcit independent statement, to the effect
that in the death of Christ, satisfaction for human
sins was rendered to Divine justice. May we not
venture to assert, that this issue must have been
impossible, had such a thing been not only true,
but the most fundamental and vital truth of
430 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
Christianity. The occasions presented in these
writings, we might say the clamorous necessities
arising for announcing the fact, had it heen true,
and above all, the central truth, were numerous and
palpable. It is useless to suggest that the doctrine
awaited development and construction. It certainly
did, but the radical idea underlying it was simple
enough, and could have been easily expressed.
Time might be required so to fashion it, as to
make it fit in on all sides to a completed system
of theology. But it was easy to announce that
Jesus, by his death, had expiated human sins, and
satisfied Divine justice, and that in consequence of
this, a free pardon was now righteously extended
to the chief of sinners. And this was not only easy
to announce, but supposing it to be the one saving
truth of revelation, it was essential that it should be
proclaimed aloud, whatever else was left unuttered.
Yet it is precisely this, which in a plain, free, and
unambiguous statement, is not once to be found in
any early Christian writing.
One other remarkable fact deserves to stand by
itself. The most ancient symbol of the religion of
the New Testament is that called the Apostles'
Creed, not actually composed by the apostles, but
probably dating from the apostolic age, and drawn
up from other earlier forms, in which converts en-
tering the Church were wont to profess their new
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 431
belief. This symbol contains distinctly the doctrine
of the forgiveness of sins; but other ground of
forgiveness than the pur 3 mercy of the Holy God
— the God who gave Hiis Son to live and to die for
men — it names not, nor hints at. There is an
extended confession of the Lord and Saviour in
these words, "I believe in Jesus Christ, His only
Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried; he
descended into hell, the third day he rose again
from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and sitteth
at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and
the dead," — ^but that is all — no more — not a hint
of satisfaction, now esteemed the fundamental doc-
trine of the New Testament. And yet this was the
very identical confession of faith, by which Jews and
Pagans were admitted into the Christian Church, for
at least two or three centuries. Dr Shedd gives a
summary of the Christian fafth, by Irenseus, and
another by Tertullian,! portions of which, so far as
related to our subject, may here be introduced. They
singularly strengthen the impression which the
earlier symbol is fitted to create. Iren^eus asserts
the faith of the Church " in one Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, who was made flesh for our salvation, and
1 Shedd, vol. ii., pp. 432, 433.
432 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
in the Holy Ghost, who through the prophets an-
nounced the dispensations, and the advents, and the
birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resur-
rection from the dead, and the incarnate ascension
into heaven of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord,
and his reappearance from the heavens, with the
glory of the Father/' TertuUian comprises all that is
essential in these few terms : " The rule of faith is
one only, and not to be amended, namely, the belief
in one sole omnipotent God, the maker of the world,
and in his Son Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary,
crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised from the dead
on the third day, received into heaven, seated now
on the right hand of the Father, and to come here-
after to judge the living and dead, through the re-
surrection of the flesh." Where is Divine justice,
with its claims to be satisfied? where Divine anger,
needing to be appeased? where human sin, calling for
expiation? Nowhere. For upwards of two centuries,
at least, these ideas were wholly unknown to primitive
Christianity. How, -then, were they originated ?
It is difficult for us in this age to appreciate, with
a broad and true sympathy, the condition of Chris-
tianity during the first centuries of its existence.
Single-handed it had to contend with Paganisms,
venerable for their antiquity, and rooted in the habits
of thought and of life, in the superstitious fears and
in the religious affections of the nations. It had to
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 433
confront an inveterate Judaism, and it had to meet
in argument, as best it could, the Platonic, the
Stoic, the Gnostic, and all the philosophies of the
West and of the East. Worst of all, it was dis-
tracted, broken up, and sorely scourged by intestine
divisions of creed, of worship, and of life ; and these
divisions increased in bitterness, and became, as the
ages advanced, ever more fundamental in their
causes, and more disastrous in their effects. The
names of Cerinthus, Marcion, Hermogenes, Monta-
nus, Arius, Sabellius, Pelagius, and others, are con-
nected with a history of discord during the first four
Christian centuries, almost, if not quite, without a
parallel. And it is never in strife, as even a limited
experience is sufficient to discover, that truth comes
forth, which, on the contrary, is always the fruit of
impartial, patient, and quiet investigation. In all
religious controversy, exaggeration, distortion, pre-
judice, and unfairness are certain to characterise, not
one, but both of the contending sides. Truth is
never wholly with either at the time, but is always
a later result, to which both shall ultimately con-
tribute, though it may be in very unequal propor-
tions. It would be acting in the face of all experi-
ence, to accept, as final and just, that determination
of any great question which we know to have been
reached amidst such raging disputes, rancorous per-
sonal animosities, wily ambitions, bitter jealousies,
2e
434 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
and headlong and unscrupulous passion for victory
as disgraced the third, fourth, and fifth centuries.
The fact is not to be gainsayed, that passing down
from the apostolic age, there is ever — with some
'beautiful and noble individual exceptions — less and
less confidence to be placed either in the decisions or
in the actings of the Christian Church. If, in these
pages, we have seemed to attach importance to the
Christian writings of the two first centuries, it has
not been because the writers were at all better able
— quite the reverse — than expositors in the present
day correctly to interpret the New Testament, but
simply because, since they lived near to the times of
the apostles, if a certain idea had been announced by
these inspired men, they were the persons most likely
to have caught it up, and to have expressed it in
their own words. And because they certainly did
not so express it, we have concluded that the idea in
question was not apostolic, but must have had a far
later origin.
Amidst the endless controversies which from the
first harassed Christianity, the doctrine of human
redemption by Christ and through his cross never
was, for at least many centuries, .properly the subject
of controversy at all. It would seem that the incar-
nation of the Eternal Logos, the rejection and cruci-
fixion of the Incarnate One, and in both, the infinite
love of a Holy God to men, took thorough possession
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 435
of the early Church, and rooted itself in the judgment
and heart of myriads. There was no dispute among
them concerning this. Jews and Pagans alike had
come to know and feel that salvation, real inward
deliverance, was here, even in Divine, crucified
love. Without defining or arguing, they felt within,
a contrition, a submission, a trust in God's mercy,
and an intense aspiration after purity never known
before. The cross meant to them Christ's love,
God's love, a holy love, God in Christ reconcil-
ing the world, bringing it back to Himself, and
to righteousness, and truth, and peace. This was
life for death, light for darkness, a force breaking
the heart of stone, and sweetly opening their souls,
as nothing else had ever done, to the pure influ-
ences from above. Up to this point for centuries
they were in peace, untroubled by doubt or differ-
ence respecting Christ and his cross. They asked
no questions. They did not p'hilosophise, far less
syllogise or attempt — as in later times was not only
attempted, but effected — to work out the problem of
salvation by the method of Aristotle and the laws ot
logic.
At a very early period, indeed, there were some
who, following the bent of an imaginative and
mystic nature, dwelt unwisely, as many in all the
ages up to the present have often done, on the typi
cal language of Scripture, and who, mistaking fancj-
436 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
for fact, might overpass in some of their expressions
the limit of sound reason and of truth. And among
the causes which have led to the present wide-spread
notions respecting the death of our Lord, the very
first, we believe, and not the least powerful because
very insidious, was the misuse of typical and meta-
phorical language. The Kedeemer of men, as has
been repeatedly shown, is often compared in his
death to the ancient sacrifices ; his blood is likened
to a ransom paid for the deliverance of a captive, and
he is sometimes virtually, though never in express
terms, represented as the substitute of men. These
are Scriptural figures, and in certain easily dis-
covered respects, they convey real truth, but they
are figures and only figures of truth, and not them-
selves truths. The spiritual reality which ihey em-
body is not, as has been and is still so often imagined,
a mere counterpart and no more of the literal image
which represents it, but something widely different,
though showing distinct points of resemblance,
something immeasurably grander, purer, truer, than
any possible figure can suggest. It is not hard to
trace, in very ancient as in modern times, the evil
effects of this misuse and misapplication of figures,
and of an allegorical and mystical interpretation
of Holy Scripture. We distinctly believe that in
this is to be found the original deadly root, out
of which grew up, in the course of centuries, with
THE DOCTRINE OP SATISFACTION. 437
its many branches, the doctrine of satisfaction for
sin.
A careful examination of the early Christian litera-
ture shows that the very first, faint mooting of this
notion, though the peculiar term was not used in this
sense for centuries afterwards, was occasioned by a
misapprehension of the Scriptural figure of a ransom
for sin. Imagining this to be not a similitude, but
a literal fact, believing that an actual ransom had
been paid for the deliverance of men, the question
arose to whom was the ransom paid. The first
answer given to this question was most natural and
perfectly unassailable, if the previous thought had
been just. The ransom must have been paid to the
Being by whom the captives were held in bondage,
and out of whose hands they were to be delivered —
it must have been paid to Satan, the tempter and
vanquisher of the world. The writer who first
distinctly put forth this idea is Irenasus, the disciple
of Polycarp. One passage only, out of many which
might be quoted, we shall here introduce, and chiefly
for the reason that its meaning has been conceived
to be altogether opposed to the notion of a ransom to
Satan : " And since the apostate unjustly lorded it
over us, and while we belonged of right to Almighty
God, alienated us from Him, contrary to nature,
making us his own peculiar disciples, the Logos of
God, all-powerful and not failing in his proper
438 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
justice, dealt righteously even with the apostacy
itself, redeeming that which was his own from it,
not by force, as he (Satan) had done in the begin-
ning, but by persuasion, as became a God who per-
suades and does not employ force to gain what He
wishes, so that neither what is just might be violated,
nor the primitive plan of God be destroyed." i
From this passage Dr Shedd 2 shows clearly that
the persuasive influence referred to is employed with
man, to determine him to cast off the yoke of Satan.
Undoubtedly it is so. Ireneeus argues that God did
not by force tear the captives from the usurp-
ing tyrant, but acted so as that men of their own
accord should renounce his service. It was by force,
by force of craft and falsehood, that Satan had en-
slaved the world. But not thus was spiritual deliver-
ance to be achieved. As men of their own free will
had surrendered themselves to the usurper, even so
^ Lib. v., c. i. 1. "Et quoniam in juste dominabatur nobis,
apostasia et cum natura essemus Dei omnipotentis, alienavit nos
contra naturam, suos proprios, nos faciens discipulos, potens in
omnibus, Dei verbum et nou deficiens in sua justitia, juste etiam
adversus ipsam conversus est apostasiam, ea quae sunt sua, redimens
ab eo, non cum vi, quemadmodum ille initio, sed secundum suade-
1am, quemadmodum decebat Deum suadentem et non vim inferen-
tem, accipere quae vellet, ut neque, quod est justum confriugsre-
tur neque antiqua plasmatio Dei deperiret."
For further and fuller illustrations of the views of Irenseus,
the following passages may be consulted: lib. iii., cc. 18, 19, 23;
lib. v., cc. 2, 14, 16, 21, &c., &c.
2 Shedd, vol. ii., p. 213.
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 439
their deliverance from his bondage must be not
compulsory, but voluntary, an act of their own will.
But all the while, it is as true as ever, and as patent
as it well can be, that the entire discussion conducted
by Irenasus relates wholly and solely to the satis-
faction of the claims of Satan on man. Not a word
is uttered of meeting the demands of Divine justice,
as if that had been defrauded. Whatever idea of
reparation, or amends, or compensation is expressed
by this ancient father, it is to Satan, not to God, that
the amends are made.
It is not doubted that the reigning idea in the
writings of Origen, in relation to this subject, is that
of a ransom paid to the Evil One for the redemption
of men. But Origen ventures far beyond this point,
beyond the notion of a compact or bargain between
Satan and God, by which the claims of Satan were
to be met, and shows indisputably that anything like
satisfaction to God's justice had no place in his mind.
He distinctly believed in the claims of Satan, who
held men in bondage, and that a ransom must of
necessity, and as a matter of common equity, be paid
to him. But, in the contract which was imagined
to have been entered into, he conceived that the
tempter was overreached by infinite wisdom, was the
victim of a subtle deception, and was befooled by
the very terms to which he had consented. According
to Divine arrangement, a man was given into his
440 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OP
hands, on whom he was free to exhaust all his
temptations, and to exert his utmost power and
craft. The agreement was, that if this Being failed,
men were for ever to remain in bondage, but if he
were unconquered, men were to be forthwith released.
The devil in his pride and rage conceived the idea,
that if this substitute could be disowned, rejected by
those whom he came to rescue, and could be ignomi-
niously cast out of the world, his success would then
be certain. But success proved signal defeat. Jesus
died, but by his death the world was redeemed.
It is important here, because bearing essentially
on the development of doctrine, to note the character-
istics and the general condition of visible Christianity
about the time of Origen. At the introduction of
the Mosaic economy, it seemed good to Divine
wisdom, to commit a special revelation of truth to
one inconsiderable nation, to separate that nation
from all others on the face of the earth, to distinguish
it by innumerable peculiar institutions and privileges,
and to educate it for a sacred destiny in relation to
the rest of mankind. Christianity, on the other
hand, was never national, and was never meant to be
so, but was from the first strictly universal, and was
thrown utterly defenceless upon the wide world. It
was surrendered to all nations, and all times ; to men
of all characters, and all conditions, without a single
protection, or guard, or special help from any quarter.
THE DOCTEINE OF SATISFACTION. 441
except within itself. It was left perfectly alone, to
all the possible hazards of an evil world, and it had
to suffer, in common with everything here below,
from the weaknesses, and the errors, the depraved
tastes, and the bad passions, the enmities and the
crimes of men. A Divine Providence was over it,
and a Divine Spirit was within it, but it had to
take its full share, without stint, of scathe and loss,
in the great conflict with darkness, and with the powers
of evil, on this earth. "What it was in the mind of
God, in the soul of Christ, and in the words of
the inspired Book, was one thing; what it became
in the opinions of men, and in the outward forms
in which they represented it, was altogether a
dififerent thing. Itself divine, it was hindered and
damaged in ten thousand ways, through human folly,
human error, and human sin; now robbed of some
distinctive glory, and again dishonoured and cor-
rupted by spurious additions. The testimony of the
best ecclesiastical historians is to this effect uniformly
and decisively, that by the end of the third century,
the simple, spiritual religion of the cross had become,
and afterwards more and more became, a huge super-
stition, purposely and not distantly assimilated to the
old idolatries of Greece and Kome. The principle of
assimilation, with a view to overcome the hostility of
the heathen, was openly avowed and acted upon.
Festival days, reverence of images and of holy relics,
44:2 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OP
processions and lustrations, burning of incense, gor-
geous robes and vestures, fastings, scourgings, macera-
tion, and asceticism in its extreme forms, celibacy,
monastic life, retirement to desert solitudes, venera-
tion of holy places, and above all, of the holy places
in and around Jerusalem, pilgrimages to the tombs
of the martyrs — these, belong to the authentic history
of the third and fourth and later centuries, and they
involve and incriminate the most honoured names
that have come down to us. St Jerome, and
Ambrose, and Martin of Tours, and not least of all,
Augustin, were the open and ardent defenders of the
superstitions of their times.
The high honour in which martyrdom was held
seems to have been among the earliest and the most
powerful of the causes of degeneracy. To cherish
the memory of those who had been faithful unto
death, was not only natural, it was simply right and
just, and it might have been, under wise guidance,
productive of nothing but good. But it proved a
snare and a sin. Martyrdom became an object of
desire, because of the posthumous glory which it
secured. Multitudes were smitten with the strange
ambiiion to die the martyr's death, in order that they
might gain tke martyr s crown. In the mercenary
and debasing arithmetic of the Church, the martyr
was reckoned to have yielded a peculiar satisfaction
to the mind of God, over and above what was strictly
THE DOCTEINE OF SATISFACTION. 443
due, and to have done a work of pious supererogation.
The word " satisfaction" in the sense of atoning for
sin was never once used, till Anselm many centuries
later adopted it ; but the satisfactions of the saints,
their good deeds beyond the strict requirements of
law, are named so early as the time of Tertullian, and
ere long became an accepted phraseology. They
formed, withal, the first contributions to that ima-
ginary treasury of human merit, over which the
Koman Church claims to preside, and on which she
based her flagitious system of indulgences.
It is a new illustration and confirmation of what
we are seeking to show was the original source of
error— the misinterpretation of figurative language.
First of all, the phrase, a ransom for sin, was ima-
gined to be not a metaphor but a reality, and the
idea of satisfaction to the claims of Satan was the
result. Then again, the misleading figure was that
of sins, as debts due to God. And they are so, and
may justly be so called in several quite obvious re-
spects. It is a fact that we owe obedience to God,
and failing to obey Him, we may be said to be charge-
able with an unpaid debt. The language is perfectly
intelligible and simple. But it is figure, not fact ; it
is a legitimate similitude, but no more ; and the reality
to which it points is immeasurably higher and more
sacred than the mere similitude suggests. We have
resisted God, and conscience, and reason, and have
444 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
set our will against God's will. We have wronged
God, wronged ourselves, and wronged the whole uni-
verse of moral being, in the commission of even a
single sin. That is the reality, that is the fact, and
no figure, and we descend incalculably when from
this we pass to the similitude of a debtor and creditor
account between God and His creatures, with works
of supererogation on the one side, and penances and
inflictions or atonements of any kind on the other
side.
Be this as it may, it is evident that from an early
period the general idea of yielding satisfaction to the
mind of God, though not in the sense of appeasing
His anger, but in the sense of awakening His com-
placency, was familiar to Christian thought. Besides
this, even the special idea of satisfaction to justice,
though not to Divine justice, but only justice in re-
spect of the claims of Satan, had been freely expressed
and accepted. All the while, in these early centuries,
not one Christian writer is found to advocate satisfac-
tion to Divine justice on account of human sin, as if
God's justice had been defrauded and dishonoured, and
as if it needed and must receive adequate reparation.
This dogma waited, for at least three hundred years
after the death of Christ, before it was distinctly and
unmistakably announced to the world. Athanasius,
one of the most imperious, daring, and subtle con-
troversialists of any age, was the very first who
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 445
expressed the idea with perfect clearness ; and he not
only expresses it distinctly, but contends for it, though
briefly and cursorily, on the very grounds which were
afterwards taken with such exhaustive fulness, and
with dire effect, by Anselm. One short sentence will
be sufficient to confirm this statement : " The first
and principal ground of the Logos becoming man
was, that the condemnation of the law, by which we
are burdened v/ith guilt and eternal punishment,
might be removed by the payment of the penalty." ^
This sentence, it is enough to note, does not stand
alone, but is one of many scattered passages, all more
or less clear and decisive.
Passing on to the age of Augustin, we find es-
pecially in his confessions, and in the touching
utterances of his religious experience, what plainly
involves the idea, though the distinctive term is not
employed, of a satisfaction to Divine justice on account
of human sin. But this is very far from being per-
sistently upheld, and is associated closely with the
notion of satisfaction to the claims of Satan. Dr
Shedd admits, " that [by Augustin] the claims of
Satan are sometimes recognised in connexion with
those of [Divine] justice." 2 And in reference to the
earlier Patristic theology as a whole, he confesses
freely that, " One characteristic which strikes the at-
^ De Incar., c. 11-14, so quoted and translated by Shedd, ii. 243.
2 Shedd, vol. ii., pp. 253-4.
44G ORIGIN AND GROWTH, ETC.
tention is the important part which the doctrine of
Satan plays in it." l Again, he states with great
force, basing the statement on what he deems strong
and sound reason : " In the writings of the first three
centuries, disproportionate attention is bestowed upon
the connexion between redemption and the kingdom
of darkness, and upon the relation of apostate man to
Satan. The attribute of Divine justice ought to have
been brought more conspicuously into view by the
theologians of this period, and the person and agency
of the devil have retired more into the background." 2
Dr Shedd is perfectly entitled to think so, but it is a
matter of fact that these early fathers did not. Un-
questionably, their views were not those of their critic,
but something widely, even essentially difi'erent. And
from the time of Augustin to the middle of the
eleventh century, the two aspects of satisfaction, as
referring to the claims of God or to the claims of
Satan — now the one, and now the other, and again
both — are set forth by difi'erent writers of various
authority. But at this period, through the infiuence
of the writings of Anselm, a change of the most es-
sential nature was effected, creating a totally new era
in the development of Christian doctrine.
1 Shedd, vol. ii., p. 215. * Ibid., p. 215.
SECTION SECOND — FROM THE AGE OF ANSELM TO THE
PRESENT TIME.
Athanasius and Anselm — Second, Deeper Source of Error — Pride
of Eeason — Intellectual Subtlety — False Philosophy — Misap-
plication of Logic — Anselm's Tractate, Logical, not Philoso-
phical — Conclusion False — Thomas Aquinas — Luther — Secret
of his Power — Success of Evangelical Churches — Calvin, Theo-
logian of Reformation— Evangelical Transcendentalism — Es-
sential Relation of Divine to Human — God, Father of Souls
— Loving, Redeeming Father.
WE have judged that Athanasius was the first to
put forth clearly, and to argue, though in
brief and occasional passages, the dogma of satisfac-
tion for sin. There lies in this fact a deeper signifi-
cance than is at first apparent. No one acquainted
with the history of the age in which this extraordi-
nary man lived, and with the part he took in the
discussion of those dark questions which were then
agitated, can doubt that whatever else he was, as a
resolute and expert dialectician he had no superior,
scarcely an equal. No problem was so profound, no
dogma was so transcendental, as to deter him from
448 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OP
the attempt to subject it to his intellect, and to the
laws of ratiocination. A penetrating, dauntless, fiery
soul, he quailed not even before the awful mystery of
the uncreated essence, the Trinity, the eternal gene-
ration of the Logos, and the procession of the Holy
Ghost. He was one who would understand, explain,
define everything, and master it by force of intellect,
and submit it to the laws and the terms of logic.
In connexion with this fact, let it be here borne in
mind, as was noted in the previous section, how often
Dr Shedd laments, in the first three centuries, " the
slow unfolding of the great, cardinal doctrine (as he
judges) of Christianity," i and that in the writings of
the period there is "no scientific construction of the
doctrine of atonement," 2 that the fathers " attempted
no rationale of the dogma," ^ and did not present
" the judicial reasons and grounds of the death of
the most exalted of personages." ^ He speaks also of
the great necessity of " the Church obtaining a dis-
tinct and philosophic conception of this great attri-
bute,"^ (justice,) so as to " exhibit the rational and
necessary grounds "4 for the Kedeemer's death. Such
phrases as "a true, scientific development of this
doctrine," 4 « a correct, logical construction of the
great doctrine," 5 " a scientific understanding of it," 6
putting it "in the exact and guarded statements of a
1 Shedd, vol. ii., p. 204. ^ jj^i^ ^ p, 207. ^ jud^^ p, 211.
* Ibid., p. 216. 5 Ibid., p. 245. ^ j^^^^ p^ 244.
THE DOCTEINE OF SATISFACTION. 449
scientific formula,"! are not rare, and give a charac-
ter to his discussion of the subject which it is scarcely
possible to misinterpret.
Deliberately, we mean to maintain that that later
application of the forms and the laws of Aristotle to
the actings and the words of God, which Dr Shedd
so much desiderates, and the want of w^hich in the
earlier centuries he bewails so deeply, was one of the
worst evils which ever afflicted Christianity, and has
entailed an incalculable amount of injury. The
primary cause of error was the misinterpretation of
inetaphorical language, converting similitude into
reality, and figure into fact. But a second, and far
deeper and more potent cause, was the transference
of Divine thoughts and Divine procedure from their
own free and wide S|)here, and their manifold rela-
tions, to the modes and terms of human logic. It
is a most significant fact that Athanasius, an accom-
plished and adventurous dialectician, should have
been the first to put forward the dogma of satisfac-
tion in unambiguous words, and to place it on its
imagined impregnable ground. It is more signifi-
cant and suggestive still that this dogma, after 700
years from the time of Athanasius, should liave found
its greatest champion, and by far its ablest expositor,
in Anselm, the vigorous, and, to some extent, the
successful antagonist of Abelard and Eoscelin, one
1 Shedd, vol. ii., i\ 265.
2f
450 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OP
among tlie most distinguislied leaders of tlie scholas-
tic philosophy, in an age when it was reaching its
highest vigour, and beginning to claim its widest
authority, when Aristotle was rising to supremacy,
and the magic w^ords "magister ait" were sufficient
to silence any disputant.
Anselm is the veritable father and founder of that
theology w^hich is adopted, with little modification,
by the Protestant Evangelical Churches of Chris-
tendom.i His " Cur Deus Homo" is the mine from
which many later controversialists have dug out
their best materials ; and it contains, in substance
and even in form, all the strongest arguments by
which the dogma of satisfaction is defended at this
day. The claims of Satan are here entirely set
aside ; Anselm argues solely for the absolute neces-
sity of a complete satisfaction to the justice of God,
and for the first time affixes this sense to the
favourite term of artificial theology, " satisfaction.''
In the briefest possible compass, his argument is
this: — Sin is a debt, and must be paid. God has
been robbed of His due, and as the Infinitely Just
One, He cannot sufier the robbery to be unpunished.
A less cannot be accepted for a greater satisfaction.
Sin is infinite demerit, and demands an infinite
punishment. Only God can satisfy the claims of
God ; but also, only man can satisfy for the sin of
1 Anselmi Opera Omnia, Migne, 1853, pp. 361-451.
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 451
man. Hence the God-man, and the infinite merit of
the sacrifice of the cross !
Anselm's tractate is a finished specimen of the
best scholastic productions of the period. With
something of their tediousness and pettiness, it is
nevertheless full and thorough and exhaustive, and
as a piece of logical argumentation, it is invulner-
able, if the premises be admitted. But the premises
are false ; on the basis of the principles which have
been advocated in the earlier portions of this volume,
we maintain that they are thoroughly false. The
simple fact is, that sin always exacts its own punish-
ment, and always continues, so long as it remains in
the soul, to exact its own punishment. And in this
fact, the justice which ordains always secures its own
satisfaction. But when sin has been punished, and
when justice has been satisfied, it seems to have
been forgotten by the great logician, or regarded as a
fact of no importance, that there remains something
still untouched, and it is the only thing which re-
mains, the state of the sinning mind, a state of
disregard and resistance to God, a feeling of indif-
ference and of aversion. No punishment, no satis-
faction, however stern, can reach this, or make the
slightest amends for it. This is a true debt, which
can never be paid, except by the mind itself being
changed. The wrong done to our nature, and the
wrong done to the justice of the universe, may be
4:52 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
met, and are always met, by adequate punishment ;
but the cruel wrong done to God by the state of our
minds, their alienation and their enmity, cannot be
atoned for while it remains, and it cannot even be
touched, except by one instrument. The only thing
possible even for God to do, is to kill enmity by
love; to forgive, and to destroy by forgiving, that
which is not less cruel to Him than ruinous to us.
In this relation the teaching of the Holy Saviour is
full of power as of truth. He bids us go to God
and say to Him, " Forgive us our debts, as we for-
give our debtors." Do we forgive our debtors only
when the debts are paid, and because they are paid,
and if we did so, could forgiveness have any true
meaning ?
Dr Shedd's admiration of Anselm's work is almost
without limit. It is a " remarkable composition,
which exhibits a depth, breadth, and vigour of
thinking that is not surpassed by any production of
the same extent in theological literature, and de-
serves to be studied and pondered by every Protes-
tant divine. For it is obvious to remark that such
a view of the atonement as is here exhibited is
thoroughly biblical and thoroughly Protestant."!
"His (Anselm's) view of the work of Christ agrees
substantially with that of the Keformation."2 "If
his (Anselm's) views and experience, as exhibited in
1 Shedd, vol. ii., p. 282. » Ibid., p. 274.
J
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 453
the ' Cur Deus Homo/ could have become those
of the Church, of which he was a member and an
ornament, the revival of the doctrine of justification
by faith in the Lutheran Keformation would not have
been needed/' i And the foundation of Dr Shedd'o
excessive estimate of Anselm's work is revealed very
unambiguously by himself. " So far as the theory
of vicarious satisfaction is concerned, this little trea-
tise contains the substance of the reformed doctrine,
while, at the same time, it enunciates those philoso-
phical principles which must enter into every scien-
tific construction of this cardinal truth of Christian-
ity." 2 Again, "Anselm begins and ends with the
idea of an absolute necessity of an atonement, in
order to the redemption of man. Everything is
referred to a metaphysical or necessary ground, and
hence we have in this theory the first metapliysique
of the Christian doctrine of atonement." ^ And
again, " Anselm is the first instance in which the
theologian plants himself upon the position of philo-
sophy, and challenges, for the doctrine of vicarious
satisfaction, both a rational necessity and a scientific
rationality. The fundamental position of the ' Cur
Deus Homo' is, that the atonement of the Son of God
is absolutely or metaphysically necessary, in order to
the remission of sin. Anselm concedes, by implica-
tion, throughout his work, that if it cannot be made
1 Shedd, vol. ii., p. 285. ^ m^,^ p. 283. ' Ibid, pp. 274, 275.
454 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
out that the vicarious satisfaction of Divine justice,
by the theanthropic sufferings of Jesus Christ, is
required by a necessary and immanent attribute of
the Divine nature, then a scientific character cannot
be vindicated for the doctrine ; for nothing that is
not metaphysically necessary is scientific." i
These high sounding and not measured phrases,
applied to the most sacred subject of thought, are
very painful and grating. " Enunciation of philo-
sophical principles," " scientific construction of a
revealed truth," " metaphysical ground," " the first
metaphysique of the Christian doctrine," " the theo-
logian planting himself on the position of philoso-
phy." Where are we, amidst this bewilderment of
sounds, very strange to the anxious student of a life
and death question of the New Testament ; and all
this has reference to a date a thousand years later
than the death of Christ. Anselm was a man of
vigorous and cultivated intellect, and of undoubted
piety ; but if his discovery and demonstration were
not only true, but the essential and saving truth of
Christianity, how came they to be delayed for an
entire millennium? One is prompted to ask, are
we dealing with an early, divine message, commu-
nicated for the salvation of the world 1800 years
ago, or not rather v/ith a late, human invention?
Is it a revelation from God which is before us, a
1 Shedd, vol. ii., p. 275.
THE DOCTRINE OP SATISFACTION". 455
revelation to men, intended to be understood by
men, by common men, by all sorts of men, by men
everywhere, and in every age ? Or is it not much
rather an intricate problem which can be solved,
a dark, intellectual, enigmatic, sibylline utterance,
which can be understood and appreciated, at all
events, can be interpreted only by a profound philo-
soj)her, or an expert logician ?
No enlightened Christian would willingly believe
that either philosophy or logic was distinctly at war
with any doctrine of revelation. Happily, the ten-
dency, and even the effect of modern discussion, how-
ever mischievous and lawless in some directions, have
been to establish a deep harmony between the moral
constitution of man, the intuitions, and principles,
and powers of his higher nature, and the messages
and the teachings of the New Testament. And it
needs no prophetic eye to foresee that the more sim-
ply and reverently that holy record is studied, and
the more it is set free from a vicious metaphysics
and an unsound logic, the more surely it will be
found to meet the deepest wants, to harmonise with
the essential nature, and to awaken the living re-
sponse of the human spirit, and the more serenely and
resistlessly it will vindicate for itself a Divine origin,
as a true message from the great Father of all souls.
A false philosophy, long dominant, but now rejected
by all the best endowed minds of Europe, has given
456 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
birth to most of the errors of dogmatic theology.
Perhaps philosophy, rightly conceived and aided by
a sound logic, shall yet be the instrument for correct-
ing these errors, and for guiding honest souls to
accept the teachings and the facts of the New
Testament, simply as they are, without any attempt
to build them up into a system, cemented with
untempered mortar, and resting on a foundation of
sand.
Philosophy, in its own place, is only noble, elevat-
ing, and sanctifying. To descend beneath phenomena
to the intelligible principles of which they are the
outward form, and by which alone they can be truly
understood ; to look with wide, open eye on the vast
kingdom of fact and of thought ; to investigate, with
patient toil, the relation between these two ; to search,
amidst seeming disorder, for an essential harmony of
things ; to trace up multiplicity and diversity to an
all-embracing unity, and with the profound con-
viction, all the while, of the necessary limitation of
our faculties, and the entire assurance that, at the
best, it is only an approximation, a distant and
partial approximation to truth, which is possible for
us, nevertheless ; to labour to interpret, up to our
measure, the great universe of God — this is among
the grandest and the holiest aims of human wisdom.
In the widest sense, theology belongs, of right, to
such a philosophy, and constitutes its highest and
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 457
most sacred department. Nothing can be plainer in
the history of the ages than that philosophy and
theology have acted and reacted most powerfully the
one on the other. And if a false philosophy in the
past has proved baneful in the sacred region, it
may be, that from this very region, good shall be
returned for the evil, and the secret of a philosophy
_^uch as the noblest human sage never dreamed of,
shall be found to lie in the inspirations of a simpler
and diviner theology.
Logic, as revealing the laws according to which
the processes of thought can alone be accurately
conducted, is invaluable for its own proper purpose,
but it cannot be too often repeated, that that pur-
pose is never the discovery of new truth. Logic can
discover nothing, can never rise higher than its
source, or lift us up from the known to the yet
unknown. It can only interpret, vindicate, and
support what by other means has been already dis-
covered. It starts from premises which it takes for
granted at the outset, and it can bring nothing forth
of them which is not already contained in them, and
would only stultify itself by an attempt of the kind.
It can eliminate, interpret, and defend what is
involved in the premises, but nothing more. It
would be hard to discover philosophy, in any worthy
sense, in the '' Cur Deus Homo." Such views of
the intelligent universe, as are presented in it, suggest
^5S OKIGIN AND GROWTH OF
notliing so much as a court-liouse and a criminal
trial, and such views of God, as it contains, would
transform the great Father of souls into a stern and
punctilious judge, in whom mercy has no place, and
whose chief glory is the rigour of His sentences, and
the relentless exactitude with which they are executed.
The work is pre-eminently logical, but not philo-
sophical, and the logic is faultless, except in that
which is most of all essential, its foundation. The
argument is logically accurate, and the conclusion
is fairly deduced, but the premises being false, the
whole process is vitiated, and the conclusion is an
aggravated untruth.
We return to the position that the second and the
deeper originating cause of the dogma of satisfac-
tion was the application of a false philosophy, and
an unsound logic to revealed truth, and to the inter-
pretation of the New Testament. Men could not or
would not content themselves with the simple words
of Scripture. They must justify these words, must
discover not their plain meaning, but their unex-
pressed secret ground in the mind of God, must
arrange them in logical order and put them into the
idolised form of the syllogism. The New Testament
naturally and ingenuously interpreted was abundantly
plain. It proclaimed that God loved the world, the
sinful w^orld, was not willing that His children
should perish in their separation from Him, but was
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 459
infinitely ready to receive them, and wanted nothing
at their hands, but that they should believe His
love, and yield back their hearts to Him. The New
Testament proclaimed that, in order to convince men
of His holy mercy, God had come near to them, as
no^-r as it was possible for Him to come, and had in-
x babited, possessed, and pervaded a human soul in a
human body, and made it his home, in a sense which
it is impossible for us to fathom, but of which even
our poor conceptions are overwhelming. The New
Testament proclaimed that this God-man, Jesus Christ
our Lord, came forth as the chosen medium,^ through
which men might be reconciled to God, and was pre-
pared for any amount of sacrifice, involved in a direct
connexion of the human with the divine, and as it
proved a direct collision between the human and the
divine. Purposely concealed, he was not only un-
known, but cruelly rejected and despised, and at last
in his meek wisdom, his Divine purity, his tenderness
and spiritual beauty and grace, he could not be en-
dured, and was ignominiously slain and cast forth.
" Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the
sins of the world ! " not by gaining for men a judicial,
nominal acquittal from sins, all whose inherent penal
force necessarily remained, but by eradicating the
evil principle itself out of their hearts, killing it at its
root and casting it forth.
^ See note on page 27.
460 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
But this was not enough for the great contro-
versialist of the fourth century, and for the chief
master of logic in the scholastic age. That tendency
to philosophise or rather to syllogise on sacred
mysteries, which from the time of Athanasius had
struggled to embody and enthrone itself in the
Church, at last found its anointed high priest and its
final and exhaustive exponent in Anselm. The pride
of reason and the passion for logical subtlety had
long striven, and at last succeeded in erecting them-
selves as supreme in the sphere of religious, as of
speculative and scientific, truth. God's Word appealed,
and always does appeal, to the understanding, it is
true ; but men failed to perceive that through the
understanding it addressed immediately and chiefly
the moral nature, the consciousness of evil, the sense
of need, and the great fountain of spiritual emotion
in the heart, which is stirred to its depths, by nothing
so much as the conviction of ingratitude, coupled
with the thought of Divine patience, and of un-
prompted, undeserved, unrequited, and abused Divine
graciousness. Instead of feeling with their hearts,
and taking in to the deepest depths of their moral
being, that truth which their intellect had at once
perceived, men must explain and reason out what
God had not explained, what indeed needed no ex-
planation, 'and found its perfect solution in the in-
stant experience of the soul itself. Unsatisfied with
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 461
clear Divine announceinents, so clear that he that
runs may read and understand them, men must
interpret them by a human standard, must find out
the hidden principles on which they rest, which God
hasj not revealed, and must prove them to be con-
sistent, honourable, righteous, and altogether worthy,
as they judge of the Great Being. These system-
builders, who valued nothing which could not be put
into the mould of a syllogism, and was not constructed
according to the laws of Aristotle, must syllogise on
the Divine Kedemption. And they did, to the admira-
tion of the schools, but with the direst effect on
Christianity. Too speedily they reduced the Divine
to the human, and narrowed, and dwarfed, and
crippled God's simple, glorious, unencumbered
plan, till that which was high as heaven and
broad as eternity, shrank to the measure of a man,
and to the paltry proportions of a sum in common
arithmetic.
The theory of salvation, boldly sketched with in-
genious subtlety by Anselm, admitted of being ex-
tensively worked out in many minor details, and its
capability in this respect was very early tested and
exhibited. Thomas Aquinas, himself a master in
logic, a profound theologian, and a man of extraor-
dinary piety, analysed much further than Anselm
had done, and subdivided the great work of the Ee-
deemer, and adjusted its separate parts to the sepa-
462 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
rate necessities of man. By him, for the first time,
that distinction, now so famiHar to theologians, was
drawn between the active and passive obedience of
Christ. The sufferings of the Saviour, his passive
obedience, Aquinas laid down, were the payment to
Justice of the debt of sin, whereby men were righte-
ously set free from all its penal consequences. His
personal virtues on the other hand, his conformity in
his soul and in his life to the perfect will of God,
constituted his active obedience, and formed a fund
of supererogatory merit, on the ground of which men
could be accepted as perfectly righteous, and ac-
quired a just title to heaven. That is to say, in
addition to the imputation of human sin to Christ,
which was embodied in the theory of Anselm, a
totally new dogma was now inculcated for the first
time, that of the imputation of Christ's personal
righteousness to sinful men.
It would be tedious and of little practical value
to detail the innumerable questions and discussions
that arose out of the dogma of satisfaction to Divine
justice. Suffice it to say, that from its first exposi-
tion by Anselm, it was accepted very widely, all but
universally, as a fundamental truth. But with its
acceptance, the logical passion and the propensity to
systematise were by no means quieted. On the con-
trary, both found abundant scope, even within the
limits of this single article of faith ; — whether the
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 463
satisfaction of Christ was in itself absolutely or only
relatively necessary ; whether this was the only method
by which God's purpose of redemption could have
-vbee^ achieved, or whether out of many possible
methods this was simply that, which in His sove-
reign wisdom, God selected; whether the satisfac-
tion to Divine justice was rendered on behalf of all
mankind, or only on behalf of the elect ; whether
the sufferings and death of Christ were a perfect,
literal carrying out of the sentence of the Divine
law, or not rather a merciful relaxation of its seve-
rity ; whether they were an exact equivalent for the
eternal punishment of transgressors, or were merci-
fully accepted by God as an equivalent, though not
really such ; so also, whether on the ground of the
satisfaction rendered by Christ men are justified be-
fore God through faith alone, or through an incipient
holiness, the work of God's Spirit, or partly through
both ? These are among the questions which gave
rise to endless divisions among Koman Catholics and
Protestants alike, and on which much subtlety, much
vehemence, and no little erudition and genuine piety
were expended to no good purpose, and with no bene-
ficial result.
Luther's crowning peculiarity of belief — the, to
him, " articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae" — was the
doctrine of justification by faith alone. And in order
to appreciate this peculiarity, to understand truly
464 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OP
what he meant hy it, and how he had been led
up to it, the previous circumstances must be very
distinctly brought to mind. The abuses connected
with the Popish dogma of indulgences, it is well
known — the money-price by which they could be
obtained, to any amount, by any person, be his
character what it might — the public sale of them,
and the plea used at the confessional, that penances
enjoined by the priest were cancelled by purchased
indulgences ; — these were the proximate causes
which acted on Luther's mind, and eventually led
to the Protestant Keformation. He saw clearly
that it was idle to allege that indulgences were no
licence to sin, and did not release, and were not
meant to release, men from the real penal conse-
quences of sin, either here or hereafter, and that
they only absolved from the claims of the Church,
and from ecclesiastical penalties and censures. He
saw clearly that, in effect, and as a matter of fact,
practically and really, in the lives of the great mass
of the people, indulgences amounted to a full per-
mission to sin, and were universally so considered.
Luther had no quarrel at this time with the doctrine
of satisfactions, human, minor satisfactions, for sins
confessed, satisfactions enjoined by the Church, as
befitting tokens and means of penitence. On the
contrary, in his mind, this was in harmony with
the higher and far more important doctrine main-
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 465
tained by Anselm and Aquinas, and long universally
accepted, of one sole' satisfaction to Divine justice,
for human guilt rendered by Christ on the cross.
To this last idea, especially, from his childhood
he had been thoroughly trained, and never aban-
doned it as an essential article of Christian faith.
All his accustomed thoughts, and all his habits
and modes of judging, had grown up along with
it, and would have been wrenched and shocked by
its rejection. In connexion with this, it must be
remembered that, as an Augustinian monk, he had
accepted the doctrine of salvation by free grace, —
nor only so, but after a long and painful course of
inward conflict, of distressing soul-experience, this
article of belief had become to him a life within.
He, for himself, when all else failed, had found the
peace of God in this refuge. When, therefore, the
question was asked, satisfaction to God ? by whom ?
Luther's answer was instant and profound, " by
Christ, by Christ alone." Or, when the farther
question was put, " How does Christ's satisfaction
become available to us?" the reply was not less
assured and prompt, " by faith, by faith alone, with-
out works of any kind, in any sense — by grace, by
the free grace of God, not by merit, unless the hand
of the beggar can claim merit, which simply accepts
an alms."
The free love of God in Christ was the vital,
2g
4:66 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
glowing centre of Luther's faith, and the hidden
source of success, all through his course, as, always
and everywhere, it has been the source of strength
and triumph wherever it has been proclaimed.
This is the very primitive New Testament of God,
its deepest spirit, and its highest meaning. There
is power in this. Divine power — power which finds
its way to the human heart. This, and not the
weak logic or the false reasonings of the Keformers,
but this simple. Divine gospel was welcomed by
Europe, touched its population to the core, drew
them, in a way they knew not and could not resist,
to the cross, and was felt to be at once a healing
balm and a cleansing and vivifying spirit. When
the Keformers, trained as they had been, applied
their mere understanding, their logical faculty, to
the Divine redemption, and attempted to make out
the rationale of it, all their educational tendencies,
and all their habits of thought, led them inevitably
to the theory of Anselm, and so much the more
as it was felt to be, and really was, a tower of
strength as against the doctrine of salvation by
human merit. But their preachings were widely
different from their logical argumentations. It is
true, they never sought to conceal what we venture
to pronounce their error, when occasion required its
utterance. They gloried in it as the very truth of
God. But that which was prominent in their po-
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 467
pular addresses, and in their innumerable fugitive
pieces^ that which really moved the multitudes, as
it once moved the crowds in Jerusalem on the day of
Pentecost, was redeeming love, the pure redeeming
love of God, in Christ Jesus. " For God so loved
the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life." Salvation by grace, not by
merit, salvation through faith, not through works,
was the motto inscribed on the standard of the Ke-
formation ; and by these simple words, and not by
their hard logic, or their artificial schemes of thought,
the Eeformers took possession, in perpetuity, of a
large part of Christendom.
On this principle, we interpret the history of the
evangelical churches from the Keformation down to
this hour. For three hundred years, their course has
been often triumphant. If there has been success
anywhere in the spread of Christianity, if there has
been manifest power, power for highest good, any-
where, it has been in connexion with them. Unde-
niably, God has been in them and with them, and
the Spirit of God has marvellously wrought, through
them, for the conversion and moral regeneration of
the world. Of what avail, then, it is asked, are argu-
ments, when what they prove is at once set aside by
an appeal to irresistible facts ? It is a fact that, in
the last two or three centuries, the theology of the
468 ORIGIN AND GEOWTH OF
evangelical churclies has been potent for good beyond
any other single cause, or combination of causes.
"What but this, it is asked, has changed the face of
entire Europe, has elevated and influenced the
masses, and has touched, most deeply and perma-
nently, not only the religious and moral, but the
intellectual, social, and political condition? What
but this has founded schools, built hospitals, made
provision for the poor, the sick, the friendless, even
the reprobate? What but this has stemmed the
tide of infidelity, created missions at home and
abroad, effected the most marvellous conversions of
character and of life, aroused the careless, instructed
the ignorant, reclaimed the vicious, comforted the
sorrowful, and soothed the dying? Myriads have
found true peace in this faith, and have died, re-
joicing in the hope of immortality I
JSTo candid person would, for a moment, deny that
the evangelical churches, with all their faults, griev-
ous and gross as they may be, have ever exhibited a
life, and love, and power, and effectiveness, which
contrast painfully with the barrenness, and coldness,
and death in other quarters. But all the while, the
question, why and how this came to pass, has been
only quietly begged, not fairly answered. There is an
element of surpassing power in evangelical teaching
which we mix up in our thoughts with other and alien
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 469
causes, but whicli itself alone is abundantly sufficient
to account for all the facts. In despite of all else,
the evangelical churches have persistently lifted on
high the ever-living truth, " salvation by grace," the
free, pure, holy grace of God. Their speculative
conceptions have been daringly irreverent, their rea-
sonings have been narrow and false, but their feeling
of the essential spirit of the New Testament has been
true, and deep, and right. Even in periods of fever-
ish and dangerous excitement, while much that was
wild, and false, and even essentially impious, may
have been thundered forth, the grand and chief theme
has ever been the love of the cross. It is marvellous,
at such times, how the impassioned preacher seems
to forget utterly what he imagines he believes to be
true in reason — such dogmas as reprobation, and
satisfaction to justice, and imputation — and how he
breathes out only the deep spirit of the New Testa-
ment, dwells on the love of Christ, and beseeches
men to be reconciled to God, and not to receive the
grace of God in vain. Those who are at all ac-
quainted with the history of religious revivals, well
know that the rationale of redemption, as it has been
proudly called, and the subtle syllogism which de-
monstrates the justice of God in saving men, are
unthought of for the moment, and that only a mes-
sage of pure mercy from the Holy Father is an-
470 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OP
nounced to listening thousands, and with extraor-
dinary effect, often only temporary, but often also
permanent and life-giving.
Calvin, far more than Luther, was the theologian
of the Eeformation. Not that Luther wanted eru-
dition — far otherwise ; but he was the ardent, en-
ergetic, and indomitable leader of a movement which
he had to command, and whose various fortunes, in
the hot conflict of opposing interests and parties, he
had to watch and direct. Calvin, a late adherent of
the enterprise, a man of acute and penetrating in-
telligence, richly endowed by nature and highly cul-
tivated, of extensive and varied erudition, an indefat-
igable student, and most severe, dogmatic, and in-
flexible in his convictions of what he conceived to be
truth and duty,— Calvin occupied a totally different
position. His special work was with Protestantism,
as a new development of thouglit, and as a new form
of Christian worship and of church order. The last
does not concern us here ; and in the first, Calvin's
office was to gather up the scattered elements and
utterances of Protestant thought, and to form them,
as he best could, into a compendious unity. A born
systematiser, as he may be truly called, a trained and
skilled logician, he had to give a name, and a place,
and a visible shape, among contending schemes of
thought, to Protestant theology. And he did, with
consummate ability and with astounding success.
\, ^HE DOCTEINE OF SATISFACTION. 471
His commentaries, invaluable at the time, and im-
portant on several accounts at this day, do not con-
cern us here. His " Institutes " were the original
source of his influence while he lived, and are to a
great extent the basis of modern evangelical teaching.
It is hardly necessary to say that, as a matter of
course, they pronounce very definitely on the eternal
decrees of God, election and reprobation ; and that
they discuss the doctrine of sacrifice, and after the
manner of Anselm, that of satisfaction to justice.
Two short quotations shall here be introduced, to
illustrate the mode and the spirit in which Calvin
deals with the most sacred subjects : — " Had Christ
been murdered by robbers, or tumultuously sacrificed
in a sedition of the mob, his death would have been
no kind of satisfaction. But when he was sisted as a
criminal, was accused and crushed by witnesses, and
condemned to death by a judge, we understand by
these tokens that he sustained the character of a
wicked criminal." ^ Again, " Nothing had been
efiected, if Christ had only died a corporeal death,
but it was incumbent on him also to feel the
severity of divine revenge, in order that he might
^ " Si a latronibus, jugulatus fuisset, vel tumultuarie, caesus per
seditionem vulgi, in ejusmodi morte, nulla satisfactionis species
exstitisset. Varum ubi reus ad tribunal sistitur, testimoniis arguitur
et premitur, ipsius judicis ore morti addicitur, his documentis,
intelligimus, ipsum personam spontis et malefici sastinere." — Calv..
Insti., Tholuck, Berlin, 1846, p. 330, lib. ii., cap. 16, sec. 5.
472 OEIGIN AND GROWTH OF
both ward off wrath and satisfy a righteous sentence.
.... Wherefore, we wonder not if he be said to
have descended into hell, since he endured that death
which is inflicted by an angry God on the wicked.'^ l
Surely this is horrible and blasphemous enough.
But we cannot righteously judge of any produc-
tion, or its author, by a few exceptional passages.
Taking the work as a whole, and freely admitting
its many great excellences, it is nevertheless difficult
from itself alone, to account for its prodigious influ-
ence at the time, and in successive ages, an influence
almost, if not quite, without a parallel in the history
of religious literature. Beyond doubt, the work was
precisely what was most needed at the time, in order
to give unity and energy to Protestantism, as a new
faith. None of the men of the time, Beza, Farel,
Melancthon, or even Luther himself, were equal to
such a production, so comprehensive, compendious,
systematic, and logically constructed. Calvin's repu-
tation for marvellous ability for learning, and for
finished scholarship, had travelled before him. The
Keformation wanted such a man, and when he ap-
peared, welcomed him with enthusiasm, and thanked
^ " Nihil actum erat, si corporea, tantum, morte, defunctus fuisset
Clii'istus, sed operae, simul, pretium erat, ut divinae ultiouis severi-
tatem sentiret, quo, et irae ipsius intercederet et satisfaceret justo
judicio. . . . Ergo si ad inferos descendisse dicitur, nihil mirum
est, quum earn mortem pertulerit, quae sceleratis ab irato Deo in-
fligitur." — Ccdv. Insti., Tholuck, Berlin, 1846, lib. ii., cap. 16, sec. 10.
THE DOCTKINE OF SATISFACTION. 473
God for his advent. But there are some historical
facts, perhaps little known, certainly little considered,
which deserve to be looked at impartially in their
bearing on this subject.
Calvin was educated, up to manhood, in (as we
should speak) all the superstitions and errors and
follies of Popeiy. At eighteen years of age, he held
two small benefices in the Church of France. For
three or four years afterwards he devoted himself to
the study of law, and at the end of that period
returned to divinity. In 1532, in his twenty-tliird
year, he published a commentary on Seneca's two
books, " De Clementia," and certainly had not then
declared himself on the side of the Eeformation. In
1536, when he was most probably in his twenty-sixth,
certainly not more than his twenty-seventh year, he
sent forth the " Institutio Eeligionis Christianaa."
Between this original edition and the latest issued
in his life-time, there is a great difference, but the
original is unaltered to the last, and appears entire,
only with extensive additions on many important
points. We venture to suggest that it is not specially
assuring, to those who would judge of men and things
with candour, yet with severe justice, that a very
young convert, at most only four years, escaped out
of the heart of Komanism, withal a very young man,
at most in his twenty-seventh year, who could not
certainly have reached a very reliable maturity, or
474 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OP
a very extended experience in any direction, issued
a treatise respecting the very loftiest and holiest
mysteries, and embracing the entire sphere of theo-
logy which was accepted at the time, and has been
accepted ever since, by nearly the whole of the
evangelical chm'ches, as expressive of their deepest
faith.
But far as Calvin and the Eeformers ventured in
prying into the hidden decrees of God, (impiously
too far, as many wise and good men at this day
judge,) even this was not the fixed limit. The spirit
of unholy curiosity once indulged, grew by what it
fed on, and waxed still more bold and irreverent,
and found its ultimate and least guarded exposition
in the Westminster Confession of Faith, and in the
writings of English Puritans, and Scottish Presby-
terians. Up to within the last forty or fifty years,
this fully developed system was unreservedly main-
tained by the evangelical churches. It is maintained
in all its integrity in several quarters at this day.
We are taught to conceive a council of eternity held,
and an eternal covenant entered into between the
three persons of the Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost — called the covenant of redemption. " The
plan was drawn from all eternity, in the council of
the Trinity. . . . All hands of the glorious Trinity
are at work in this building. The Father chose the
objects of mercy, and gave them to the Son, to be re-
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 475
deemed ; the Son purchased redemption for them ; and
the Holy Ghost applies the purchased redemption un-
to them."i According to eternal predetermination, first
of all, a covenant of works was entered into between
Grod and Adam, as the representative of mankind;
but this failing, a covenant of grace was established
between God on the one hand, and the elect on the
other hand, or rather, Christ the mediator, in the
name of the elect. " By the decree of God, for the
manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are
predestinated unto everlasting life, and others fore-
ordained to everlasting death." 2 Again, " The rest
of mankind " (besides the elect) " God was pleased,
according to the unsearchable counsel of His own
will , c . to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour
and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious
justice." 3
Let us not forget that the men wlio consented to
these words, and adopted them as their own, were
wise and holy and gracious souls, but we must none
the less sternly denounce their errors. It would be
difficult, by any combination of human terms, to
transcend this fancied exposure of the secrets of
eternity. Even apart from the blasphemy, which is
enough to fill the mind with an agony of horror, the
whole is pure, mere fiction, without a shred or scrap
^ Boston on Covenants. Edin. 1798, p. 14.
2 Westminster Confession, cap. 3, sec. 3. '^ Ibid., sec. 7.
476 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
of foundation in fact. A covenant of works ! Where is
the document ? where the evidence of its existence ?
A covenant of grace, — a contract or bargain between
God and Christ in the elect's name, on certain con-
ditions, and involving certain promises and penalties !
Is it possible to attach an idea to it that is not blas-
phemous ? An eternal covenant of redemption, be-
tween the persons in the Grodhead ! Who was privy
to it, or who has been faithlesj? enough to betray
the secret ? A Council of Eternity ! What herald
convened it, or what meaning can we affix to it that
is not inexpressibly degrading? Oh, unhallowed,
impious, miserable invention of the human brain,
which yet has been accepted as inspiration ! If
ever the Divine was brought down to the human,
it is here. Men in difficulty summon a council of
the wisest and the best, and debate and discuss for
the removal of the difficulty, and concert extensive
plans, and pre-arrange all the minute details of
operation. But is this the Great God ?
That wild and daring transcendentalism which, in
a greater or less degree, essentially affects evangelical
theology at this hour, is not by any means the most
fatal evil. The doctrine of satisfaction to Divine
justice is immeasurably worse in its moral tendency.
This, in any form, necessitates for its basis that
wliich, though partially true, as a whole is absolutely
false. The only, at all events the highest and most
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 477
widely inclusive, relation in which God stands to
men, is conceived to be that of a king, a moral
governor to his subjects, or rather that of a judge
to criminals standing at his bar. This, beyond all
comparison, is the deadliest error. Evangelical
teachers admit unqualifiedly that justification, in
their sense, is purely a forensic term. It means,
and only means, the act of God formally acquitting
and pardoning a criminal at His bar.
Nothing can be more true than that we are every
moment instantly judged, righteously and impartially
judged by God. Nothing can be more true than that
the punishment of sin, in the case of every human
being, be he classed with the righteous or with the
wicked, takes effect in him at once and inevitably. But
this has nothing to do with forensic forms and words,
nothing to do with a process of law or a criminal
trial. We have sought to showi that the word
" justification," in the New Testament, does not, and
never does, mean acquittal or pardon or any judicial
act, but is only and wholly the real rightening of the
spirit of man, and its voluntary return to God. And
the great, the essential, the universal relation in
which God stands to His rational creatures, is not
that of a king or a judge, but that of a father to his
children. There are cases in which He may be fitly
likened to a human judge or a human king, but there
1 Chap, vi., p. 160, &c.
478 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF
are innumerable cases in which this comparison ut-
terly fails. This is a figure, and only a figure, and
of limited and occasional application. God's Fa-
therhood, on the other hand, is a reality. He is a
Father, a real Father. At every moment, and in
every possible combination of circumstances, this
abides a profound and immovable fact, not a figure
The New Testament has consecrated and emblazoned
this essential relation between God and men. Per-
haps no single word was so often on the lips of our
blessed Lord than this, Father — the Father, my
Father, our Father in heaven, your Father. Christ
our Lord has very affectingly taught us to think of
God as our Father, the Father of souls, of all souls.
It is confounding and distressing that any who really
love the Kedeemer, and really reverence his teaching,
should labour not to understand and feel how much
this relation must embrace, but within how narrow a
meaning, — or rather no meaning at all, — it may be
compressed.
We adopt the ennobling, Divine utterances of the
Saviour of men, in all their fearless breadth of mean-
ing, and put aside as very worthless the fallacious
logic of some evangelical theologians. However men
may be, and on some grounds, and for certain pur-
poses they may properly be compared to criminals at
a judgment bar, there is another and far wider and
THE DOCTRINE OF SATISFACTION. 479
deeper truth, that they are children — not may be
compared to, but really are children — and that God
is their Father, their true Father. This, at all
events, was not only Christ's conception, but his
favourite and chosen conception, of the essential,
universal relation between God and man ; that of
children, undutiful, rebellious, it is true, but chil-
dren in the presence of a Holy Father, who pitied,
and loved, and yearned over the souls He had made.
With what inimitable nature, and beauty, and pathos
this is revealed in the parable of the prodigal, cannot
be too often remembered. We might have fancied in
this story, that perhaps after long years of ingrati-
tude and of abandoned vice on the part of his mis-
guided son, the father's heart must have grown cold
and hard. Perhaps the old man was inclined to stand
on his dignity, and to require some acknowledgment
and reparation before he should make any advance.
Perhaps he hesitated to welcome the prodigal at once,
and began to fear how it might affect his other chil-
dren, and his own authority, and the discipline of
his family. But no. This is not even human na-
ture, at its best and highest. How much less can it
be Divine nature ! Our Father in heaven has not
only waited long for His apostate children. He has
sent after them into the far country. He has Him-
self gone forth to seek them. In the form of the
480 OKIGIN AND GEOWTH, ETC.
Son of man He has come down among them, in
order to touch their hearts, and to startle them into
love and life. And now, by the cross and the grace
of Jesus, He is intreating the world to be reconciled
to Him I
CONCLUSIOK
THE distinctive revelation of the New Testament,
the chosen and special teaching of the Master
Himself, is the Fatherhood of Grod, and the child-
ship of all souls.
But there are minds peculiarly constituted and
conditioned, noble, earnest minds, and of most pure
aspirations, who are unable to receive this message,
and to whom the Great Being is only an overwhelm-
ing mystery. They have pondered so profoundly, so
gloomily, so long, and so long in vain, the awful
problem of the universe, that they are heljolessly
perplexed and bewildered. It would be cruel to
say that they disbelieve, for they agonise to believe,
but they cannot. The unbeginning, unending, un-
changing One is to them reality, but a dreadful, an
inconceivable reality — mystery, only mystery, unfa-
thomable mystery ! The Great Father, let us not
question, well knows such souls, has them in His
holy keeping, and judges, them in His righteousness,
His tenderness, and His wisdom, but not as we,
2h
482 CONCLUSION.
puny, harsh, and rash mortals, often dare to do.
The fear which crushes them, all fear, simply as
such, is only bad, but their profound reverence, be-
fore what they are unable to comprehend, must be
redemptive and holy, and it were well if many, whose
faith is little wanting in boldness, knew more than
they do of godly fear, of reverence, and of awe. But
such struggling and burdened natures are few and
rare among mankind. The evil of the world is not
too profound or too anxious, but too little thought,
about the Great Being.
It is not, and cannot be doubted, that multitudes
even of enlightened, virtuous, and good men, so
esteemed, deliberately exclude God from their com-
mon thoughts, on the ground that the idea is too
high and too sacred to be entertained, except in rare
and select moments. Still greater multitudes pro-
nounce it irreverent and unnatural, even weak and
mawkish, perhaps pharisaical and hypocritical, a fit
subject for ridicule or indignant scorn, to speak and
act as if we cherished the abiding thought of the
Great Unseen Presence. With reference to the im-
mense mass of human beings over all the world, it is
mournfully true, that God, the Living God, is sel-
dom, if at all, in their thoughts. Practically and
virtually, they have no God, and rarely, if ever, bring
the idea of God to bear on their lives, and on their
spirit. Is, then, the very foundation of our being a
CONCLUSION. 483
lie ? Is the crowning dignity of our nature, before
which all other proud distinctions are not to be
named, a thing to be ashamed of ? Is the highest
and sacredest of all truths, the most inspiring and
ennobling of all thoughts, to be put aside, concealed
and ignored? Is this not worthy of being enter-
tained, or is it of such small importance, and capable
of exerting so little influence, that it need give us no
concern whether we entertain it or not? These
questions throw us back at once on first principles.
Is our true parentage, our descent from God, a delu-
sion, a fancy ? Are we only waifs of chance, blown
hither and thither by the fickle breath of time, rest-
ing a while on some stray spot, and again floated
away, until we are drawn resistlessly into the mighty
eddying vortices of eternity, and lost ? But no. If
the teaching of the New Testament, if the special
teaching of our Divine Lord, be true, nothing can be
surer than this, that God is our Father. The human
soul is the off'spring of the Eternal. The profoundest
and the truest of all facts, that which underlies all
other facts, is this, that we are in God, and God is in
us. Mysteriously, incomprehensibly, but most really,
we are akin to God, and are ordained to be, in our
spiritual nature, the finite image of the Infinite. The
most awful, but the tenderest and closest of all our
relations, is that in which we stand to God. Our
whole being at every moment is in Him, and only in
4S4 CONCLUSION.
Him. ^N'ot our visible, animal life only, but our
soul-life, our true, eternal life, is in Him, even as tlie
life of the plant is in the ground, out of which, and
in which, it grov/s. Tear up the plant, throw it, with
its roots uncovered, on the earth, and it becomes a
dead thing, and must inevitably die.
In the deepest sense of all, we cannot be separated
from God, essentially, physically, we cannot be sepa-
rated from God, except by annihilation. Whether
we will or no, all our faculties and capacities are in
God, wholly God-given, Avholly and perpetually God-
sustained. But, morally, we are able to cut ourselves
off from the fountain of life. It is not simply the
fact that we are cut off, but we cut ourselves, off — it is
our doing, our doing solely — we will it, we put forth
effort, successful effort, to t^iis end. The moral
relation is one wholly of consciousness, of desire and
of purpose, and the fact of moral experience is simply
this, that we are able to move away, and be as
widely apart from God in thought, in affection, in
will, in our modes and grounds of judging, in our
mental habits, and in our aims, as if no God existed.
So far as concerns us, our thought, our wish, our
purpose, there is no God, we have withdrawn our-
selves from the eternal ground of our being, and
stand alone ; so far as concerns us, the relation to
God is disowned, and all the openings and avenues
are wilfully closed, through which influence from
CONCLUSION. 485
Him might flow into our nature. We die, morally,
spiritually, we die, as necessarily as the uptorn plant.
False to ourselves, false to the highest Being in the
universe, and false to His holiest claims, we are no
more in the kingdom of truth and life, but belong to
the kingdom of falsity and death, for all falsity is
irrevocably doomed to perish. And this is sin, this
conscious moral separation from God is sin. The
spirit of man, breathed out by the Father of spirits,
wilfully severs itself from its source, puts God aside
from thought, ceases to recognise His presence, and
His authority, becomes a law to itself, and is con-
sciously governed by nothing higher than its own
will. That is sin, in essence and in fact, the original,
essential heart of sin. We may put it, and rightly
put it in other words — we may conceive of it, as the
choice of what is known to be wrong ; or again, as
the wilful abuse of moral liberty ; or again, as the
revolt of the human will from the sway of judgment,
and conscience, and from truth, and right, and love.
But the earliest, the deepest, the universal form of
sin is voluntary separation from God, in thought
and in heart.
Two great fundamental truths lie before us. On
the one side, the abiding and cherished sense of God,
and of our relation to God, that is life, only that is
life. On the other side, the want of the sense of God
in the soul, voluntary separation from Him ; that is
486 OONCI^USION.
death, that is sin, the real root and cause of sin, the
fountain of all evil to the spiritual nature. And
what horrible and hideous outgrowths have sprung
from this accursed germ, tha history of the world,
through all ages, shall reveal too clearly. We
shudder at the atrocious crimes of individuals, and
of nations ; we turn away, sick at heart, from the
sweltering corruptions and abominations of our
common humanity. But the deadliest evil of all,
the primitive fountain of evil, is voluntary separation
from God, the soul forgetting God, disowning God,
obeying its own perverted will, and giving loose to
all its own mere purposes, passions, and desires.
There is nothing for the God-descended soul, no life,
no light, no purity, no power, and no joy, except in
God, in conscious and chosen union with God, the
holy, loving God. All is wrong, and must be for
ever wrong, so long as the first, and highest of all
our relations is broken, disowned, unknown, and
unfelt.
The essential nature of sin, if we have justly
interpreted it, reveals its only antidote and method
of cure. The one supreme end of spiritual pro-
vidence is to draw man back to God, to reconnect
and reunite man with God. The true recovery of the
soul to itself, to a sense of its being and its destiny ;
the true subjugation of the revolted will, and the true
renewal of moral liberty and moral power— all are
CONCLUSION. 487
contained and secured in the one design to restore
God to His own world, and to His rightful place in
the mind and heart of man. Hence the unveiling of
light, the true light, that inward darkness might be
quenched ; hence the enkindling of life, that moral
death might be swallowed up of victory ; hence the
revelation of love, that enmity might be pierced
through and slain ; hence the manifested God, that
men might see, and know, and feel, the Divine
tenderness, and purity, and wisdom, and beauty, and
grace, against which they had wickedly rebelled.
But the great purpose of spiritual providence, un-
like God's designs in the material universe, could not
be" gained by force. Power, physical power, however
vast, had nothing to do with it. The accursed foun-
tain of evil in the soul, unutterably hateful to the
Holy One as it was, could not be stopped and dried
up except by a purely spiritual agency. The human
will could not be forced, it might have been destroyed
at any moment, it might have been annihilated, but
abiding a faculty of the soul, God had so constituted
it that force, physical force, had no relation to it
whatever. Man could not be compelled even by his
Maker to love goodness and to choose obedience. In
the midst of all Divine or other influences, whose
potency is incalculable, man, constituted as he was,
must choose, not another for him, perfectly freely, of
his own will, he must make his choice. Spiritual
488 CONCLUSION.
providence could evolve itself in no way except
through moral and spiritual agencies. Of necessity,
unless the nature of the soul were destroyed, and
every spiritual result rendered impossible, men must
be left perfectly free, left to all the abominations and
miseries into which the abuse of moral liberty, if
they did abuse it, might drag them down. Of neces-
sity sin, if they were determined to sin, must work
itself out, in all possible forms ; and all nations, all
races, and all ages, must be suffered, if so they re-
solved, to riot in evil and in falsity, with their gods
many, and their lords many, and their rites of blood,
and their murderous wars, and their inhuman vices.
But spiritual providence was not asleep, though only
spiritual instruments and agencies could avail in
conducting it. Everywhere, at every moment, with
every people on the face of the earth, and with every
successive age, the silent purpose of Heaven was
ceaselessly at work. It would be fearfully dishonour-
ing to imagine, that though for more than two
thousand five hundred years after the apostasy the
great, loving Father had been dealing in His mercy
and His wisdom with the whole world, and acting
on all nations and all times. He then, for thirteen
hundred years, shut Himself up in Judea, forsaking
all mankind besides. The more cruelly unjust to
God is such a thought, when it is remembered, that
since the advent of Christ He has again, for nearly
CONCLUSION. 489
two thousand years, made tlie whole earth His
sphere.
Unquestionably there were special and great pur-
poses, purposes which had a direct regard to the
highest good of the entire world, to be served by the
Jewish people. But the God of the Bible never was
in any sense the God of the Jews only. He ever was
the God of the Gentiles also. He is the Father of
all souls, and He loveth the souls He hath made. His
mighty purpose to draw man back to Himself has
ever reigned, as it is reigning now, in all the earth
and among all nations. That Holy Spirit, who strove
so long with the generations of men before the flood,
strove as ceaselessly, we cannot doubt, with the gene-
rations that followed. In spite of the resistance, and
the obduracy, and the wickedness of His creatures,
God's holy design, though we be utterly unable to
distinguish and unfold its separate processes and
modes of development, must have been ever advanc-
ing, in the most various and manifold ways, and
through means of the most various and manifold
agencies, nearer, nearer to its fulfilment. All the
needed preparations, of ten thousand kinds, which
we cannot comprehend or conceive, must ever have
been maturing in all lands, and through all ages,
and all the possible instruments and influences must
ever have been collecting and concentrating, whereby
the last and perfect revelation of truth and love should
490 CONCLUSION".
be ushered in. It would amount to a denial of God,
a denial of His wisdom and His foresight, to doubt
that every race of men, and every successive age, had
contributed, however unconsciourdy, and even in spite
of themselves, contributed also in the best possible way,
consistently with all other interests, to the furtherance
of the highest good of the whole. Judea, for thirteen
hundred years, had its own special and sacred office
to fulfil, but not less really, though in far other modes,
Phoenicians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Per-
sians, Greeks, and Komans, were workers for God in
the evolutions of His mighty spiritual providence.
All may be dark as midnight to us, when we attempt
to expound what is so vast in the numbers it em-
braces, and in the time over which it stretches, what
is besides so complicated, so interfused, and so hope-
lessly conflicting and contradictory. We may blun-
der egregiously in interpreting Heaven s plan in rela-
tion to different peoples and times. Our beautiful
theories, as to one idea, one great principle, or one
particular truth, being wrought out by one race, and
one age, and another by another, may be as flimsy as
the gossamer web. But if always and everywhere,
there has been a loving Father of men, and a Holy
Ghost, who strives with human souls, though they
resist and reject Him, it abides indubitable, that
through all the ages, and over all the earth, God
must have been working out the largest amount
CONCLUSION. 491
possible of highest good, preparatory to the final
manifestation of Himself.
It dawned at length ! Light, " The True Light,"
broke forth in a dark day. Life, " The Living One,"
was revealed ; and there were some, eighteen hundred
years ago, who were bold enough to affirm, " We have
seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eter-
nal life, (that Eternally Living One,) which was with
the Father, and was manifested unto us ; that which
we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye
also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fel-
lowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus
Christ." 1 A wonderful reunion was to be organised,
a mysterious but most real fellowship was to be in-
stituted, and was already forming itself — God, and
Christ, and men — God and men, through Christ, the
holy medium. 2 The wicked, wilful separation from
God was doomed to come to an end, the cruel es-
trangement was to cease and be marvellously healed.
God, banished from the thoughts and the hearts of
men. Himself came down to earth to make peace,
and to reconcile His children to their Father. Long
and far away they had been wandering from Him,
wandering in darkness, wandering on to death. But
their Father loved them, had ever loved them, and
in all the weary ages of separation had done every-
thing for them which was possible, by His Provi-
^ 1 John i. 2, 3. ^ ggg jjote on page 27.
492 CONCLUSION.
dence and His Spirit ; teaching, and warning, and
punishing, and rebuking, and impelling, and restrain-
ing, and guiding, and remonstrating with them, so
long as they would listen to His voice, and would
suffer His merciful striving.
All the while, sin was only abhorrent to God, His
unutterable, eternal abhorrence, and nmst not, and
could not, be endured. In His mind and in the
unalterable law of the universe, there could be no-
thing for sin but death, eternal death. In His mind
and in the unalterable law of the universe, there could
be no salvation for man, except from sin, not from its
consequences merely, but first and chiefly and wholly
from the damning root of evil itself. There Avas no
alternative. Either man must die or sin must die,
the one or the other — nothing else. Here is the
profound mystery of redeeming, holy love. Man is
saved and sin perishes. The purpose is revealed in the
fact. It is not a human thought or a human achieve-
ment, but a divine decree. Sin shall and must
perish. A mortal blow shall be aimed at it in the
soul, and it shall be slain and cast forth for ever.
And this is not a purpose only or a prediction, but a
history. In innumerable myriads of human souls,
sin has been struck and pierced through and slain.
" What are these which are arrayed in white robes,
and whence came they ? .... These are they which
.... have washed their robes and have made them
CONCLUSION. 493
white in the blood of the Lamb/'l " The blood of
Jesus Christ, God's Son, is cleansing us from all
sin." 2 Kedeeming dying love, is the mighty purify-
ing power in this polluted world. How shall we
chase darkness away, except by pouring in light ?
How shall deadly disease be stayed except by purify-
ing and quickening the stream of life ? How shall
enmity be destroyed, except by the outbreathing of
deeper love? How shall separation and estrange-
ment be healed, except by bringing the estranged,
somehow, face to face ? Therefore, the Great Father
drew near, very near, to His erring and sinful chil-
dren.
If men will not return and inquire after God, God
himself shall come down to seek and rescue them.
The Luminous, the Beautiful, the Holy, the Wise, the
Loving, the Tender, the Gracious Being, shall unveil
(and yet veil) Himself, in a human form. All that
can be, shall be manifested through a finite medium,
and laid open to the eye and to the soul of the world.
Wisdom such as never fell from human lips shall
distil like dew on the ear of men. Purity without a
stain, without a breath to dim its perfect transpar-
ency, shall find its way to touch the guiltiest natures.
Power which mortal arm never wielded, power seen
even in the look of the countenance, power heard even
in the tone of the voice, shall strangely bring down
1 Kev. vii. 13, 14. 2 i j^j^jj ^ 7,
494 CONCLUSION.
into the soul the awful feeling of a Divine presence.
A gentleness, a patience, a meekness, a swelling,
overflowing pity, and a sweetness, and graciousness,
never found on earth before, shall tell yet more sub-
duingly of God and heaven. Above all, that heart
which never harboured one feeling of resentment or
anger, which was loaded with sorrows all its own, and
which besides, by a mysterious commiseration, bore
the griefs and the sins of men within itself — that heart
which was so truly alone, without intelligent sym-
pathy in a single quarter, which had to endure mis-
appreciation, ingratitude, treachery, rancorous hatred,
and the vilest cruelty, and did so without a murmur —
that heart which at last broke and burst in an agony,
not of pain but of grief, and as it broke, cried out,
" Father, forgive them, they know not what they do,"
shall proclaim with piercing, passionate intensity, to
the world and to all ages, what the invisible Father
truly is, and shall lay open the very innermost nature
of the Being from whom men had revolted, and who
now besought them to return to His feet and to His
heart. " God in Christ is reconciling the world unto
Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them."
This is the Divine method of piercing down to
the deep root of sin. A real redemption can be
achieved in no other way— can never be achieved
until man, humbled and penitent, is restored to
God, in heart, and soul, and life. Statesmen and
CONCLUSION. 495
philanthropists work nobly and beautifully on the
surface of humanity, and many a sore mischief is
cured, and many a healing influence is created,
but the root beneath is untouched, and is as rank
and strong as ever. Philosophy, and science, and
literature, and art, are all enlightening, elevating,
even purifying, but neither do they, or can they,
touch the deadliest evil of all at its root. The crying
want of the human soul is God, the living God.
Darkness and death claim it as their own till it finds
in God its light and life. Were God, and man's re-
lation to God, were the humble, loving, sense of God
to become the central and informing soul of all know-
ledges and all studies, then philosophy would spring
into new life, and become at once more ennobling and
more profound; science would become more lumi-
nous and more quickening ; literature would catch a
new glow and flush from the breath of Heaven, and
be more enkindling and more beauteous ; and art
would be radiant with a sweeter, a holier, and a di-
viner grace. It is the most fatal of all mistakes to
judge that the loving sense of God, a holy, redeem-
ing God, in the soul, is like other mental possessions,
one which we may have or may want indifferently.
But this is an absolute necessity to our true being.
If we are to live, really to live, not the animal, and
not even the intellectual life, but the true soul life,
the eternal life, we must be in God, in conscious and
496 CONCLUSION.
cliosen union with God. Keligion, so called, is not a
separate department of human knowledge, a branch
like other branches of human inquiry. It is rather the
all-encompassing atmosphere, in which, whatever b6
our studies or our works, we can alone truly breathe
and live, the one inspiring influence which alone
puts a soul into our efforts, and gives them a Divine
meaning. Eeligion is the sun of the whole inner
nature, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, without
which all is sterile, cold, and dark. And it is this
sun which shines from the face and the cross of Jesus
Christ, our Lord, and reveals in him a holy and re-
conciling Grod.
But let us not mistake, Not at Bethlehem, or on
Calvary, for the first time did hope and salvation
dawn on our world. The Eternal Logos, the true
Light, that lighteth every man, was ever in the
world from the beginning, sole medium^ between
God and men, and kindled many a precious ray, and
lit up many a helpful, glittering star. There was
a night before the day, there were stars before the
sun arose, and even darkness had its worlds of light,
that are unseen by day. In the long night of the
world, many a weary pilgrim, travelling across the
untried pathway, wandering on the mountains, with
their deep ravines, their treacherous morasses, and
their fatal precipices, lifted up his eyes and blessed
' See note on page 27.
CONCLUSION. 497
God for the stars. He heard a voice within, and
often a true voice without, from fellow-travellers like
himself, and that Spirit from above, who never leaves
human souls, so long as they will suffer His striving,
guided him at last out of darkness, and error, and
sin, into the land of light that never fades. God is
light, God is life, luminous life and living light,
the one fountain of all life and light, material or
spiritual, in the universe. The soul itself is a Divine
spark from the uncreated fire, and wherever there is
a single glimmering ray, or a single feeble pulse of
vitality, its only source is God. But light to the
soul, and life to the soul, pre-eminently to the sinful
soul, is love. There is no light like that which
beams from loving eyes. There is no radiance, no
quickening inspiration, like that which bathes the
loving heart. Through love, light makes its way to
the nature, suffuses, softens, subdues it, and wakens
all its Wealth of sweetness and of purity. The most
luminous object in the universe, because the symbol
of Infinite Mercy, is a dark cross. The truest source
of life, because the divinest utterance of love, is a
cruel death. The living Jesus, the dying Jesus, is
the Kedeemer of the world. God Incarnate, God i7i
Christ, He is '* the Life and Light of men."
THE END.
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