CHAPTER X.

THE ATONEMENT.

"And lyke as he made the Jewes and Gentiles at one betwene themselves, euen so he made them both at one with God, that there should be nothing to breake the Atonement, but that the thinges in heauen and the thynges in earth shoulde be ioyned together as it were into one body.". UDAL. EPH. c. 2.

We have partly anticipated this topic in the last two chapters. But the word Atonement, though not the one under which the Scriptures usually describe the work of human redemption, has become so prominent in Christian literature, and invested with such peculiar interest, that we do not feel that our statement is exhaustive until the argument has embraced this topic as it lies in our church theologies. We shall note here the various aspects of opinion which this phraseology is supposed to indicate. We do this, not for the sake of controversy, but for the sake of perspicuity. We shall thus accept and appropriate all the truth which this phraseology may symbolize, and we shall make our own doctrine clearly defined and understood. Very likely we may not state these forms of belief with the sharp precision with which they are drawn out in systems of dogmatic theology, which we have not time nor wish

now to turn over.

We shall state them, however, as we have met them, and as we suppose they lie practically in believing minds.

The atonement is reconciliation of man to God. Two things are implied by this word; first, the final results which the atonement would effectuate, and, secondly, the modes and procedures by which these results are sought. One refers to the end, the other to the means employed.

On the first point we do not know that there is any diversity of opinion, at least any that is worth our analysis. The design of God in the great plan of redemption is to make man holy. Its last results, then, are in the human soul. They are entirely subjective. When human nature is raised up and purified, and brought into harmonic relations with the Divine nature, the final results of the Divine plan are accomplished. It is very true, that there is a great deal of phraseology among theological writers which would fairly imply that the atonement wrought a change in God as well as man, in that it made him placable and "cooled his wrath"; but we presume that these are ideas which all intelligent believers would now disavow. God is unchangeable love and justice, and the only change sought is subjectively in man, so as to bring him within the scope of that love and justice.

But when we come to ask what are the modes and procedures by which God seeks to effect this change in man, we find a diversity of speculations and theories. They may be reduced, however, to

four, and be characterized with sufficient precision as the theory of substitution, of exhibition, of satis faction, and of mediation.

1. That of substitution supposes that Christ suffered strictly and literally in the stead of man. The law of God denounces eternal misery against sin, even to the smallest transgression. But all men have sinned, and the execution of the law upon them would consign the whole race to hopeless ruin. Then Christ comes as a substitute, and bears in his own person an amount of suffering equivalent to the eternal punishment of all mankind.

But all mankind are not therefore saved. Each has something to do individually in order to appropriate to himself the benefits of this provision. He receives them by an act of faith in this vicarious atonement, whereby all his sins are cancelled.

We reject all this as the plan of system-builders, but not of God. We reject it primarily on Scripture ground, since the original terms from which our word atonement comes do not include the notion of vicarious substitution.* That our sins were made over to Christ and his merits made over to us, so that the account may stand balanced in the book of

* The Hebrew verb 5 (Kapher), to atone, and its Greek correlates ἱλάσκομαι, ἐξιλάομαι, and καταλλάσσω, mean properly to produce agreement. The lexicographers include "to appease" within the import of the first two, but the element of vicarious substitution is totally wanting. See Gen. xxxii. 20; Ex. xxx. 12; Ezek. xvi. 63; xlv. 15; Dan. ix. 24; Is. xxii. 14; Rom. v. 11; 2 Cor. v. 18-20; Eph. ii. 16; Col. i. 20; Heb. ii. 17; Matt. v. 24.

doom, are notions which we hold to be remnants of scholastic web-weaving, having no basis in Scripture or in the nature of things. How Christ "takes our infirmities and bears our sicknesses" will be quite obvious by reference to the language of the Evangelist in Matthew viii. 17. What he did for man

physically illustrates what he was doing for man spiritually. He did not cure the leper by becoming one himself, thus drawing off the disease into his own person; he cured him by cleansing the leprosy away.

But, again, there is no economy in this plan. The design of infinite mercy is the prevention of suffering in the universe. But under this scheme no suffering has been saved. Just as great an amount has transpired as if Christ had never come, and the whole race been doomed to eternal woe. All that woe was concentred on him, who was "surrounded, and, as it were, besieged with an army of sorrows.' The storm has had its way, and spent all its rage, and effected all its ruin, only the scene of ruin was transferred to another field. But there it is, and there it lies, an equal space of blackness and desolation in the fair universe of God. The punishment has fallen in all its weight, and produced all its pangs, only it has taken a different direction. All the difference is this, that the guilty who deserved it would otherwise have borne it, whereas the innocent that did not deserve it bears it now! No matter, in the light of this argument, whether the innocent were a willing victim or not. Such a scheme of mercy

has prevented no suffering, nor saved the universe a single pang.

"But this plan is the only one that can produce holiness." In other phrase, they alone whose faith takes this special and technical form are holy. The assumption means that, if it means any thing, and it is quite as inconsistent with the known facts of history as with a comprehending charity. Charity is the prime essential of salvation, and it is not apt to coexist very long with that exclusive spirit which comes from making belief in dogmas the separating line of human character.

So, again, we reject this theory, because of the adjuncts which it draws along with it, and which no logic that we are masters of can clear away. It makes salvation depend on the accidents of birth, locality, and position. All who lived before Christ are lost, for no such atonement was preached to them. The Jews even, who believed prospectively in Christ, believed in him not as a suffering Messiah, and elaborated no such theory as this from their own Scripture. All who live outside of Christendom are lost, for they never heard of this atonement, and could not be saved by believing it. Alas for the sages and good men who lived by the light of nature as well as they might, and the record of whose virtues so often flings shame upon our Christian practice! For four thousand years the world was a mistake, and man a failure, and with few exceptions he is a failure yet. All who die before the age rationality are lost, for without rationality they can

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